Is the AI a prophet?

[Redstar]

Does the AI see into the future to determine where resources will show up?

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but its been a few months since i last really played civ 3.

Its just that in this one game i am playing now, i have watched the AI settle in cold, windswept tundra --tundra devoid of anything useful. I'll admit at the time i just laughed and mocked the AI.

I did the same when it settled in a pure desert and again when it settled in a dense jungle.

But the AI was either a prophet or had a really good divining rod. For, in time, lo and behold saltpeter, oil, and rubber materialized from nothing right beside the rogue AI cities.

Now did i mention that the AI had settled in my tundra and my desert? turned out they were my only sources.
It sure made life interesting for awhile.

But that's what i love about CIV 3 --you can tire of it but then get hooked right back on it a few months later.

[Gunter]

Yep !! noticed the same

Ai cheats a lot ,not only spotting prophetly resources,but in other ways,like attacking always and sistematically your less defended city of course without knowing your unit location and without having any spies or embassies.


Moreover I have great doubts about battles,not always certain facts seems coincidence or bad luck but more often they appear to me as pure cheat.If a civ is powerful their unit are strangely stronger than normal,even if the most powerful is the AI or the human player.


Comments

Gunter/Boomer

[tinyp3nis]

Nah, the Ai just expands till there's no room left by default.

[Gunter]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
Nah, the Ai just expands till there's no room left by default.

Yes,this is true I know it

It's as the same true that AI knows resources prophetly,otherwise how could you explain the fact that so many players noticed that?

CIV3 anyway remain a pure piece of gold,we are only trying to exploit extravagance.

Boomer/Gunter

[Arrian]

Yes, the AI does, in a way, "know" about resources it cannot yet see via its technological progress.

The way to test this is, during a peace negotiation where you have stomped the enemy, start asking for various cities. You may find, for instance, that they will happily give away one city, but refuse to part with another - even if they are both size1 outposts that appear worthless. The one they won't part with has oil or something, guaranteed.

They way it probably works is that each terrain tile is given a certain value. Luxuries and strategic resouces greatly boost the value of a tile. Accordingly, cities with resouces of any kind are valued highly by the AI. So the AI won't give up cities with "hidden" resources because the terrain value formula or whatever mechanism is at work tells it not to.

But, in my experience, it does not appear to beeline to build such cities - the "knowledge" appears to manifest itself after they are built. They get the cities in the first place just because they are programmed to expand like crazy.

Those tundra and desert cities get settled because you decided "it's crap, why build there?" and the AI therefore was able to plop down cities there. They often build cities in the tundra/jungle/etc. that turn out to be useless.

-Arrian

-Arrian

[Alex]

Yes, the AI knows in advance where the resources are/will be. And yes, this topic has been debated till exhaustion.

It hardly bothers me, though, because there is nothing that the AI owns that I can't take by force...

[Redstar]

ya i kinda thought it might have. Well, now i'm exhausted.

Thanks for your replies.

[Jon Shafer]

Not sure which bugs me more, this or the fact that the AI somehow knows from 3 tiles away in a grassland that my city I just attacked from is undefended.

[Catt]

It is acknowledged by Firaxis that the one AI "cheat" is that the AI "knows" the whole map, but it is unclear exactly what "knowing" the map means.

I hate to throw a small wrinkle into the discussion, but I'm not entirely convinced that the AI knows which resource will appear where, nor am I convinced that it places a tremendously high value on "known" future resources. In other words, I believe that the AI knows that a particular tile is very valuable, but doesn't know that it is valuable because of an iron, coal, or uranium resource will some day appear.

My theory is that the AI assigns a value to each tile on the map, and seeks out high value tiles. Resources (even as yet unknown resources) constitute one of the factors in tile value, but not the end-all be-all.

I came to this tentative conclusion after reading about an editor test originally done by TheNiceOne at CFC, which I reproduced with variations on my own. Here's how I conducted the test: I built a map consisting of two islands - one small for me and one nearby and somewhat larger for the AI. The AI's island was all grassland and was covered in RR for ease of movement. I started the AI in the center of its larger island with 2 settlers. The AI built a city in the center location, but then had to choose where next to place its second city. At each corner of AI island, I included a fish and a whale, so that the AI would be drawn to the corners. At this point, all corners were "equal" with the same proportion of shielded grassland and fish/whales and so all represented equally attractive city sites. Now, for each quick test, I placed a future resource like iron, coal, rubber, uranium, etc. at different corners. I also modified corners so that the corner with iron might not have a whale or might have no shielded grassland, etc. I don't recall the full and exact results of the testing, but the principal noteworthy (to me) results included: (1) sometimes better terrain and bonus resources (fish/whales) trumped any strategic resource every time (i.e., as an example, perhaps shielded grassland w/o iron was viewed more favorably than plain grassland with iron in the city radius); (2) the AI either didn't know which resource would later appear, or valued the reource in an odd fashion -- i.e., one would think iron, a critcal resource available very early in the game, would be more valuable than uranium or aluminum -- both important but not available for thousands of years (assuming survival ).

So, in the end, I concluded for myself that the AI knows which tiles are valuabel, but either doesn;t understand why they are valuable or doesn't value them as a human player might with the same foreknowledge.

Catt

[Firebird]

That was an interesting experiment, Catt. I'll try that my self.

[Zachriel]

Yup

Yup, the AI does place higher value on tiles with resources -- even when it does not have the tech available to utilize that resource. However, it does not know about such a tile until it has a map, either through exploration or through trade.

[Alex]

Re: Yup

Originally posted by Zachriel
it does not know about such a tile until it has a map, either through exploration or through trade.

Are you sure about this? Because I always thought that the AI could see the whole map from the beginning, not only when it has a map acquired through exploration or trade.

[Arrian]

Catt said what I tried to say, just better. This is not an unusual occurrence.

-Arrian

[Zachriel]

Re: Re: Yup

Originally posted by Alexnm


Are you sure about this? Because I always thought that the AI could see the whole map from the beginning, not only when it has a map acquired through exploration or trade.

"Reasonably certain."

Though the computer obviously "knows" the map, especially for pathfinding, the AI personalities do not normally have access to this information. Specifically, I rarely share my maps in the early game. AI Settlers will not cross my land to settle the far side -- unless I share my map, or the AI finds out some other way. The reason I am "reasonably certain" is because if and when I do share my map, the AI will immediately commence the land rush.

[Arrian]

I concur with Zachriel. I think perhaps some people don't see it that way because the AI always - ALWAYS - has a settler team on its exploring galleys. Therefore, as the galley explores your coastline, it has the capability to drop off the settler team and grab that piece of godforsaken tundra you were going to get to later. That doesn't mean the AI "knew" that city spot was there prior to the galley "discovering" it.

Like Zachriel says, if you give the AI your map, the settler rush begins. If they always had the knowledge of terrain (initial exploring units), then you will not notice the sudden rush.

I think this all ties in with how the AI knows exactly where barbarians are. One thing about that, though, that always confused me is that I often see untripped goodie huts in close proximity to AI cities - as in adjacent to the city's border. Wierd.

-Arrian