Is MP truly Civ 3?

[Sallandair]

My sincere appolgies for the typo (was an all niter)
I do agree - civ will be improved either by the commercial gaming house, fan designers, and / or most importantly the players themselves.

Again, my appologies for the typo, MrBaggins

[Alex]

Some human players are as single-dimensional as the AI... they only want to win, and they want it now. Forget about diplomacy, forget about culture wars. They will attack you relentlessly since turn 1, and then the game is ruined, at least for me. I want some level of strategy thinking, something deeper than building a lot of units and throwing them at your opponent's cities.

The main problem is that a lot of players tend to view Civ as a wargame, and I have to agree that the game itself favors the warmongerer, reducing the economical management to a minimum and turning conquest wars into a sure way to a smashing victory, irrespective of considerations about resupply and reinforcement (which is all too easy with infinite movement in railroads), as MrBaggins pointed out.

But Civ can be played at a more strategic level, at least until you find a bloody warmongerer in your way. I agree that the AI cannot offer the same level of challenge that a skilled human player can, but what is the use of a skilled human player if you don't have to think about your strategies against him?

[Panag]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
The spelling "McBraggin", i'll assume... was a typo, and that you didn't intend offence, and so I don't need to speak with a moderator.

I don't see Civ4 as necessarily the "hope" for a new AI now...

Firstly, Firaxis is limited by its parent IG, as to time constraints. Their developing a game, means that they have limited staff, with an ability to dedicate limited time to the problem. For commercial reasons, much effort is put into the graphical portions of the game, since relatively contemporary graphics are a virtual necessity to sell a product with wide market acceptance... gaming sites and magazines 'tease' with graphics. AI is, sadly, not something you can 'show' in a preview. Most previews and reviews do not delve deeply enough into the game, to find out how well the AI performs, and more, how it can be exploited. Beta testing rarely finds the myriad 'final exploits' that the 'infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters' find after release.

Secondly, when the product is released, for the most part, development stops. Patches are possible, but rarely do massive fixes in AI occur... there isn't enough budget to write and rebalance the game... generally speaking, although 'expansions' theoretically could. Developers, however, tend to get touchy about their product qualitively, and feel that the game is right, just so... unless there is an obvious flaw.

Thirdly, Firaxis is opposed to scripting languages...



Unfortunate... since given a scripting language... especially a versatile one, the infinite monkeys... I.E. us... could set to work on building the better AI- given that enough of the game engine was exposed, and enough flexibility was present in the scripting language.

So where does that leave us?

Well.. Civ4 may or may not have the best AI since sliced bread... who knows? they might *just* work on the AI and make it adaptive, by pooling player strategies on a central server, ultimately making AI's play just as well as human players and removing the need for MP.

In the meantime however, there are alternatives. CtP2 has an incredibly versatile scripting language, much like C, and it exposes most game objects and allows you to control most events and aspects of the game, down to the nuts and bolts, diplomacy included.

Other alternatives are the 'from scratch' efforts by the Alternative Civs teams, such as Clash of Civilization. Personally I feel that this is reinventing the wheel a little, and like the grunt work done in terms of the graphics engine, but whatever floats their boat.

My contention is that a truely good AI will come, not from a commercial gaming house, but a fan designed or modified game. The exception will be, if a gaming house starts with an adaptive AI as an idea, and builds a game around it.

MrBaggins

hi ,

Mike has a point , this is not something that should be taken lightly , .... (!)


, those who really are good at scripting could do some work for Firaxis , ......

have a nice day

[Fried-Psitalon]

Personally, I play my multi-player games in a style which I think is highly historically accurate:

If you have something I want, and I can take it, I do so.

If you have nothing I want, and it is more trouble than it is worth to remove you, I ignore you.

If I have something you want, and you can take it from me, I try to placate you, for now.

If if you have something I want, and I cannot take it from you, I attempt to convince you to give it to me peacefully.

That strikes me as pretty historically accurate. Heh. Unfortunately for most folks, scenario 1 just happens to be the most frequent. It's not a question of "Warmongering" for me- it's a question of simple efficiency. If you are weaker than me, assimilating your cities now rather than later makes me more efficient. After all, if you're weaker than me, you must not be building your cities/empire as well- so I want your cities under my control as soon as possible, rather than later and let you do the work.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by panag


hi ,

Mike has a point , this is not something that should be taken lightly , .... (!)


, those who really are good at scripting could do some work for Firaxis , ......

have a nice day

Actually, he really doesn't. People who script for these games fix their own bugs, and don't leave them in their scripts forever.

It would be impossible to know who was 'really good at scripting' before the game was released. When the game is released, 'infinite monkeys' get to play around with it, if they include a scripting engine. Some really care about the game. Some have really good ideas. Some are good at implementation. Those that combine those three traits can really make a difference with the game... provided there is functionality to do so.

It would be financially unviable to have this process before hand. Its difficult to control the creation process as the team size increases. Its costly to reconcile differing development paths that would inevitably happen. Its better to release the game with extensibility and let the 'free market modding' take its course.

MrBaggins

[Panag]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


Actually, he really doesn't. People who script for these games fix their own bugs, and don't leave them in their scripts forever.

It would be impossible to know who was 'really good at scripting' before the game was released. When the game is released, 'infinite monkeys' get to play around with it, if they include a scripting engine. Some really care about the game. Some have really good ideas. Some are good at implementation. Those that combine those three traits can really make a difference with the game... provided there is functionality to do so.

It would be financially unviable to have this process before hand. Its difficult to control the creation process as the team size increases. Its costly to reconcile differing development paths that would inevitably happen. Its better to release the game with extensibility and let the 'free market modding' take its course.

MrBaggins

hi ,

, there have been a large number of examples in the entire gaming world or software world inwhere people did not change a think , others started to create loopholes for spyware , worms , etc , .....

if some people want to work to improve the game they should offer the services and knowledge they have to Firaxis and improve the game , .....

have a nice day

[Sisawat]

there have been a large number of examples in the entire gaming world or software world inwhere people did not change a think , others started to create loopholes for spyware , worms , etc , .....

One can distribute worms or spyware using the existing modding functionality with Civ3. Moreover, one can generate ample bugs using the existing abilities (due largely to the incomplete nature of the software). Scripting would grant no special abilities to do that that don't already exist.

Besides, such action would inevitably be against the EULA, in which case Firaxis and Infogrames would disavow any responsibility if not reserve the right to pursue action agains the person who exploited their software to do this.

if some people want to work to improve the game they should offer the services and knowledge they have to Firaxis and improve the game

What, like getting hired by them? Have you ever... worked? It would be years before such a junior member of any company would have influence on their flagship product.

If that Firaxis quote indicates the attitude that I think it does, we have no input in this matter (scripting) that they will deem worth looking at.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Sisawat


One can distribute worms or spyware using the existing modding functionality with Civ3. Moreover, one can generate ample bugs using the existing abilities (due largely to the incomplete nature of the software). Scripting would grant no special abilities to do that that don't already exist.

Besides, such action would inevitably be against the EULA, in which case Firaxis and Infogrames would disavow any responsibility if not reserve the right to pursue action agains the person who exploited their software to do this.



What, like getting hired by them? Have you ever... worked? It would be years before such a junior member of any company would have influence on their flagship product.

If that Firaxis quote indicates the attitude that I think it does, we have no input in this matter (scripting) that they will deem worth looking at.

hi ,

loads of ideas where put in by members of this board , ......

getting hired , well that maybe a bit extreme , but who out here can script at the CIV III level , there is Gramphos and some others who understand the basic's , that's about it , .......

Mike has a solid point people should not start to play with scripts , the game is allready complicated as it is , we should not make it more complicated , .....

have a nice day

[Centauri18]

I've never even used MP, so I really wouldn't know.

[tonyhaug]

Just thought I'd report that the December issue of IEEE Spectrum (magazine of the International Electrical and Electronics Engineers Society) had a long article on the state-of-art in AI and cited CivIII as the best of the best in the game category!!

So no more complaints! They are the best available.

[Alex]

Originally posted by tonyhaug
Just thought I'd report that the December issue of IEEE Spectrum (magazine of the International Electrical and Electronics Engineers Society) had a long article on the state-of-art in AI and cited CivIII as the best of the best in the game category!!

So no more complaints! They are the best available.

well, I know of a few nitpickers who would disagree, but...

kudos to soren johnson for his splendid work!

[Sisawat]

While I have been very impressed with the Civ3 AI thus far, and it is clearly the most capable component of the software, I doubt that its definitively "the best".

At any rate, my only beef here is that there are users of this game who are computer scientists, either professionally or those of us who went through the motions in school and ended up in another field and are now amateurs (like myself). People who are perfectly capable of using and debugging game scripts.

I suspect that there are economic reasons behind Firaxis's reluctance to produce a scripting language (understandable, it would require considerable resources to thoroughly document, let alone develop; resources that I would rather see dedicated to perfecting the editors and MP), I just find it somewhat insulting that they would rather insinuate that we can't handle it technically.