Why does the AI know where my hidden units are?

[Just Terrible Gameplay]

3 units of swordsman which are hidden and the AI goes straight for them??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[Muerte]

The AI has pro wallhack...

[ope84]

Maybe i am wrong, but i think AI just does not target hidden units with artilley / archery / spell attacks.

[zefyris]

no the Ai doesn't know where they are if they're really hidden. however, any unit close enough has chances to detect (and stuff like predatory senses makes it even larger afaik), so even 1 second of failure to hide will have the AI understand where one of your unit is hidden.

And if the AI doesn't know where you are at all, it will send his troops to the place you can potentially hide, so hidding on the only place on the map where you can hide won't be very effective for example. In reverse properly hidding on a map with lots of forest will make the AI search you for a good while.

[Jerroser]

If literally everything is hidden then I believe the AI does get to know where you are to some extent so that it can keep functioning in a battle and won't just sit there. But still can't physically target you units unit it gets close enough for them to become visible.

If you do have at least some visible units for them to target they should be forced to completely ignore your hidden units and head towards what they can actually see. Its also possible that something might have just gotten close enough to your swordsmen to reveal them to they or the AI just happened to send some units in their direction.

I know they don't work in the exact same way, but I often got moments in 3K when a minor slope in the terrain hid practically my whole army and the AI spent most of its advance clearly directing everything towards a small number of visible units on the my flank.

[zefyris]

Originally posted by Jerroser:

If literally everything is hidden then I believe the AI does get to know where you are to some extent so that it can keep functioning in a battle and won't just sit there. But still can't physically target you units unit it gets close enough for them to become visible..

No it still doesn't. if the AI is the attacker then due to the timer it will send troops scouting around. Once one of your unit has been spotted every single of its units will converge.
If the AI is the defender and you hide all your troops, it will simply sit there waiting for you to come out. It usually reorganize completely its battleline when it spots your troops to react to what it's now seeing.

[A.Pot]

Can you give more details about the situation? Because I just did a few small skirmish battles using High Elf Shadow Warriors and the AI clearly did not know they are automatically there.

[RCMidas]

Essentially, if the AI cannot see your troops, it will start searching places that most units can hide - behind hills and in trees. You can play with this delightfully in defensive settlement battles if you set up a bunch of units all over the map to hide:

1) Hide all your units.
2) Run one unit into view and then back into hiding.
3) Just before the enemy army reaches that unit, pick another unit on the other side of the map and repeat 2.
4) Repeat 3 until the timer runs out for a draw.

If you have the patience to do this until an actual army of yours shows up to fight the besieging enemy, you've saved that city and occupied your enemy's time!

[Gorwe]

I can corroborate the fact that the AI goes only after units it actually sees. And as has been mentioned, even a GLIMPSE is enough for an AI to target your units.

I've played enough Rictus to know the old hook, line and sinker trick. You bait enemies by showing them some (disposable) troops(can even be catapults) and then you close in from all sides, causing massive morale damage and potentially making an enemy surrender within like a minute. Meaning, they're aware only of that which they can actually see. Otherwise, this wouldn't really work, would it?

...gotta love Rictus!

[Imposter]

Im not a particular fan of how it detects hidden units, since vanguard deployment is nigh useless and Skarsnik’s campaign is where it really counts.

I just don’t find it easily intuitive, it’s better to hide in woods with small units anyway, so cavalry and monsters take a hit on melee attack and speed debuffed 20%. But messing with hidden units tends to be excessively micro-managed, and tedious for timing.

I only hide a few of them, if I want to attract half of their army off that way, killing their artillery.

The biggest disadvantage the player has against AI with hiding, is the enemies flying units. I can ‘kind’ of judge the detection limit, but hiding from fliers... Almost impossible, unless units are extremely far, because they fly them kind of randomly.

[TomN]

I only find this s problem when using Wood Elves, otherwise I am on the assualt anyway so shouldn't be an issue.

What I mean by this is you should be sending at leas one unit towards the enemy, which distracts the AI from your hidden units. Usually a magic user.

If you do that then it doesn't matter anyway, as you lure their units towards you open units anywa.

[Just Terrible Gameplay]

So basically i was fighting a rogue army which had 4 pieces of artillery so i hid 3 swordsmen units in a forest to flank them and at the start of the battle 3 flying units from the rogue army flew straight to them even though they had the hidden icon above the unit cards.

My other units weren't hidden just those 3

[A.Pot]

Originally posted by Just Terrible Gameplay:

So basically i was fighting a rogue army which had 4 pieces of artillery so i hid 3 swordsmen units in a forest to flank them and at the start of the battle 3 flying units from the rogue army flew straight to them even though they had the hidden icon above the unit cards.

My other units weren't hidden just those 3

Did you see if there was the eye icon on you swordsmen? Because that is when you know that they are actually hidden.

[archmag]

Originally posted by Just Terrible Gameplay:

So basically i was fighting a rogue army which had 4 pieces of artillery so i hid 3 swordsmen units in a forest to flank them and at the start of the battle 3 flying units from the rogue army flew straight to them even though they had the hidden icon above the unit cards.

My other units weren't hidden just those 3

Maybe they would have flied there anyway trying to flank you. You need to hide your units somewhere out of their way. It's quite normal that two groups trying to flank opposing armies meet at the same place.

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

The AI actually cheats. I had prepared an ambush with a few bait units surrounded by archers in the forest. All the archers were hidden. Enemy went straight for the archers, completely ignoring the only revealed units.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by zefyris:

no the Ai doesn't know where they are if they're really hidden. however, any unit close enough has chances to detect (and stuff like predatory senses makes it even larger afaik), so even 1 second of failure to hide will have the AI understand where one of your unit is hidden.

And if the AI doesn't know where you are at all, it will send his troops to the place you can potentially hide, so hidding on the only place on the map where you can hide won't be very effective for example. In reverse properly hidding on a map with lots of forest will make the AI search you for a good while.

This. They are dumb but not super dumb, they will search for hidden units when there are no non-hidden units.