AI Espionage

[Naiveplayer]

Catt! That's a lot of espionage.

On my chieftain experiences...

* Sometimes they establish embassies. But they're so slow to it that it's cheaper for you to to establish the embassy

* Initating a WW3 (sign tons of MPPs, declare war on someone, and have all hell break loose with your allies signing alliances with your enemies, so you turn on them) leads to widescale espionage. I've had military plans stolen, my spy exposed, and production sabotages twice

* Even if you get caught doing espionage, they won't respond back unless you do something really dirty like what I did above - set a ww3 and everyone never got polite afterwards.

* They'll always plant spies. In one game I discovered spies from 5 civs (out of 6). Once when I was in anarchy I caught Elizabeth trying to plant a spy.

[dexters]

Originally posted by Fosse


I agree that they know it "differently" than we do, but I don't think that the AI failing to intelligently predict where my (or each others') stack of units is heading is a good indication that they don't know where they are.

I seriously doubt that the AI gains any advantage from stealing plans unless it is strictly a bonus or handicap situation of some sort, as you suggested is possible.

If I reacall correctly, Soren told us long ago that the AI knows exactly what kinds of troops are in any map square that it has knowledge of.

We're going OT here, but I want to respond to this point.

Just tonight, In my current huge map game, the Koreans, who are on the other side of the continent have already decided to attack me.

They did something sneaky, and trade iron to the the Romans so now, my neighbour who I was planning to invade, the Romans, will have legionaries. Great.

But that's besides the point. The Korean offensive basically took a nice roundabout route and snuck into my territory, as if by plan, through a mountainous region. I have a series of pop 2 cities here that aren't growing and not much is happening, so I rarely check the this side of the map.

When I discovered what was happening (this was before they declared war), I quickly rushed a warrior that was fortified on a hill, as well as diverted 2 pikemen from a nearby city. No now, my city that was previously defended by a lone spearman has 2 pikeman and 1 warrior + the spearman.

The AI, whose attack force consisted of a screening spearman for D and about 8 warriors attacked anyways.

Maybe the AI calculated that its sheer numerical superiority would win it that day, but i really doubt it. I saw 1 swordmans in the attack, which could do some damage, but against veteran pikeman the 1 attack warriors are more likely to create elite defenders than do wipe them out.

In anycase, my point is, in this instance, the AI did not suddenly call off the attack upon my reinforcement of the target city.

This is on PTW 1.21F. So it is likely Soren has blinded the AI somewhat or delayed it so that the AI doesn't get complete infromation as to your troop movements and only has a general idea of where your weak spots might be.

With this, it may get a signal from the Leader AI to attack some city along the border, but by the time the troops arrive there to attack, it may not get updated information as to whether the units inside the cities have been reinforced. This would, essentially create a more human response. We may have spotted a choice city to take, but by the time we get an army to the location to attack, the AI has fortified it and it has gotten several more defenders because of the passage of time.

This certainly has happened to me before.

Edit: if anyone can confirm what I observed tonight, I'd appreciate it.

[Jaybe]

dexters, I can only confirm that the AI does not seemingly get unit location updates every turn, OR that they do not update unit orders every turn due to unit location omniscience.

In my territory there were not one, but TWO chokepoints. The AI was to my south and vacant land was opening up to the north. AI settler pairs were approaching the chokepoints and at 3-4 tile range I would alternate blocking the routes. Sometimes (not always), the settler pairs would continue moving on their path for ONE extra turn, then change course.