Although I agree with you Vokarya, there has to be a middle ground where the AI aims for whatever is the most efficient.
There is a reason why the metagame in many competitive games like Starcraft or DOTA for instance - evolves and adapts trying to perfect itself, yet all the while the best players in the world are all very similar, yet somehow different. They have worked out the best way to play the game. There are sort of common practices, and yet each has slight variations/revisions of their own. Nonetheless, it usually doesn't differ very much from what other players will try and execute. Hard to explain I guess, just that, as long as what the AI is doing is what we commonly consider 'smart' - it sounds like great progress to making a competitive AI.
Caveman2cosmos had an ongoing issue of being too easy imo. Even on Deity you could get obscenely far ahead to the point where it became boring well before the modern era. People just wouldn't finish games (myself included), because they felt like there wasn't much point, due to the the game feeling like it was won already, without nearing victory conditions. The further AND2 gets away from this and the tougher the AI becomes (without stretching the boundary of unfair advantages too much), is a great achievement imo.
There is a reason why the metagame in many competitive games like Starcraft or DOTA for instance - evolves and adapts trying to perfect itself, yet all the while the best players in the world are all very similar, yet somehow different. They have worked out the best way to play the game. There are sort of common practices, and yet each has slight variations/revisions of their own. Nonetheless, it usually doesn't differ very much from what other players will try and execute. Hard to explain I guess, just that, as long as what the AI is doing is what we commonly consider 'smart' - it sounds like great progress to making a competitive AI.
Caveman2cosmos had an ongoing issue of being too easy imo. Even on Deity you could get obscenely far ahead to the point where it became boring well before the modern era. People just wouldn't finish games (myself included), because they felt like there wasn't much point, due to the the game feeling like it was won already, without nearing victory conditions. The further AND2 gets away from this and the tougher the AI becomes (without stretching the boundary of unfair advantages too much), is a great achievement imo.