Developers, cheat on us!

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Trachmir on 04-03-2001 12:08 AM 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!

ROTFL!

But they already had something on this line: do you know when the game suddendly crash and you think it's a bug?
Nah, it's true "HAL 9000 like" AI behavior. Thanks God it doesn't try to electrocute you!

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited April 03, 2001).]

[Simpson II]

Hmm, my usual IMOs;

1) Civ2 doesn't have an AI, it has a pseudo-random number generator. Virtually everything it does is chosen at random. The Smac AI just about qualifies as a 'player', though, so there's been some improvement (not much!)

2) Comparisons with chess AIs are really misleading. Believe me, I've written one. You should be able write an AI which would frequently win on Deity level vs the normal AI without cheats, though the best human players would still kick it's arse pretty much whatever you did; that's the benefit of creativity.

3) Writing an AI which learns from it's experiences is very hard in a game like Civ. It could learn a number of cities to build and which units work better, but that's about it, and it could be set more easily and effectively by a human editing a user-accesible script (hint-hint.) Writing a Civ AI which learns effectively from human players is pretty much AI-complete. Firaxis probably isn't planning to develop a human-level AI, so I'd forget about that one.

4) Because of 2 and 3, there need to be cheats. Otherwise, some people (even only 100 or so) are going to be severely bored of the single-player game after a week.

I'll leave you with some words from the Civ2 manual....

"[In Civ 1], we predicted that Emperor level could be beaten, but not consistently."

Hahahahah.....

[Insigna]

I think that AI cheets should be an option.
Have the regular Levals Prince, King etc. But then have the ability to put it on AI cheeting with these levals if they want an extra chlange in King or Emporer or whatever. A bad AI was my main dislike of CTP. They should concentrait on a good AI.

[Lord Maxwell]

quote: Originally posted by Insigna on 04-05-2001 06:38 PM I think that AI cheets should be an option. Have the regular Levals Prince, King etc. But then have the ability to put it on AI cheeting with these levals if they want an extra chlange in King or Emporer or whatever. A bad AI was my main dislike of CTP. They should concentrait on a good AI.

Yeah, except it would make no business sense. The AI always seems intimidating for the first week, so all reviews will be praising the revolutionary new AI, when in fact there is no such beast. Almost everybody who bought Civ II shelved it before they even started a game on Diety level. (A second note on reviews, the big companies always get good reviews, because they cancel all advertising after one bad review. The secret behind the scores of Westwood games in gaming magazines.)

All it would get them is the respect of a few old farts in the fan community, and that generally doesn't amount to much cash-flow.

Good AI won't bring in money, as they can get the same money by lying about having a good AI, because no one will spot it in time for the reviews anyway. And most sales of a game is made in the first month or two of it's lifetime anyway. So it's cheaper to have Sid or whoever just stare right into the camera and say that sure the AI will be groundbreaking, when it in reality will be just warmed up code from the original Civ. Compare this with hiring someone with the competence to write a good AI. (That person has atleast a Ph.D and will want a good salary. Probably a fair bit over 100k...)

Now take on the role as marketing dept, and look the developer in the eye and tell him: "Go out there and lie, they will never see it in time."

I wish I had selected another business for getting my daily bread. Being surrounded by computers causes cynicism, I am sure of it. The rays from the monitor don't cause cancer, they cause curmudgeons.

[Ilkuul]

quote: Originally posted by Zanzin on 03-21-2001 11:37 PM Cheating AI!! No!! I'm sick of AI's that cheat!

Me too! What's the use of providing an amoral AI that uses every trick in the book to give just a few expert players a good run for their money, while the much larger majority of players - like me! - are getting utterly frustrated with it?

If, as many people seem to be saying here, you can't have a tough AI without allowing it to cheat, at least make cheating an option that can be switched on or off by the player. Then those of us normal mortals who don't "easily" beat 6 AI's at deity level (!) can at least build up gradually to the point where we can allow the AI to cheat and still win...

[Simpson II]

quote: Originally posted by Lord Maxwell on 04-07-2001 04:36 PMCompare this with hiring someone with the competence to write a good AI. (That person has atleast a Ph.D and will want a good salary. Probably a fair bit over 100k...)

I really doubt that many Ph.Ds in AI could write a decent Civ AI. The problem is way, way off the mainstream of AI research, for a start. The person needs to be a damn good strategy gamer, as well as a damn good coder who can practically invent the field of tbs AI as they go along. The only PhD strategy god I know of is Zsozso, and he's in biochemistry.

Naturally, I could do a great AI for them. Cost a lot less than $100K, too...

[Lord Maxwell]

quote: Originally posted by Simpson II on 04-07-2001 08:16 PM I really doubt that many Ph.Ds in AI could write a decent Civ AI. The problem is way, way off the mainstream of AI research, for a start. The person needs to be a damn good strategy gamer, as well as a damn good coder who can practically invent the field of tbs AI as they go along. The only PhD strategy god I know of is Zsozso, and he's in biochemistry. Naturally, I could do a great AI for them. Cost a lot less than $100K, too...

You can code a good AI in less than a year with a yearly salary under 100k. Hmm, are you unemployed and willing to move?

[Zanzin]

Seriously, how hard can it be to code a decent AI? It's all numbers run through various algorithms in the end. Each number has a certain response. It's a simple matter of IF....THEN...IF ELSE...IF ELSE.....ELSE......

[Bereta_Eder]

If I cheats cannot be avoided, then I pray that they do no tmake them as BLATANT as they were in CIV 2.

Maybe it's ok to have a few cheats. Certaintly that would make things a little bit more harder for the human player.

But this should never ever happen if the price is to have to endure blatand in-your-face cheats like in civ2. For example the blatant cheat of every AI democracy acting like a dictator not respecting the things that a human player must respect in order to keep his democracy standing. (i.e. democracies ALWAYS refusing peace treaties because they are not in the mood)

[Father Beast]

Lets see... Cheating by the AI

You sned 40 vet spies at a city to reduce some improvements, all are captured without completing their mission.

12 AI dips come into one of your cities, stealing tech. Suddenly they have all your techs, including nuclear power, which you just discovered. They build Smokey da nuke project the same turn (sorry, Manhattan). you get nuked the next turn.

that phalanx sunk your battleship!

[Zanzin]

Following that post by Father Beast, does everybody now see the problem with the AI being given unfair multiplyer values over the human player?

[Bereta_Eder]

I know I do.

But I am not irritated by the cheats Father Beast mentioned At least these are things you can control.

Invincible AI dips? Sink everything that comes towards your shores, double stack or go demo, create choke points with forests and the problem is solved 'cause the dips won't even see the outskirts of any of your cities. And from my experience, one of your 40 or so dips will eventually succeed even though you have become USA or Russia creating spies

I suspect Father beast knows about these things too.

What really buggs me is when I am obliged to follow specific rules and the AI isn't AND I CAN CREARLY WITNESS THE WHOLE THING HAPPENING.

The despotic democracy, declaring war every 2 turns without collapsing and refusing all GANDI like approaches from you, is one of the things that irriatate me in Civ 2.

It's ok with cheats really. But the AI should cheat us in a way that does not become too obvious and thus pisses us off. (which is always a bad thing for the AI, and primarly for civ itself).

Long ago, I actually took the liberty of sending an e mail to Firaxis pleading for just that in civ 3. (It's propably one of the 100000 emails they got but still)

[- Groucho -]

quote: Originally posted by Zanzin on 04-08-2001 08:52 AM Seriously, how hard can it be to code a decent AI? It's all numbers run through various algorithms in the end. Each number has a certain response. It's a simple matter of IF....THEN...IF ELSE...IF ELSE.....ELSE......

A lot harder than you think. Leaving aside the tech difficulties though, lets just look at the cost. A napkin costing for a decent AI for Civ as described here (parametric coding for the macro stuff, combined with a neural net learning engine and an online strategy sharing room) would probably look something like this:

2 gurus: 250K / year
3 leads: 225k / year
10 code grunts: 400 - 500k / year
facilities: 120k / year
hardware: 250 K up front - 100 K per year
office manager and other support stuff: 100K / year
other (insurance, accounts, legal, trips to E3): 100k / year

Assuming an 18 month development cycle it would cost about $2.2 million.

It's just a guess, but I'm thinking they're planning on CivIII development costing in total less than $3 million with a development cycle of two full team years. Game coders cost a lot less than serious AI coders. Their code and art people are probably making about $30K on average and their leads are likely averaging in the $50 - $60k range. Now that Brian's gone I'd be surprised if they had more than two $100K plus salaries. Looking at the team photo I think $1.5M a year is in the ballpark. They might be able to swing a bigger budget from Infogrames due to the "Sid factor" but I think $3M is probably pretty close and maybe even high.

Who wants to bet that no one is willing to almost double the CivIII budget to build the AI you guys are talking about?

- Echinda

[Zanzin]

It's a pity though, that they won't be able to build the AI we want...

[Lord Maxwell]

quote: Originally posted by Echinda on 04-09-2001 11:30 PM 2 gurus: 250K / year 3 leads: 225k / year

Hmm, the question whether or not to focus on AI when I get back to school after my wanderings as a programmer has just been answered.