losing to the AI

[rabidveggie]

My last few games became unwinnable since I`m an isolationist when I play Civ IV so it usually becomes me vs everyone. In my last game I was at war from like 600AD onwards, usually with 3-4 strong opponents. I even steadily gained land despite the numbers going against me, but I ended up losing because the strongest civ along with 3 others were at war with me while Pericles easily won Culturally on the other side of the map. Freaking dumb cheating AI.

 

[brianshapiro]

"I want the AI to try to win - as others have stated, tension (in the form of the risk of losing) makes the game interesting. Otherwise it stops being a game and starts being more like a painting - I know what it'll look like in the end, I just have to keep adding details with my mouse, turn by turn."

6KMan:

But the element of competition doesn't exist in games like SimCity. There is still a matter of winning or losing, because there's a matter of the city succeeding or failing; and the gameplay demands you keep up with this.

I think SimCity is the best and most engaging of the Sim games, for this reason. Overall though I disagree with the perspective of Will Wright--who made the Sim games--who believes games should be 'software toys' where there is no winning or losing. Games like The Sims get incredibly boring after you've played them a few times and do everything you can do. SimCity, on the other hand, works better, because its he only Sim game where there is some standard for winning or losing.

The thing about Civilization as a game is that it becomes increasingly boring to me, because I end up playing the game almost the same way every time, because certain strategies work and others don't, and turns go by so fast in the beginning, that you don't have time to mess around, and by the time you become dominant, the game is essentially won and you're just playing out the remainder. If you don't become dominant fast, on the other hand, the chance of you defeating the other player become increasingly slim (moreso in newer Civilization games than the original).

So the gameplay becomes more about learning the right strategies to win every game, than enjoying a single game. I just find this a wasted time and effort. I'd rather play chess with a friend.

I would like it if Civilization as a game played out as a mix between SimCity and how it currently plays.. where you can be engaged and have fun just creating and maintaining your empire, and it doesn't feel like you're trapped in a race of turns and have to do certain things by certain times. There are many things the designers can do to achieve this, including making more of the environment of the geography, not compressing game turns, making things more dependent on interrelations between civilizations, making the development of the civilization more flexible and harder to grow. In this framework, competition between players can still happen, but is only the main point of the game if you make it the main point.

 

[Florian]

The AI in Civ 4 does not cheat.

1) The AI in Beyond the Sword might be the best AI there's ever been for a computer game of this size and complexity. It's still nowhere near as smart or adaptive as a human player, so on higher levels it gets discounts to simulate better play. Those are handicaps, not cheats. Without those handicaps, a good player will be bored, and it won't be a good game.

2) If you neglect your military, or ignore diplomacy, or both, you will end up getting dogpiled by AIs. That is not cheating. They do it to each other too. It's just that none of the AIs neglect military to the same extent that some players do.

3) Sometimes the map layout gives you a bad position, and some AI a really good position. Sometimes you lose because of it. That's not cheating. It's randomness.

 

[Diamondeye]

"I want the AI to try to win - as others have stated, tension (in the form of the risk of losing) makes the game interesting. Otherwise it stops being a game and starts being more like a painting - I know what it'll look like in the end, I just have to keep adding details with my mouse, turn by turn."

6KMan:

But the element of competition doesn't exist in games like SimCity. There is still a matter of winning or losing, because there's a matter of the city succeeding or failing; and the gameplay demands you keep up with this.

I think SimCity is the best and most engaging of the Sim games, for this reason. Overall though I disagree with the perspective of Will Wright--who made the Sim games--who believes games should be 'software toys' where there is no winning or losing. Games like The Sims get incredibly boring after you've played them a few times and do everything you can do. SimCity, on the other hand, works better, because its he only Sim game where there is some standard for winning or losing.

The thing about Civilization as a game is that it becomes increasingly boring to me, because I end up playing the game almost the same way every time, because certain strategies work and others don't, and turns go by so fast in the beginning, that you don't have time to mess around, and by the time you become dominant, the game is essentially won and you're just playing out the remainder. If you don't become dominant fast, on the other hand, the chance of you defeating the other player become increasingly slim (moreso in newer Civilization games than the original).

So the gameplay becomes more about learning the right strategies to win every game, than enjoying a single game. I just find this a wasted time and effort. I'd rather play chess with a friend.

I would like it if Civilization as a game played out as a mix between SimCity and how it currently plays.. where you can be engaged and have fun just creating and maintaining your empire, and it doesn't feel like you're trapped in a race of turns and have to do certain things by certain times. There are many things the designers can do to achieve this, including making more of the environment of the geography, not compressing game turns, making things more dependent on interrelations between civilizations, making the development of the civilization more flexible and harder to grow. In this framework, competition between players can still happen, but is only the main point of the game if you make it the main point.

I find this extremely true. I find I am playing other games than CIV when I'm alone, simply because SP gets boring. Playing one game once in a while is fine, but that's about it...

 

[Florian]

With the wealth of civs and leaders to choose from, the way they all play differently, and the huge random element of a whole different map and slate of opponents each game, Civ4 is more varied than any other 1-player strategy game I can think of.

 

[Kesshi]

You make an interesting point, but I'm not dissuaded. The gameboard of chess is always the same size, yes, but the pieces have different rules of movement, which Civ 4's pieces do not.

I really don't find Civ 4 that complex. I use the same strategy in every game. Find lucrative resources and dominate them. Defend cities appropriately. Expand outward. That doesn't take much imagination. Hmm, should I have said that?

Anyway, in my opinion, it shouldn't be THAT difficult to program AI along similar lines with no regard to whether your neighbor is the "human" or not, thereby making it fair and not tilted against the player. I just expect much more from developers.

jmb777,

I made a post a few days ago over here relating to this subject.

I agree. It is very unfair. I wish they could develop an AI that could stand up to a human on equal footing, but sadly that is a reality that isn't going to happen.

The computer can't think 1000, 2000, or 4000 years ahead. Where as you and I can. We can see a spot with a few floodplains and a lot of forests and think to ourselves, "Hey, that'd be a great spot for a national park city in a few thousand years. Let me make sure I don't chop those forests." Where as the computer would think, "Ooooh! Flood Plains, lets build a city and start chopping!"

Humans can think "Oh, I have X floodplains, and with a city size of Y and a globe theatre, I can draft one Rifleman per turn, and grow back on the next turn, and I had better do this before I research this next tech, because Rifelmen will be obsolete and get replaced by Infantry, and those take 2 population." Computers.... can't.

Humans can program subalgorithms for every situation, where as computers can only think of that which it is trained to. To cover every situation one might run into, in Civ, the AI would need to be larger than the current size of game itself...let alone the CPU cycles necessary to execute such a rigorous AI. What you are asking for is not feasible with our currently technology, and even if it was, you wouldn't be able to afford it just due to man-hours writing all the AI algorithms.

I am with you, jmb777. I would love to see an AI that can beat me on equal terms (I'm Monarch+, and going into Emperor/Immortal this weekend or next.) But I've accepted the fact that the computer is never going to beat me on equal terms.

 

[aragami_frog]

The AI in Civ 4 does not cheat.

2) If you neglect your military, or ignore diplomacy, or both, you will end up getting dogpiled by AIs. That is not cheating. They do it to each other too. It's just that none of the AIs neglect military to the same extent that some players do.

I wish to stress that it should be more "If you neglect your STANDING military, or ignore...."

I can't tell you how many times I've had another country start a war and invade cause I didn't have many troops. Then all I do is switch production of every city into soldier units and with in a couple turns I'm on the offensive and taking a few of their cities.

Which is why I usually try to limit the size of my army, to see who's foolish enough to attack me.

Cause the AI NEVER considers "ok, he doesn't have a lot of troops, but he does have more cities than me and almost double the production rate so if agitated he could quickly produce a ton of units to attack me with"

Cause if they did then the number of people who declare war on me would go down signifigantly.

 

[Florian]

Heheh. Funny strat, Frog. I end up doing that often enough myself, but I don't do it on purpose.

 

[Silence101]

Keep in mind that these comments are coming from a guy who probably plays a few levels below what I should be playing at. I know how to play efficently, but sometimes I just don't want to - I want to build *this* wonder in *this* specific city, found *this* religion... that's more fun to me than constantly trying to challenge myself to the limit - but I still want somewhat of a challenge. I don't want the computer to rollover for me either.

With that said, it seems to me that the point of AI is to stand in for human players that are not constantly available. I like to play with 17 other Civ's on a map - if I could play multiplayer with 17 other people, that might be cool too (I don't play on-line really, so I don't know how it works - I'm not sure how realistic that type of game is). So, wouldn't you want the AI to function in a realistic manner? Wouldn't you want an AI that maybe can beat you? If you always win, what's the point... sounds like it might get kind of boring. However, difficulty levels allow you to adjust your challenge. I think they've done a good with the AI - Blake's AI isn't perfect, but it's a huge improvement and I'm sure not complaining.

I think this has to do with the journey vs the destination - while a challenging AI might be able to beat you in the end, it generally makes for a more enjoyable journey, and that's what this game is about.

 

[Bhruic]

If you always win, what's the point... sounds like it might get kind of boring.

I'm going to go with an analogy here.

Let's take a typical "thrill seeker". Someone who enjoys doing dangerous stuff because they like the "high" they get from it. Someone who'll go cliff climbing without safety ropes, do car surfing, etc.

The whole reason someone enjoys stuff like that is because of the element of danger. There's the possiblity that what they are doing could result in their death, but that possibility is what makes it that much more thrilling.

At the same time, while the possiblity of death is extremely exciting, they don't actually want to die.

That's how I approach Civ. The possibility of being beaten by the AI is what makes the game more exciting. But I'm not actually looking to get beaten.

Bh

 

[MrCynical]

I also do not buy into the crap that a computer can't beat a human at war games. A computer can beat a human at chess, so why not? The answer is they just don't put the effort into building the AI. A human designed the game, so you're telling me a human can't program a great player with the rules and know-how to win? Sorry, I don't believe that.

You make an interesting point, but I'm not dissuaded. The gameboard of chess is always the same size, yes, but the pieces have different rules of movement, which Civ 4's pieces do not.

Chess is very much an exception in terms of AI ability. Firstly a huge amount of work has been put into it, and its really only been in the last decade that computers have clearly over taken the very best human players.

Secondly chess is quite conducive to computers. The board is very small compared to the Civ boards, and you don't have the huge array of different types of square which are present in Civ. As to different rules of movement for pieces, doactually think about what you're saying. Civ has dozens of different units, many with distinct abilities (sea, land, air, siege, mounted, missle, nuke, sub etc.) and promotions means that not even all units of the same type can be treated identically.

Just consider for a moment the starting position of a civ game, OK you've only got 2 pieces - your settler and a scout or warrior. Your warrior can move in any direction (8). Your settler could found in place (1), move 1 tile and found (8), move 2 tiles (16), or move 1 and stop (a human will immediately eliminate this as stupid, but how do you tell an AI that?). That's 25*8=400 possible positions after turn 1, and I haven't even considered reasearch, production or goody huts. It's not even consistent how many positions there are due to sea, mountain, forest etc.

Now consider chess - you have a choice of exactly 20 possible positions to go to on your first move, and the board is always identical - start to see why civ is so much more complex to program an AI for? Chess engines still have a strong element of considering every possible move (there's generally only a few dozen legal moves in any chess position, and many of them are obviously wrong). This is obviously not an option in Civ. I've just shown how many possibilities there are on turn 1, and the difficulty of evaluating which are worthwhile. Now consider a late game Civ position, where there are literally thousands of possible moves, and millions (probably grossly underestimating here) of possible positions for the next turn. The brute force approach used in chess, even with reasonable pruning of posibilities, really won't get you very far.

Consider the board - let's take an 80*80 map - 6400 tiles. Each tile can be any of ice, tundra, desert, plain, grassland, mountain, sea. Each of those may or may not have an overlay (hill/jungle/forest/goody hut or some combination of these), and may have one of up to a dozen different resources on it. Anyone want to do the math for how many possible starting positions there are in civ? It's probably on the order on the number of atoms in the universe.

So that's a short summary of why civ AI is worse than chess. Humans work by spotting patterns, which computers are abysmal at, and so are much better at dealing with positions which are similar, but not quite the same, as in Civ.

 

[Deriem]

That's how I approach Civ. The possibility of being beaten by the AI is what makes the game more exciting. But I'm not actually looking to get beaten.

Bh

This exactly is how I feel about the AI.

Not much to add, really. IMO, this game's difficulty is similar to an FPS's. The computer uses similar tactics on Easy and Hard, but they take a few more bullets to kill. Comparing something like Gears of War to CIV, on Beginner you can run up and chainsaw everyone, but it won't work on Insane. In CIV, you can be a wonderholic on Settler and cruise to a Time victory, but that's just not practical in the least on Deity.

In both cases, the real fun of the game (IMO) is playing humans. Humans don't make the same mistakes as the AI, but then you can't laugh at the AI the same way as a human!

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

I just got conquered by Gilgamesh.

But I was playing a variant game where I was beelining for Computers to build the Internet.

 

[Silence101]

That's how I approach Civ. The possibility of being beaten by the AI is what makes the game more exciting. But I'm not actually looking to get beaten.

Does anyone go into the game looking to get beaten? I would be willing to bet that most everyone wants to win. However, on that point, the threat of losing is only real if you know that you actually CAN lose. That thrill of playing to win will cease to exist if you always win. Sometimes it's necessary to actually lose (or come close to losing) to make that threat of losing real and make future games more exciting. Nobody plays to lose, but the thrill comes from knowing that you can indeed lose.

Also, I don't think everyone who plays is necessarily looking for a thrill. There's many people (myself included) who play much below their difficulty level because they want a more relaxing game. Still, even on Prince, I know that if I sit on my hands the whole game, I'm going to lose.