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Arguments why its nearly impossible to program an "almost human" AI.
Please, don’t be pissed off about the “negativity” in above heading – personally i DO agree that many AI-improvements can be done, in order to raise CIV-3 above CIV-2. I just think we all should be more aware of the built-in limitations in so called “artificial” intelligence.
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) has ONE major advantage over humans, and that is a BIG advantage in pure number crunching capability. Programmers can use this to setup a bunch of expressions, conditions and variables – then letting a flood wave of oncoming tasks “fall through” a logical boolean maze (steel balls furiously trickling through a Japanese pachinko-game, comes to my mind), and repeatedly getting relevant and speedy task-solutions.
By comparison humans alone compare rather pathetically (but only in terms of speed, that is).
There is a snag, however (that tip the scale heavily back in favor of the human player):
Considering today’s computer- and programming-technology, above pachinko-approach only works really outstanding if the “world” is relatively confined (like the 8x8=64 square-world of chess), the variables are simple (only black and white tiles/pieces and only 6 of the latter) and the rules are few and distinct (I don’t know how many rules chess has, but they certainly aren’t many, and there is nothing fuzzy about them either).
If any of above three factors (world size, possible variables and rules complexity/ diversity) - not to say all three of them, is added to (like in a modern turn-based PC strategy game) the AI: s ability to “analyze several moves ahead”, “follow a game plan”, with “intuitive” and “long reaching” strategic/ tactical maneuvers, is SEVERELY limited.
(One can argue that real-time action games like “Tomb raider” or “Quake” have huge worlds, but there’s no big need for an AI that “analyze” and “think ahead” in these games. The programmers just have to place out enemies her and there that, trigged by certain conditions execute some automated template reactions – also, in an 100% known setup-environment).
Thankfully, no one asks for an IBM Deep Blue-AI in the upcoming CIV-3 game anyway. Personally, i would be happy if the AI only could be more effective in building land and city-improvements and upgrading max 2-4 topnotch units per city, on basis of already achieved tech-advances – basically, that’s it (well, a little more perhaps).
Still, many of the upgrade-suggestions found on this site perhaps often ask for the impossible – an almost human AI, that “schemes” several moves ahead, and then moves around hordes of coordinated army-units, with tactical brilliance.
Why is it impossible? Well, to understand this we have to come to grips with the principal difference between human (living) intelligence and artificial (dead) intelligence (if you think this post is waaay to philosophical about the subject, you can always choose to stop reading right now. Otherwise, hang in there – i am almost halfway through here).
What the human Civ-player can do (and the AI simply cannot do) is to literally OVERVIEW (experience) the game situation, and, within a blink of an eye, sort out huge parts of not-so-promising strategy/ tactic solutions, and instead concentrate directly (and only) on those very few plans and ideas that actually DO seem promising.
We can describe this as a “bird eye-sort out” ability, something unique the living (human) intelligence.
By comparison, the game AI (or any silicon-based AI for that matter) is 100% dead and non-experiencing (of course). It lives in a 2-dimensional “flat” world, symbolically speaking - by that i mean it cannot possible “overview” anything.
In practice this means that if a CIV-programmer tries to create something “almost human” in terms of AI-software, he is forced to write an AI that meticulously analyzes/ evaluates all the myriads of possible combinations of Choose-, Build-, Upgrade and Move-possibilities, that each and every individual game-turn has to offer, no matter how relevant or less promising 98% of these possibilities are (the reason for the latter, is the lack of living “bird eye-sort out” ability – because of this, the programmers has to gather ALL possibilities BEFORE they can let the program evaluate and rank any appropriate countermeasures).
Also - he has to program it to analyze each-and-every of these combinations; at least 3-4 game-turns AHEAD! (or “deep”, using chess-language). Again remember that the AI cannot “overview” from above – to compensate, it has to take a “2-dimensional only” approach analyzing any possible moves, at least 3-4 game-turns ahead. Like in computer-chess.
This is (as we all know) not that difficult to achieve then it comes to a relatively simple and clean-cut strategy-game like chess. But, in a MUCH more complex and option-divided game like CIV-3; the massive amounts of calculations involved to mimic “almost human” behavior, is absolutely staggering and mind-boggling.
Today’s programming-technology is simply TO primitive, and our home computers are, at present state, just TO slow to achieve anything like this. I don’t know, but I reckon if computers where about 100 times faster, then today’s P-3:s an Athlon:s, they perhaps would cope better with such a task (if the processing power doubles every 18 month, that means about 15 years from now). The latter is a pure guess.
Thankfully however, most of us CIV-veterans often use the same tested and well-tried strategy-approaches, game after game. This should mean that the CIV-programmers also could make more use of pre-made templates to make it easier for the AI to compete. These “pre-made templates” should be automatically executed then deciding in which order to…
> Add city-improvements to AI-controlled cities (not for free however - enough resources still have to be accumulated before any AI-improvement can be built).
> Upgrading city-area surroundings (done automatically in many stages of the game – no need of AI-controlled settlers to manually move around and do it).
> Building and upgrading units* (again, enough resources is, of course, is still needed)
> Choosing AI tech evolution path (following pre-made templates - no AI evaluating needed).
* The only exception is if an enemy captures more then two AI-cities within a certain amount of time – the AI should intervene and interpret that as an “invasion”, and automatically order the rest of the cities to switch to military unit-building. Also if AI decides to siege and capture enemy cities some extra of course units has to be made.
As I said, nothing is resource-free – but the AI shouldn’t do the actual choosing – that should be automatically executed by above “pre-made templates”. The ONLY things the AI should concern itself with is…
> Moving around AI-controlled units outside the cities (this is what AI mainly should do).
> Deciding when to grow its empire (either by expansion or conquering).
> Connecting cities with roads (using settlers outside the city-areas).
> Dealing with foreign affairs – diplomatics (some template guiding needed though, in order to save the weak AI from itself).
> Building wonders (again, at least some template guiding needed).
Perhaps I missed something above – anyway: to summarize; the CIV-3 programmers need to FREE UP the AI as much as possible, in order to let it work more efficiently on fewer selected tasks. The more the AI is confronted with buckloads of confusing choices, the more the AI is likely to buckle down (and screw up). This is the sad truth.
I am not saying, that it is impossible to create a strong AI – (perhaps I am swearing in church now) but a certain amount of AI-benefits (giving AI some benefits over HI on the highest levels) and some heavy use automated “pre-made templates” trigged by certain conditions is absolutely necessary if we want to se an CIV-3 AI that stand a fighting chance.
A lot can be done to improve the CIV-AI on an overall strategic level. But as for moving around huge AI-controlled invasion-armies in tactically coordinated Napoleon-would-be-amazed maneuvers? Forget it. The latter just isn’t possible to achieve today.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited September 01, 2000).]
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) has ONE major advantage over humans, and that is a BIG advantage in pure number crunching capability. Programmers can use this to setup a bunch of expressions, conditions and variables – then letting a flood wave of oncoming tasks “fall through” a logical boolean maze (steel balls furiously trickling through a Japanese pachinko-game, comes to my mind), and repeatedly getting relevant and speedy task-solutions.
By comparison humans alone compare rather pathetically (but only in terms of speed, that is).
There is a snag, however (that tip the scale heavily back in favor of the human player):
Considering today’s computer- and programming-technology, above pachinko-approach only works really outstanding if the “world” is relatively confined (like the 8x8=64 square-world of chess), the variables are simple (only black and white tiles/pieces and only 6 of the latter) and the rules are few and distinct (I don’t know how many rules chess has, but they certainly aren’t many, and there is nothing fuzzy about them either).
If any of above three factors (world size, possible variables and rules complexity/ diversity) - not to say all three of them, is added to (like in a modern turn-based PC strategy game) the AI: s ability to “analyze several moves ahead”, “follow a game plan”, with “intuitive” and “long reaching” strategic/ tactical maneuvers, is SEVERELY limited.
(One can argue that real-time action games like “Tomb raider” or “Quake” have huge worlds, but there’s no big need for an AI that “analyze” and “think ahead” in these games. The programmers just have to place out enemies her and there that, trigged by certain conditions execute some automated template reactions – also, in an 100% known setup-environment).
Thankfully, no one asks for an IBM Deep Blue-AI in the upcoming CIV-3 game anyway. Personally, i would be happy if the AI only could be more effective in building land and city-improvements and upgrading max 2-4 topnotch units per city, on basis of already achieved tech-advances – basically, that’s it (well, a little more perhaps).
Still, many of the upgrade-suggestions found on this site perhaps often ask for the impossible – an almost human AI, that “schemes” several moves ahead, and then moves around hordes of coordinated army-units, with tactical brilliance.
Why is it impossible? Well, to understand this we have to come to grips with the principal difference between human (living) intelligence and artificial (dead) intelligence (if you think this post is waaay to philosophical about the subject, you can always choose to stop reading right now. Otherwise, hang in there – i am almost halfway through here).
What the human Civ-player can do (and the AI simply cannot do) is to literally OVERVIEW (experience) the game situation, and, within a blink of an eye, sort out huge parts of not-so-promising strategy/ tactic solutions, and instead concentrate directly (and only) on those very few plans and ideas that actually DO seem promising.
We can describe this as a “bird eye-sort out” ability, something unique the living (human) intelligence.
By comparison, the game AI (or any silicon-based AI for that matter) is 100% dead and non-experiencing (of course). It lives in a 2-dimensional “flat” world, symbolically speaking - by that i mean it cannot possible “overview” anything.
In practice this means that if a CIV-programmer tries to create something “almost human” in terms of AI-software, he is forced to write an AI that meticulously analyzes/ evaluates all the myriads of possible combinations of Choose-, Build-, Upgrade and Move-possibilities, that each and every individual game-turn has to offer, no matter how relevant or less promising 98% of these possibilities are (the reason for the latter, is the lack of living “bird eye-sort out” ability – because of this, the programmers has to gather ALL possibilities BEFORE they can let the program evaluate and rank any appropriate countermeasures).
Also - he has to program it to analyze each-and-every of these combinations; at least 3-4 game-turns AHEAD! (or “deep”, using chess-language). Again remember that the AI cannot “overview” from above – to compensate, it has to take a “2-dimensional only” approach analyzing any possible moves, at least 3-4 game-turns ahead. Like in computer-chess.
This is (as we all know) not that difficult to achieve then it comes to a relatively simple and clean-cut strategy-game like chess. But, in a MUCH more complex and option-divided game like CIV-3; the massive amounts of calculations involved to mimic “almost human” behavior, is absolutely staggering and mind-boggling.
Today’s programming-technology is simply TO primitive, and our home computers are, at present state, just TO slow to achieve anything like this. I don’t know, but I reckon if computers where about 100 times faster, then today’s P-3:s an Athlon:s, they perhaps would cope better with such a task (if the processing power doubles every 18 month, that means about 15 years from now). The latter is a pure guess.
Thankfully however, most of us CIV-veterans often use the same tested and well-tried strategy-approaches, game after game. This should mean that the CIV-programmers also could make more use of pre-made templates to make it easier for the AI to compete. These “pre-made templates” should be automatically executed then deciding in which order to…
> Add city-improvements to AI-controlled cities (not for free however - enough resources still have to be accumulated before any AI-improvement can be built).
> Upgrading city-area surroundings (done automatically in many stages of the game – no need of AI-controlled settlers to manually move around and do it).
> Building and upgrading units* (again, enough resources is, of course, is still needed)
> Choosing AI tech evolution path (following pre-made templates - no AI evaluating needed).
* The only exception is if an enemy captures more then two AI-cities within a certain amount of time – the AI should intervene and interpret that as an “invasion”, and automatically order the rest of the cities to switch to military unit-building. Also if AI decides to siege and capture enemy cities some extra of course units has to be made.
As I said, nothing is resource-free – but the AI shouldn’t do the actual choosing – that should be automatically executed by above “pre-made templates”. The ONLY things the AI should concern itself with is…
> Moving around AI-controlled units outside the cities (this is what AI mainly should do).
> Deciding when to grow its empire (either by expansion or conquering).
> Connecting cities with roads (using settlers outside the city-areas).
> Dealing with foreign affairs – diplomatics (some template guiding needed though, in order to save the weak AI from itself).
> Building wonders (again, at least some template guiding needed).
Perhaps I missed something above – anyway: to summarize; the CIV-3 programmers need to FREE UP the AI as much as possible, in order to let it work more efficiently on fewer selected tasks. The more the AI is confronted with buckloads of confusing choices, the more the AI is likely to buckle down (and screw up). This is the sad truth.
I am not saying, that it is impossible to create a strong AI – (perhaps I am swearing in church now) but a certain amount of AI-benefits (giving AI some benefits over HI on the highest levels) and some heavy use automated “pre-made templates” trigged by certain conditions is absolutely necessary if we want to se an CIV-3 AI that stand a fighting chance.
A lot can be done to improve the CIV-AI on an overall strategic level. But as for moving around huge AI-controlled invasion-armies in tactically coordinated Napoleon-would-be-amazed maneuvers? Forget it. The latter just isn’t possible to achieve today.
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited September 01, 2000).]
) group the resources (or data to an AI )
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