Will the ai be improved in warlords?

[binhthuy71]

If the Civ programmers were to create an AI that would effectively handle all of the variables entailed in rectifying some of the criticisms then the game would cost 500USD and there'd be a new release, at best, every five years. But it would all be moot because with that sort of AI programming ability they'd be working for the Pentagon.

I love Strat Sims and I play any number of them. So far I've found that the AI's in each of them are on a par with, or beneath, the Civ IV AI.

If you want to play against a cunning, creative, flexible opponent, play online.

 

[Naismith]

If the Civ programmers were to create an AI that would effectively handle all of the variables entailed in rectifying some of the criticisms then the game would cost 500USD and there'd be a new release, at best, every five years. But it would all be moot because with that sort of AI programming ability they'd be working for the Pentagon.

I love Strat Sims and I play any number of them. So far I've found that the AI's in each of them are on a par with, or beneath, the Civ IV AI.

If you want to play against a cunning, creative, flexible opponent, play online.

Improving the AI is not an all or nothing proposal. There were improvements made to the AI for Civ4. For instance, the whole concept of Open Borders (vs. arbitray AI incursion into your territory, or the incredibly stupid Right of Passage agreement). I believe this required substantial changes to the logic driving AI behavior. Ditto for Vassal States.

AI improvements can and should be made incrementally. I personally would like to encourage Firaxis to focus more on AI improvements and less on new units, unique buildings, new leaders, better graphics - i.e. window dressing.

Every discussion about AI improvements would not be complete without the suggestions of moving up a level (or two), or playing online. I don't have a problem with people making these suggestions, but they don't address the problem.

 

[NT_Jedi]

I truly would love a more challenging AI opponent, but I doubt we'll see much with the expansion. The main reason is because it's easier to advertise new features compared with improving an existing feature. Also improving the AI could introduce a new AI weakness. Unfortunately the gaming industry is at a stage where AI only has to work... which is what we see for most games and some games don't even have it work.

 

[binhthuy71]

Naismith, improving the AI may or may not be an all or nothing proposal - I'm not enough of a developer to say. I can say that, having worked in software dev for a too-big company, that "Improved AI" will be shot out of the saddle (By beloved Marketing) in favor of "Warlords."

As far as suggesting that playing online or moving up a level doesn't address the problem; you're right. Neither improves the AI. That said, suppose that in Spring of 2007 you see "Civilization IV Super" announced. Same leaders, same units, same Wonders, same everything, except that the AI is the best ever. Unfortunately, it's a whole new game, incompatible with any of your saves and you'll have to shell out another fifty bucks. Would you buy it?

Gaming companies make good will but no money from incremental improvements delivered via patches to games already purchased. They do make money from selling expansion packs that provide new stuff but no substantive improvement in gameplay for those beyond casual gaming. Sad but true.

 

[DaviddesJ]

...suppose that in Spring of 2007 you see "Civilization IV Super" announced. Same leaders, same units, same Wonders, same everything, except that the AI is the best ever. Unfortunately, it's a whole new game, incompatible with any of your saves and you'll have to shell out another fifty bucks. Would you buy it?

Sure. Or $500, or $5000. But, unfortunately, I'm not the mainstream consumer.

 

[binhthuy71]

Sure. Or $500, or $5000. But, unfortunately, I'm not the mainstream consumer.

I suspect that most of us aren't. Out of all of the people who bought Civ IV, how many come to this site and of those how many post? It's great hearing from people who really think about the game and that's why I'm here - even though some of the minutae of the game will be forever beyond me.

 

[drkodos]

Commander Bello: I look forward to your version. When is it being released?


In all seriousness, and only meant as a neutral observation and nothing more than that, you have a fascinating love/hate relationship with this game that is almost as intriguing as playing the game itself.

You make a lot of good and powerful arguments, no doubt. I've read much of your pontificating, and a good bit of it is very well articulated and on point. However, I do not think that creating such a powerful AI as you would wish to have is as facile as you portend. I also think they would do so if it were economically feasible.

I mean, why wouldn't they? Think about it.

They are in business to make some profits. If they could deliver a more powerful (smarter ?) AI at a decent price point I bet they would do it in a heart beat.

 

[NT_Jedi]

... creating such a powerful AI as you would wish to have is as facile as you portend. I also think they would do so if it were economically feasible.

I mean, why wouldn't they? Think about it.

They are in business to make some profits. If they could deliver a more powerful (smarter ?) AI at a decent price point I bet they would do it in a heart beat.

Because the gaming industry is at a stage where AI only has to work then devs are directed to focus on other features such as graphics.

 

[Commander Bello]

Commander Bello: I look forward to your version.
a) When is it being released?


In all seriousness, and only meant as a neutral observation and nothing more than that, you have a fascinating love/hate relationship with this game that is almost as intriguing as playing the game itself.

You make a lot of good and powerful arguments, no doubt. I've read much of your pontificating, and a good bit of it is very well articulated and on point. b) However, I do not think that creating such a powerful AI as you would wish to have is as facile as you portend. I also think they would do so if it were economically feasible.

c) I mean, why wouldn't they? Think about it.

They are in business to make some profits. If they could deliver a more powerful (smarter ?) AI at a decent price point I bet they would do it in a heart beat.

(Numbering by me)
a) 24 months after somebody willl have granted me the budget which was made available for Civ4.

b) Here we are of different opinions, obviously.
Apart from AI's disabilities as far as naval and air combat are concerned, many improvements could have been done at the very beginning of creating Civ4.
Optimization algorithms are nothing which is too complex or difficult to implement. You just have to do it.
And to a certain degree it has been done, no doubt about it. Nevertheless, it was done in a very "hasty" way.
Other things obviously have been done with almost not putting any thoughts into it. Have a look at how and when AI units do attack you. In one word: they do it against all odds. I've seen the AI attack me with probabilites of 0,3%! And this is not a one-time event, it happens over and over again. It weren't emergency attacks either. The fact that it doesn't become so obvious is just because the random generator allows even at these odds the inferior unit to put some havoc on the other one.
Another example are the city gouvernors. Still, micro-managing is necessery to get the most from your cities, as the gouvernors still miss to find the optimal way of production (with taking things like city contendness, growth and speed into consideration).
And this in fact is one of my major concerns, as this is something at which a good algorithm should really be helpful to the human player.

c) Why didn't they just do it? Simple. Because we just don't make them to do so.
Like sheep, we eat what we are provided with and then some of us sheeps even bleat out their thankfulness for getting a handfull of hay, although they are sitting next to a green meadow, full of fresh, green grass.

As long as "John Fanboi" gets wet over the look of a Great Wall and is more concerned about whether Augustus should or should not have blue eyes, from an economic point of view there is not much reason to improve the AI, to that I agree.
But at forums like this, we should point out that there is much more which we could get - and which would make the game even more fascinating.

Once again: we have to force them out of their armchairs. Volunteeringly, they will not do it. That is something, they have proven with Civ3, PTW, C3C and Civ4. And I am pretty sure, they will prove it once more with WL.

 

[Zebra 9]

Yes they could increase the ability of the AI if they wanted, but they don't want to because if they did they would not get many new comers. For example lets put aside the fact that we are all Civ Fanatics & think of this as if we had never heard of Civ. Now amagine your walking in your local Wal Mart and you see a game called Sid Meier's Civilization V, & on the box it says "The Best AI to Hit Civilization". Do you think that you would buy it. I know I wouldn't. Come on I didn't know what the AI was until about a month ago.

 

[Naismith]

Naismith, improving the AI may or may not be an all or nothing proposal - I'm not enough of a developer to say. I can say that, having worked in software dev for a too-big company, that "Improved AI" will be shot out of the saddle (By beloved Marketing) in favor of "Warlords."

We're both engaging in a fair amount of speculation. Short of a personal interview with the development staff, we are just taking "educated" guesses. The relationship between Marketing and Development varies quite a bit in different companies. In my current company, Marketing is King and intelligence of any kind is not encouraged.

As far as suggesting that playing online or moving up a level doesn't address the problem; you're right. Neither improves the AI. That said, suppose that in Spring of 2007 you see "Civilization IV Super" announced. Same leaders, same units, same Wonders, same everything, except that the AI is the best ever. Unfortunately, it's a whole new game, incompatible with any of your saves and you'll have to shell out another fifty bucks. Would you buy it?

In a heartbeat.

Gaming companies make good will but no money from incremental improvements delivered via patches to games already purchased. They do make money from selling expansion packs that provide new stuff but no substantive improvement in gameplay for those beyond casual gaming. Sad but true.

I mostly agree, although I regard Vassal States as an incremental improvement to the AI. Good will isn't worthless, it eventually translates into money. Civ benefits from a hard core group of fanatics, who probably tend to value AI improvements more than casual buyers (who may or may not ever buy a Civ product again).

Look, I have an agenda. I want Firaxis to put more resources into AI improvements in expansion packs, and in the next release of Civ. For people who feel the same way I do, I suggest you make your opinion known on this forum. The more people who clearly say they want improvements to the AI, the more likely we are to get them in the future.

 

[bonafide11]

I think the AI is better than most of you give them credit for, but there are some significant improvements that need to be made. For example, the AI ought to know how to attack properly. There is no reason the programmers cannot design the AI to know how to attack properly or how to use catapults. Instead of having the AI attack with a horde of horse archers and a single catapult, it would make much more sense to have the AI attack with many catapult with perhaps some swordsmen and axemen too. It makes no sense why the AI cannot properly use catapults. It's the most important weapon in the game as far as I'm concerned, and the developers certainly know this, so why not substitute some of those horse archers for some catapult?

 

[Commander Bello]

Yes they could increase the ability of the AI if they wanted, but they don't want to because if they did they would not get many new comers. For example lets put aside the fact that we are all Civ Fanatics & think of this as if we had never heard of Civ. Now amagine your walking in your local Wal Mart and you see a game called Sid Meier's Civilization V, & on the box it says "The Best AI to Hit Civilization". Do you think that you would buy it. I know I wouldn't. Come on I didn't know what the AI was until about a month ago.

First of all, newcomers are exactly the group of potential buyers who wouldn't be neither attracted nor distracted by an improved AI. Why? Because there is no yardstick for them to measure any improvement.
Who may be confronted by the idea of an improved AI, though, may be the unexperienced casual player, as he typically would be the one being "threatened" by such an improvement.

Second, any improvement done for the AI aspect of the game does not conflict with other additions and improvements (except for consuming part of the overall budget, of course).
Nevertheless, creating the frame for a new unit and / or determining its values is completely independent from the way in which the AI works.
So, an improved AI (due to the overall budget thing) may cost some additional units or maybe buildings, yet it establishes a completely new experience and much added fun.

Third, added fun makes for more satisfied customers. Satisfied customers in general tend to buy the next expansion / version of a game.
People who are unsatisfied with the AI won't buy the expansion or new version, if there is good reason for them to believe that all what they will get are some new units and / or buildings which the AI will be unable to make use of.

Fourth, there typically is something called "learning curve". The higher you get on this curve, the more you experience the pros and cons of a given game. You may rise higher in the levels and learn more and more about the game mechanics.
At a certain point, you will realize that there is no improvement anymore, as far as the game is concerned. At this point, boredom starts.
The later you reach this point, the more fun you will get from the game. And the more fun you get, the more you will be satisfied, which brings us back to point 3).

 

[Armorydave]

Although I largely agree with Belo's comments about improving the AI, I suspect commercial realities create different incentives. I would absolutely pay $50, $100 or $500 for a version of Civ with a markedly improved AI but am almost certainly not the typical consumer.

 

[fergus]

i wish you could demand stuff even if the thing you want is in red because I am a lot more powerful than them and yet they won't sign a open borders treaty

 

[Sisiutil]

I suspect that of everything that goes into this or any computer game, the AI is the toughest to develop and also probably offers the lowest return on investment. So all our complaints about the AI, and they are, by and large, valid, can be laid at the door of economics.

That being said, I've played the original Civ, Civ for Windows, Civ II, Alpha Centauri, Call to Power, and now Civ IV. And I have to say the AI has been substantially improved. Several of my old, ridiculously simple exploits no longer work, and the leaders have distinct personalities that make them almost seem like real people. Firaxis et al obviously did invest in it.

From what little I know about Artificial Intelligence, it's incredibly challenging. I still remember one article about it, detailing one massive attempt at creating a multi-purpose AI. Things like "if Lincoln was in Gettysburg, his left foot was there too" had to be programmed into it. Computers are often compared to the human brain, but the two are, in fact, extremely dissimilar.

To put it another way, computers are stupid. If they were smart, they would know what you meant.

 

[King Flevance]

I would pay up to $100 dollars for it. I am not paying $500 because I don't have that to spare on a game. I may save up for it but $500 for a game is pretty pricey. $200 is worth it still. Although, I would have to be shown it was worth 200. I wouldn't just take their word for it.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You know, I do have many gripes about Civ4 (which, in spite of my gripes, I still find the most addictive and pleasing strat game yet), but the AI is not chief amongst them. The reason being that I have all too often been brought low by the quite 'smart' actions of the AI opponents (well, most of them at any rate). Oh I will never forget my overconfidence in declaring war on Caesar (in a very low-level game), only to have my @$$ handed to me on a plate time and time again. He rarely attacked my cities directly, instead opting to use his galleys to blockade my coastal cities-and transport his troops AROUND my troops-and tearing up my terrain improvements and generally wrecking my economy!! I often found myself with no choice but to 'rise to the bait' and launch an attack on him WITHOUT the benefit of my defense bonuses. Even when this was successful, I usually found that he had plenty of troops in reserves to finish me off. When he DID attack my cities, though, he always came prepared-with a sufficient mix of siege weapons, mounted troops, archers and melee. Needless to say that when I DID make peace with him, it was entirely on HIS terms!!
I originally thought this might just have been a fluke, but have since discovered that most of my opponents have been equally canny (or at least appeared that way). In fact, I have discovered that I perform better against other humans that I currently do against the AI! Even outside of war I have found the AI quite smart. Their decision making in diplomacy is a LOT less erratic, and much more geared towards their long-term interests! As for making the AI more geared towards victory, that was exactly what was wrong with the Civ2 AI. I have forgotten the number of times, in Civ2, that I had the entire world against me-just because I was winning . The problem was that in Civ3 they had gone too far in the opposite direction-making the AI too much of a pushover, and easy to 'divide and conquer'. In Civ4 I do feel that they have achieved a better balance, with decisions regarding alliances and wars being based on more tangible things than simply 'who is winning'. Thats not to say the AI shouldn't be taught to strike for victory-just not at ANY cost.
Lastly, in spite of my praise for the AI, to date, this does NOT mean that I don't think the AI shouldn't be 'improved'. I think everyone, including the games designers themselves, want the AI to improve with every patch and expansion. I do feel that this task will be made immensely simpler by the availability of the source code. With so many amateur and semi-pro programmers out there tweaking the AI, I feel the developers will be spoilt for choice when it comes to the availability of new and improved AI's which they can test against their own-thus accelerating the 'evolution' of the Civ4 AI overall!

Aussie_Lurker.

 

[s.c.dude]

I could see them go for Cultural Victories though...provided there were some way of viewing culture for AI cities (there isn't at the moment, is there??)

look at the victory conditions under cultuural hoped it helped

 

[Zebra 9]

Ok Commander Bello, maybe your right about the Who Would Buy Thing. Maybe the AI has an effect closer to what you said.

Aussie_Lurker, the way you put that AI strategy rang a bell, it sort of reminded me of how the American Revalution was fought. Washington stayed away from major confruntations, for most of the war. Look who won that war.
I have found that the AI does the same thing to me, but I never sign a peace treaty unless I want to let them live.