AI resources vision?

DeathDealer314

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
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I was playing as Shaka (random) on fractal and the only other person on my continent was Isabella, and i had my scout follow her warrior-settler stack as they were on their way to form her second city. So they settle in a completely spot (mostly tundra and ice) with no resources in the starting 9 tiles, and there were plenty of better spots to settle. A few turns later, I got Iron working and found out that she had settled on Iron. The thing is she was researching iron working at the time, so she had no way of knowing there was iron there. So my question is do the AI get some kind of vision cheats so they know where resources are even before they should be able to see them?
 
AI settles Blue Circle sites always unless your own settler poses a threat. (and blue circles are in no way synonymous with "good" city spots)
 
But how do they determine blue circle cites? are the decisions on where to put blue circles limited to the resources you know of or not?
 
No they don't, but they have such a bad tendency of settling poor and awful cities that it can often look that way.

This guy is a reference and what he said is true.

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Some other guy with strong code reading skills looked at this issue in the past and with his simple test of a symetrical island, he proved the AI has no idea of hidden resources location.
 
But how do they determine blue circle cites? are the decisions on where to put blue circles limited to the resources you know of or not?

It's a complex function you shouldn't look to understand.

Basically, what I retained in my RAM:

1) Special resources final outputs aren't considered properly. Instead, raw direct output is pondered strongly. So a 3 :food: corn won't be far different than a grass forest (although I suspect food > hammer in the scale of output).

2) Coastal positions are strongly favored and you can see horrible location spawn from such feature and combined with bonus resources final output not considered, the bad effects are amplified.

3) Depending of the new exploration and the relative location of the settler, the blue circles are dynamic.

There are a my myriad of other factors, but don't indulge yourself in utilizing blue circles. It's a broken mechanics or a rushed one.
 
I will swear that the blue circles know about hidden resources. So many times I will see a blue circle and think; "that isn't the best spot - imma settle somewhere else". But then a hidden resource is revealed and shows that the blue circle was right after all. This happens so much that I sometimes trust the blue circle if I don't have an immediate need to settle my chosen spot and I don't remember being disappointed but such a decision.

TLDR = The blue circle knows.

EDIT: I don't necessarily mean borderline decisions on city placement, I have seen the blue circle recommend ridiculous city placements that turn out to be genius once a hidden resource is revealed.
 
AI don't have resources omniscience, but regarding targeting enemy units, on the other hand, they have one.
 
AI don't have resources omniscience, but regarding targeting enemy units, on the other hand, they have one.

Yes and no. They have an expanded field of vision but they don't automatically know where every unit is on the map, only the ones in their immediate area. Naval units for instance can see any enemy units that are within their movement range, not just the 2 tiles that the player can see. I'm not sure what the limit for land units with only 1 movement point is.
 
Yes and no. They have an expanded field of vision but they don't automatically know where every unit is on the map, only the ones in their immediate area. Naval units for instance can see any enemy units that are within their movement range, not just the 2 tiles that the player can see. I'm not sure what the limit for land units with only 1 movement point is.

Yes, that radar as I like to call it is indeed determined by movement of the units. IIRC, 1 :move: units have a grid of 5x5 while 2 :move: have much bigger. And it's even more bigger once Engineering is enabled for the AI or railroads are disposed under.

The ultimate omniscience I was referring to is something even more subtle that can be seen especially in cases of inclosed cities in mountains. Let imagine two little gap that can fit a unit. The nearest to the enemy AI will normally choose the nearest gap to reach the city, but if you block it, they'll choose the other one, even if it demands to walk the half map. Of course, once you block both gaps, the normal behavior is seen again.
The even more subtle aspect is their pathfinding is determined even without having explored the area, which is obvious cheating, but for just cause.

And that crazy omniscience is really seen in all aspects of SoD or assaulting nary reaching places never explored.

Putting that aside, the radar is used as barb protection or immediate unit retaliation. Nevertheless, the AI has a much bigger omniscience that we would imagine. There is not hiding once the AI met.

Man, I would like to play with someone of your knowlegde, but I know you don't want to deal with others. :)
 
Man, I would like to play with someone of your knowlegde, but I know you don't want to deal with others. :)

Well thanks, but I probably don't know as much as you may think I do. I've just spent a lot of time on these forums over the years and picked up things here and there. And no I don't play online, with any game. I'm just not into that. I have a bad case of restartitis which doesn't go over very well in that setting, especially with games like Civ.
 
Multiplayer, nah! I was thinking more geared towards succession games (a casual one, not those extreme even I can't deal right now). I thought nice discussions could arise from ya. ;)

Oh yeah, restartitis! Once reason I partially quitted HoF. There's an unrestrained epidemic there I don't to catch again. :lol:
 
I started a thread for a game writeup here once and left it half finished. I can't even go near that thread without my symptoms flaring up.
 
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