Does AI know how far I research tech?

[gavenkoa]

During trading I see that I can research a tech a bit and AI reduces the cost of a tech.

Does AI know how far I research every tech?

Is this only limited to tech trade and actual numbers are hidden from AI as per the espionage mechanic?

 

[Anysense]

AI appears to have access to certain data regardless of espionage. It is required for AI to make decisions, which otherwise would have been completely random.

 

[ArchGhost]

During trading I see that I can research a tech a bit and AI reduces the cost of a tech.

Does AI know how far I research every tech?

Is this only limited to tech trade and actual numbers are hidden from AI as per the espionage mechanic?

AIs know what every other player is researching at any point AND the progress. They make decisions partly on this in order to secure monopolies if they can, but in the end, it's still random rolls with weighting and not a guaranteed thing. They will also drop teching things if beaten to it despite the fact they can see they'll be beaten (derp?) because as Anysense points out, they have to know progress to evaluate values in trade. This is the reason you may see one AI in the field race out to Metal Casting super fast, Ragnar or Shaka going for Music with little other explanation, etc. and also why you'll see 3 or 4 AIs racing to Economics but dropping it after just one of them (or you) wins the GM.

 

[gavenkoa]

They will also drop teching things if beaten to it despite the fact they can see they'll be beaten (derp?) because as Anysense points out, they have to know progress to evaluate values in trade.

That also explains why I can't trade some competitive tech for full price. They all researched it to the most of the value.

But this mechanic helps human against AIs collusion. Imaging they tech evenly and then exchange every techs. We will end with completed tech tree in 300T.

 

[ArchGhost]

Yeah, sort of. The AI is actually coded to charge you more in trade than with any AI, and IIRC it's scaled on the difficulty (Immortal is roughly 20-22% markup or something close to that). So you can almost never 1:1 a trade because of that alone. Exceptions may be very obsolete techs that everybody knows already (which an AI may just gift you anyway) or if the tech is cheap enough to be covered by the beg mechanic.

As far as I know when AIs are trading with each other there is no such modifier to the tech value, so tech trade is inherently stacked against the human player. Call it a small concession for them not really being able to think about what they tech or how to trade strategically

Keep in mind that AIs have mechanics where they also just give each other techs too. Masters can always gift techs of any value to their vassals (and do!), while friendly AIs seem to freely gift each other things at regular intervals too, and in any case will ignore monopoly rules if friendly. This can make situations where a Master/Vassal pairs can blaze up the tech tree as if they were almost a Permanent Alliance team, each teching wildly different things and then just handing them to each other!