Hope for the AI

SerapisIV · September 28, 2001, 06:57

Well, there's a lot of debate over whether the AI will be good in Civ3 or not. Here's something I found while looking for recent Firaxis posts:

Soren Johnson's Stanford Homepage

Looks like in college he worked on building a better AI using genetic algorithms (Advanced Protection). One that learns and matches the player's strategies based on their skill. Now I don't have time to go further then reading the webpage, but I'm sure a few people out there will try out his game for insights into Civ3.

All in all, my faith in an AI better then SMAC and being very challenging overall is growing every day. So to all you pessimists

Provost Harrison · September 28, 2001, 07:20

So he is a bit of an AI buff eh? Well that is promising then...

HalfLotus · September 28, 2001, 07:37

Very promisong indeed. Great find Serapis!

Sava · September 28, 2001, 11:29

Again, I'm not worried about the AI. I'm starting to dislike arguments about things that you people have no facts on. You are arguing about conjecture. It's good to have an opinion, but at some point somebody (ME) has to say, "just wait for the damn game to come out" Then you can argue all you want without hearing my objections.

Patriqvium · September 28, 2001, 14:27

From Soren's page:

Check out my adaptive turn-based strategy game (entitled Advanced Protection) which dynamically switches between genetically-evolved strategies to match the user's playing style.

This sounds too good to be true...

MarkG · September 28, 2001, 15:06

I worked as a programmer on EA Sport's Knockout Kings 2000 for Sony Playstation.... Most notably, when the computer kicks you in the groin, that is my code

will we see something like this in civ3?

Sava · September 28, 2001, 15:52

Originally posted by MarkG
I worked as a programmer on EA Sport's Knockout Kings 2000 for Sony Playstation.... Most notably, when the computer kicks you in the groin, that is my code[/q]
will we see something like this in civ3?

LOL

Sabre2th · September 28, 2001, 16:00

Go Soren Go

mactbone · September 28, 2001, 19:13

Thus, my project involves constructing a game which allows such an adaptive AI to be developed. The game, "Advanced Protection," was carefully designed to allow for such an adaptive AI system to be created. In other words, the game has only a few decision points for the user, so that the system has a limited amount of data on which to train. This fact is important because the AI needs to switch quickly between strategies- few users will enjoy a game which takes hours, minutes, or even many seconds to train between turns.

I think that Civ3 may have too many options

Cool idea though!!! Civ4 implementation

dainbramaged13 · September 28, 2001, 20:09

i played the game.. first of all, i couldn't figure it out, and second of all, it froze my 256ram COMp!!

a good sign? i think not...

PGM · September 28, 2001, 20:34

Originally posted by SerapisIV
Soren Johnson's Stanford Homepage

Nice work, mr. Bond.

Sarxis · September 28, 2001, 23:38

Originally posted by SerapisIV
Well, there's a lot of debate over whether the AI will be good in Civ3 or not. Here's something I found while looking for recent Firaxis posts:

Soren Johnson's Stanford Homepage

Looks like in college he worked on building a better AI using genetic algorithms (Advanced Protection). One that learns and matches the player's strategies based on their skill. Now I don't have time to go further then reading the webpage, but I'm sure a few people out there will try out his game for insights into Civ3.

All in all, my faith in an AI better then SMAC and being very challenging overall is growing every day. So to all you pessimists

Yes! The AI is the lifeblood of Single Player CIV. Without it, SP is just SimCity.

Nikolai · October 1, 2001, 09:45

Here I come home from my holyday, and what do I see?

YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAA!!!

Looks promising!

Roman · October 1, 2001, 14:27

Is this programmer working on civ 3 ?

SerapisIV · October 1, 2001, 14:36

Soren is the Firaxis guy who they feature in the video as getting lost in the game instead of checking for "memory leaks" as he was supposed to. It's nice to know that the "one-more-turn" syndrome is able to infect the programmers as well.

Here's a new quote from Firaxis.com's "Team" page:

Soren's primary mission is writing the AI for Civilization III

Further good news. Hopefully he's able to stand good on Sid's promise of "best AI in the genre" in Civ3.

Boris Godunov · October 1, 2001, 14:55

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
i played the game.. first of all, i couldn't figure it out, and second of all, it froze my 256ram COMp!!

a good sign? i think not...

Dude...with regards to your signature...that has to be one the most repugnant things I've seen in a long time. Revolting, actually.

Roman · October 1, 2001, 15:13

Originally posted by SerapisIV
Soren is the Firaxis guy who they feature in the video as getting lost in the game instead of checking for "memory leaks" as he was supposed to. It's nice to know that the "one-more-turn" syndrome is able to infect the programmers as well.

Further good news. Hopefully he's able to stand good on Sid's promise of "best AI in the genre" in Civ3.

Wow, thats excellent!

Cyclotron · October 1, 2001, 15:33

No complaints about an AI who can kick us SPers in the groin at high levels. It's good Firaxis seems to have competent staff on these things... Good luck, SJ.

Jason Beaudoin · October 1, 2001, 15:43

I'm just hoping that the AI can remember complex moves as well as those one-unit charges that they seem to always do.

orange · October 1, 2001, 15:46

yeah, those one unit charges made the AI civs like a bunch of barbarians. More of a nuisance than a threat really.

Earthling7 · October 1, 2001, 16:01

Good news indeed

Now, I wonder if the new spy screen will allow us to spy on an enemy expression as his fellow AI player kicks him in the groin

lockstep · October 1, 2001, 16:12

I really hope that the AI knows how to use armies. That alone could boost its chances of success, and together with a substantial production and trade bonus at deity could result in a very challenging AI.

Mars · October 1, 2001, 16:33

It sounds like civ3 will have a good AI, that's great news, just as i thought.

Skanky Burns · October 1, 2001, 21:19

If Jacob who was working on the game while Soren wrote the AI was worried about what the Egyptian AI was going to do, that in itself is a good sign. It shows that the AI isnt a predictable 'send one unit out to be slaughtered, when its dead, send another one' type that featured in previous Civ games

EDIT: There, you cant notice any changes

mactbone · October 1, 2001, 22:22

Actually, that wasn't Soren... it was Jacob Solomon who they talk to about that.

Green Giant · October 1, 2001, 22:43

Originally posted by cyclotron7
No complaints about an AI who can kick us SPers in the groin at high levels. It's good Firaxis seems to have competent staff on these things... Good luck, SJ.

Its easy as hell to create a perfect AI that will kick your ass every time. What I want is one that will react in an intelligent but human-like manner.

squid · October 1, 2001, 23:47

I don't think "adaptive" is neccesary. A rule based AI is going to have to be there, with some sort of positional evaluators. Due to the branching factor, I doubt there will be THAT much look ahead. They won't see a suprise attack if it's coming by air. The horizon affect in civ means a civilization can only rely on the trust factor -- your reputation -- to see whether or not it needs to be prepared. So, much as in real life, a military assault can just come out of nowhere.

Yes, you don't want a perfect AI, but AI is a misnomer. It's mostly about tree searching and knowledge bases. It's not about "intelligence", just a particular class of computer software problems that often involve game playing and decision making.
You can't make perfect decisions unless every position has a perfect move. in chess, there may be a perfect move, but we don't have the search space to find it. Chinook is a program that has SOLVED checkers, meaning it knows perfect solutions to every endgame. The perfect AI would know the best move for any board state with a minimum of computation. But what is perfect? It's not really perfect decision making. It's making the best decisions with limited data (unless the computer cheats) and to do so in a reasonable amount of time.

And yes, I'm an AI buff. If I could incorporate it into the server programming I do at work, I'd so so

Unfortunately there are no hiring game programming shops around.... that'd be my dream job. Forget the graphics...AI is where it's at.

Lisp rules!

axi · October 2, 2001, 14:06

Mark Everson was planning to use Genetic Algorithms in Clash of Civilisations.
Unfortunately the AI of the game so far is only rudimentary (but the game somehow is still hard to beat!)

Jamison · October 3, 2001, 17:59

Soran is the guy with the glasses and beard, that was talking about culture. He had the turtle in the tank (far right)

Master Marcus · October 3, 2001, 18:27

I wonder how the AI will..adjust when the player will tweak the number of civs via the editor for a particular level ( any other number than the default ).