Insead of making levels harder by adding advantages to AI...

[warpstorm]

I'd really like the AI to play to win instead of just trying to make if hard for you to win.

It doesn't even do that. Due to so many people complaining that the AI in Civ2 was too gamey and always tried to win, Civ3 removed this. The AI doesn't try to win the game nor does it even try to stop you. All it does is tries to make a big powerful country and scarf up those it thinks it can or who pissed it off at some point in the past.

Like I said, this was done because of the constant complaints that it (Civ2) didn't feel like you were playing in a game with other nations, but rather game players. I guess the moral of the story is to be careful what you ask for.

 

[dh_epic]

Like I said, this was done because of the constant complaints that it (Civ2) didn't feel like you were playing in a game with other nations, but rather game players. I guess the moral of the story is to be careful what you ask for.

Yeah, definitely a good moral of the story.

I think a hybrid of Civ 3 and Civ 2 might be best.

If you're playing against 16 nations:

4 play like gameplayers, like human players -- "Gameplaying AI"
and 11 play like nations, like NPCs there for flavor -- "Real World AI"

So the 4 gameplayers are the ones who go out conquering and such, like a player does... and the others AI players are just there for flavor, and to be "victory point locations" like in the scenarios.

This is what it would be like in a multiplayer game, 4 humans against computer AI...

 

[luckykitkat]

I agree, that would be the best... But be able to change the # of "I'm trying to win!" NPCs and "I'm for flavor!" NPCs.

 

[Sark6354201]

I would love for Soren Johnson to comment on this, of course that is doubtful.

Personally, I HATED the Civ 2 AI, don't you people remember it? I would much much prefer the current nation building Civ 3 AI then the Civ 2 AI, which cheated CONSTANTLY (Infinite range bombers anyone?).

 

[Punda The Panda]

All sorts of hype is going up around using self-evolving systems
(i.e. lay down some basics, afflict them with heavy randomness, sort out the top ten, add more heavy randomness, repeat ad-infinitum)
I'm sure they could do this to a degree with the Civ AI.. it would be timey.

Or, they could make it open-source, and have competitions where people enter their AI for enormous battles, and the best competitors get used as Deity A.I., and the lower-ranking competitors get used as lower A.I. (Such a great selection of A.I. would provide a lot of variety)

 

[dh_epic]

The problem is that the best AI, at the Deity level, is a cheater. It has unreasonable advantages.

But think about it, even with the unreasonable advantages, people can still win at the Deity level.

Which brings me to an important point:

User Exploitation of Game Details >= Deity AI Advantages

OR

Extreme Micromanagement + Exploiting Inefficient AI >= AI Advantages


That is, every hole that the player can exploit will give them the advantage over the computer. The game needs serious reformation. If you take away the AI advantages and make them just play smart, the user will slaughter the AI. If you take away the extreme micromanagement, the AI will slaughter the user. If the AI did everything the user did -- world map trading every turn, for example -- it would regain a HUGE advantage over the human.

I refuse to turn Civ into an arms race between whether the Humans or AI can exploit game details, repeat mechanical processes, or micromanage better than one another.

You can't talk about cutting out AI-cheating without talking about cutting down micromanagement.

 

[sir_schwick]

Dh, nice seeing you here. You are right about micromangement, Civ is a game of vision and direction. You don't see any CEO doing middle management tasks or president's personally managing the construction of oil wells in Iraq. Civ should have you making strategy, not tactical and precedural decisions.

On the issue of AI. Firaxis should just hire Cliff Blyzinski to do the computer AI. I know he normally does FPS, but come on, he is f***ing Cliff Blyzinski(I know i'm mispelling his name). Get him to write out that code, he got it to work pretty well with UT.

Also, what if in the testing and finishing phase of production, they had a speciality AI that tried to learn from players. Beta and final testers would learn to play against other opponents, then play this same way against the computer. You could then have the AI play against the other AIs the same way, but human observers would note how it acts and maybe run it through the human tester again. AFter a few cycles of this, it mgiht play as a human would, sans the explotation(which I personally think ruins the nature of Civ).

 

[Milan's Warrior]

Most AIs nowadays have the capability of computing several steps ahead for some subsets of the strategic tree (take chess games). It is obvious to me that Civ3 does this at least a tiny little bit (e.g. it does not gobble down your workers causing war at every single turn).
But even the best AIs in videogames are still very, very crude at this