Ill show you mine if you show me yours

[IKHAM]

Is a common phrase AI say when they want to trade maps but my question is should you trade maps early the game?

Usually in a game I uncover more of the map than the AI. Which means I get to see where all the lovely resources are before the AI.

The AI doesnt seem to want to explore the world as much meaning they may not see where to expand there borders to unless YOU trade your extensive world map with them.

What i am trying to say is, by giving the AI a look at the world, do you think that they then tactically build there cities based on the new information you have just given. If that is the case, then I dont think it is a wise idea to trade world maps until all the land has been claimed.

 

[Justin_Sane]

Well I don't think it matters a whole lot, as the AI sees the entire map regardless of whether or not you give them yours or not, so it's a free bargaining tool. No harm in letting them see it, and you can actually use it to your advantage! Or at least, that's what the PTW player's guide says...

 

[IKHAM]

I dont have PTW so I cant comment on that. Im not so sure the AI does know the map. For example:

I find a small little island in the middle of an ocean and I think "oh good ill build a city there" then after a few map exchanges i build a settler and miliatary unit to protect and by the time i return to the island there is a rival city there.

I dont know but it just seems that the AI plays as if it didnt know the map. After all, why would they send scouts out if they already knew the map?

 

[MadScot]

The map is valuable, and should be traded with care.

Although the AI does know the map it has been programmed to 'ignore' what it doesn't officially know.

So if no AI has ever been through your land the AI will not head for that open tile to settle. Sell the map, though, and the AI will know you have left a gap, and possibly act on it.

Furthermore, once sold to one AI, if that AI sells on their own map, that will devalue yours (since anyone buying the map from the AI knows what you know too). So when you do sell it, sell it to every AI that you know. You may as well get the value for it.

@Justin_Sane - by "player's guide" do you mean the Prima Strategy Guide? If the PTW one is as bad as the basic game one, find a wobbly table and use it to prop it level, that's about all it's useful for. The basic game guide is riddled with errors and plain idiotic advice.

 

[Padma]

The AI "knows" the whole map, and where all your units are, and where the initial placement of all strategic resources is.

BUT

It is programmed to act as if it *doesn't* know all this, except in certain instances. So it will send out scouts, to explore & "uncover" the map, so it can get better deals for trading its map. It will not sail to settle that new island, unless it has already "seen" it, etc.

 

[IKHAM]

I was pretty sure they acted like that somehow. It would be really unfair if they knew all the great places to build cities from the start.

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by IKHAM
I was pretty sure they acted like that somehow. It would be really unfair if they knew all the great places to build cities from the start.

They do, it has been documented where the AI has established a Distant City far from their lands in very useless territory to find out after finding refinery that that one city is sitting right on top of an Oil Deposit.

 

[Justin_Sane]

Originally posted by MadScot
@Justin_Sane - by "player's guide" do you mean the Prima Strategy Guide? If the PTW one is as bad as the basic game one, find a wobbly table and use it to prop it level, that's about all it's useful for. The basic game guide is riddled with errors and plain idiotic advice.

I do indeed mean that, though I haven't found it to be too terribly misleading. It actually has a few things I've found useful, though obviously I still use most of my own strategies Don't need some company to tell me what's good for my empire!

 

[mazzz]

Originally posted by IKHAM

I dont know but it just seems that the AI plays as if it didnt know the map. After all, why would they send scouts out if they already knew the map?

Goody huts!

 

[MadScot]

Opening the strategy guide at random

"...play it safe and build a coastal fortress in every coastal town..."

hmmmmmmmm

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by MadScot
"...play it safe and build a coastal fortress in every coastal town..."

Watching nice Gold per turn going down the drain, just for an about useless improvement....

 

[dreamdeferred]

I don't know about PTW, but in Vanilla Civ3 the Costal fortresses cost no gold upkeep. I've even built them in one game, in all my costal cities, after early wars with jerks on other continents left some ironclads bombing my improvements.

Edit: And let the AI build its distant cities. They'll be easy enough to take once you need them.

 

[JonathanValjean]

I never sell my map to another tribe. If I am on emperor or deity level and it is demanded of me and my destruction seems imminent, then I will give in. Otherwise, I keep my territorial information to myself; I don't want the AI to have any advantages when it comes to possible war.

 

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by dreamdeferred
And let the AI build its distant cities. They'll be easy enough to take once you need them.

Exactly. If you see an AI city in a place where no sane human would ever build one then congrats: you have found a future resource spot so go and conquer it.

The "see every resource" probably was intended so the AI gets a bit of help in its hopeless struggle against the Human Deviousness (TM) but in this case I think it achieved the exact opposite. The AI can't take any use of the future resource because it hasn't got the required tech yet but by building that city it has flagged the place for the notice of the human player...

IMO they should change the programming so that the AI ignored any resources he can't use yet, i.e. those he shouldn't know existed. Not because it's somehow unfair for the AI to know such things but because exactly by knowing them he shoots himself on the microchip without getting any of the presumed benefits.

I mean it's so friggin' easy... That odd AI tundra city won't get past size 3 in a 1,000 years and it's located so far from the Core that the AI can neither defend it properly nor make good of his losses. When I have taken the town the AI of course tries to take it back but *I* know how to do a proper defense...

 

[Mark Young]

Originally posted by Padma
The AI "knows" the whole map, and where all your units are, and where the initial placement of all strategic resources is.

BUT

It is programmed to act as if it *doesn't* know all this, except in certain instances. So it will send out scouts, to explore & "uncover" the map, so it can get better deals for trading its map. It will not sail to settle that new island, unless it has already "seen" it, etc.

There is a cheat where you save a game under a certain title and it reveals all the map to you when you reload it again.
I did this once at the beginning of a game to see what happened and I noticed that the ai scout went straight to all the nearest goody huts!
I thought it was a coincidence so I kept watching it and without fail it made a bee-line for goody huts.

It may have been this or something else but I was able to watch what the oppostion did each turn.

I dont remember what you saved the game as but I d/loaded it from here. It may have been van civ but I'm not sure about that either.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

I don't give my map out until I have settled all of 'my' area.
The number of times I have, in the past, given my map, and within a move or two a galley has appeared to settle my bit of tundra (the bit we eventually find out has oil)

 

[Arathorn]

I always trade my maps. I get a huge return, cashwise, from doing so. I'll buy other civ's maps and broker them around. The AI values the information highly and the few gpt you can get from map sales is not to be tossed aside so easily....

Arathorn

 

[Chris1111]

Originally posted by Sir Eric


There is a cheat where you save a game under a certain title and it reveals all the map to you when you reload it again.
I did this once at the beginning of a game to see what happened and I noticed that the ai scout went straight to all the nearest goody huts!
I thought it was a coincidence so I kept watching it and without fail it made a bee-line for goody huts.

It may have been this or something else but I was able to watch what the oppostion did each turn.

I dont remember what you saved the game as but I d/loaded it from here. It may have been van civ but I'm not sure about that either.

That was the old multi.sav cheat, put the word multi in the name of your save and you'd be able to see the whole map. It was fixed a couple patches ago I believe.

That was handy but definetely not something you'd play a whole game with.

 

[Padma]

Originally posted by Sir Eric
There is a cheat where you save a game under a certain title and it reveals all the map to you when you reload it again.
I did this once at the beginning of a game to see what happened and I noticed that the ai scout went straight to all the nearest goody huts!
I thought it was a coincidence so I kept watching it and without fail it made a bee-line for goody huts.

It may have been this or something else but I was able to watch what the oppostion did each turn.

I dont remember what you saved the game as but I d/loaded it from here. It may have been van civ but I'm not sure about that either.

The "multi.sav" cheat was fixed in plain vanilla Civ patch 1.17 (or was it 1.21?). It has not been available in any game that has been properly patched for over a year.

For what it's worth, in every game I've played recently, at least, the AI does not "make a bee-line for goody huts". In fact, I often see them pass up a goody hut, to go somewhere else. Which means that I get to pop it myself.

 

[Mark Young]

Originally posted by Chris1111


That was the old multi.sav cheat, put the word multi in the name of your save and you'd be able to see the whole map. It was fixed a couple patches ago I believe.

That was handy but definetely not something you'd play a whole game with.

Yeh I had forgot what it was called. I only used it once and only then for a short while just to see what happened.
I thought that it defeated the purpose of playing civ.

The "multi.sav" cheat was fixed in plain vanilla Civ patch 1.17 (or was it 1.21?). It has not been available in any game that has been properly patched for over a year.

For what it's worth, in every game I've played recently, at least, the AI does not "make a bee-line for goody huts". In fact, I often see them pass up a goody hut, to go somewhere else. Which means that I get to pop it myself.

Back when I saw that cheat I was playing on chieftan and warlord but now that I play on the higher levels I hardly ever pop goody huts unless I have 2 units with me.
I cant say that I have taken notice of what the ai does in regard to goody huts recently so it's good to hear that the programmers fixed it.