I hate the fact that AI knows all your troop locations

We are at war with willem. After taking some hits, I recover and discover combustion and begin putting out destroyers on the field and pushing his destroyers back (by the way, this is an islands map, so most of the war is on the sea). His last destroyer, wounded, is fleeing to dutch mainland and I send one of my boys to finish him off (I have the +1 circumnavigation bonus).

Then I make a mistake. I try to transport my GG unit from my mainland to the colony island where we are fighting with willem. The island is on the direction of dutch mainland. After turning the grid on, I see my transport is in the range of his wounded destroyer. And I have no destroyers available with free moves to escort it (although my pursuing is destroyer is only one square away from willem's, it doesn't have free movement.)

So I move another transport from my city to a place closer to the wounded willem destroyer to create distraction. In an ideal game, he shouldn't even locate my transport carrying the GG cause it's 7 squares away from his unit. The distraction transport is only 4 or 5 squares away.

I push the next turn button, praying that willem destroyer just head for home. But no, he knows exactly where my GG carrying transport is in middle of the ocean, and he knows which one of my transports is carrying the GG, so he goes and sinks it.

This is pure BS.

I hate the fact that the AI knows what you are researching and how far into it you are. ¬¬

I'm pretty sure it says when you're loading up a game not to leave transports etc unescorted......... especially one with a great general in it, i say shame on you and kudos to willem.

The game does know where you ships are. I ran some experiments a while back with a transport (me) and destroyer (AI) where I sailed my transport away from his destroyer in one direction, until out of site and then sailed off in another direction. It didn't matter which way I went - the AI could always find me.

Another experiment - me with a destroyer this time - sailed past the AI destroyer and kept going straight for 4 or 5 turns. I then stopped and held position. The AI found me the next turn - just showing that he had followed my tracks accurately over those 4 or 5 turns.

I know the load message. There's no fog for the AI. What I'm saying is that it's not fair and it doesn't make sense. And that GG never died cause I'll be continuing from my autosave and his transport will cruise in the safe waters this time.

ruff_hi, were your ship in, like, a range of 4 from the opponent's ?

I am quite sure I read somewhere that the AI had better visibility than the human, but still fog of war.

Slight change to topic, on the theme "I don't like the fact that the AI knows..."

In the early game, I find it really annoying that the AI knows where critical resources will be found. The AI will put down a settler in the middle of a desert when there is an open spot in a lush river valley 3-4 tiles away. It's a move that makes no sense based on the information available at the time. 20 turns later- iron found adjacent to the AI city. A couple of eras later- oil found near that city.

The tricky part is that I don't know how to program the computer to ignore resources not yet revealed to the AI civilization it is playing. It would be difficult to work that into the decision matrix of where an AI places a city.

I sthere a way to create a FoW mod so the A.I. has like we do?

Pook said:

In the early game, I find it really annoying that the AI knows where critical resources will be found.

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It doesn't. It has to research the tech just like the human does.

Willem said:

It doesn't. It has to research the tech just like the human does.

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Yes it does have to do research just like a human.

However, the AI knows where those resources will be on the map (oil, uranium, iron etc). Any time you see an AI settler heading into the middle of a large patch of barren land to found a city, there's a good chance that it's going there because the AI knows there's a resource there. You as the human can't see it, because you haven't researched the tech to reveal it yet.

CoZe said:

I know the load message. There's no fog for the AI. What I'm saying is that it's not fair and it doesn't make sense. And that GG never died cause I'll be continuing from my autosave and his transport will cruise in the safe waters this time.

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Ai has fog.... just check wb for any game

Tons of times I've seen the AI build windmills and such on hills with aluminum since they don't have the tech for it, donnu what you guys are talking about.

Pook said:

However, the AI knows where those resources will be on the map (oil, uranium, iron etc). Any time you see an AI settler heading into the middle of a large patch of barren land to found a city, there's a good chance that it's going there because the AI knows there's a resource there. You as the human can't see it, because you haven't researched the tech to reveal it yet.

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That's totally wrong. That was one of the things that was changed from Civ 3 because of all the complaints from players. The AI can no longer see hidden resources, it has to scout them out beforehand and have the appropriate tech in order to know where they are. It has no advantage on that score over the human, it's just playing by the same rules.

Willem said:

That's totally wrong. That was one of the things that was changed from Civ 3 because of all the complaints from players. The AI can no longer see hidden resources, it has to scout them out beforehand and have the appropriate tech in order to know where they are. It has no advantage on that score over the human, it's just playing by the same rules.

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I just don't buy that. I've seen many situations where AI's city placement doesn't make sense until some certain tech is discovered.

CoZe said:

I just don't buy that. I've seen many situations where AI's city placement doesn't make sense until some certain tech is discovered.

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You can buy whatever you want. There was alot of discussion about this when the game first came out and the devs specifically mentioned that the AI no longer knew the location of hidden resources like they did in Civ 3. They also don't know about troop strengths and locations either, they have to scout those as well. When it comes to knowing where things are on the map, the AI is on the same footing as the human.

Well the devs are simply lying. I will prove it with screenshots in a few seconds. Just you wait. Also stop repeating what the devs said like a parrot in the meantime, will you ?

Willem said:

That's totally wrong. That was one of the things that was changed from Civ 3 because of all the complaints from players. The AI can no longer see hidden resources, it has to scout them out beforehand and have the appropriate tech in order to know where they are. It has no advantage on that score over the human, it's just playing by the same rules.

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That's news to me. I still see the same phenomenon in Civ IV BtS 3.13. I was unaware that the developers claimed to have fixed it.

Bottom line: Willem, I hope you're right. When the AI puts down a city in a wasteland for reasons that don't become apparent until thousands of game-years later, it is truly annoying.

CoZe said:

Also stop repeating what the devs said like a parrot in the meantime, will you ?

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Stop spouting off like a disgruntled player simply because the AI might be doing better than you. When people suck at this game, one of the first things they do is claim that the AI is cheating. Well it doesn't, it's been proven time and again. Aside from a few bonuses at higher levels, the AI is on the same footing as the human.

Pook said:

When the AI puts down a city in a wasteland for reasons that don't become apparent until thousands of game-years later, it is truly annoying.

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The AI will plop down a city wherever there's room for one. The fact that a resource appears there later on is purely coincidence.

CoZe said:

Well the devs are simply lying. I will prove it with screenshots in a few seconds. Just you wait. Also stop repeating what the devs said like a parrot in the meantime, will you ?

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I have made WB tests on this in 3.13 and 3.17. DanF checked the code and made some additional tests and posted them in this thread ( his analysis is on page 2... my opinion on this is also there, so I won't duplicate it in here ). The result is simple: AI does not have precognition of resource locations.

If you don't beleive it, yopu can check the code ( DanF says where it is ) or run your own WB tests using AIAutoPlay of jdog500 to cut time. I have serious doubts that you can prove your assertion..... but for your own sake, I urge you to try it.