Cheating AI.......

[Minuteman]

Originally posted by Anti-Encomium


Double Login? No. I just never bothered to post here before. If you go visit civfanatics.com, there is a poster named Zouave, who I am 99.999999% sure is also Encomium. Either that, or one of them simply cuts and pastes posts. Anyway, the repetitive and unconstructive nature of his posts have managed to infuriate me enough to flame him on another forum.

Oh Christ! I can't believe I'm sticking up for Encomium here, but I feel compelled to.

Not that I've been keeping score or anything, but Encomium/Troyens hasn't posted anything at civfanatics in awhile. I guess he found the "Fanboy friendly" environment there not to his liking. So I don't think anything he posted there recently drove you to come here and take shots at him.

Oh well! So much for my good deed for today...

[Alex]

Originally posted by Anti-Encomium


Double Login? No. I just never bothered to post here before. If you go visit civfanatics.com, there is a poster named Zouave, who I am 99.999999% sure is also Encomium. Either that, or one of them simply cuts and pastes posts. Anyway, the repetitive and unconstructive nature of his posts have managed to infuriate me enough to flame him on another forum.

Well, I couldn't agree more with you...

Back on topic, before Ming closes this...

I think that it's simply impossible to have an AI that doesn't cheat, given our current level of computing power.

Now... sometimes I'm also pissed off with the way that the AI cheats. The way it goes right after your weakest city, or the (post-patch) tech-whoring that happens among AI civs. Other than that (and those things will not spoil the game for me, by any means), I don't mind it. Cheats are a necessary evil.

[ACooper]

Originally posted by Encomium
If the AI beats me by some outrageous cheats it has achieved nothing, except to encourage me to find ways to cheat back.

Reminder: It's a game.

BTW, Tell me of an "outrageous cheat". I'll be waiting.

[Ironikinit]

The AI tech trading might not be the best solution, and it still discriminates against the human in trade in a quite obvious manner. However, the current set up seems to be generating fewer complaints than the earlier way the AI had of trading techs and resources on the player's turn. That was frustrating and prompted me to reload sometimes, one of those instances Enco talks about when the AI cheat leads to the player cheating. I don't like to reload on principle, but I like it even less when it takes a full minute to do it.

Yadda yadda. In short, I like the new way better.

[Zouave]

Many of the AI 'cheats' directly balance a flaw in the AI. For example, the AI judges military strength purely on quantity, so it often ends up in wars that a human player would never start. But, when the war starts, it has the advantage of knowing which cities are poorly defended, giving it a slight advantage. Also, the AI is not nearly as good as the player at developing cities via improvements and terraforming, so it is harder for the AI to create good 'science' cities. To balance this, the AI is programmed to trade technologies aggressively, to keep up with the human.

Zouave/Troyens/Encomium still posts at Civfanatics, although maybe not in the same quantity. And still he posts the exact same things he posted a month ago, in almost the same words. These same things are posted here at Apolyton as well. Occasionally, he calls people fools who do not agree with him.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Ironikinit
...I like it even less when it takes a full minute to do it.
"reloading that is"

Now there's a nice piece of machinery!

[Captain]

Originally posted by Anti-Encomium
Many of the AI 'cheats' directly balance a flaw in the AI. For example, the AI judges military strength purely on quantity, so it often ends up in wars that a human player would never start.

hmm, there was a really good thread on the inherent AI limitations and how gameplay was designed around those limitations... it's been a while and my memory is crap so I can't remember which thread that was or even the name of the person who explained it (maybe Analyst Redux?) anyhow, it made a whole lot of sense.

still, in this case, I don't see how judging its military strength by quantity is an inherent limitation. that's just poor coding. wouldn't using the A/D/M + HP values of the units be much better? it seems simple enough. But maybe I'm missing something...?

[Spec]

Originally posted by Captain

still, in this case, I don't see how judging its military strength by quantity is an inherent limitation. that's just poor coding. wouldn't using the A/D/M + HP values of the units be much better? it seems simple enough. But maybe I'm missing something...?

I'd say that the AI should also judge the terrain def and movement value because Civs that expand in mountains/hills/jungles are harder to exterminate than the one's on grasslands/deserts/plains. But the AI doesn't seem to care about that. It would be cool to be able to use the terrain as kind of a psycological fortress against the AI.

Spec.

[Seghillian]

In Chess programs I understand that the best AI has now achieved grandmaster status and can rival the world champion in a game. The work on this project began more than 30 years ago and must have involved hundreds of chess players and programmers during that time. So effectively more than 1000 human years have gone into developing the AI for a game with a tiny fraction of the complexity of CIV III.

To develop an AI in CIV III that could rival a human player would surely demand vast resources and would make the game unaffordable, for a game whose shelf life will be measured in months whereas that for chess is measured in centuries. Personally I don't see the problem. If you're not enjoying the game because the AI is too tough then just turn down the difficulty level. At the lower levels the player actually has advantages over the AI. Or cheat yourself. As long as it's not GOTM or MP no-one is looking.

[Avahz_D]

On reloading

Just a quicky here...

I was playing a game of Baldur's Gate 2 TOB, and the funnest thing I had ever seen in a game happened. During one event my charecter saved these 3 NPCs from a stone curse caused by a beholder, after some dialog, etc. they attacked me. Of course the game allowed me to kill them, but then it happend... they RELOADED and came back a LOT nicer. One of the best easter eggs in a game I ever did see =)

[Ironikinit]

I'm pretty sure that the AI can take the quality of units into consideration as well as quantity. For example, if you have a localized weakness, such as the fabled city guarded with a spearman in the modern era, the AI will possibly attack with that area as its goal. Further, I've reloaded games after getting a declaration of war (strictly for scientific purposes of course), changed my troops around, mainly to beef up my borders, and the declaration didn't occur the second time.

I'm not sure how important the unit count really is. People talk on it a lot, but disbanding units doesn't bring automatic AI aggression.

[Grumbold]

I think it does some basic math but whatever calculations it makes are different to a humans. Having 45 points of AF when the defender has only 30 points of defence sounds good until you add in fortification, terrain and city bonuses. Still, I'd rather have the AI getting belligerent once in a while because I'm ignoring my military or leaving certain areas undefended than sit cowering in fear. Some games are already too peaceful because if you do strike the right defensive balance it is quite possible to remain on good terms with all your neighbours (caveat - from pre-1.17f experience).

[DrFell]

I doubt this thread will get closed.

I can handle an AI that cheats to make it more challenging. Some cheats are ridiculous, but production and science bonuses are ok. It's the only way to make a difficult AI with present computer technology. Sure, they could make it smarter, but how long do you want the AI to take on it's turns? Some of you should try coding an AI or even designing one some day. It's no cakewalk.

[The Viceroy]

There can be no perfect AI, simply as there is no perfect human player !! The trick is to have an AI which is challenging, unique (in different approaches to similar issues), makes occational booboo's when exploring as we humans do ..

If we go for an AI which learns, we have to start with laws .. basic rules which we humans always follow .. as otherwise you have an AI which really doesn't know what its trying to acheive .. survival is the most basic instinct .. greed, anger, love, fear, interest in the unknown..... and so on, and so on .. are very very difficult to provide the AI before it starts on its path of learning.. We can add memory, so it remembers who to hate, but it needs a reason to hate .. maybe a threat on its basic survival .. but hate can also be driven by other things like greed ... Its not a matter of coding, more one of thinking of every basic driving force which makes you the human do what you do .. map them out into a set of rules, which always apply (or use fuzzy logic where some apply sometimes) .. and your on your way to having a much better human simulation ..

To make it worse, now you have to teach it .. It can learn from the human, as we do .. but experience is the best master .. each Ai also would need to be different .. following different experiences .. Before the AI can be released into the world of Civ .. it needs to be good, smart, able to cope with other humans ..

Before anybody tells me to goaway and code it, I will tell you .. do you not think I would have if I could ? .. obviously, id love to write this .. but I really can't imagine the multitude of scenario's we'd have to cover to get this working .. maybe somebody wants to start an Apoyton AI group who bravely maps out the ideal AI .. rather like the Human genome project .. it would take a damn long time ..

ps .. I have done AI programming before, and this is a billion time s more complicated than anything ive touched before (if you want Learning AI that is, rather than basic decision tree stuff).