CP AIs would really like to have that ability as well. Areas are the way to do it. When a map is fully processed into areas, the CP AI can assign units to a given area for logical lookup later as part of a location-based knowledge base. The CP AI can also track how valuable an area is based on the number of resources in it or how many other areas it is connected to. In addition to mimicking human map analysis, areas are excellent at abstracting large areas of the map into easily usable chunks.
Areas can be difficult to keep updated in a game with dynamic terrain.
But, with intelligent notifications and good code to split and merge areas, this problem can be mitigated quite a bit. With the addition of connectivity, the area system becomes a powerful way to enable quick and accurate high-level pathfinding. This is useful to simulation in general and also to the CP AIs. The CP AI can use that high level pathfinding for canPath checks and to make strategic choices about where an enemy attack route is likely to be or where to wall off all access to the CP s town. Both games were developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft.