Help Soren; lets improve the AI.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I also doubt that the AI will be able to handle learning a players sytle until well into the future. It will take more horse power, more time and that means money and again limiting the people that can play the game.

Not nescesarily (sp?). The GalCiv AI does exactly what I have just described above It's just a question of the skill of the programmer, and off course.....the funding.

Asmodean

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by Asmodean
We definately don't want to see the AI ganging up on the human player. Other TBS games have done that, and it is not funny.

But a smarter AI, one that anticipates your moves, and looks for patterns in your behaviour would definately be a nice improvement.

Asmodean

Well, the same would go for an AI that was land grabbing. It would have to be a feature that "plays" fair in this regard.

[dexters]

Re: Help Soren; lets improve the AI.

Originally posted by Sn00py
The amount of work required to code the AI must be a tremendous job.


There is a large post called "Beyond Sid" at CivFanatics, it's a thread about a game being played at a stupidly difficult setting; played by Bamspeedy (sp?). He is absolutely flooring the other Civs. At the time of typing this, he has one Civ left to destroy: the Celts.

I noticed that even at this difficult setting, the AI has really not 'understood' the impact of Bam (Bamspeedy) taking over Civ by Civ; not taking into account of the threat and power that he possesses.

Well Sn00p, I finally dug up the thread and read it. Bamspeedy is a sick player who I is just amazing. But you have several things.

The states quite clearly the game being played is PTW 1.27f with (i assume) modded difficulty levels to emulate Sid level production bonuses for the AI. The game is not C3C.

Another significant issue is that it's an islands game. This makes his strategy of separating AI civs possible and since PTW does not have the benefit of the AI navy improvements found in C3C, a big questionmark is raise then as to how effective the AI is in this game. Even in C3C, naval invasions is logistically more difficult and playing in island settings tends to negate large killer AIs.

I agree with the gist of your request. We all want more competitive AIs. I alone have started several threads on this, but I think in this case, Bam's game may not be that applicable to your request. If it's a pangea C3C game that's being beaten in this fashion, then I give mad props to whoever has done it. It will truly be an interesting game to watch.

[alva]

Dexter, could you post the link please.
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I agree with vmxa here. I'm sure that without these boards, most people here (and certainly myself included) would be playing one or two levels lower if not more.
Overall the AI is good but not good enough to handle several hundreds of inteligent, dedicated lunatics eugh gamers....

[dexters]

Here you go.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66169

[Pyrodrew]

Balance Beam is Broken

First, I agree an Islands game is a poor example to use.

the AI has really not 'understood' the impact of Bam (Bamspeedy) taking over Civ by Civ; not taking into account of the threat and power that he possesses.

That's exactly why an AI must understand the concept of a balance of power. The AI instead is always short-sighted looking for the best deal TODAY rather than the long term consequences. AI Civilizations must not only realize (as humans do) that there are goals to winning the game, but strategically play for those goals offensively & defensively. Offensively to try to obtain those goals AND defensively try to prevent other leading civilizations from obtaining them (non violent ways to do this too). For now it's like watching a soccer game & you see 1 team that doesn't have any defensive players on the field. Likewise, the AI doesn't try to stop you from winning (making a goal) as it is only interested in getting Ivory (or some tech) at a good price TODAY. Right now once the human player gets to a certain size there is little challenge as it is simply a steam roll & usually predictable.

In the end, there IS a winner & the AI doesn't know that. The AI should not know you are a human player, but if you have half the cities in the world it should realize how you are a threat to making it lose. And please don't tell me that's not realistic for the AI to play like the game doesn't end at a certain time. For those looking for realistic simulations go play "The Sims".

[WarpStorm]

Of course you realize that balance of power (i.e. taking out the leader) was one of the things Firaxis intentionally removed as so many players of Civ2 and SMAC thought that feature was too 'gamey' and complained loudly out it.

[Panag]

Originally posted by alva
Dexter, could you post the link please.
-
I agree with vmxa here. I'm sure that without these boards, most people here (and certainly myself included) would be playing one or two levels lower if not more.
Overall the AI is good but not good enough to handle several hundreds of inteligent, dedicated lunatics eugh gamers....

hi ,

thats the power of a group of people , one person is good at this , the other at that , etc , ......

and it would be more then just one or two levels , many bugs would not have been seen , therefore no solutions for them , and a great deal of time would be wasted cause the individual would spend hours trying to find something that now has allready been found , ......

not to mention of the countless ideas that came from apolyton and made there way in several games

have a nice day

[Pyrodrew]

Of course you realize that balance of power (i.e. taking out the leader) was one of the things Firaxis intentionally removed as so many players of Civ2 and SMAC thought that feature was too 'gamey' and complained loudly out it.

And now the same people (and others) are complaining about how the game is too boring & predictable at the middle & the end.

Instead of delaying or reducing the balance of power's impact (to please those vocal people) Firaxis made the mistake of removing it all together (which left strategy gamers screwed & any attempts to help the AI with the editor VERY limited). The pendulum has swung way too far to the other extreme & it's an ugly scene.

If a human player owns 1/2 the world & the AI is improved all those other 9 Civs will play intelligently against each other & destroy themselves for short-term gain. And the leader (usually human) can easily manipulate (and humans can do this better) the AI for an easy win. A good strategist tries to win the game & if the AI never tries to stop another civ from winning (defensive strategy) it isn't a good strategic AI.

So even if Soren improves the AI in other ways you will see little or no difference, except for the beginning. But the beginning by almost all threads I've read is the best part & of little problem. Unless the balance of power is added back in to at least some degree Civ3 will always be lacking a good strategic AI & instead have this "The Sims" AI.

I'm sure that without these boards, most people here (and certainly myself included) would be playing one or two levels lower

True, but the higher levels don't improve the AI as it only gives them more resources, troops, etc. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who wanted to win some games before reading spoilers here. I like the AI for first part of the game, but near the end it's boring. Excessive corruption (which doesn't have many fans) as the only end game challenge is tedious.

[FrostyBoy]

Right, so what we need here is an AI that can:


Evaluate Threat
How to Counter-act Threat
and How to find a way to beat the game


Would that be it?

[Kuciwalker]

Also, an AI that has know idea whether or not another civ is human or AI controlled.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by skywalker
Also, an AI that has know idea whether or not another civ is human or AI controlled.

Well in the PTW guide they claim the AI does not know AI from Human. This is in the developers notes, not the authors, for what ever it is worth.

[Kuciwalker]

Well, the .bix file directly disproves this.

[JimMac]

I am pretty sure that I read a comment from Soren (dont ask me for the link) that he could make an AI which was harder to beat, but the game wouldn't be as much fun!

[Bamspeedy]

No, it's not fun if you lose all the time.

Unless you have a 'big blue' type of AI/computer (the computer that can sometimes beat the world's best chess players), then an AI can't compete against human intelligence.

I've played this game and surfed the Civ forums 40-60 hours a week for 2 years. If I spent that much time playing and researching the game, imagine how much time it would take them to program the AI to counter all the 'tricks of the trade' I've learned during all that time.

You can make a patch to adjust the AI strategy to counter an exploit or strategy, but then the human just learns from it and changes his strategy a bit and then finds a new way to exploit/abuse/manipulate the AI.