Game with AIs only

[TimeTraveler]

While making modifications to the rules in a handful of games, I realized that testing them would be very quick if done completely by the AI (because human players take much longer to do things) and if I could observe the AI's every move. I figured that with this setup (combined with the scenario editor), I could see which buildings, wonders, units, civics, and other stuff are used the most/least, who's using them (if anyone), and most importantly, which ones prove to be the most useful. I could also use this to see which civilizations tend to win/lose most often, so that I could tweak them to be more balanced.

However, I have yet to see a Civilization (or similar) game where one can do that, and I'm starting to wonder what it might take to try to mod that option into Civ IV.

Any comments?

[Blake]

It was possible in SMAC.

[TimeTraveler]

Originally posted by Blake
It was possible in SMAC.

Really? How? I've tried to do it with SMAC and the closest I was able to get was for my faction to be modded to be to have one base well-defended by a great number of a low-cost, powerful unit that no one would have access to.

[Blake]

Activate scenerio editor, switch faction (f3 or shift-f3 or something), select a faction, select "Watch AI play".

edit: Almost forgot. Stick something heavy on the enter key.

[Martin Gühmann]

It is possible in CTP2, just use the scenario editor to switch to the Barbarians, then open the chat screen and enter /rnd 200 and the games plays for 200 turns without human interfere, or until you hit the escape key. And you don't have to stick something heavy on the enter key.

-Martin

[Cookie Monster]

I never knew that Martin, thanks for the tip about CTP2

[Henrik]

Possible in civ 2 by switching civ to the barbarians (doing that took a little work however, it's not self evident how to do it)

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Cookie Monster
I never knew that Martin, thanks for the tip about CTP2

There is also another command for the chat window /attach 1 and /detach 1. The first command turns player 1 into a robot and the second one turns player 1 back to human controlled. Unfortunately I felt that this didn't quite work as supposed. (And may the commands are called /attachrobot, /detachrobot)

However one side effect is that the human handicap is dependent on how well the human player does. So in games with human player the AIs seem to be stronger.

For Civ4 I expect that it has such a feature as well, because not only the modmakers need it but it is also very handy for the developers themthelves.

-Martin

[MarkG]

there was a debug mode in the beta which allowed you to watch what the AI was doing

it's probable firaxis left it in....

[TimeTraveler]

Well... Those are definitely things I hadn't known before. Thanks, everyone.

[Lemmy]

What would be cool is an option to fast-forward a set number of turns and freely examine all the AI civs at that point.

It would be really helpfull in determining the effect of mods on game balance.