AI and the Fog of War

[Ant]

Hey!
Is the AI affected by the fog of war?
Can they NOT see behind mountains?

I so, then we can just stockpile our army behind some mountains near them and they'll never know...

side note: Is it the processor speed or the RAM that matters? (P3 500 with 256 RAM VS P3 700 with 120 RAM?)

[SandMonkey]

Well, in CivII the AI could see everything, hence why having a sub was usually considered a stupid move unless you wanted them for their attack (in other words, their stealth aspect was useless in the single player game). I am not sure if it carries over, but I would assume that the AI knows everything that's going on. I would appreciate it if someone could correct me on this.

[SerapisIV]

Well, I won't be able to answer till the weekend, but I'll be undergoing a major naval war this weekend during which I plan to make extensive use of subs, so I'll tell you if the old Civ2 problem of the all-seeing AI/useless subs is still around.

My naval war should involve about ~50 ships each between my Greeks and the Egyptians, not including allies, the Romans, Americans, and English with about 30-50 ships each as well. I'm not sure which side they're gonna fall on. It's gonna be a diplomatic free for all before war breaks out as there's a bunch of interlocking mutual defence arrangements between all 5 of us, no clearly established sides. Should be interesting. Damn, I love this game.

[Kc7mxo]

I myself haven't seen much in the way of naval engagements.

The ai doesn't seem to build fleets, but it does protect its transports. Damn smart thing for it to do. My own fleet of 18 battleships sailed around looking for opponents, but except for the odd man o war or ironclad, didn't find much. Odd since they had nearly as much tech as i did.

[UberJedi]

I think the AI is affected by fog. In my last game, i had this large piece of land to my west that was uninhabited, and i was working on building up settlers to settle the area, for several turns the civs to the south and north of me never bothered me or went into the area, until i foolishly traded away my world map, and then they all made a mad rush for the land almost instantly.. so more than likely, they're affected by fog in combat related situations too...

[VDmitry]

I can say that AI know at least strength of your garrisons. Without spyes.

I see that when Chinese fleet move to my cityes. They move ALWAYS to cities with smaller defense. Even if I move my forces between cities, their fleet also changes destination!

[jbird]

AI doesn't build fleets? Lucky you! I'm facing a *very* large Chinese navy right now, well over 50 combat ships *alone*, and growing faster than I can build my own fleet up to strength. So far, we've been at peace, but me being Civ#1, and him being Civ#2, we're gonna rumble sometime...

Jbird

[D4everman]

The AI builds fleets. Trust me. I found out the hard way. I figured the AI would do the old Civ2 stupid thing, like send one or two obsolete ships against my battleships. Out of the fog came five AI ironclads. Yep, I thought, I was right.

First I was too confident. Enough ironclads can smash a smaller number of battleships. But the suprise came when about ten AI battleships showed up behind the ironclads and ripped through my retreating naval forces. YIKES!

And the AI will use bombers and Air power well if they have it.

[Skeeve]

Hey D4,
Thanks for that tip. I'm playing on a huge world with 15 civs, and just entering into the Naval Era.
I'd better start building my fleet now!

(Oh, by the way, Greetings from a fellow New Jerseyan)

[Split|Infinity]

I think the AI can see thru the fog of war. I had 2 little pieces of land at the far end of my territory that weren't in my borders. The AI would send it settler/spearman combo into my land to get to the unused land, so I blocked it all with horsemen. The turn after I blocked it, the AI turned its settler around, so I moved the horsemen off, only to have the settler turn back around. The only way it could have known the space was free again is to know exactly where all my units were.

[challenge]

It is also possible that, since you didn't move the blocking force with the opposition, they simply turned back to the original direction of travel when the way was no longer blocked by units it could see.

[Buster13]

I've seen the AI act as if it were affected by the fog of war. I had a similar experience trading away a World Map and then subsequently having every opponent civ in the game made a mad dash for an island full of resources that I had yet to fully explore. (Dumb )

I've also had the type of behavior where the rival settler acts as if it had world view....so I'm not sure. Maybe I didn't read that situation correctly.

Besides, if the AI were truly going to cheat, then every resource on the board, every tactically advantageous position, and every good starting position would be in the AI's hands before your first city got to pop:3

Later all,
E

P.S. - I don't like infinite move railroads, takes some of the strategy out of late game defense.

[Killgore]

I believe if you established embassies with your opponents then they know some of your terrain. I could be wrong but this seems the logical answer.

[Vaslor]

I had a situation similar to Split|Infinities, I had four squares within my on my end of the continent that my boarders hadn't reached yet. The Zulus stend a settler and a defensive unit toward those squares, which are on the other side of my screen so there's no way he can see them from where he's at. As soon as i put units on those squares he turned around and headed back home. I few turns later i moved the units back and what do you know? The next turn he's bring those units over my borders again. Very annoying. And on top of that i asked him multiple times to get off my land or declare war, every time he kept on moving farther in even though he said he would leave.


So i think the AI cheats as far as unit locations go.