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It's hard. It's unproven. There's no simple answer. It's a complete resource hog.
I want an AI player. One that doesn't know who (if anyone) is an actual person playing. One that never gets any advantages or disadvantages depending on difficulty. One that has the same interface to the game as the player, that is, under no circumstances would know anything more about the game than a person playing.
Difficulty is a matter of the AI making poor decisions every once in a while. Giving them a personality is a matter of making the same poor decisions (Civ specific, anyone?).
Multiplayer is obviously a big part of Civilization, however I can hardly play it on my own free time, let alone having to balance with anyone else. I don't have the patience for PBEM because if I suddenly have a burst of free time, whoever else is playing will not.
Now the primary difficulty is obvious: If it's hard to make a good chess AI that doesn't take a great computer, how could you possibly do it for a game like Civilization? There are many paths to take, such as generalizing to specifics. An AI takes an overview look and puts it into a category. Looks within that category to a sub category, to a sub sub category, etc. Inside there are a list of basic instructions which would match what to do if REXing and one civilization has been met, or what to do if it is at peace with everyone and there is a weak unallied neighbor near by, etc. This is just one random example.
Well there's much more than this, such as keeping it smart & random, and I won't go into any further specifics. I just want to say this is what I'd want most. I’d love wonder movies, I’d love a great manual, I’d love animated advisors (animated as in personality, not necessarily the luxury of Civ II), I’d love voice-overs a la Alpha Centauri, I’d love altitudes, natural disasters, civil wars, a choice between political AND economic systems (how about social systems too), I’d love a lot of stuff—But most of all I want a _good_ AI.
I want an AI player. One that doesn't know who (if anyone) is an actual person playing. One that never gets any advantages or disadvantages depending on difficulty. One that has the same interface to the game as the player, that is, under no circumstances would know anything more about the game than a person playing.
Difficulty is a matter of the AI making poor decisions every once in a while. Giving them a personality is a matter of making the same poor decisions (Civ specific, anyone?).
Multiplayer is obviously a big part of Civilization, however I can hardly play it on my own free time, let alone having to balance with anyone else. I don't have the patience for PBEM because if I suddenly have a burst of free time, whoever else is playing will not.
Now the primary difficulty is obvious: If it's hard to make a good chess AI that doesn't take a great computer, how could you possibly do it for a game like Civilization? There are many paths to take, such as generalizing to specifics. An AI takes an overview look and puts it into a category. Looks within that category to a sub category, to a sub sub category, etc. Inside there are a list of basic instructions which would match what to do if REXing and one civilization has been met, or what to do if it is at peace with everyone and there is a weak unallied neighbor near by, etc. This is just one random example.
Well there's much more than this, such as keeping it smart & random, and I won't go into any further specifics. I just want to say this is what I'd want most. I’d love wonder movies, I’d love a great manual, I’d love animated advisors (animated as in personality, not necessarily the luxury of Civ II), I’d love voice-overs a la Alpha Centauri, I’d love altitudes, natural disasters, civil wars, a choice between political AND economic systems (how about social systems too), I’d love a lot of stuff—But most of all I want a _good_ AI.
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