You can see the stars on the map automatically. If you send your ship near it, it's not uncommon to be accidentally beelining for a map. I've sent colony ships exploring and then got a popup saying they've colonised.



Logic. They don't display the cheating behavior when this cheat is off, as posted by magnumaniac, and as I have seen myself. They'll arrive 2 or 3 turns late into the grid and realise I've just beaten them. However, once you reveal the map, they start cheating.

I'd say that's fairly decent proof that they're seeing the cheat.

EDIT: Yay, it is mumble!

Actually, there is definite proof that if you use ctrl-u to remove the fog of war that the AI's can 'see' this as well. The proof is that the same turn that you use ctrl-u you will instantly be contacted by and greeted by all AI's (usually this is before you have universal translator). Clearly ctrl-u allows them to see you long before one of their ships stumbles on one of your ships or planets (or vice versa).

Maybe you are right that AIs can see the map as well when revealed by cheat code. Only MAYBE. I would not be so bold and say the proof is definite - it is possible to explain the contact by other means. However, I agree that the explanation that you gave is the simplest and therefore has the most force.

However, how would you explain the following? I did the test again. This time, however, I did not reveal the map right away. Instead I waited for 4 turns. On the fifth turn I revealed the map and guess what? Thalan colony ship is happily beelining towards nearest habitable planet and has made good progress already. Evidently, it started its move on turn one. The planet is too far to be within sensors and the flagship has moved to another direction. I did the test on "cakewalk" - so there should be no sensor bonus whatsoever.

I repeated the test three times and got the same result each time except once where the nearest habitable planet was too far away for Thalans to reach. In the occasion the colony ship stayed close to the home system.

How do you explain this behaviour if you think prior knowledge is ruled out?



The example you give does not necessarily rule out prior knowledge. It seems to me that AI knows the location of NEAREST habitable planet. If it happens to be PQ5, it will take it even if there is PQ26 just two moves away. Would it fit your experience or have you had instances where AI takes low quality planet that is further away? (Further away from the direction of origin of the colony ship)



I think it is other way around: it proved difficult to "teach" AI to search effectively. So they gave AI the knowledge of nearest anomaly. To balance things the same knowledge is avaiable to player via autosurvey. The same is true for mining ships.

As regards prior knowledge of resources then this has been confirmed by stardock staff member. To be precise: the person believed that AI has prior knowledge of the location of resoruces because of very old code.

Finally, I tend to believe that AI also has knowledge of the location of colonies (without exploring) for purposes of freighter destination. However, I have to test it more with Korx as an opponent to say with more certainty.

I do not believe that is the case--AFAIK, the AI will build scouts and "manually" send them to stars it sees on its mini-map. It is simply unable to colonize a planet unless it has "seen" it, by whatever means (this may be a less hard rule above intelligent level).

I do recall that there was a bug at one point where the "get a planet I can see" function was returning planets the AI hadn't actually seen, but I'm pretty sure that was fixed (there was a discussion on the forum here about it).

Just wanted to chime in and say I've seen the AI make some rather incredible guesses with regards to where to send their colony ships. It's strange to turtle up and make first contact with a given species on a gigantic map with some colony ships making beelines for the unclaimed toxic/aquatic/heavy grav/etc worlds in the middle of my empire they just gained access to the tech to colonize.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say that the AI is cheating, but if I see a colony ship rushing through my space it's generally a safe bet that I can draw a line from it's course to a habitable planet I missed. This can occur even if I'm boxed in along a wall and the AI has yet to penetrate my empire that far with ships.

Also I'm still of the mindset that the AI gets the fog revealed when you do.

Oh. Yes I guess your test does have merit. I guess you also mentioned that this was on cakewalk as well so sensor bonuses wouldn't be coming into play. It seems you have a valid complaint.

How does it work on lower difficulty levels ("tough" and below)? Does it mean that AI does not know the location of habitable planets before "seeing" them? Or does it mean that AI knows the location of habitable planets but is unable to colonize them without "seeing" them? Obviously, in the latter case the restriction is redundant: AI can send a colony ship straight to the location of a habitable planet, "see" it with colony ship and colonize it.



Yes, it was on "cakewalk".



Please, stardock, revive my faith into the AI by explaining the test result.  

When trying to beat the AI to a planet I've uncovered and know the AI has a colony ship headed towards, I as a player can tell when it flips by seeing the AI's logo pop over it if they get there first. AI either can not tell this without having the planet in radar range, or just doesn't change their colony ship to somewhere else once it's on it's way. I think everyone can agree to those points.

The problem is just that the AI seems to have something similar to auto-mine and auto-survey for colony ships. This would also explain why the AI will frequently colonize a low PQ planet and ignore a very high one right next to it until later. Even very early in the game on a galaxy with lots of planets and stars but few habitable planets you can see the AI making incredible guesses on where to send it's colony ships that are very difficult to attribute to scouting given how early in th egame it is. You can see it again later in the game when the AI uncovers an extreme colonization tech and frequently sends colony ships directly towards the inhospitable planets they can colonize in the far back corner of your empire where they haven't yet sent a ship.

This has been a lively discussion, so I thought I would run a test on DA myself. Cruelsader and Tetrasodium seem to be onto something, but I also got results consistant with what Magnumanic posted. It seems like the AI is sending it's colony ships straight for the nearest habitable planets. However, if you colonize the planet a half turn before the AI gets there, it will try to move the colony ship onto the planet and seems to get "confused" for a turn or two. I saw no difference in the AI colonization pattern (save for number of colonizers) between cakewalk and suicidal. I DID notice a difference if you gift the AI a colonizer on those two levels, the cakewalk AI never seemed to take control of my gifted ship, the suicidal AI used it to colonize after a few turns of it sitting idle.

If this is a bug, and if it would only be changed on lower difficulty levels, then it doesn't effect me much. To be fair, try running the test he described. The bigger question seems to me, is this a problem even if not working as originally intended?

Good luck all.

I think it should certainly be fixed at lower difficulty levels. For instance, this thread was started by a player who apparently had problems with AI colony rush.

As regards higher levels then it depends on how it affects the overall efectiveness of AI. If the AI can scout effectively then it should be certainly fixed. As Tetrasodium pointed out it would allow more varied strategies in the beginning of the game. Also, it is lame that AI builds hordes of scout ships just to create the illusion that it is scouting.

BTW, what is the use of scouting currently? AI always seems to go for the nearest anomaly and asteroid field - no use for scouts. It also knows the location of resources and nearest habitable planets - no need for scouting unless scouting enables AI to make more intelligent choices, i.e PQ 26 planet instead of PQ5. AI also appreas to know the location of colonies for the purpose of freighter destination. This leaves what? Only contact with other civs?   )

For what it is worth, I have a streamlined version of this test so you can see what is going on.

Set up: Medium map, scattered stars, rare habitable planets, common planets, abundant stars, very fast research, tech trading on. One opponent.

Starting out, just research up through space weapons and build a cargo hull with one particle beam and a bunch of engines. Now, go hunt down the enemy flagship and enemy scouts (if any). You can knock out all the enemy sensor craft in the first few turns if you do this.

Now, research through the sensor line and build about a dozen sensor range 15 cargo hulls, and space them across the galaxy so you can see everything.

Offer a peace treaty with your opponent.

Research up through the range line until you max it out. Now gift all of these techs to the AI (so that all uncolonized planets are in its range).

Don't colonize anything yourself, just sit and watch (and manage your money).

If you are on cakewalk, now is the time to hurry up and wait. You might have to grind through the turn button 200-300 times for the AI to do anything. This is the advantage to testing with the Thalans, they start with a colony ship, and their super hive ability seems to force even the fool AI to do.... something, anything. The disadvantage of testing with Thalans is that sometimes that first colonizer finds a world before you get to them to start watching.

BUT... you know the AI has not managed to reveal most of the map... you destroyed all the scouts. And now all uncolonized planets are in the AIs range. When it finally gets around to colonizing planets, those colonizers will go straight for an uncolonized planet, even if it is across the map. Colonizers will never "scout" a system with no habitable planets, they always go straight for uncolonized worlds.

This test works on any difficulty, and to save your sanity I do not recommend running too many cakewalk tests... the 20 minutes you sit there watching the AI do nothing you will never get back.

Hope that helps.

Yes, I tested with Thalans.

And when testing with Thalans may I suggest that
a) Do the same test as with Korath; if that gives no abnormal behaviour
Just observe Thalan intial colony ship (do not destroy any other ship); if still no abnormal behaviour
c) Try the test as lined out by Wyndstar