AI (ver1.0): Hosted by mindlace

[NotLikeTea]

Keep in mind that the people who can beat the computer blindfolded do so not due to superior planning and tactics, but because they know how to take advantage of the computers faults.

For good tactics to emulate, they should look at the best multiplayer tactics, where AI faults do not come into play.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by NotLikeTea (edited June 22, 1999).]</font>

[Darkstar]

Urban Ranger - "You guys are all insane."

Yep. And so are you.

Without true AI, we have a problem of a non-learning single player opponent engine. Which once you learn the tricks, is easy to defeat. That is the problem with locking it into the code, like it is now in CivII and SMAC. It can't be modified or customized at all after they are done with updates and patches. And only those with the source can do it whatsoever.

That brought up scripts and API and what not. As in other games which are still alive. The *players* of the game are building and updating the A-non-I modules or scripts.

Then we kicked around various ideas how to do the same for CivIII. Both your ideas are the worse possible suggestions... but will probably be the one implemented.

The problem is Civ and SMAC are programmed to react to what the developers found to be most effective. But the few months development time compared to the shelf life is a small amount of time to try and get the "Ultimate" A-non-I built, and the more experienced of us *will* walk all over it as a consequence on the day its released. And they won't release a patch 1 year to 2 years down the road to correct the "bad" or "inefficent" A-non-I. They will be busy developing new games.

I mentioned API as that would be open to at least a small fraction of the players, kept speed for those concerned, be relatively easy to implement from Firaxian side, and would enable people to further extend the system by building script parsers, if that is what the community wanted.

Making the A-non-I open and scriptable from design time would trade speed for maximizing the number of players being able to customize thier play.

And that is what we are after. Customization and updating of the A-non-I.

If you don't want to waste your time with positive suggestions here, then please find another topic where you can contribute positively. We all want to play the best possible Civ3.


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-Darkstar
(Knight Errant Of Spam)

[EnochF]

And I'm still freaked.

[Theben]

1st time here, if someone else mentioned my apologies. Since us human players are so good at tweaking units to our favor (w/ workshop), or building the only descent ones (w/o workshop), why not have the AI copy what we build, as best it can? After it runs in to a couple of our units that give it trouble, it will copy them. Or allow a "AI preference" like to one used for techs in civ2's rules.txt, except for units.

[Flavor Dave]

another threadmaster suggested this idea get posted here. Eggman made the (IMO brilliant) suggestion that the human have the option of selecting normal diplomacy, or realistic diplomacy. In the former, the computer players act like they do now, and once you've become dominant, pitiful civs declare war on the human to prevent the human from winning. In realistic diplomacy, 3rd rate civs ACT like 3rd rate civs.

I pointed out that the AIs have some pretty obvious triggers where they change their attitude toward you--1750, 1850, space techs, launch. So I thought this would be easy to program, just eliminate these triggers if you choose "realistic" diplomacy.

One further thing this will do is add a level of difficulty. Realistic diplomacy will be alot easier than the way it is now. And that means you can make the AI alot tougher, making deity a challenge again (at standard diplomacy). An enhanced AI, with realistic diplomacy, would be as hard to beat as deity is now.

[Gregurabi]

I agree with Darkstar and Rong. The biggest failure of CTP and (to a lesser extent) Civ2 is the lack of a competent AI. Civ1's AI cheated too much, so it's disqualified from the running. We need to be able to extend and improve the game as we learn to beat it so that it will grow with us.

I disagree with Urban Ranger's comments. First of all, it is not yet known whether a scripted AI will be too big of a bottleneck. It hasn't even been implemented yet! If the scripted AI runs while the human player is thinking about what to do and fumbling with the interface (or micromanaging), it should have plenty of time to make its own decisions. You need more CPU time? Just turn off the damned animated whirlygigs!

Also, Urban Ranger, the client/server model is not silly. In fact, it's already been done -- check out Freeciv at http://www.freeciv.org/ . (What do you think all of the Linux users played before CTP? "Just slap the whole bloody thing on a Wintel box and be done with it" is exactly what is wrong with 95% of the game companies today!) And while Freeciv won't currently support 25 users in a single game, there's absolutely nothing preventing you from running 25 simultaneous Freeciv games on one system, if you've got the hardware to handle it.

Finally, I agree wholeheartedly with kmj's comments. If I want a second-rate game, there are any number of places I can get one. From Sid Meier (and Brian Reynolds) I expect more than that -- I expect a game that will captivate me for years. And if the AI can't keep up with me, I won't stay interested. I'm a picky user, and I want QUALITY GAMEPLAY.

(Blatant plug: Freeciv desperately needs a better AI. It already has a client/server architecture and is released under the GNU General Public License, so you can hack up the code as much as you need to. If any of you are frustrated with the AI in your current Civlike games and have the talent and time to do better, Freeciv can use you.)

[Theben]

*BUMP* How about putting those AI arguements here instead of the suggestions page?

[Maniac]

That AI builds all his crappy little cities two squares apart. Is it that hard to tell the AI to build them 4 squares apart?

After 3 civlike games that problem still isn't solved. Strange. Unless the designers intentionally want the AI to do that...

Then I'm now telling them : I don't want that!

[Emperor10]

Computer AI thinks in two demensions...there's simply no way to get it to think like a human player. A will always lead to B. By giving the computer more "choices" you can make it somewhat smarter (A might lead to B or C), but no way can you make it an unpredictable entity with logical moves. The more complicated it gets, the more it seems to screw up on the logic. For example, it might hate you simply because you're stronger, even if you give it tons of gifts. The computer has no emotion, it simply can't get that you're trying to be friends, all it cares about is making all the numbers even to you, because that's what the program tells it to do. Or it might be the opposite, it might like you more everytime you give a gift. It doesn't understand the fact that you have 20 units along the border could mean its a trick as long as you stay on your side(which is how it divides "hostile" from "friendly"). Either way, it is very hard to make the AI do anything other than math. Everything is a knee jerk reaction.

[Mark_Everson]

Actually, M@ni@c, building crappy little cities two-three squares apart is probably IMO The Best strategy at the beginning of the game. What the worthless AI doesn't know (among Many things) is how to transition this strategy into big cities in the mid-game by starving some of the worthless ones out of existence. I and others have had many discussions on this in Civ2 Strategy from time to time. You might be able to find them if you search under "small cities" if you're interested. Or you could search by my handle since I've probably only got ten or so posts there. I'm sure not everyone agrees with my small-city stance, but its backed up by some mathematical analysis of the game which is more than you can say for most. If you like empirical evidence, its also backed up by multiplayer victories against something like 40 "deity level" opponents with no defeats .

Emperor 10:

I think its possible to do a Lot more with AI than you're willing to admit. Check out http://people.mw.mediaone.net/markeverson/clash_ai1.htm to see our ambitious plans for the AI in Clash. Will all our ideas work? Probably not, but I am Sure we can do better than the mindess junk that passes for AI in civ.

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Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do ;-) )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

[Maniac]

Perhaps it's the best strategy, but it's cheating. IT'S ICS.
So I hope you're not gonna learn your Clash AI how to cheat better. You should make it the human player in someway inadvisable to use the Civ2 cheats.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by M@ni@c (edited August 20, 1999).]</font>

[Mark_Everson]

No, M@ni@c it is Not cheating. It is playing the game as designed. I agree its a Huge design flaw, but there it is. Unless the players agree beforehand that it is not to be used, and if so what the new rules are, it is Completely Legitimate. Besides ICS only gives a moderate advantage at deity level. Its only at the lower levels where it really gets out of hand.

Clash will not use ICS-type cheats because the econ and population growth models have Nothing to do with the bizarre ones in Civ.

[Maniac]

*BUMP* Post here your AI ideas.

[Mo]

In normal diplomacy the ai should only declare war if it is going to mount an attack or if it already has units with which to attack. Too often has a small civ declared war on me and after 10years/turns I still wasn't attacked. Unless it is inresponse for an action on your part or request of an ally the ai should prepare itself before declaring war.

[KDan]

Well, the other version was messy-ing it all up, so here it is in the right thread...

I would be really impressed if, in civ3, I actually saw some real strategy displayed by the AI.
There are a great, great number of tricks which one can play upon the opponent to confuse him and eventually beat him, and right now the AI uses none of them (for Ctp anyway).
Here's a short, inextensive list of things the AI could and should do. For more reading I would recommend "36 Stratagems", a famous chinese strategy book which should be mandatory reading for all the civ3 team...

1) Feints: The AI should be able to stage up feints, as in giving the impression of attacking somewhere, whilst attacking somewhere else. That is really quite a basic trick.
2) Secretly staging a decisive attack, and watching out for such attacks. A tactic which works very often in Ctp is to build up a small strike force of just one or two very strong stacks, and ship them to the ennemy's strongest cities by sea or space. Then suddenly you drop them in the middle of your ennemy's empire, where he is not expecting them, and take a few key cities, and the ennemy is beaten. That would not work very often in a human vs human game, and the AI doing this would be a welcome (if disastrous) surprise. As it is right now, the only kind of attack I've seen from the computer is the random, unregulated flow of units towards my cities as if they could do something by sheer force of numbers - which they can if the other empire is far stronger. But since most of the time it's not, this strategy (or lack thereof) is disastrous for the computer which looses its units one by one as they clash against untakable objectives and ambushed forces.
3) Attacking to defend. When I wander around my ennemy's territory with slaver stacks I see lots, and I do mean lots of units wandering around from city to city, following me around (and they are actually my main target since they provide me with slaves!). Would it be so hard to get the computer, when under heavy attack, to mass those forces, break through the frontline if possible and go attack some lightly defended cities instead of just providing prey for my stacks?
4) Another feint: Give the impression of emptiness (no units) where there are lots, and give them impression of having lots of units where there are only a few. Right now it's just plain easy to guess where the computer's units are: They're right where my units are!
5) Communications. In warfare, an army with communications is an army which has the possibility of retreating on controlled territory to get back home, and which has a supply of ammo and food and everything. An army without communications is isolated and cannot retreat or refuel or etc... you get it. If I send a stack in the middle of a Ctp computer civ, I can roam around, do a lot of damage, and then retreat when my guys are getting weaker. This should never happen. Especially with the Zones of Control feature of civilization, such an army (say of 4 samurai, 4 archers and a slaver) should be surrounded by 3 stacks of about 4 legion-like units, so as to prevent it from moving without taking massive damage. That already would masively limit the damage. Also the entry point of the stack should be blocked, so that if it does attack one of the blocking armies, it will be crushed in a few turns because of all the damage it has taken. It's easy to get rid of parasites, but you have to do it. The Ctp AI doesn't do it.
6) As a sidenote, sea warfare is very, very poor in Ctp. The AI just cannot control the seas. That sucks. Please fix it. Controlling the seas has been and still is one of the major points of any strategy, from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the Spanish armada to modern battlecruisers. Without command of the sea the English would probably have been beaten by the Germans.

That should do for a start. I'll try to get my hands on this book (36 Stratagems) to give you the reference for it. I only have it in French but I'm sure at least some people at Firaxis/Activision speak French :-)

Daniel

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