Does the AI have preknowledge of the map?

[Goombaz]

I am not accusing the A.I. of this, it actually *DOESN'T* seem to, but I can't seem to find anything addressing this directly. Does the AI always know where everything is or does it have FoW and unexplored tiles like the players?

 

[Exavier]

While i have seen this thread before I think it was determined that the AIs do not have working knowledge of everything on the terrain from the start of the game.

Though during wartime they do (imo) seem to know exactly how many units you have in every city and what they need to bring for them to take one of your cities.

 

[Nilrim]

I am not accusing the A.I. of this, it actually *DOESN'T* seem to, but I can't seem to find anything addressing this directly. Does the AI always know where everything is or does it have FoW and unexplored tiles like the players?

Well not 100% certain with Civ 4 but in all past games it depended on the level you played. At a certain AI level they would make beelines to huts early game etc. and they always seem to know what cities you have that are weekly defended. I would be real suprised if the AI in Civ 4 did not 'cheat' in same fashion as you play the higher levels.

 

[Meffy]

I've occasionally seen things that make me suspect that the AI does "see" as-yet unrevealed resources. One example: Russia built a road all the way to a useless extreme-southern tile, within the Russian cultural boundary but far from any of her cities, then did absolutely nothing after arriving there. I wondered what was going on there, and became a mite suspicious of this "road to nowhere."

Long after that I got the tech to see oil resources. Catherine didn't have that tech yet, and wouldn't for a long time still. But guess what? That apparently useless road connected an oil tile with her trade network, a remote and useless tile the AI ought not to have "known" had anything valuable on it.

When she finally got the tech, she sent a worker back down the road to build a well there... and shortly after that she started getting worrisome (though we maintained an uneasy peace).

Anyhoo, I wouldn't call this proof that the AI cheats but it does seem kinda-sorta fishy. Oily, rather.

 

[Goombaz]

*IF* the A.I. cheats on some skill levels in this fashion and not on others, then perhaps the XML or Py contain a toggle for this?

If they hardcoded anything like that they need to be forced to eat any words they said about modability, as it would be laughably simple to expose. And I mean physically be force-fed a large quantity of documents where they discuss modability.

 

[onedreamer]

you can verify that the AI knows where the resource placement is before its discovery very simply. Just send out a settler and you will notice the AI will advise you where to build your new city. On what basis ? Surely on unrevealed resources already. Too often I found out that ignoring these advices I built a city sitting on a resource or just one square too far from a resource that will later show up.

 

[Exavier]

If they hardcoded anything like that they need to be forced to eat any words they said about modability, as it would be laughably simple to expose. And I mean physically be force-fed a large quantity of documents where they discuss modability.

you'd be surprised what they have hardcoded... you can't modify nukes at all. its all hard coded exept for the physical unit (cost) and the blast radious... the range, destructive power, interception is all hard coded.

 

[Goombaz]

you can verify that the AI knows where the resource placement is before its discovery very simply. Just send out a settler and you will notice the AI will advise you where to build your new city. On what basis ? Surely on unrevealed resources already. Too often I found out that ignoring these advices I built a city sitting on a resource or just one square too far from a resource that will later show up.

See, it's stuff like this that burrows into my brain and makes it hard to enjoy a game

 

[calyth]

Meffy: even in that case, she isn't getting that much of an advantage for putting a "road to nowhere" because she's bound by the game not to be able to use the oil until she has the tech to put an oil well and have the tech to build units using oil. It might allow her to shorten the time to put down an oil well, but that's only a few turns, and really, she can a best crank out one or two units every city for the amount of time she gained.

 

[Meffy]

calyth: Oh, I know. And my France had her quite overwhelmed in any case. I'm not indignant that she did it, just think it likely that it could be evidence of AI "cheating."

BTW, in case it makes any difference -- this was on one of the easiest difficulty levels.

 

[Exavier]

personally i could care less if the AI is cheating in small ways... after all they almost have to just to compete with a player. Why do you think on higher lvl difficulty they are given more freebies instead of just rewriting the AI script... its easier to give them a head start and a bonus to make them a challenge then to write a challenging AI script

 

[Nilrim]

personally i could care less if the AI is cheating in small ways... after all they almost have to just to compete with a player. Why do you think on higher lvl difficulty they are given more freebies instead of just rewriting the AI script... its easier to give them a head start and a bonus to make them a challenge then to write a challenging AI script

Oh yea easier and cheaper, this is one thing I have wished for with every new release of Civ is a smarter AI but it is one of the things that has never changed since Civ I. My number one wish for Civ V would be a totaly revamped AI that functions better then the current one. But tell then you are right, it is the only way to make the single player game more compitive and that is to allow it to cheat.

 

[Psyringe]

Why don't you just open the worldbuilder and design a test scenario?

Fog of war test: You can specify in the worldbuilder which parts of the map are revealed to any civ. Create a square island with identical terrain (i.e., all grassland). Put an AI city in the middle of the island. Place a strong army there. Surround this city with four cities of your civ, all identical, every city being a fair distance away from the AI city. Put strong defenders into three of these. Define the map visibility for the AI so that it cannot see any of these cities (nor their cultural borders, to make sure). Then start the game. If the AI is capable to see through the fog of war, it will send its army to the undefended city. If it can not see through the fopg of war, then it will choose one direction at random, or it will explore the area first.

Resource knowledge test: Design a map with two islands, one for your own city (just as a placeholder), on for the AI. Design the AI city in a cross shape with the AI city in its center. The cross should be small enough so that the AI can only build 4 more cities on it, one per arm of the cross. Make all terrain identical. Now put several resources onto one cross arm. Make sure that the AI doesn't have the tech to see these resources. Make sure that all terrain is visible to the AI. Put a settler into the AI city. Then start the game and watch the AI behaviour. If it can see the hidden resources, then the settler should go there. If it cannot see them, then the settler should randomly choose one of the arms to settle. If the settler went to the resource arm, repeat the test with the resources placed in another arm to make sure that it didn't choose this arm just by chance or because the algorithm always favours one certain direction when no area seems to give an advantage.

I'd do it myself but I'm not at home and don't have Civ here.

 

[The Condor]

I will do it: Give me like thirty minutes (besides I need something to do).

Uh on the first one I tried so far the AI (Do a pic later) wandered around aimlessly till its borders expanded and then it went for the weakest city.

The one on the right is the weakest (I put two warriors in it and a archer and warrior in the others). Also, the Ai (Tokogawa [sp])didn't just go straight for it. It first went up to every city (went up to the capital then the second city then the weak one) and then on its third try (the weakest one) it attacked it. My test was not one hundred percent in the darkness (forgot about culture expansions) but the AI didn't immediately go for the weakest city. In fact first for about three turns it just sat in the city and plotted then it took action.


Will do the second now.

Did it with Americans. Set up a big island with resources (horses and something else) and a huge barren desert in the middle (to force Roosevelt to a new place) and the settler plus a spy I put down (to see what the settler does) watched as the settler plopped down a city in the desert so I don't think either are true or else the AIs are dumb.

 

[Kavatar]

They certainly seem to have knowledge of unsettled islands. On the game I'm playing right now, I started on the west part of a huge continent and Persia was on a smaller continent to the east of mine (pretty far from me). I discovered a medium sized island to the northwest of my continent, but was "saving" it until I settled all I could on my continent. But before I could, I saw a Persian galley trying to sail to the island with a settler and archer. I was nearly 100% sure that I hadn't seen any of their galleys exploring there before hand, so unless they send out galleys with settlers just "searching" for new land, they knew that island was there.

I declared war on them to block their galley from getting to the island until I could get borders to stop them (that's MY island damn it, I'll settle it when I want to), but that's a different story...

 

[calyth]

Oh yea easier and cheaper, this is one thing I have wished for with every new release of Civ is a smarter AI but it is one of the things that has never changed since Civ I. My number one wish for Civ V would be a totaly revamped AI that functions better then the current one. But tell then you are right, it is the only way to make the single player game more compitive and that is to allow it to cheat.

Perhaps I'm still not very good at Civ, but I started from Civ 3. I find that overall, Civ4's AI is much better than Civ3.
The problem is to reduce what you want the AI to do into mathematics. Neural nets are usually too intensive for such a complex game. As an exercise to myself, I try to convert what people want the AI to do into mathematics, and sometimes I don't even know where to begin.

 

[Nilrim]

Perhaps I'm still not very good at Civ, but I started from Civ 3. I find that overall, Civ4's AI is much better than Civ3.
The problem is to reduce what you want the AI to do into mathematics. Neural nets are usually too intensive for such a complex game. As an exercise to myself, I try to convert what people want the AI to do into mathematics, and sometimes I don't even know where to begin.

For one thing you can build in some common since rules into the AI. Example. In one game I was playing out of the clear blue an AI that had been somewhat friendly and had been trading with me declears war on me, ok fine. I defeat his invasion force and take one of his cities. He ask for peace and I accept, a few turns later he comes to me hat in hand saying how poor he is and could I please give him a free Tech? Come on now, he attacks me out of the clear blue then after I force a peace on him a few turns later he is asking me for a free tech. I am sorry but that is just plain BAD AI. I could make a two page post with examples of dumb AI but then I would be just stating the obvious. Besides I think I have gotten off subject enough from the orignal thread.

 

[Kolyana]

I will do it: Give me like thirty minutes (besides I need something to do).

Uh on the first one I tried so far the AI (Do a pic later) wandered around aimlessly till its borders expanded and then it went for the weakest city.

The one on the right is the weakest (I put two warriors in it and a archer and warrior in the others). Also, the Ai didn't just go straight for it. It first went up to every city (went up to the capital then the second city then the weak one) and then on its third try (the weakest one) it attacked it. My test was not one hundred percent in the darkness (forgot about culture expansions) but the AI didn't immediately go for the weakest city. In fact first for about three turns it just sat in the city and plotted then it took action.


Will do the second now.

Uh, sorry 'COndor, but this doesn't sound like the test Psyringe proposed ... those 'arms' of the island shouldn't have cities on them ... just 1 AI city in the middle of a 4 armed island, each arm with nothing at the end save for one that is resource laden (but not known to the AI).

Give the AI 1 settler and see where he goes ... but don't presettle the arms with cities.

 

[Exavier]

actually condor did part one...

2 suggestions for senarios were made... 1 to see if the AI had working knowledge of your army and another to see if the AI had working knowledge of the terrain

 

[Nilrim]

I will do it: Give me like thirty minutes (besides I need something to do).

Uh on the first one I tried so far the AI (Do a pic later) wandered around aimlessly till its borders expanded and then it went for the weakest city.

The one on the right is the weakest (I put two warriors in it and a archer and warrior in the others). Also, the Ai (Tokogawa [sp])didn't just go straight for it. It first went up to every city (went up to the capital then the second city then the weak one) and then on its third try (the weakest one) it attacked it. My test was not one hundred percent in the darkness (forgot about culture expansions) but the AI didn't immediately go for the weakest city. In fact first for about three turns it just sat in the city and plotted then it took action.


Will do the second now.

Did it with Americans. Set up a big island with resources (horses and something else) and a huge barren desert in the middle (to force Roosevelt to a new place) and the settler plus a spy I put down (to see what the settler does) watched as the settler plopped down a city in the desert so I don't think either are true or else the AIs are dumb.

What AI level? I think the AI gets less or more 'cheats' based on the level you play at.