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Originally posted by Blake
In MP with friends (or enemies, iow, not strangers) you know that certain players act in certain ways, some players will turn belly up at the slightest show of force, others will fight to the last man against overwhelming odds. Some people have no honor and will use every underhanded trick in the book, others have no shame and will not hesitate to form alliances to save themselves.
Real people definetely have tendencies to be agressive or pacifist (camper), Wimps tend to consistentely wimp out once they think they have, Stubborn players tend to remain stubborn.
An example, when playing multiplayer FFA games of Red Alert 2 I have a friend which is quite predictable, invariably, once I have destroyed the majority of his army/base he surrenders (quits), he does this in 90% of games.
In contrast I always fight to the last man, if it's against overwhelming odds I do it to annoy the guy crushing me, if there are more players in the game I go down fighting to hopefully give the remaining players a chance to beat the guy which beat me.
Because our behaivours are at some level predictable, does this mean multiplayer must be boring? Would I be better of playing with complete strangers? Personally I enjoy exploiting others weaknesses.
The same with unique AI personalities, by knowing how an AI tends to act, whole new avenues of diplomacy and politics are opened up, you can try all sorts of tricks (like directing the agression of a frisky Caesar at another agressive Civ, instead of condemning yourself to a war with Caesar, you know the Romans are agressive, but you dont have to be the target
)
So even if there is a randomize feature I wont be using it, because it removes a whole element of the diplomacy game...
In MP with friends (or enemies, iow, not strangers) you know that certain players act in certain ways, some players will turn belly up at the slightest show of force, others will fight to the last man against overwhelming odds. Some people have no honor and will use every underhanded trick in the book, others have no shame and will not hesitate to form alliances to save themselves.
Real people definetely have tendencies to be agressive or pacifist (camper), Wimps tend to consistentely wimp out once they think they have, Stubborn players tend to remain stubborn.
An example, when playing multiplayer FFA games of Red Alert 2 I have a friend which is quite predictable, invariably, once I have destroyed the majority of his army/base he surrenders (quits), he does this in 90% of games.
In contrast I always fight to the last man, if it's against overwhelming odds I do it to annoy the guy crushing me, if there are more players in the game I go down fighting to hopefully give the remaining players a chance to beat the guy which beat me.
Because our behaivours are at some level predictable, does this mean multiplayer must be boring? Would I be better of playing with complete strangers? Personally I enjoy exploiting others weaknesses.
The same with unique AI personalities, by knowing how an AI tends to act, whole new avenues of diplomacy and politics are opened up, you can try all sorts of tricks (like directing the agression of a frisky Caesar at another agressive Civ, instead of condemning yourself to a war with Caesar, you know the Romans are agressive, but you dont have to be the target
)So even if there is a randomize feature I wont be using it, because it removes a whole element of the diplomacy game...
I agree that tendencies may be ok, but not to the extent of strategic predictability or limitations. One example would be starting techs. Why in the world would you and the AI civs start with the exact same techs every game? Shouldn't that be a factor on starting location, ala Civ2, instead of pre-coded, abstract attributes? In other words, don't you think that, when starting a new game, you shouldn't know whether you will get 0 techs or 5? I believe that such a thing we enhance replayability.
Here's a better example. What I prefer is for the AI civ to act like a human, albeit in a simplistic way. For example, some/many can radically shift from a peaceful strategy to a bloodlust one given the right situation, or vice-versa (or more typically, go back and forth a few times). It's about taking advantage of a strategic situation that will get you ahead and/or to win. I don't want an AI civ to ALWAYS be peaceful if certain situations demand them to fight out of a corner (or to retreat and rebuild if they come up a wall).
Let me use an example from a recent Imperialism II game. Playing as English on a random map with Spain and Portugal to the north, France to the south and Sweden to the east, all on one continent. I was determined to build peacefully into the latter stages of the game, despite the turmoil around me. I kept a close eye on the diplomacy and at one brief time, I found that if I declared war on Spain, no one else would declare war on me. Spain managed to get themselves isolated and since I was stronger militarially, I took advantage of that window of opportunity and gobbled up their provinces. Then I went back to getting even stronger while the others fought among themselves.
To me, it should be about the AI taking advantage of a strategic situation regardless of what their pre-defined "roles" are. I don't want to play a game in which the Indians (for example) are ALWAYS peaceful builders. I want them to come out fighting if they see a strategic advantage. That would be a challenging AI instead of one that would limit the AI's strategic options because it doesn't fit their "role".
But having said that, I do believe that there will be enough other factors to consider, ranging from geography, resources, diplomacy to culture, that even if each of the AI civs have hardcoded "tendencies", each game will be unique enough. I just don't like the idea of factions, pre-defined tendencies or other factors that would limit the AI civs in what it can or cannot do.
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