AI Knowledge of your armies

[HumpbackJack]

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone knew how much the AI knows about other players armies and how much of it is dependent on scouting. For instance, I rely pretty heavily on the demographics screen + military adviser to know how I compare with my neighbor - does the AI do the same?

Obviously scouting affects some of it, otherwise Open Borders wouldn't have such an effect on an AI invading you or not. But perhaps Open Borders only tells the AI the position of your armies, not the strength, thus prompting him to attack if your armies are far away. I'd be curious if someone could spawn into a location with only one entrance via mountain pass and block the AI from ever scouting with one unit on a hill. Could you just keep that one unit (perhaps show a few in front of it) and manage to run a much smaller military but the AI never realizing it? Or would it always be aware of the general size of your military, just like players are of everyone else?

Essentially, does anyone understand exactly how the AI knows your military size? And how Open Borders changes it? I understand the general concept of keeping a military strong enough to ward off threats and never signing open borders with a neighbor; I'm looking for specifics here so I can figure out almost down to the unit how much military I have to have in a situation.

 

[snarzberry]

That information is also available to you if you download the InfoAddict mod. You have the relative strengths of the armies at a glance on a graph. This info is supposed to be presented to you in game by your military adviser but that system is highly impractical and fuzzy. I highly recommend InfoAddict to help with military decisions, diplomacy and hell just about the whole game. You'll never look back once you start using it.

Mods-Browse Mods-UI

 

[HumpbackJack]

I might have to try the mod then. I was thinking when I typed the post that using the Military Adviser works, but is very clumsy.

 

[Resident Mario]

I like the Military Advisor. It's fun turning "We are in danger of losing our very existance!" to "Enemy army? What army?" Also like hearing "I think I saw the only unit <every other civ> has..."

 

[Nyanko]

On the original question what does the AI know about your army, from interviews, it seems, the AI knows as much about your army as you do, i.e demographics, pointy stick charts

 

[casusbelli]

I'm one who's an InfoAddict too. Can't play the game without it, but I get guilty from thinking it gives me an extra advantage over the purist vanilla version.

Does the military advisor give you the same information as InfoAddict? Is the only difference in presentation?

 

[Aoxomoxoa]

It's like the info from the military advisor is at 640x480 resolution, while the info from infoaddict is 2560x1600HD. It's the same info just a little more detailed. No affect on gameplay except you are a little better informed.

It's the one mod I play with.

 

[Bungle]

Am I the only one who doesn't use statistics for deciding who/when to go to war? Well, I do use the player scores sometimes.. I always attack either my closest neighbor or the biggest/most advanced AI civ - if I see someone advancing too fast in technology, I will attack them

I installed InfoAddict a few days ago, however. I just haven't gotten used to using it yet.. so it hasn't helped me very much thus far

 

[snarzberry]

It helps in many ways you might not automatically think of. It helps you choose which AIs to sick onto each other and maintain balance. For instance Nobunaga might have a price to be bribed into war and you can see his forces are roughly equal to Bismark but significantly stronger than Al-Rashid's. So you bribe him to DoW Bismark so you can better get the AIs to whittle down their forces against equal foes and try not to create a runaway.

It also helps you to see when an AI is preparing to invade someone when you see the big spike in their military, when this happens they are often bribe-able.

The military adviser gives gives a version of this information but it's much, much less detailed.

I've said it before but InfoAddict really helps diplomacy, almost saves it. When someone comes with an offer to DoF, DoW or some such then having the ability to pop up a graph that shows who has DoF'd who, who has denounced who, who's at war etc is extremely valuable when it comes to manipulating diplomacy to your advantage.

 

[snarzberry]

I'm one who's an InfoAddict too. Can't play the game without it, but I get guilty from thinking it gives me an extra advantage over the purist vanilla version.

Does the military advisor give you the same information as InfoAddict? Is the only difference in presentation?

It does give you an advantage IMO. But more like it just allows you to see the game clearly. This Civ is characterized by a severe lack of detailed information in all facets of the game. It's a travesty that the Civilopedia sometimes says things like '...gives a combat bonus in tundra'...'...grants a production bonus to the cities connected to your capital' Excuse me? Details please, this is the Civilopedia! Don't just tell me you get a bonus - tell me exactly what the effect of this is please.

Graphs, statistics, spreadsheets, detailed analysis. People that love Civ normally get off on that kind of thing.

 

[Kerosene31]

On the original question what does the AI know about your army, from interviews, it seems, the AI knows as much about your army as you do, i.e demographics, pointy stick charts

Yes, I would bet their actions are based on the same information you have from your own military advisor. I always watch my advisor and notice that the AI seems to be acting on the same information.

 

[HumpbackJack]

On the original topic then: if the AI makes DoW decisions based on demographics one would assume open borders would have no effect on potential invasion EXCEPT when your armies are not anywhere near that border, as the AI would then read a positional weakness that encourage an attack. On the other hand, I wonder if giving open borders to a stronger AI so that they can see your entire army is fortified along the border would discourage a DoW. Basically, does positional advantage play apart in the AI DoW decision process or is it more about his army > mine, and my lands = good for him to have.

On InfoAddict, thanks for the heads up on this. From the little I saw of it so far, it's definitely something I won't be able to play without since it is just a better, clearer version of the current system.

 

[snarzberry]

On the original topic then: if the AI makes DoW decisions based on demographics one would assume open borders would have no effect on potential invasion EXCEPT when your armies are not anywhere near that border, as the AI would then read a positional weakness that encourage an attack. On the other hand, I wonder if giving open borders to a stronger AI so that they can see your entire army is fortified along the border would discourage a DoW. Basically, does positional advantage play apart in the AI DoW decision process or is it more about his army > mine, and my lands = good for him to have.

On InfoAddict, thanks for the heads up on this. From the little I saw of it so far, it's definitely something I won't be able to play without since it is just a better, clearer version of the current system.

I don't know for sure as I'm not one of the guys that looks under the hood, so to speak, but I bet that when an AI makes a decision to DoW you open borders, line of sight to fortified troops and what you're calling positional weakness doesn't come into it at all and all that matters is the relative strength of the military. I could be wrong though.