Developers, cheat on us!

[Lord Maxwell]

I would very much like an AI that doesn't cheat at all. I think the main reason so many players can hand a can of whoopass to the AI is that they read forums such as Apolyton. Before reading the apolyton forums I won about half the games on the Thinker level in SMAC. These days I pretty much don't lose a game. (Lost a couple of rounds to ZsoZso's Ultimate Builder Challenge and similar "impossible" settings though.)

The AI needs to learn! Something that I have been pondering for a long time is a slight expansion on the rules+neural net idea above. A rules+neural net+"apolyton for AI" where AI's can turn in good rules, and check new good rules out.

Another way is to do it like crisium is planning to do it for stars supernova. (www.crisium.com) They plan to let you set a time limit for AI pondering of problems: (Like, spend the night on it boy.) And their AI is going to learn from actual playing. (They are trying it out in the beta to see if it learns "the right stuff" or not.)

But I am too much of a cynic to think that there will be anything really new in the AI from firaxis.

[Flandrien]

quote: Originally posted by The Viceroy on 03-22-2001 10:22 AM What I have proposed for eons is the partial use of neural nets .. basically, keep the rule base as nature, and allow the AI to learn through nurture .. how does it learn ?? from YOU !!

An AI that remembers how you played when you defeated it, and tries to use the same tactics next time ?

If that could work, it would be absolutely wonderful !

We could even make contests to see who could make the smartest AI this way.

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[Zanzin]

One major worry - will the AI know how to launch a real invasion against me? Will it know how to co-ordinate land, sea and air forces in one collosal attempt to kill my Civ if they get really pissed off with me?

I know if I get really pissed off with a computer Civ, I'll send a land sea air invasion to teach him a lesson (i.e. don't mess with me). But will the computer know how to do the same in return/advance?

[Tjoepie]

I don't think the AI should be able to cheat , the whole idea would make me want to stop playing... A agree that at the higher levels they should get some advantages like co-operation between AI players vs a human player that gets to strong, but no cheating !
If the AI-strategies are good enough and get the co-operation from other AI if the human gets to strong, than that is fine but plz no cheating!
That would spoil the whole idea of the game that you have a better empire than them and that is why you are better or the other way arround. But if you let AI cheat, I will never accept to loose since it's probably because he cheated, not because he was better, and I can accept he is better, but not if he cheats ! :-)

[me_irate]

I found the IA in civ2 very easy. The AI on diety cheated very badly and it was still to easy. On Diety mid to late game i was so far ahead i just got bored of playing. The idea of everyone against you is not good. Maybe if you were the most powerful such as france pre napolean everyone would gang up against you. But other than that it would unrealistic for the ai to be against one person. Also in Civ 2 the AI cheated very badly. It was rare to get very many early wonders on diety becuase it only took a about half the shields for them to build most wonders. Civ is far more complicated than chess. It takes the best computers in the world(worth millions of dollars) to beat a chess master, and civ is far more advanced. So a challenging game without cheating in my opinion an impossible dream.

The best way to make the game harder without cheating would be if a resource system were used to seed more reasorces near the computers. Also Humans should be given worse land. This would result in much more difficult games. Trying to build a advaced civ in the amazon or antartica would be very difficult. Another factor that would help would be a catch up bonus. the further a civ is behind the leader the faster its research and other factors would be. Representing the knowledge that is passed by merchants and other travelers.
[This message has been edited by me_irate (edited March 23, 2001).]

[GaryGuanine]

How 'bout a citation for that chess idea?


Gary

[me_irate]

im sorry did you mention that. I got tired of reading and just typed my message.

also i noticed someone mentioned a way to turn chaating off. its called prince i think(medium diff) easy it cheats for you; diety it cheats for AI's. I dont actually think they play any better at higher diff. but just cheat more.
[This message has been edited by me_irate (edited March 23, 2001).]

[markusf]

Yes they desperately need to cheat! Even then they totally suck. even a half decent player, can take out 7 ai's without breaking a sweat on diety.


AI should not announce when its about to finish a wonder.
The AI should always get the latest improvements in all cities and not bother to build them. (in later stages of the game)

I want an additional field in the rules.txt for "keep this unit type inside cities forever" ie pikemen or warriors, i can't stand when they run around with useless units.

The AI should work together to attack you from multipul points. The AI should work together to impose trade embargo's.

There has to be an option that you can set that says, "never recieve tech from capturing a AI city" and another option for "never give tribute"

AI should use bribing and dips extensively to both bribe your cities and steal your tech. maybe even let the AI bribe human cities at a discounted rate.

[Grandpa Troll]

I dont have a problem with AI cheating..its a step in right direction for us more experienced Civers to have a more competitive game!

The AI as a whole is as previously noted..predictable and simple in its methods..I cant wait until an AI becomes a smarter more competitive source of entertainment!

I hereby cast my vote..CHEAT CHEAT..You wont ever Beat!
LOL

Yours in Civin

Troll

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Hebrews 11:1

Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for and things unseen

[Urban Ranger]

Cheating baaaaadddddd!!!!

Better AI through various means gooood!!!!

[Father Beast]

No, I don't think having the AI cheat badly is the answer. maybe just some tougher difficulty levels. you'll probably still stomp on them eventually, but deity is obviously not enough for some people.
not me. I do my best and can barely survive on king. much less win.
I mean, we realize that the AI happiness levels are at king, no matter what level YOU are at, and that's not really a cheat, just a difficulty level.

[Lord Maxwell]

Maybe a better AI will be included in Civ 4?

But a pretty darn good AI could still be made. Especially if they can turn in strategies to a central repository and check out new strategies. (Like we do here at Apolyton.)

It's like the code breaking competitions. No supercomputer in the world can break codes as fast as the distributed programs do. (Screensavers that work on the fully parallellizable task of factoring huge prime numbers, ie 56 bit keys.) Or the SETI screensaver. No one computer does alot of work, but it adds up.

Especially if the AI has some rudimentary skills at analyzing human moves. (One might include an "omniscient learning AI", ie the AI that you play against only sees what it should see, but another deamon runs in the background and tries to analyze your moves. When it learns a city blockade technique it adds it to the list to send to the repository. When the neural net AI that is your opponent comes up with something new it adds it to the list. The list is sent in, and a new list is checked out from the repository.)

It would still not be possible to beat Kasparov at chess using this strategy, but it should be possible to beat almost all of us at Civ with it. (I doubt anyone here is in Kasparovs class, beating Civ II on diety with both hands tied behind your back doesn't make you a chess master.

[Straybow]

Anyone who says it's "easy" to beat all six opponents on Deity is obviously playing on small maps. Playing on huge maps it is sometimes difficult to find all six before gunpowder. I've had Galleons leave port with Caravans aboard that don't arrive until I'm already producing Transports!

[Zanzin]

I like Lord Maxwells idea - the computer learns, adds this to it's strategy base on the netetc. But it's my belief that Firaxis are the kind of company that wouldn't support this kind of feature. Why not? They just aren't!

I think Civ3 with be more evolutionary (an update) than revolutionary

[Trachmir]

For all of you who really want the AI to give you a run for your money, I suggest you let the AI do one thing: LOAD AUTOSAVES!

Seriously though, cheating is not the way to go... unless you mean trying to simulate human intuition, where you allow the AI to know a few facts about the map/opponets/army positions that it can't see at random, therby allowing the AI to "Guess" things (like humans do), the higher the diff. lvl., the better they guess and the more often they do so.

There's my 1/50th of a dollar.