AI Mines/Roads without worker

[Nick]

I moved my warrior due south in a game and it landed next to the Russian border, just to the right and above a square containing grassland but no unit of any sort. I pressed enter to end the turn and miraculously a road and mine appeared. I did not know the AI had this advantage.

I will attempt to enclose a savegame. Just move the warrior directly south.

 

[Carbon_Copy]

Let me guess: you haven't bought their territory map in a while, right?

The info you get from looking at territory outside your own vision radii does not update with new territory improvements beyond the location of cities, i.e., you don't see the results of what the other civs are doing with their land if you're not looking at it. If you buy a territory map, then you can see what improvements they have done up till that turn.

Or, and this works best if you have a RoP and they have rails, you can just have your units wander through their territory and you can see all the improvements made within seeing distance of these units.

Not a bug, not an AI cheat, game on...

 

[Nick]

I understand what you are saying (I think), but I've never bought their map (don't think anyone has even got mapmaking yet) and have never seen this tile before - it was black before. I move right next to it, ie, it is in my current line of vision, if it were occupied by a unit, worker etc, I would be able to see this and attack it next turn if I wished (assuming it didn't move). There is no improvement on the tile. I press Enter to end my turn and as the computer goes through the various AIs a mine and road appear (there is no unit left on that square at the end of its turn either - for what its worth). The only way, that I can see, that the square could be transformed in this way would be if a worker entered, roaded, mined and left in a single turn.

 

[Talar]

I believe I have seen something similar. Sometimes the squares are not completley updated even if you have a unit next to them. Mostly the squares will update if you press "c" to recenter on the unit.

 

[Carbon_Copy]

The way the game updates the terrain is either buggy or is deliberately less than 100% accurate, you may have to move your units around a bit to update all the squares. I've also noticed that you can move faster than the game updates the terrain for you unless you move directly onto a square that needs updating. This is easiest to see when the AI gets rails (so your units would get unlimited moves with an RoP), and you'll move from a railed square to what appears to be an un-railed square in AI territory, only to have rails sprout beneath your feet, then a few seconds later, more rails spring up in adjacent squares.

But long and short of it is: it's not an AI cheat, it's only just a little quirk of the game. And I think that if/when multiplayer is released for Civ3, we will start to notice the importance of getting updated territory/world maps even after the whole world has been explored.