AI Knows Where Your Units Are

[Writer]

In my current game (epic, continents) I have a fish resource that the Chinese have repeatedly come to raze. I parked a galleon that wasn't in use on the tile, and they left it alone for a while, until they built some destroyers. Now there's a destroyer chasing my (old and half-forgotten) galleon away.

Not sure whether this means the AI knows what unit I have parked there or not, at least not by any unnatural means, anyway.

To the OP: you said you've modified your xml settings (slower tech). Is there a chance you changed something else that might be causing/contributing to this?

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Arrian
Thus, I expect it to be worked on. I know that your thread, SR, was pointed out to Soren.

/me whistles...

I'm going to repeat what I said in SR's thread: give me a quote where Soren said the AI didn't cheat, and where he explains in detail what he means by cheating. Without such a quote, please stop making assumptions. And certainly don't get upset about something you believe to be true, which is a totally different thing from know to be true.

Personally, I want an AI that gives a good show, and is hard to beat. I don't want to be reminded I'm playing a computer using stupid rules, but I don't care what kind of system the AI functions in, and whether it might be different from the system the human is playing in. We currently have such a good, hard to beat system, which at least most of the times appears to be intelligent in its decisions. And any loophole of too obvious AI behaviour will be pointed out to Soren, which means there's a good chance that he will look into it.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Tuberski
I believe that they do. I've had automated workers build a road out to nowhere that, later on, contained a resource.

ACK!

Please post a save, I have not seen this before.

DeepO

[spa]

Originally posted by Writer
In my current game (epic, continents) I have a fish resource that the Chinese have repeatedly come to raze. I parked a galleon that wasn't in use on the tile, and they left it alone for a while, until they built some destroyers. Now there's a destroyer chasing my (old and half-forgotten) galleon away.

Not sure whether this means the AI knows what unit I have parked there or not, at least not by any unnatural means, anyway.

To the OP: you said you've modified your xml settings (slower tech). Is there a chance you changed something else that might be causing/contributing to this?

hmm I don't see how it would make a difference as all I changed was the rate of tech and the inflation rate. I didn't make any changes to anything else. If you haven't modified your game why not download my save and give it a try.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DeepO
* DeepO whistles...

I'm going to repeat what I said in SR's thread: give me a quote where Soren said the AI didn't cheat, and where he explains in detail what he means by cheating. Without such a quote, please stop making assumptions. And certainly don't get upset about something you believe to be true, which is a totally different thing from know to be true.

As originator of that whole discussion I feel obliged to answer, even though I was not talked to. In no post I said, that the statement "the AI does not have rule cheats" comes from the developers. I always emphasized, that it comes from some beta testers. Solver in particular (link in my thread, thanks Petek), but I remember others to use this statement too, not only on Apolyton.

I further remember it being stated as objective in an interview, if I recall correct, in that game developer magazine. There is no link, somebody (I think Sn00py) scanned the pages and posted the pictures, but Markos removed it because of the copyright infringement. However, it was only an objective, the article did not mention whether it was achieved 100% or not.

It is irrelevant, who said it. What counts is, that it was said, and by people who are deemed to know better. This raised very high expectations, of which game comes short, which in turn disappoints a bit. It would have been better not to use such bold statements.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

It is irrelevant, who said it. What counts is, that it was said, and by people who are deemed to know better. This raised very high expectations, of which game comes short, which in turn disappoints a bit. It would have been better not to use such bold statements.

This is where the real problem is, isn't it? This whole thing about whether AI use rule cheats or not is something marketing, or PR related. The reason I'm asking for Soren's quote, is that he is the only one who knows. If you hear something from some other Firaxian, there is a good chance this was internally discussed, and more or less cleared by marketing.

If you hear something from a playtester, you hear another channel completely: we are not told to say something, we are not under control of marketing, we don't know what the pitfalls are. OTOH, there is a pressure coming from the forums to have opinions on everything, have explanations for everything, and whatever we say is considered the unbreakable truth...

The reality is, that we do not hold that much internal information. We get our knowledge from playing CIV for a couple of months (years in some cases), from discussing the game, from having interaction with Firaxis when some (balance or AI) problem arrises. In many cases, our guess is as good as yours, only we made the guesses you are making right now several months ago and are thus a bit farther in the guessing process.

So, if you see us post, please keep in mind that what we post is coming from a fan side, with only partial information. I (and others) have done our best to indicate what we know to be true, and what we guess at, but if that is sometimes mentioned implicitely it's easy to get misunderstood. And this has all kind of nasty consequences, amongst others failing raised expectations.

I'm pretty sure that Solver is now regretting how he put his AI observation in his preview, as his quote goes around the world. But where did his information come from? Experience with the game, and the same channels you're having: 'poly, previews, interviews, etc. Please understand that we do not get insight into the design documentation of Firaxis, our guess is as good as yours, only it might be a bit more educated.

When it comes to rulecheating AI, let me put it very clear (again). The playtesting team doesn't exist to give the rest of the fan base information or to explain the internal workings of the game, we exist to identify problems with the game, and suggest improvements where we can. When it comes to AI, nobody of us knows what is happening: It's a black box only Soren knows the inside off. We only observe some of the ripples that appear on the surface, and report these to Soren, who generally is doing a superb job at messing with the internal system.

Hence, our quotes mean just as much as yours: nothing. They can be good observations (like your own sea-pillaging example: it was not reported before, it is now), but they are only that: observations. We do not hold the absolute truth in our hands.

DeepO

[Alphard]

The last posts here have been quite long and complicated and I couldnt follow all the if-s and when-s but I would like to add to my post I did in the beginning of this thread.

I am also now convinced that the AI sees on sea squares. I Do NOT have the saves to prove it but In my recent game the AI was moving along my shoreline with his caravel. I finished a caravel of my own over 10 tiles ahead of him and moved it out of the city. The next turn the AI starts moving in the opposite direction away from my city and caravel.

I think cool.. he is leaving and start to cruise away with my ship also. Only to see that on the very next turn the AI once again resumes his movement towards my capital that had produced the caravel.

So.. I move my caravel back from the ocean towards the closing AI in order to meet him. And again on the next turn he changes direction and starts to run away.

I did all the usual checks.. no religion, his unit etc in range. Made me feel bad. About disagreeing with the original poster. I guess I will try to get a save next time.

[DeepO]

Alphard, this is something I have never witnessed before. Sure, the AI knows when certain tiles are blocked (you know as well btw, or at least in some circumstances. If you use a worker and move along the ground in between you and an enemy, it will show a red circle whenever an enemy unit is blocking)

this is different from outright knowing where every unit is. So far, I've seen no evidence to support that claim, so if you can give it I'm interested. If it addresses a specific situation/ exploit, maybe we can get Soren interested as well.

DeepO