Interview: SOREN JOHNSON ON AI

[MarkG]

hope you find it interesting

http://apolyton.net/misc/interviews/civ3_2sorenjohnson.shtml

[yin26]

Thanks Markos and Soren. I think a good number of us here feel that a great AI is the beginning, middle and end of a great Civ3. I look forward to seeing the learning algorithm in action.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Need a news item written?

[Immortal Wombat]

Cool

Sounds promising, though not inspirationally awe-inspiring. It should make for decent variety of play at least. Not much there about how well the decision-making improves the AI in terms of how hard it will be to beat.

Yeah, promising, but not amazing. Lets hope the AI has got more up its sleeve that we won't see until its "learnt" a few ways of killing us.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Looks like whoever was saying that the AI would suck just got shafted. And turning off those pre set features is the first thing im doing.

[yin26]

Looks like whoever was saying that the AI would suck just got shafted.

Actually, his interview wasn't detailed enough to make any conclusions yet. I've seen plenty of 'learning AI' do absolutely nothing but suck in previous games (Submarine Titans being one).

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Looks like whoever was saying that the AI would suck just got shafted.

Not really.
So your governors can choose not to build archers if your at peace, and miles from anywhere. Whopee. Can other civs handle all the resources they need, how to get them, why to get them, when to get them with a longer-term strategy than "oh damn, the human just declared war on me with no warnin, maybe I should get some coal"?

I hope like buggery I'm wrong, bu a good all-round AI is damn nearly impossible to cram into a few seconds of CPU time. (or even a few minutes of it)

[dennis580]

Well at least we now know the Civ III AI can cordinate ground, sea, and air units effectively in a invasion. I think this is a very big step and gives great promise for the rest of the AI in the game

[SerapisIV]

The AI using carrier-based bombers to support marine invasions?

Let me recheck this, the Civ3 AI is actually capable of using carriers for invasions, then actually using marine's for sea invasions, not glorified infantry?

God I hope all of this still pans out when the game shows up on my hard drive in the next week or so, the promises of a much better Civ AI is extremely enticing.

[The diplomat]

Some of you just want to be pessimistic, don't you?

We obviously won't completely know how good the AI is until we actually play the game, but this interview is very promising. If the AI can actually do what Soren claims, then the AI will be very decent to say the least!

[Skanky Burns]

Well, the good new is that if the City Governor AI is smarter for controlling your cities, its also going to be smarter in controlling its own cities. Your governors take into account your overall policy, and learn from your input. This is also good

[dennis580]

Yea this will also be good from the computer AI. Obviously thier's going to be a limit to how much communication the computer leader and the computer controlled city's have. The cmputer controlled cities need to have good idea of thier leaders overall plans.

[The Rook]

Has there ever been a really great AI ever? In any game? Computers are just not that capable of making decisions on such a large scale. What computers ARE good at doing is repitition. That's why they can be taught to play chess well. Chess has a limited number of moves, so the computer "brain" just goes through them all until it finds the best option. I think the same thing could be done with Civ, but on a lesser scale. During the human turn, the computer Civs can be planning, thinking ahead, and formulating a strategy, then on its turn, it acts on the strategy it came up with. Each turn it can adapt and improve on the strategy.

I just think during the long human turns, it could be doing number crunching and whatever.

[CobraA1]

The AI sounds very promising.

• Multiple-level thinking
• Personality
• Some customizeability, including personality and priorities of AI and the ability to start with a blank slate for those who dislike the personalities.
• No pre-scripted patterns
• Learning algorithms
• Emergent Behavior

Even if it turns out to be stupid, it looks like its a huge leap from Civ II, and also looks like it's going to be fun to play against.

Emergent behavior, however, has me a little scared . . .

[squid]

Originally posted by yin26


Actually, his interview wasn't detailed enough to make any conclusions yet. I've seen plenty of 'learning AI' do absolutely nothing but suck in previous games (Submarine Titans being one).

From what I've read (and I took some AI in college), he is stressing an adaptive AI but not neccesarily learning.

learning would imply it learned from the consequences of action and from your actions.

it sounds more like it is using static evaluators to access positions than by doing any sort of learning activity. For instance, "The romans are too powerful. We must attack Rome if we are strong enough. We are strong enough. What is the closest strongest city? Thebes. What is their closest weak city? Remus. Let us attack from Thebes. Thebes, sent forth some units. Units, approach the city of Remus. Phalanx: yes, I will do so. What is the closest path to Remus? I will follow it. There is a unit in my way. It is threatening. I will not survive. Must kill unit". I am trivializing things, but yeah, his hierachial system sounds much like this.

As for expansion versus conquest versus introspection, the AI could easily decide which was a deficiency, and then use the "leader module" to order down the tree (to cities, governers, units, etc) appropraitely. Not that hard.

Anyhow, of course it's not hard. The question is it done well. If I can see bombers softening a landing area before landing a transport, I will be impressed.

It seems Soren has some good ideas though. I was assuming they would have had to consider repurcussions several turns in advance. That does not seem to be the case!