AI in MOO3

[JamesH]

1stly gday everyone. im getting pumped for MOO3 and have been reading bits and pieces about the game.

I have never played any games in the series and was wondering what the AI has been like in previous versions. games like HOMM spring to mind where AI in 3 was good, but the AI in 4 was terrible.

Does anyone else think that the AI could be the achilles heel of this game, or has anyone any evidence to the contrary?

[kalbear]

It's hard to compare, since the games are being designed by totally different companies with no code being shared between the projects.

Moo1 had...adequate AI, I guess. The ship design was intelligent, the AI would build various types of fleets and would design ships based on what techs/tendencies you had, IIRC. As almost all empire building AIs go, it didn't prioritize highly for industry/research, so it'd often lag far behind. It did not take advantage strategically aside from the most basic chores, such as leaving an undefended colony near their border.

Moo2 was possibly worse in the AI department. The AI ships were horribly built and could easily be outclassed. The AI using the ships was, for the most part, vaguely decent but has exploitable tendencies. Planetary management AI is just plain dumb. Diplomacy was usually pretty bone-headed as well. Strategically, the MOO2 AI was an encephaletic, still born infant, who would often declare war when seeing one lone outpost it could blow up, even though you outclassed it in every single way.

Moo3 appears to be much better on a tactical and strategic level. There's indications that the AI will figure out your tendencies and build counter-mission ships to defeat you. It'll definitely use the ships correctly, and appears to do a good job managing weapons on those ships. It appears to do well on the tech tree. It might not be so great with industry buildup; hard to say, really. It does appear to be reasonably smart when declaring war and attempting to do realistic goals without totally irrational behavior. It appears to be pretty reasonable on prioritizing expansion over consolidation. Also appears to be quite decent at spying and diplomacy, especially in the senate.

It looks like it'll be better than something like, say, Civ 3. Honestly, only folks that really could tell you would be the beta testers.

[JamesH]

yes im worried that ive heard glowing reports about all sorts of aspects, but nothing saying OMG the AI is demonic.

[Jack Frost]

A) i'd just like to know if beta testers lose to the ai.

B) i'd like to know how much of a military advantage the AI needs in order to be competitive (in most strat games unless the computer has 3x as much stuff as you, you can win).

C) I'd like to know how moddable it is.

the thing will live and die on the AI.

[kalbear]

kebzero has stated that he won his first game on impossible just recently, and that was with the luckiest start he's ever had. That's a good sign for me.

I wish we knew how moddable it was. That's somewhat troubling. I do know that the graphics/sound are all in public domain formats, though the tools that were used to develop 'em aren't there yet. Supposedly, the useful information about the game is stored in excel files. What that information is, well, they've not said yet.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by JamesH
yes im worried that ive heard glowing reports about all sorts of aspects, but nothing saying OMG the AI is demonic.

If the AI was truly demonic then a lot of the casual gamers would be put off. Most people want to have a bit of a fight on "normal" but be proved superior in the end. So the AI can't be too smart or QS risk losing sales (either of this game or the sequel.) The true TBS experts will be the ones jacking the difficulty up to the highest level and looking for a real struggle for survival but not one that is truly "impossible".

[BigBopper]

I would be in heaven if the normal level of difficulty the actually had to dumb down the AI. So that only on hard level would the AI would truly be unleashed. I hate it when you have to give the AI all kinds of advantages (cheats) just to keep up with the player. In civ3 for example the AI starts with full knowledge of the map in order to be able to function. That kind of crap drives me nuts. I want to have an AI be able to match me (or better me at first) given the same tools, and playing by the same rules that I have to.

[Grumbold]

Yes ideally the AI would be tuned for the top level then somehow made more stupid for its lower ratings, like Chess programs. Unfortunately I believe in Chess they do this by restricting the time and depth in which it can analyse its best move. In a TBS there are hundreds of decisions that go into making up a single turn to it can't work quite that way. Its simpler (and achievable!) to give them moderate AI coupled with progressive multipliers.

[Sarxis]

Does the AI cheat?

[Alex]

It has to cheat. Every AI cheats.

[BigBopper]

The advantage that the AI has, is that it can micromanage better then any human could hope to. Given the complexity of the game, however, the designers will almost certainly have to give the AI some help. However, I’ll be **ssed if they have to make up for dumb AI by giving it massive help. Too many designers have simply written brain dead AI’s and made them competitive by giving them massive cheats. We can only hope that the Moo3 team took their time to write a good AI. Of course we could also just play all our games as multiplayer

[kalbear]

The only AI that cheats is the New Orion AI. The other AI races do not start out with any more tech, resources, money, planets, ships, or anything else.

They are basically indistinguishable from human players at the start.

All AI does not cheat. It's a common practice because it does indeed do what you want - it makes the game harder and more challenging, which is the goal of any game.

[Sarxis]

Does the AI have omniscience? And if it does, will it handle cloaks and such?

[LastFromVega]

About micro-managing, maybe I am naive but to me the Planetary AI and the Finance AI were the same as the one we have access to (as governors): the BTs all said they relied on those two heavily, certainly because it was well designed.

About the difficulty setting, a quote from LoreWeaver said:

The AI setting basically controls the AI's drive to win. The AI will basically be different diplomatically. If the AI thinks you are going to win (or on the path to winning) it will declare war on you.

the worst AI I have seen yet, was civ 3, not because it was lame, but because it cheated so much on knowing where the resources were.
I don't mind the AI cheats a bit on production, or on research points, but I do mind if key strategic info is known when it should not...

Maybe I am dreaming here, but maybe we will have a worthy AI for once...

time to go home, see you folks!

[Todd Hawks]

In fact, the Civ3 AI is the best I've ever seen. Sure, it cheated concerning resources but it didn't cheat on anything else. (I don't consider bonuses as cheats). I've never seen it doing strange stuff because of a resource known to it (well, apart from settling on small ice islands, but there's often oil on these islands I do the same).
And it is able to launch a successful attack with major forces, and strategically use alliances. And a lot of other stuff.

It's far from perfect but show me an AI that performs half as well as that of Civ3 (in a game as complex as Civ3 of course).