Good AI is Critical for the Next Big Step in Civ Games

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Lemmy
Adaptive AI wouldn't require much processor power, it's basically looking things up, and saving new things. It would require more space, but the space needed can be brought down by an efficient design, for example by not saving all cases, but only the most "important" ones, and keep averages for the remaining cases.

Hi Lemmy,

There is a way to do basically what you're looking for, in a practial sense. But it requires human intervention. Essentially players can provide input into the expert system. All that is required is that the game producer provide time after a large player base is available so that the programmer can update the expert system based on players' experiences and ideas. Of course the expert system needs to be flexible enough to represent the player strategies accurately in terms of their realms of applicability. That is a very tall order already!

Its nowhere near as sexy in an AI sense as what you want to do, but it will work with current technology for a game with the depth of civ

[Panag]

hi ,

, Soren has not reached his limits yet , .......

the real Q is , a better AI shall need a better comp , .....

do most people have comps that require what is needed for an improved AI , ....



have a nice day

[Leland]

I don't think that computing power is that relevant in TBS genre... serious strategy gamers would gladly wait for 10-20 minutes per turn if they got more intelligent AI in exchange. The fact that games generally don't have an option of setting AI "depth" in this manner seems to imply that currently AIs are based on clever heuristics rather than brute force.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Leland
I don't think that computing power is that relevant in TBS genre... serious strategy gamers would gladly wait for 10-20 minutes per turn if they got more intelligent AI in exchange. The fact that games generally don't have an option of setting AI "depth" in this manner seems to imply that currently AIs are based on clever heuristics rather than brute force.

hi ,

well aslong as they include an option ; "turns in 1 min" - "turns in 20 min" ( with extra intelligent AI ) , ......

no thanks , no-one is going to wait 20 minutes , .........

3 - 4 tops , thats it , it has to be possible , no more then that and a more intelligent AI

have a nice day

[Mark_Everson]

I don't want the turns to take any more than about 20s to crank! Nearly instantaneous is best.

The best thing to do for AI is run it while the player is moving! Threading immensely changes what you can accomplish with the AI. GalCiv has, and Clash will have threaded AI, and I think its going to change the playing field for AI in the genre. But then again, I'm just a little bit biased.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I don't want the turns to take any more than about 20s to crank! Nearly instantaneous is best.

The best thing to do for AI is run it while the player is moving! Threading immensely changes what you can accomplish with the AI. GalCiv has, and Clash will have threaded AI, and I think its going to change the playing field for AI in the genre. But then again, I'm just a little bit biased.

hi ,

what is really needed is a state of the art AI that can run turnless in real time (!) , ......

but , is this possible

have a nice day

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by panag
what is really needed is a state of the art AI that can run turnless in real time (!) , ......

but , is this possible

have a nice day

Hi panag, I don't get what you mean. Civ isn't real-time and I hope it never is! But as I said above, thinking in the background while the player moves is vital for good AI.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson


Hi panag, I don't get what you mean. Civ isn't real-time and I hope it never is! But as I said above, thinking in the background while the player moves is vital for good AI.

hi ,

well there are seveal games around who have something that comes a bit close , but even they are far from being state of the art , .....

remember C&C , tiberian sun , firestorm, ....

something like that , but in real time , where there is a constant AI who runs , .....

sincve some people shall not like this , this could be solved with a basic "on / off" , ....

have a nice day

[Andemagne]

Re: Good AI is Critical for the Next Big Step in Civ Games

yes it is. are games with not so good AI worth playing?
(=> are Civ2 & Civ3 worth playing 'cos they have so bad AI?)

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson


Hi panag, I don't get what you mean. Civ isn't real-time and I hope it never is! But as I said above, thinking in the background while the player moves is vital for good AI.

Intelligent human players will then play 'speedciv' to keep the AI from utilizing down time to think.

[Panag]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


Intelligent human players will then play 'speedciv' to keep the AI from utilizing down time to think.

hi ,

true , most players like to think in advance , after a couple games they shall have outlined the big lines they want , ......

with a bit of strategy its easy to beat the AI , so after a couple times its fun , after 20 times its no longer fun , it just becomes past-time , ....

the AI in civ three - PTW needs to be improved , ......

have a nice AI day

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
4. At this point, if it's required that we stop, we just pick from the best indicated strategies. If there is extra time, there is a large variety of things that can be done. The one that I think is most attractive, is to encode the strategies as as individuals in a population of a genetic algorithm approach. We then pursue more simulations as in 3, but while tweaking the strategies through mutation and crossover. If the rule-based approach can give us any hints as to which are the most productive things to change, the more the better. The chromosomes will not generally contain numbers at all, but contain strategic objects. "Take Berlin", "obtain alliance against the Greeks". A mutation in the strategy might be something like "it would be nice to get an alliance against the Greeks, but it isn't that essential", or "it's Imperative". I'm not sufficiently foolish to think that this approach will very frequently give an answer better than the rule-based approach. However, it has the potential to break the AI out of the rut of always doing "predictable" things.

You certainly can play around with evolutionary algorithms, but there are certain problems with that. First of all, your AI needs to be completely flushed out. Then, you need to somehow induce mutations and put them through a set of evaluation criteria, neither of which is a simple task. Another thing is you need to run the evolutionary algorithms as a meta-game, i.e., you need to do it outside the game, you can't do it when a game is running.

My take on this is heuristics. Start with a decent expert system, but add the capacity to learn from human players. That way, the AI is never obsolete. It can learn from playing with humans, and the developers can keep training it even after the game is released, and release the new code and/or database to make the AI smarter. This way, the game can be challenging for a long time.

[Lemmy]

My take on this is heuristics. Start with a decent expert system, but add the capacity to learn from human players. That way, the AI is never obsolete. It can learn from playing with humans, and the developers can keep training it even after the game is released, and release the new code and/or database to make the AI smarter. This way, the game can be challenging for a long time.

I believe this is what the GalCiv dev team has planned for their own AI/

[Mark_Everson]

Hi UR:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You certainly can play around with evolutionary algorithms, but there are certain problems with that. First of all, your AI needs to be completely flushed out.

I don't know what you mean by this. Care to elaborate?

Then, you need to somehow induce mutations and put them through a set of evaluation criteria, neither of which is a simple task.

My ideas on this are crudely described in the AI documentation. There will clearly be some art involved in this, but I don't think it'll be especially difficult.

Another thing is you need to run the evolutionary algorithms as a meta-game, i.e., you need to do it outside the game, you can't do it when a game is running.

What is this statement based on? AFAIK it is utterly incorrect . We are going to run the AI for Clash in-game in one or more separate threads.

The GalCiv approach, which appears to be quite good is, as Lemmy says, like what you appear to be describing. I expect it'll work quite well, but takes more dedication than the usual game software company is willing to expend. I'm looking forward to GalCiv rather a lot .

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
I don't know what you mean by this. Care to elaborate?

That means the AI has to cover all the possibilities. If something is not in the code/database, it doesn't know how to handle it, and goes haywire in all likelihood. But knowing what to expect in the game is directly related to experience, which isn't something a programmer will have when writing the AI routines. You can tell this by all the expert systems in all the 4X games, they are okay, but ultimately they all rely on cheating - breaking the rules.

Originally posted by Mark_Everson
What is this statement based on? AFAIK it is utterly incorrect . We are going to run the AI for Clash in-game in one or more separate threads.

Based on the genetic algorithms I have seen Not a whole lot, mind you, but the point is to have the individuals and an environment. If the individuals are the AI routines, the environment will be an arena with a set of criteria where these routines compete.

I am not 100% sure you cannot run the arena in situ, but you will need to spawn hundreds if not thousands of individuals for thousands of generations. This will be much better handled by a meta-game, i.e., run the arena outside the game itself to do the evolution.

A drawback of any evolutionary algorithm is that a solution is "better" only in comparison to other, presently known solutions; such an algorithm actually has no concept of an "optimal solution," or any way to test whether a solution is optimal. This is not entire true of Civ.