Staying in someone else's fog

[Siegmund]

When you are preparing to invade someone else, it makes sense to assemble your forces far enough back froom the border that the preparations aren't obvious to observers on the other side, and only advance the stack right to the border when you plan to use it. This minimizes the time they have to assemble defensive units between the border and the first city you want to strike.

Is there a nice straightforward rule to know HOW far back from your enemy's borders you want to be if you want to keep your preparation a secret?

Judging from my own border regions, one square back seems to never be enough, and two "sometimes." Do civs have the same visibility outward from their culutural borders as they would have if a unit was stationed on every border square?

 

[bige2002]

The AI can see all units, in fog or not.

 

[Spike59]

If you have railroads, you can gather your forces in the central part of your empire to at least hide your intentions. For that matter, you can assemble your troops at some point opposite of where you intend to attack. That way you can use the computer's lack of having the fog of war against it to a small degree.

 

[DaveMcW]

Humans can only see the terrain one square away from their territory, even from a mountain. But you can place a unit on the mountain to see two squares away.