Does the AI have preknowledge of the map?

[Kolyana]

So in short, correct me if I'm wrong, Soren said that the AI does not know of a resource being there if it doesn't have the technology to see it

I'd like to add something here and hopefully Soren is still reading. But I actually experienced this last night on the Earth map, Noble difficulty with one of my own workers.

I tend to automate (but not detsory improvements) when my empire gets large and it's mostly road building, so I had a few workers automated and they built a road out of reach of any of my cities and off into the desert.

Remembering this thread I *KNEW* what was coming next and took pictures

We all know what's going to appear here, don't we???

Yup, you were right

Now, here's my point ... my WORKER built a road to OIL before I knew it was there. Being fully automated, why would he build a road into open desert???

If Soren is correct, he built it to access 1 hammer's worth of production that no city can reach??? That doesn't amke sense.

This behavior seems to contradict Soren's conclusion that the AI can't see resources ... I think they *CAN*

 

[The Condor]

Wow you got the Earth Scenario working? I hav tried it three times and every time it crashed my friggin high-tech laptop and I am so pissed! Congrats to you! Also, I have recently noticed how come no one has tried my tests out? I worked hard and took time out of my life on those and the least someone could do is check them out to see if I am right or something. I also love how the second I posted I screwed up on one of the tests everyone looks at it but when I post the correct save like five minutes later no one cares.

 

[Efexeye]

Wow you got the Earth Scenario working? I hav tried it three times and every time it crashed my friggin high-tech laptop and I am so pissed! Congrats to you! Also, I have recently noticed how come no one has tried my tests out? I worked hard and took time out of my life on those and the least someone could do is check them out to see if I am right or something. I also love how the second I posted I screwed up on one of the tests everyone looks at it but when I post the correct save like five minutes later no one cares.

Heh- forum denizens are fickle...

 

[BlackMage]

Isn't that like God booming "Hiiiiiii theerrreee mooorrtallllssss ... I'm ..... um ... God ...." ?

CFC.........This is gooooooodd..... make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich......</firaxis>

Ahem.

This is an interesting thread. If the AI does have preknowledge of where resources are, that is a big handicap indeed.

 

[Kolyana]

Wow you got the Earth Scenario working? I hav tried it three times and every time it crashed my friggin high-tech laptop and I am so pissed! Congrats to you! Also, I have recently noticed how come no one has tried my tests out? I worked hard and took time out of my life on those and the least someone could do is check them out to see if I am right or something. I also love how the second I posted I screwed up on one of the tests everyone looks at it but when I post the correct save like five minutes later no one cares.

I love the Earth map ... it's so much fun.

As for your tests, I just haven't had the time today.

 

[The Condor]

It is o.k. I have just been a little sick this week so I am a little more depressed than usual. You don't have to check them out I just wanted to know why no one (not even the people who asked me to do it) would check them out? Also, does anyone else want me to try something?

 

[Kolyana]

It is o.k. I have just been a little sick this week so I am a little more depressed than usual. You don't have to check them out I just wanted to know why no one (not even the people who asked me to do it) would check them out? Also, does anyone else want me to try something?

Slightly off topic, but if you're a tad bored, contact "Exavier" ... he's putting together a rather ambitious mod and needs help testing other people's mods (the new races, in particular) to see what works, what doesn't, what's complete, what isn't and so on ... maybe you could get in on that?

I'm helping too, but won't be able to touch it until tonight.

 

[The Condor]

I already downloaded it and have it on my game and even put it on my sig. Also, yeah I am one of the testers (doing the nukes cuz no one is better than I with nukes).

 

[Exavier]

I already downloaded it and have it on my game and even put it on my sig. Also, yeah I am one of the testers (doing the nukes cuz no one is better than I with nukes).

*modifys a nuke with blast radius of 20 squares, names it Condor Killer, and drops it on his head* now who is the king of nukes?

 

[The Condor]

Unfortunately for you, the RNG decides to spare me but leaves me with a slight cold (also, you should really go to the forum games section because it is quite fun and basically every other post in some of the games is how something ends up killing someone). Back on topic would anyone like me to perform some tests for them or anything?

 

[CivFan91]

Please don't test anymore, guys, you're ruining my fun!

 

[meisen]

Nice work, people. I was just surfing the forum, killing time when i happened on this thread. Ended up reading the whole thing.

The post with Kolyana's workers building a road to unknown coal shows it is all ai activity, not just ai activity intended to further the ai players, that is affected by this. To me, this sounds like it is more a bug than something delibrate. Knowing this additional bit of data Kolyana provided may make fixing the bug easier for the programmers. Considering that the ai had these abilities in past versions of the game, it might be the programmers missed a bit in the old programming, when modifying it for Civ4, that allows ai to know things it now should not. In other words, they missed a connection when shutting down the ai's old cheat which the ai still accesses and you people have now brought to light.

I'm not a programmer so I'm just guessing here.

 

[CivFan91]

I think they did their code from scratch when they did CIV. So I don't think so. It even says in the manual that they "Never coded it [resource pollution] in in the first place". This suggests that they started over. That's my thinking, anyways. I think it was just a mishap, i.e. bug.

 

[The Condor]

Wow, I thought this thread was dead. Also, I saw something intersting while playing a game:

It is kinda odd and yet makes sense cuz the Japanese were technologically backwards so they could not of (allegedly) known that the coal was there. What do you guys think? Also this was a modded game (Exavier's mod) and not a normal one but I don't think that really matters.

 

[warpstorm]

It appears that they didn't know the coal was there since they put a windmill on it instead of the mine that would let them actually use the coal.

 

[The Condor]

I know. It is kinda weird compared to other people's tests with the automated workers like Kolyana's. And also maybe one of the nice Firaxians (who I know have been viewing this forum thanks to new username thing viewer)could explain to use some of the AI habits we have discovered like the won't explore till borders expand and why they need one defender and two offensive units to prepare to set up a new city and stuff?

 

[CivFan91]

The last one could be because in III the AI settled undefended cities, to the delight of Barbs and myself.

 

[The Condor]

I think that might be it but I would confirmation from a Firaxian or something like that.

 

[The Condor]

Hi, (I know it has been awhile) I got some further evidence of workers knowing stuff beforehand. But this time it is for the human player and not the AI.
Here is a pic of what most people would think was just a mine made by a automated worker (note: all these actions were performed by a "AI" worker) in the middle of a lush jungle on a hill. No biggie:

But I thought differently and went into the worldbuilder and wouldn't you know it I got some coal!

Also, another example. Here is just a simple mine next to the capital to increase productivity:

However, it instead turns out to be a aluminium mine!

As you can see the human player also receives (to some degree) these benefits of knowing stuff beforehand with automated workers.

 

[Yzen Danek]

And I don't really think that this foreknowledge is game-breaking when it has to do with workers. It may even be knowledge possessed only by the subroutine for worker automation.

But, if the AI at large is using this info for city placement, that's a different subject, and I have seen some examples that made me very suspect.

And then I got to thinking a bit more about it. Don't we all do this to some extent? When you get a map without a lot of resources showing, don't you take into account the most likely locations for hidden resources when you're planning to build a city? I sure do. There are some pretty familiar patterns to the layout of all non-bunching resources. Usually it is never possible to build a city in a locale where it will take advantage of five unbunched resources.

So, when I'm building a city, if I place the city so that each of three visible resources is out two and over one from the city center (like a knight's move in chess), chances are I'll get the fourth resource in the remaining corner.

I think it would be excessively difficult to build an AI subroutine that would have this same 'sense' of the game's spaces, and the only alternative is to let the game cheat a little.

So again, to me it isn't about whether or not parts of the AI get this info, but whether or not it can pass it to higher functions. If, for example, Alexander undervalues a treaty with me for oil because he knows already that he has lots of uranium, this is wrong. If the AI chooses its research path knowing what resources it has hidden, this is wrong.