Hidden units: Invisible to AI too?

[Servius]

:-) Haha. That was an oddly-worded sentence. You mean your youngest brother was born here? That's awesome. It's a fantastic place to live.

I was also meaning the bit about the abscent research data with a smirk on my face. I'd love to have hard data instead of just recollections, but it's not like anyone's compensating you for the research. If it happens, it happens. :-)

[Kantalla]

Thanks for the warm welcome I figured content on the front page was still current, apologies if it was a bit old.

As previously hinted at, I have had a number of battles with light cavalry concealed in trees, which have jumped on their artillery when the main line has gone by. Usually enemy cavalry from their main line will try to intercept, which if I've timed things right will be too late.

I have tried out some tests to try to verify my suspiscion that the AI doesn't know where your hidden units are. Playing as Sweden on normal difficulty, I took a unit of demi cannons from Ingria to Riga, and then took the entire force in Riga to besiege Jelgava. I waited for the defenders to rally, so I would be on the defensive for testing the AI against hidden units.

Essentially each test had the cannons sitting some distance away from the rest of my army. Hopefully the AI would see the undefended cannons as something to take out. The cannons were set to not fire at will to avoid that disrupting the hidden unit testing. The battlefield has a large forest in the centre of my deployment zone, with a small one off to the left of the zone. Here are the results of a few replays of the battle:

1) Cannons deployed in the left forest, with rest of force to the right of the deployment zone. Courland ignores the cannons and advance to the remainder of the force. At this point I was thinking this was looking like the AI couldn't tell the cannons were there.

2) Similar to the first, but this time the cannons deployed just outside the left forest. Just like the previous battle, Courland ignores the cannons and heads to the rest of the force. I guess the AI was making the same decision I would make - that the fixed cannons are too far away to be a threat, so it is better to take out the rest of the force.

3) Cannon deployed in the central forest, rest of force to the right. Again Courland ignored the cannon in their movement, but when a unit got close about 1/3 of their army switched over to take out the cannons. I think this was just a touch too close for Courland to advance past without engaging the cannons.

4) Cannon deployed just behind the central forest, rest of force to the right. This time Courland sent three units toward the cannons and the rest of their force at my main force. There was a noticeably different behaviour from the AI when the cannons were hidden (and in range) to when they were in the open (and in range).