I'm really enjoying the game and love the monthly membership bonuses. The game is juuuust unbalanced enough to make it a challenge. Can we dispense with the illusion that there are any cards in your hand that the AI doesn't know about? I'm running a fun little party with all clerics. I've got the enemy down to one individual - as luck would have it, 2 of my 3 clerics haven't drawn an attack card in 3 rounds. The third, well he has a big old 10 point swing and a nice little bash, either of these are plenty to take down the remaining hit points on this already weakened man at arms. During this whole time, the man at arms is dashing frantically away from my one lone character with attacks. Is he running away across the board? No, he is dodging and juking his way between my other two characters like a professional running back. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident but it occurs far to often to be chance. Am I misunderstanding the 'eye' symbol above the cards? Is that only valid for multiplayer? I'm curious if anyone else has had the same experience. It's not a game ender for me, it's actually quite entertaining.
I am 95% sure the AI doesn't even consider the visible cards in your hands when making its decisions.
I think OneMoreNameless is right. I don't know of the cards are genuinely hidden from the AI - but I'm pretty sure that the AI pays no attention whatsoever to what cards you have anyway. The AI doesn't mind walking into your warrior to take an Obliterating Bludgeon to the face. They don't mind using their Stone Spikes on a character who has 3 visible move cards. They definitely and obviously ignore attachment cards such as Impenetrable Nimbus and Frost Jolt - often with humorous consequences. ... So I don't know if the AI is programmed in such a way that it doesn't have access to information about hidden cards, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't care about the cards regardless.
The AI uses SOME information about your cards, but it is confined strictly to cards that are exposed (with the "eye" symbol). If you have an exposed Armor card, and the enemy has an Armor-remover, then the enemy will use it. The enemy actively avoids using such cards (other than Acid Blast) at other times, to the point that there are bug reports about Ornithopters refusing to use Buzzsaw even if they could kill a character. To my knowledge, there are no other effects are in the game. This is why Obvious Maneuver has unique coding. Just . . . try not to let the enemy "accidentally" use Devastating Blow when you have a lot of exposed cards. Edit: Small Pseudopod Strike and its kin may likewise have some code with them, because I think the enemy uses them in preference to anything else when I have exposed cards. This, however, could be my imagination.
My impression is that if you have two unexposed cards, you can make a 'feint' with your warrior and cause an enemy to move away from him even if your warrior really has no attacks. The enemy seems less scared if he can see that you have no attacks, or that you have at most one. I have not really tested this though, so I could be imagining it.
Pretty sure most cards are ignored even if they have the eye symbol above them. My wizard has repeatedly been targeted by electrical attacks when wearing Resistant Hide for example, even when other characters were in range. As mentioned above, Buzzsaw and other armour discarding cards are the only ones that I've noticed be used based on what is exposed in your hand.
When testing, check if they enemy has any attacks. One thing we do know about the AI is that it gives priority to standing at exactly the range of its attack cards.
I've not seen anything to indicate that the enemy can see my hand. I think it just an attentional bias, you notice the times the AI randomly does something interesting but not the times it randomly does something boring.... I explained that poorly, too tired.
