"god" allows you to control AI players. It has nothing to do with enabling or disabling fow. (At least - visually to the player). Even if "god" allowed the AI to see everything, I only activate it after it starts sending them to planets, and AFAIK it doesn't change destination mid-turn.

"fow" then lets me see everything. I could just have used "fowtrans" instead to just see the planets

ninja'd:

Ok, that makes a bit more sense. I had been cloning the starting ship in order to show that they'd not explored at all.

@ Frogboy will the AI use the 3 free constructor Pragmatic Ideology reward and quickly turn them into colony ships exploit/loophole that human players can use especially in the more difficult AI options?

No.

Thanks, for the answer Those are always neat things that would be interesting if tricks could be put in, however, I know that can't be easy to do   Thanks for all the hard work, much appreciated

The funny thing is that the same bug happened in GC2 as well.

In the Community Update I also doubted that the AI needs to scout planets before sending colony ships in, but Gaunathor was adamant the AI had to. So I fired up the game in order to recheck on this, but I took Thalans in order to see what their initial colony ship is going to do. (they also are the only one who have no secondary planet in their system). And they could send this ship through halfway the galaxy on turn 2 (if given enough range).

But it is beyond me how the same bug could re-appear into GC3 unless you used the code of GC2...(?)

I can assure you that on, at least, masochistic, obscene and suicidal the AI in GC2 get bonuses to sensors, range, military production, social production, economy, miniaturization in the magnitude of 25% to 50% to 100% and a hidden research modifier bonus of (IRRC) 2.6 or 3.6 on suicidal with the sensor bonus virtually enabling the AI to see most of the map.

I have no idea why this is called cheating because this is essentially what you're asking for when you decide to pick up one of these difficulty setting. The general argument here seems to be that the devs should program the AI in order to be so smart as a human player or outsmart him, but this is totally unrealistic if you just keep in mind what a human player can do with the game, the time he has to test, examine, use loopholes, exploits AND learn progressively from experience while the AI is nothing but a huge conglomerate of routines that do nothing but calculate, and these will stay 100% the same from the first game to the very last.

Just got the latest patch and started a soak, the AI on normal still knows where relics and resources are, they send constructors straight for them without exploring.  I left the fow alone just soak and hit next turn.  Is that intended?

Which it already does.  

Seriously. If you want to have a reasonable discussion we can't just hand wave away the obvious. The AI knows how to play the game. It builds colonies, researches technologies (fairly intelligently), designs ships, sets reasonably good tax rates and generally builds things on its planets that make sense.

What we are discussing here is that infinite gray area between can play the game and play the game better than most humans.  And that is something that it gets better at bit by bit over time.

Just had the AI offer me my pants after the kicked my...rear... out of them. This is one player who is happy to say the AI can outclass players. Trading looks to be better balanced though I havn't gone hand over hand with all the stuff but they are not as willing to hand me keys to the city anymore. Perfect! I'm not stating that balance won't continue to be needed. Thats a point not one person here would argue. I guess the main focus is on the Ai is "human" enough on beginner for even a novice, and the godlike is well, godlike, as the name suggests. I personally would like to see a difficulty that gives them some of the bonuses above normal, but does not give them the ability to see all the planets. Which if I am understanding correctly is the case currently. I like the ai bonuses but I'm also a fan of the AI having to stumble around looking for planets and resources. All in all, the AI in my opinion is pretty damn good. and it seems like each day brings it a whole new level, so i'm very optimistic. 

que the Kasparov quote about Deep Blue possessing an "alien intelligence"...

I hadn't thought of that either until now - especially with the Benevolence Ideology skill that starts all colonies with 5b population - they don't even need to stop anywhere and fill up with poor dupes being sent out into the great unknown...

cheers