johnbutler1982
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2010
- Messages
- 9
Another thing I think you are missing is that there is a huge difference between a good AI , a bad AI and an unplayable AI.
A bad AI can be extremely simple and playable (look at the early RTS games - simplest AI ever conceived, but its playable). The early RTS AI was as follows:
check to see if your force is bigger than the opponent
if yes
move all your troops to attack
if no
build something
reposition troops for optimal defense
add another little bit to counter
if counter is full send a token attack at player to scout and reset counter
loop
This is a bad AI, sure, but it is playable, because it can't be tricked very easily and it can theoretically win. If you don't think about it, this AI seems like a bad human. My point is that something like this would make Civ 5 infinitely better. The current AI can, occasionally, do something really clever, like wade across water for a surprise attack, but mostly it just gets tricked and stinks. Its unplayable. It cannot be mistaken for a human. The replacement of the current unplayable AI with bad AI would make the game a million times stronger, and bad AI isn't hard to write. Civ4 AI was like that: if it had an overwhelming advantage it DOW'd and came at you hard, if it didn't it played not to lose (defensive units in cities, doesn't go for culture wins yet doesn't attack, etc...). It wasn't a genious AI, but it was playable.
Civ5 isn't playable combat AI. I'm not sure about diplomacy AI - the game is too opaque to figure out what its doing under the hood easily. But the combat AI is terrible and, IMO, makes it a poor, extremely repetitive game. I do not agree Civ V is deeply flawed - I think decisions that now are thought of as stupid would become much more meaningful and interesting if you actually had to worry about losing a war or being invaded. But you don't. The poor combat AI destroys what could be a decent game and a worthy successor to Civ4.
A bad AI can be extremely simple and playable (look at the early RTS games - simplest AI ever conceived, but its playable). The early RTS AI was as follows:
check to see if your force is bigger than the opponent
if yes
move all your troops to attack
if no
build something
reposition troops for optimal defense
add another little bit to counter
if counter is full send a token attack at player to scout and reset counter
loop
This is a bad AI, sure, but it is playable, because it can't be tricked very easily and it can theoretically win. If you don't think about it, this AI seems like a bad human. My point is that something like this would make Civ 5 infinitely better. The current AI can, occasionally, do something really clever, like wade across water for a surprise attack, but mostly it just gets tricked and stinks. Its unplayable. It cannot be mistaken for a human. The replacement of the current unplayable AI with bad AI would make the game a million times stronger, and bad AI isn't hard to write. Civ4 AI was like that: if it had an overwhelming advantage it DOW'd and came at you hard, if it didn't it played not to lose (defensive units in cities, doesn't go for culture wins yet doesn't attack, etc...). It wasn't a genious AI, but it was playable.
Civ5 isn't playable combat AI. I'm not sure about diplomacy AI - the game is too opaque to figure out what its doing under the hood easily. But the combat AI is terrible and, IMO, makes it a poor, extremely repetitive game. I do not agree Civ V is deeply flawed - I think decisions that now are thought of as stupid would become much more meaningful and interesting if you actually had to worry about losing a war or being invaded. But you don't. The poor combat AI destroys what could be a decent game and a worthy successor to Civ4.
