Map Trading

[MeteorPunch]

I believe I've read several older posts where people believed if you trade maps with the AI, the AI will know where to settle in your land. I currently think the AI knows the whole map from the start and that map trading only benefits you. Which is true, and is there any benefit the AI gets from human maps?

 

[madviking]

They know the start like a Future start, everything is in Fog o War. When they get it they just get the terrain buildings. (I think)

PS: happy BDay MP!

 

[YNCS]

The AI knows the entire map at the beginning of the game. However, for map trading purposes, it plays that it only knows the areas that particular civ has explored.

 

[Shylock]

The AI has maps just like we do.

Case in point. I was playing on a archipelego, I discover this island. Noone even bothered looking for it except me. It remained untouched. But, I accidently give an AI civ a map, a couple turns later they have a city there.

 

[CoolioVonHoolio]

i think the AI doesnt know the whole map, just what we know... but one thing i do think is that they know where all the resources are even things like coal and oil when their researching the wheel.

 

[wilbill]

The AI knows the map from the beginning. It's programmed in some ways to act as if it doesn't (no suicide galleys, for example). But it knows. Trading maps is to your advantage usually.

 

[AA-battery]

The AI has maps just like we do.

Case in point. I was playing on a archipelego, I discover this island. Noone even bothered looking for it except me. It remained untouched. But, I accidently give an AI civ a map, a couple turns later they have a city there.

I have had this situation repeat over an over, especially in cases where the island contains a resource such as rubber, uranium, aluminum, etc...

The AI probably knows the land of the map, but learns the resources of the land after discovering techs the resource requires, just as we do.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Thanks MV!

I think the suicide galleys is based on something else...I think the AI just doesn't send them, they are not risktakers.

The AI absolutely does know where resources are. It is very common to build a city in a crap location, the middle of a jungle far away from cell, just to snag a future resource location.

 

[vmxa]

They will not go even if they have a map as long as they turns ends in a tile that they could sink. This means Ocean if no Nav or Mag or Sea if no Astro.

Give them a map and a route they can navigate and they will come.

The deal on the knowledge is that they can know that gems is on a tile that is in the fog, but they do not know of a path to get there. For an example, if you have an few tiles open in your empire, but have not let anyone access it and do not trade your map, no settler teams will beeline for it. Give them your map and a team will head straight to it.

 

[Himalia]

Really ? I find they just turn up no matte if you have something worth while. Except if it would involve a risk at Sea. Are these facts what you are saying or an educated guess from personal experiecne.

 

[Pounder]

The AI knows the map from the beginning. It's programmed in some ways to act as if it doesn't (no suicide galleys, for example). But it knows. Trading maps is to your advantage usually.

I feel that the AI on acts on tiles it has touched or has been shown, otherwise the programmers would have had to program what not to do more than what to do.

It is much simpler to just let the program act on what it has touched or been shown.

 

[vmxa]

Really ? I find they just turn up no matte if you have something worth while. Except if it would involve a risk at Sea. Are these facts what you are saying or an educated guess from personal experiecne.

You can set up a simple test to see it. I have seen it many many times. Be on a landmass with one or more civs. Make towns with culture borders that cut off access to the land behind them.

Have enough land so that a fair amount cannot be see from the shoreline. You have to be strong enough that they will not send units across your border to explore. Now give them your map and see a settler team head straight for the open land.

If you are talking about the water aspects, well anyone that has played a bunch of games with lots of water will tell you, they will not put a boat in a position to end its turn in a tile that they do not have the tech to be in safely.

 

[Himalia]

Seems reasonable what your saying, theres no need for me to test it. Thanks.

 

[wilbill]

Really ? I find they just turn up no matte if you have something worth while. Except if it would involve a risk at Sea. Are these facts what you are saying or an educated guess from personal experiecne.

This could just be the desire to expand. The AI will settle anywhere it can up to the point where it reaches its OCN. Also, just because there's nothing of value nearby at the time the AI settles a city doesn't mean there won't be later in the game. It's common for the AI to settle a seemingly valueless city in tundra only to find that a couple of thousand years later, it's on top of Uranium. It knew the Uranium was there from the beginning.

 

[henry k c]

I think the AI can see all resources at the start, but has the fog of war too. They can only see resources in what they explore/can see from a nap trade.