AI Personality?

[KrikkitTwo]

Is anyone else worried about this quote?

"Much time is also being spent on the AI. One goal is to have rulers with distinct personalities. Gandhi will be generous to weaker nations, while the Khan will shy away from any diplomacy at all"

My biggest worry with AIs with 'Personalities' are that they act less than competitively. If there were actual different valid strategic directions to follow, and certain 'Personalities' favored one over the other then it might work. But I'm afraid that a Ghandi won't attack when he should and a Khan will fight himself into oblivion.

This is assuming that a 'ruler' ie Ghandi or Khan stays consistent throughout the game. Other options would be

1) it varies randomly throughout the game (not as bad, the computer will still make bad decisions but not all of the same kind)

2) it changes in response to the decisions made by the AI Player (would be interesting but not as useful)

3) it involves bonuses that the AI will take into account when making decisions (because Khan gives a certain bonus to his military, that bonus is used by the AI player who has Khan when calculating relative strength before starting a war)

 

[oldStatesman]

I don't like the idea of giving Ai's 'individual' traits set in stone - it makes it too easy strategy wise to figure out how to exploit them individually and then the game becomes boring IMHO.

I'd rather see it like it is now but improved so the overall AI 'acts' a bit more 'intelligently' - all AI's should act with all characteristics at different times so they tend to surprise you with unexpected actions. (I know I am not saying this right...). You never know if Ghandi is gong to attack or not...or if Khan is going to be a sweetheart and trade with you reasonably.

 

[Carver]

I loved personalities in SMAC and I think it would be cool to have more of that in C4. It must be an option of course and you should be able to randomize personalities. Krik's #1 above sounds interesting.

I loved it how the other faction leaders got nervous when I got planet busters. C4 should have some of that.

 

[Own]

I think the AI should stay the way it is, dumb. I'd find it more satisfiying to beat a dumb AI with huge bonuses than beat a smart AI with little bonuses.

 

[sela1s1son]

I'd like personalites in this way:

Somewhat fluidic, changing slightly with time (perhaps how that civ or culture may have changed and/or adapting to the human player(s) and AI players)

Adapting would be learning lessons IE If Civ X attacks Civ Y a lot, Civ Y is going to make motions against Civ Y, etc. So India might not start acting like "Ghandi", but will have a tendency to lean that way noticebly.

I'd also like to be able to randomize the personalities too, while the leaders might stay the same, it'd make it more interesting.

Another consideration might be that over time a new personality is "rotated in" to the AI. Either a historical leader of that nation (Which may or may not replace the figurehead), and it could me more random (not defined by time limits... or even an option to fully randomize them so you have Ghandi's AI running Russia one moment and Napoleon after him).

I do like the AI personality concept, but I'd like it to shift over time and events, and to be more randomized (switching suddenly, or for any number of reasons). I'd like to be able to choose confining it to the nations historical leaders (and/or periods, depending), or completely and utterly random. Perhaps, the AI that's more randomized might be called "Civ X's Advisor" or something like that, while the normal leader is constantly there being the face of that Civ (possibly also influencing the nation).

I want some sort of personality, besides simply aggression level. I think it makes the AI civs more interesting then if there simply "Compete to Win no matter what". I'd like them to try and win, but perhaps utilizing certain stratagies over others (without abandoning the others). I'd also like to see a in game personality defined by events in the game (Example the Romans might end up being the rivals of America, while Mongolia may be a historical friend and ally of Rome, and the Celts might be the historical ally of both the USA and Mongolia).

The personalities should have many dimensions (economic, diplomatic, cultural, military, domestic attitudes, etc). It should be fluidic shifting over time, and responding to events. It should be more of a strong influence as opposed to a simple decision maker. ((((IE: if Ghandi has a really juicy target to conquer military, maybe even a very weak civ, he could end up doing it, it'll just be easier to scare him into leaving you alone then Khan)))). Civs should also have more then one personality. That way you can't simply select pacifist countires and walk over them. There should be an option to utterly randomize the personalities of the leaders.

So one game of Civ IV You might get De Gaulle leading France, Joan of Arc the next, Napleon the third, and Louis the IV the fourth. So it'd be more randomized, perhaps changing through the game even.

Ok, I rattled on quite a bit. Trying to be descriptive, that's all.

 

[dh_epic]

If there are personalities, they all need to be competitive in their own ways... In other words, they'd need to overhaul the game so having a personality is profitable.

In Civ 3, the following personality wins every time:

- trust no one
- disregard culture
- expand as fast as possible
- conquer one at a time
- disregard reputation
- pick on the weak and isolated

In other words, if someone's personality is "get really upset about reputation", or "I like culture", or "i'm a very trusting guy who just wants to be friends", they will LOSE. So I hope they've changed those aspects of the game so these personalities can win.

Also, there ought to be a way to randomize the personalities, so you can't just look over and say "India... nothing to worry about. I'll spend more time worrying about the Iroquois."

 

[mastertyguy]

Also, we have to do something about milkers. I don't think peaceful attitude cannot get 10 000 points easily. Milkers also hae this personnality.

 

[GenMarshall]

Play the part, so long as the personality can have the will to win (depends on various difficulty levels).

 

[Greebley]

I like the idea of the AI's not all playing the same way. If I was doing it, I would do things like rate the AI from 1 to 10 on things like Importance of defense, offense, early and late growth, shields, tech, honor (respecting treaties), aggression, culture, "tit for tat" (If another civ cheats him, then he will break deals too), etc. So an AI with a high culture rating would be more likely to build cultural buildings (and more likely to be a cultural threat for the win), compared to an AI who had this trait as low and would be low in culture. Having a 1 wouldn't mean you don't build anything of that trait, it just means it is not emphasized. A one might have 1 to 2 defensive units in cities when not at war, while a 10 might have 4 on average.

You definitely want to be able to randomize such a scheme. The intersting thing is that the AI's will not all play the same and give longer lifespan to the game if done right as you need to be able to counter more than one style of play.

 

[MeteorPunch]

The more variety the better. The civs having distinct personality will make it more interesting to play and have a favorite ai civ and hated ai civ. I love the idea.

 

[sela1s1son]

The more variety the better. The civs having distinct personality will make it more interesting to play and have a favorite ai civ and hated ai civ. I love the idea.

I think this should be determined as the game progresses possibly... although it could also be set in stone at the start of the game (either randomly and/or by game settings like how in Civ III you can set favored/shunned govs). That would be neat! I like it! Good idea, sir!

 

[Portuguese]

I say build both and then let us choose as we feel that day

 

[Commander Bello]

A little bit more like an actor. There should be a certain element of surprise, but you should be able to at least get a feeling about your opponent's personality

 

[dh_epic]

I think the ideal answer is both.

You don't want him to have a personality to the point that he loses because of personality flaws that make him lose the game.

The answer still comes back to the fact that you need to make the game competitive for different personalities. Builders, peaceniks, warmongers, opportunists, and diplomats should all be able to win the game.

 

[mastertyguy]

In civ3, AI alreday have personnality. See the editor, there is agressivity level and favorite govt, and maybe a few other things. In civ2, their are some persaonnalities, but I don,t remenber how it works. So it is not so new. It will probably mor elaborate

 

[oldStatesman]

In civ3, AI alreday have personnality. See the editor, there is agressivity level and favorite govt, and maybe a few other things. In civ2, their are some persaonnalities, but I don,t remenber how it works. So it is not so new. It will probably mor elaborate

But those traits have minimal effect on game play - they seem to only effect attitude - not a real personality IMHO.

I like the idea of AI's actually ACTING different and unpredictable; my only concern is that they lock each AI to a certain set of traits which will lead to making it easier to figure out how that particular AI will always act. I'd rather see them create several different 'personalities' and each game the AI civs will asssume different guises - or even better change personality during the game when circumstances change - that IMHO will create variety and a level of unpredictability that Civ3 lacks.

Players will have to stay on their toes and become creative themselves to deal with the changing environment. Maybe they can deal with this by having lower levels of difficulty lock in the AI to a certain set of traits; while at the higher difficulties the AI will change more and more often in response to game situations as you advance to give them an advantage (make them seem more intelligent) rather than giving them as many huge building/research incentives that currently exist in Civ3 that lead to the higher levels being dominated by excessive micromanagement and mostly All War strategies. JMHO

 

[mitsho]

Like an Actor, but with this system:

Civ A has wtraits (which determine to a part how it acts).
Civ A has x leaders, leader B,C, ... (who all have a different personality)
Leader B has y set personality-traits and z personality traits which differ from game to game.

or something alike

mitsho

 

[KrikkitTwo]

On that does anyone know what the penalties might be for your leader 'getting mad' at you (when you don't play their way) (Revolution..with period of Anarchy and possibility of a new leader)

 

[p dandy]

In other words, if someone's personality is "get really upset about reputation", or "I like culture", or "i'm a very trusting guy who just wants to be friends", they will LOSE. So I hope they've changed those aspects of the game so these personalities can win.

My sentiments exactly. OldStateman also has a good point when he said that the feature might make AIs more predictable because they are locked into personailities. I'm torn because I also like the idea of every AI opponent acting and playing differently which I think is a novel addition.

As for the leader getting mad at you, I feel that this is an ok idea. There hasn't been enough info to make any conclusions. Most likely if this is killing the fun, they'll probably add an option to turn it off.

 

[dc82]

yeah one thing that kinda got to me in the old civ games were that the other "leaders" were somewhat flat - for example, japan was only aggressive and expansionist in the past century, but before then, they were rather isolationist. same with the us, who only broke out of its relatively isolationist stance (at least compared to now) since wwii.

as time and leaders change, countries change in policy - that wud be interesting to have represented somehow - where, maybe dependent on the governmental shift, a country might start changing its characteristics - so let's say a civ went from a fairly free, democratic state into a revolution, where it became totalitarian. suddenly it starts turning on its allies. i dunno, makes u pay much more attention to world events, as opposed to ignoring those announcements about revolutions in other civs.