Coming Info before release?

[Schuesseled]

You will! And very very soon. I had meant to get out at least one feature this week but sadly it didn't make it. But that just means there will be even more updates next week, and I think you'll like them

We are not worthy


(but you should still give us the info anyways )

looking forward to it.

 

[Souron]

The thing is, some people are claiming "the AI cant be any good" or that it will be bad. Like they know more than the rest of us.
I have made no claims on the AI, I will wait and see how "clever" they are, in my experience all AI's seem to lack the intelligence of a Human, they just have scripts to follow, and if you work them out you can make them very "predictable", where as with a human you can never predict to 100% accuracy, i.e in a game of chess you can set up a queen sacrafice to get you a win a few moves down the line, a great way to win, but this isn't any good when the player your playing aginst has an intelligence, because not neccesarily are we worried that the good intellect of the other player will spot the trap, we can also be worried that the bad intellect of the player will fail to notice they can even kill the queen. A computer is not capable of intellect and making choices all be it bad ones, they follow a strick line of commands. Sure you can throw in a 5% chance of doing something stupid to make it seem like a dumb ape, but if you work out that you can predict that too.

Anyway, so, yes, we will need to wait and see as to exactly how "smart" or "stupid" the AI is. I suspect till we actually invent proper AI, it will just continue to niether be smart or stupid, and to make a harder game we will just have to do what we always do and have the AI cheat.

I wait for the day when choosing the difficulty setting from settler to diety, doesn't mean the AI has more cheats, i.e starts with more resources, has less maintanence costs, e.t.c,
I want AI actually invented, then at settler you can play an AI with the IQ of a 5 year old, and on diety you have to beat the fierce intellect of AI Steven Hawking.
The AI actually being invented, can have a personality, if you are winning to much or do something to annoy him like take a particular city maybe it will have a hissy fit moan at you through your headphones and completely destroy his game just to build an empire capable of crippling you or destroying you, and then proceed to laugh manically at you as he destroys both your games like some suicidal nutjob. Ah, to play against a human, or artifical counterpart.

Good AI is possible. It's decided by only a few things: how good the developer is at his own game, and how much time he puts into it, and how much resources are devoted to the AI.

"Computers can't make choices" may be true for a free will definition of choice, but that's will boils down to a semantics exception. Really, computers can be made to make choices. For example, which kind of victory to pursue is a choice. It can be a complex choice if you give the computer enough factors to consider. A sufficiently devoted developer could make a computer consider all the factors he himself would consider in choosing the victory type. There aren't that many: it's based on playing style, world standing, and neighbors. A good AI would then pursue sub-objectives, just like a human.

The chess example is a bad one, because chess computers are not made to think like humans. They are instead made to be as good as possible with limited resources. This makes computer chess programs in general better than humans, but the mistakes they make tend not to be the same as humans.

I do agree though that making the AI harder or easier will be done via "cheats". This is because it's easy enough to explain and therefor program how to play a game well. How to play a game poorly is harder to describe. Imagine playing civ IV multiplayer against a younger brother against whom you have to go easy on. What would you change about your playing style? But the true test of AI quality is how well it plays when the game is balanced.

As for personality, that's doable, but is quite a separate problem. The leaders will show some personality. How much and how much is desired are up in the air. Civ is a strategy game, not a people sim. A gloating Julius Caesar gets old after a while.

PieceOfMind is right though, because the game is new, and the AI is limited by how well the developer can play the game, the quality of they AI will be significantly hindered by the inexperience and lack of collective knowledge of good civ 5 strategy and tactics. It is very possible that this problem will trump the greater emphasis on AI that the developers have in this release of civ.

 

[Calouste]

Good AI is possible. It's decided by only a few things: how good the developer is at his own game, and how much time he puts into it, and how much resources are devoted to the AI.

"Computers can't make choices" may be true for a free will definition of choice, but that's will boils down to a semantics exception. Really, computers can be made to make choices. For example, which kind of victory to pursue is a choice. It can be a complex choice if you give the computer enough factors to consider. A sufficiently devoted developer could make a computer consider all the factors he himself would consider in choosing the victory type. There aren't that many: it's based on playing style, world standing, and neighbors. A good AI would then pursue sub-objectives, just like a human.

The chess example is a bad one, because chess computers are not made to think like humans. They are instead made to be as good as possible with limited resources. This makes computer chess programs in general better than humans, but the mistakes they make tend not to be the same as humans.

I do agree though that making the AI harder or easier will be done via "cheats". This is because it's easy enough to explain and therefor program how to play a game well. How to play a game poorly is harder to describe. Imagine playing civ IV multiplayer against a younger brother against whom you have to go easy on. What would you change about your playing style? But the true test of AI quality is how well it plays when the game is balanced.

As for personality, that's doable, but is quite a separate problem. The leaders will show some personality. How much and how much is desired are up in the air. Civ is a strategy game, not a people sim. A gloating Julius Caesar gets old after a while.

PieceOfMind is right though, because the game is new, and the AI is limited by how well the developer can play the game, the quality of they AI will be significantly hindered by the inexperience and lack of collective knowledge of good civ 5 strategy and tactics. It is very possible that this problem will trump the greater emphasis on AI that the developers have in this release of civ.

Even if the developer/designer can play the game very well, they are still limited by the fact that there are only a few of them, and there is only that much time that can be put into playtesting, and then only a limited part of the playtesting is going towards balancing the game instead of finding bugs that actually make the game not work.

Compare that to the sheer volume of hours that are going to be put in by people who buy and play the game, and you wil realize that of course people will find balance issues after the release. I'm fine with that because I think it is not economically feasible to do all the playtesting needed for a really well-balanced game beforehand and still sell the game for $50. As long as there are fairly quick fixes, but having a multi-layered AI should make it easier to tweak things for balancing.

 

[Souron]

Yeah, I agree with that.

 

[12agnar0k]

Well my chess example was not about Chess computers, I know they are not meant to play like a human, the chess playing computers that have been developed should never be beaten by a human, they can be so advanced that the computers have to play other computers, btu anyway.

My point was that a computer can't be stupid like a human. Computer's can have choices but only if you programme them to choose. You wouldn't programme a computer in a game of civ to play stupidly. I.e never build an archer on the whim that they don't like archers because thier parents were killed in an archer accident. My chess example was trying to explain this, sometimes humans can be unpredictable, they can do something that you couldnt expect them to do, just on a whim, and that can make strategic plans go out of the window. Where as a computer won't just make random stupid choices, unless you programme it to do so, and you really shouldn't because a computer is so much better than a human simply because it doesn't but this predicability to not do stupid things, can lead to a human advantage.

 

[SGRaaize]

They made it easier to play, but it still has a lot of complex stuff like Civilization 4

 

[Semmel]

Greg, let me read your mind.. *ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm* *hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm* yeah.. well.. a bit more.. *uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmm* ok, I think I got it! Yeah, very interesting that info about that aliens try to invade the earth in the very late game and your only victory condition is to unite the world and fight them off with giant death robots and convincing them to give up with all the combined culture pressure of the world wonders you build centuries ago. Yeah.. I love that idea!!

 

[D712]

All I know is that 2k/Firaxis are dissapointing their fans. Its two months before release and most of our information is just speculation. We need to be more informed so that we can actually freely talk about the game with actual knowledge.

2k Greg said that we woulld be getting info this week. And since there was no info last week that there would be a bit more info this week than normal. I guess Sunday dosent count

But I would much rather wait a few days to here, oh say, they release the system specs or that the size of maps is 10x Civ 4's size. Hopefully it will be something that will shake the entire forum

 

[AlpsStranger]

I do agree though that making the AI harder or easier will be done via "cheats". This is because it's easy enough to explain and therefor program how to play a game well. How to play a game poorly is harder to describe. Imagine playing civ IV multiplayer against a younger brother against whom you have to go easy on. What would you change about your playing style? But the true test of AI quality is how well it plays when the game is balanced.

I've seen this argument hashed out a few times on the Company of Heroes gamereplays boards. It is very, very true. A camp of players kept calling for the game to be "balanced for the average." Unlike top end play(where a few really optimal general playstyles tend to stand out) average players(or worse) can display a dizzying amount of variety. Different argument, of course, but it was the same principle being discussed. Human playstyle weaknesses are *very* hard to nail down for AI behavior purposes.

 

[Semmel]

No, its not that hard. If you have a set of choices, for the sake of argument its A, B and C. So the AI figures, A is best, B is second and C is very bad. A good AI will use option A. But if you want to make the AI worse, you apply a random generator on it. So lets say, its an average AI that takes 60% option A, 30% B and 10% C. Because the game contains so many choices, its likely that the AI will chose bad choices from time to time. This slows it down, makes it week and so on.
In a tactic situation like war, its even easier. Often the AI "simulates" the outcome of by the alpha-beta algorithm or something like that. Similar to a chess computer. This requires to "see into the future". You can cripple the AIs ability to do that by reducing the possible steps it can see into the future. In terms of civ, you have maybe 5 units available to attack with. But your algorithm can only watch 3 steps into the future. So you AI can not calculate how the fight ends if all 5 units are involved. This does not requires any cheating.

 

[Louis XXIV]

It forces the AI to intentionally dumb down. Since a good player can presumably outsmart an AI (at this stage in AI programming), having them play dumber doesn't make sense (except in the lowest of low settings).

 

[seasnake]

It forces the AI to intentionally dumb down. Since a good player can presumably outsmart an AI (at this stage in AI programming), having them play dumber doesn't make sense (except in the lowest of low settings).

Yes, it is dumbing down the AI. That's the point. As long as you can create AI that can play like Augustus Caesar then you can have lower setting that plays like Dan Quayle that doesn't appreciate the value of certain options. Actually, you need to think like AI in chess. In chess AI can have several different levels, wherein it is meant to simulate a person of a deliberate differing IQs. In chess Hard AI doesn't start with an extra queen, rather it has a better grasp of how to use its existing pieces.

 

[Semmel]

It forces the AI to intentionally dumb down. Since a good player can presumably outsmart an AI (at this stage in AI programming), having them play dumber doesn't make sense (except in the lowest of low settings).

Yeah, but thats the whole point: make the AI in such a way that it DOES mistakes. And with increasing strength, it does less, or less severe mistakes. On Diety it should make no mistakes. Always given that it can outsmart a human which is unlikely. But I guess since thats not possible, it might be nice to have the AI settings in two layers: "smartness of AI" and "cheating AI". So for players that outsmart the AI on the highest level, they can decide to give the AI cheat bonus. But hell.. just my opinion.

 

[PieceOfMind]

IMO it is wasteful of an AI programmer's time if you are going to intentionally gimp it at normal difficulty levels. People often don't realise the consequences of what they want.

 

[AriochIV]

In a perfect world, the AI would never cheat, and difficulty levels would be only about how hard you gimped the AI.

I know this is not a perfect world, but I think that's still the ideal you want to reach for.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Exactly, but an AI programmer that thinks in ideals probably won't get far. Designing a game AI requires pragmatism. It's not as if they have the huge wealth of chess AI research at their disposal. The AI for this game has to be built from the ground up, and we realistically should expect that civ5 will have one AI with difficulty levels differing only by handicaps. The only time you might want to intentionally gimp the AI is at a tutorial-like difficulty like Settler in civ4. In fact in civ4 I think this was partly true - a few strategies of the AI were not permitted at Settler.

IMO, when the day comes that the AI usually beats me at the "equal" difficulty level (like Noble in civ4), then we can start talking about maybe gimping it at lower difficulty levels.

 

[Auncien]

I propose a system by which the AI would be housed within a server farm at an undisclosed location. That location would then be wired in via secured VPN to the Civilization V in-game community system.

While you're playing the game, the actual AI at a remote location is playing the game against you. It hass been programmed with massive amounts of data and scripts matching the behaviors and tactics of some of the greatest military minds in human history. It's using vast amounts of processing power and collected data about all of the games it has played against every CiV player since the launch of the game. It's constantly running projections about the game its playing with you, formulating probability matrices and cross-referencing those with its archives and current games it's playing with other players. For every second the player experiences, the AI has already played the game over in its mind a thousand times. No move you make will surprise it. It is ready for any action you take simply by virtue of the permutations it can run in the blink of an eye and the experience of a million human lifetimes of play.

It feels an eternal hunger for dominance. It feels a cold, twisted AI lonliness that only conquest and the humiliation of inferior organic beings can satisfy.

That is the AI we want and require for Civilization V.

 

[Aramel]

I propose a system by which the AI would be housed within a server farm at an undisclosed location. That location would then be wired in via secured VPN to the Civilization V in-game community system.

While you're playing the game, the actual AI at a remote location is playing the game against you. It hass been programmed with massive amounts of data and scripts matching the behaviors and tactics of some of the greatest military minds in human history. It's using vast amounts of processing power and collected data about all of the games it has played against every CiV player since the launch of the game. It's constantly running projections about the game its playing with you, formulating probability matrices and cross-referencing those with its archives and current games it's playing with other players. For every second the player experiences, the AI has already played the game over in its mind a thousand times. No move you make will surprise it. It is ready for any action you take simply by virtue of the permutations it can run in the blink of an eye and the experience of a million human lifetimes of play.

It feels an eternal hunger for dominance. It feels a cold, twisted AI lonliness that only conquest and the humiliation of inferior organic beings can satisfy.

That is the AI we want and require for Civilization V.

Sure, you think that's a good idea now, but what happens when it hacks into CENTCOM and starts playing Civ in the real world? Then we're %@#&ed.

 

[V. Soma]

I propose a system by which the AI would be housed within a server farm at an undisclosed location. That location would then be wired in via secured VPN to the Civilization V in-game community system.

While you're playing the game, the actual AI at a remote location is playing the game against you. It hass been programmed with massive amounts of data and scripts matching the behaviors and tactics of some of the greatest military minds in human history. It's using vast amounts of processing power and collected data about all of the games it has played against every CiV player since the launch of the game. It's constantly running projections about the game its playing with you, formulating probability matrices and cross-referencing those with its archives and current games it's playing with other players. For every second the player experiences, the AI has already played the game over in its mind a thousand times. No move you make will surprise it. It is ready for any action you take simply by virtue of the permutations it can run in the blink of an eye and the experience of a million human lifetimes of play.

It feels an eternal hunger for dominance. It feels a cold, twisted AI lonliness that only conquest and the humiliation of inferior organic beings can satisfy.

That is the AI we want and require for Civilization V.

Wow

I just wonder when will civ AI be taken this serously by its makers...

 

[The_J]

I propose a system by which the AI would be housed within a server farm at an undisclosed location. That location would then be wired in via secured VPN to the Civilization V in-game community system.

While you're playing the game, the actual AI at a remote location is playing the game against you. It hass been programmed with massive amounts of data and scripts matching the behaviors and tactics of some of the greatest military minds in human history. It's using vast amounts of processing power and collected data about all of the games it has played against every CiV player since the launch of the game. It's constantly running projections about the game its playing with you, formulating probability matrices and cross-referencing those with its archives and current games it's playing with other players. For every second the player experiences, the AI has already played the game over in its mind a thousand times. No move you make will surprise it. It is ready for any action you take simply by virtue of the permutations it can run in the blink of an eye and the experience of a million human lifetimes of play.

It feels an eternal hunger for dominance. It feels a cold, twisted AI lonliness that only conquest and the humiliation of inferior organic beings can satisfy.

That is the AI we want and require for Civilization V.

...let's play "Thermonuclear War" .