Finally, some realism about the AI

[Grumbold]

It is certainly possible to make an AI that does not need to cheat. Just look at EU where you get capable (but admittedly not brilliant) opponents who only ignore one rule and play the rest with exactly the same limits as the player. They may do stupid things but they know who their enemies are and will ally with everyone to wage war against them. All the exposed weaknesses are being worked on hard so they don't reappear in EU II.

Unfortunately for anything except traditional games like Chess most companies take the easy way out and think that its ok to replace artificial intelligence with artificial advantages. Normally this just exposes them to ridicule when they still can't crush you despite 10:1 superiority. If I capture a size 15 city in Civ III and discover it only had a library and a barracks I'm going to be very annoyed.

[RedWhiteArcher]

I don't like these news. This means that I will spend most of my time at Prince level. Can they at least have the AI cheating optional or is this the only way they make AI better?

[campmajor!]

Originally posted by RedWhiteArcher
I don't like these news. This means that I will spend most of my time at Prince level. Can they at least have the AI cheating optional or is this the only way they make AI better?

Well, it is the only way to make the AI HARDER!

[Sava]

I found the deity AI in Civ 2 to be harder than human players. Humans are stupid.

Ten bucks says I beat Civ 3 deity in the first week.

In terms of strategy, Civ is not the most difficult game. If you want a real challenge, play the game Nectaris:Military Madness. It isn't a civ game, it is a turn based military strategy game. The original combat model came out around 1989, and it is considered by many to be the best ever created.

Nectaris is available on Playstation. The old game can be found online for free. Get a Turbo Graphics 16 emulator and search for "military madness", if you can't find it, email me and I can send it to you.

There was also a PC version that came out in 1995, but I have never seen it. I think there is a version for Game Boy Color as well.

If you're a fan of Civ, check it out. It's a fun game.

[Sava]

Originally posted by campmajor!


Well, it is the only way to make the AI HARDER!

Not true. I believe Firaxis' AI is the best that could be written with the resources they have. It would be possible to write an AI that doesn't cheat and is impossible to beat. It just would take a lot of time. And people need to get paid for their time.

[drake]

I found the deity AI in Civ 2 to be harder than human players. Humans are stupid.

I'm not an expert by any means, but you certainly didnt play the right people then

[Father Beast]

I'm starting to think that the real reason they haven't released much info about the game, is that nobody at Firaxis has beaten it at Deity, and too much preinfo would allow us to map strategies and some of us beat deity on day 1.

[Be Quicker]

Originally posted by Father Beast
I'm starting to think that the real reason they haven't released much info about the game, is that nobody at Firaxis has beaten it at Deity, and too much preinfo would allow us to map strategies and some of us beat deity on day 1.

LOL. that's the best theory about the lack of preinfo sofar!

BTW, what do we know about how good the test players at fireaxis are at playing CivII? Are they comparable in skill level to for example the best players at Apolyton?

[Ozymandous]

Too bad Firaxis ran out of time (through whose error anyway ) or they could have recruited some top level players to run through the game and make sure it's balanced.

That model worked very well for Ensemble studios with Age of Kings, too bad more companies don't do that.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
It is certainly possible to make an AI that does not need to cheat. Just look at EU where you get capable (but admittedly not brilliant) opponents who only ignore one rule and play the rest with exactly the same limits as the player. They may do stupid things but they know who their enemies are and will ally with everyone to wage war against them. All the exposed weaknesses are being worked on hard so they don't reappear in EU II.

While that indeed maybe the case one needs to remember that Civ is several orders of magnitutde for AI routines to handle than EU. Look at chess. Then look at Go.

[Grumbold]

I disagree with you but have no intention of doing any math to try and quantify the decision making complexities in either game. I just point you to CtP2 where the fans were able to produce a significantly more challenging AI opponent than Civ II despite the added complexities of the game and without relying on more cheats. Hopefully Civ III will have AI of that or better standard out of the box.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I disagree with you but have no intention of doing any math to try and quantify the decision making complexities in either game. I just point you to CtP2 where the fans were able to produce a significantly more challenging AI opponent than Civ II despite the added complexities of the game and without relying on more cheats. Hopefully Civ III will have AI of that or better standard out of the box.

I have not played CtP 2 so I can't comment on its complexity or any player written AI routines. My point was the more stategic the game the harder it is to write computer players to play them.

The fact that these are all expert systems means player written AI routines will have the advantage of gaming experience.

[Grumbold]

You are certainly correct that if the AI is bad it is because they didn't spend enough time playing their game and improving the AI to cater for different strategies. That is where a long beta phase, large scale open or closed beta or just more sign of intense effort being applied to the project would have been reassuring. Like Activision's offering the startlingly fast beta phase is not inspiring confidence. Unlike Activision's offering we won't have a scripting language to correct any mistakes.