As Iztok alluded, there have been threads on this subject before.  I checked out a few when I noobed in.

IIRC, one or two folk set up some tests using corners of a gigantic map, well beyond any possible AI sensor range.  In some cases, the corner had a juicy planet. The player poised a colony ship there and waited, with a screen of sensor-mounting ships or bases or something to see what happened.

With no previous scouting, colony ships soon made their way directly at the juicy planet.

Re-running it with the planet colonized, the AI colony ships never showed.

Re-re-running it, I believe the AI ships diverted as soon as the planet was colonized.

So, the AI seeing the map for planets was pretty much proven.

I do not recall a similar test for resource points.  However, I have seen AI behavior so similar to that described in the above tests, that I have concluded that the AI must "see" the resources just as they do planets.

There is a major delta, though.  I have seen destroyed resources quickly claimed by AIs not the original holder and not the attacker, but I have also seen the same resources left unclaimed for practically forever.  The hypothesis I have made is that when the AI "turns off" the Colony Rush thinking and stops making colony ships and converts those left or whatever, that this same decision point must "turn off" the knowledge of the status of resource points, at least those beyond their sensor reach (and maybe all).

You see, in other 4X space games, there is a "scorched earth" option, where one wipes out a colony planet, sterilizes it, and the planet must then be recolonized all over again.  This means that the AI elements that colonize must remain active all game.  This is not the case in GC2.  Once all the planets are colonized, the AI can and must abort the routines that it uses for the Colony Rush.  So, I think the resource grabbing routines are elements within the larger Colony Rush rouotines.  Thus, once the AI stops using the Colony Rush modules, gone also is the distant resource grabbing elements.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to fit the AI behavior as I have observed it.

The game version I play and that i described in my post is DA.

And constructors to resource points?

I have repeatedly found resources mines/bases owned by minor races but at considerable distance from their homeworlds and they never even built scout ships.

In some games, my initial colony ship or two will come across minor race constructors flying along on what i see later were direct paths to a resource point that the minor race could not possibly have "seen" from their world and could not possibly have already gotten a scout out to see it.

Kryo, it often gets so bad that I rush build faster constructors and go minor race constructor hunting.  When I find one - and I always do - I calculate its path then go ahead to claim the resource.  This sometimes does not work because the resource had already, ALREADY been claimed by that same minor race and the constructor I was following enroute not to claim it but to upgrade it.

I would accept that if those minor race constructors were scouting.  They are, however, not.  The constructors are on direct paths to those resources.

Still, Syanis' original post was not about rationalizing the behavior.  Rather, he was asking if the observed behavior indicated advance knowledge of resource location.  The answer certainly seems to be "yes".

Just ran a test on the automation of my ships.

• Started a game put the all ships into orbit except the space miner.
• Started to build a constructor.

• Automated the space miner.
• After mining the asteroids that were revealed the space miner went directly to asteroids hidden in the fog of war.
• Automated human space miners are not affected by fog of war.

• Launched a constructor.
• There is no automate for building stations so automated explore.
• Explored by moving 2 parsecs (small squares) into the fog.
• It changed direction and repeated the explored by moving 2 parsecs (small squares) into the fog.
• Can't automated a constructor to find resources but it does explore properly.

• Launched the flagship.
• Automated survey.
• The flagship moved directly to an anomaly hidden in the fog of war.
• Automated survey human flagships are not affected by fog of war.

• Reset the test and launched the flagship.
• Automated explore.
• Explored by moving 2 parsecs (small squares) into the fog.
• Automated survey as well as explore.
• The flagship moved directly to an anomaly hidden in the fog of war.

Conclusion:

The Ai is aware of the fog because it can explore when automated. Its a shame the AI ignores the fog for other routines.

Conclusion:

The Ai is aware of the fog because it can explore when automated. Its a shame the AI ignores the fog for other routines.

 

+1 bump. It seems lame that the optimal use of miners is to use the auto commands to gain the AI bonus.

I wouldn't mind the AI gaining a bonus like this for some of the harder difficuilties - but I have a problem with it when it is hardcoded standard behaviour.