MC's AI Personality Idea

[dh_epic]

Well of course an AI cooperating against you is valuable. That's because it's one advantage they can guarantee -- they can hardwire it so they cooperate and they can truly trust each other.

But the player has no reason to cooperate. And even if they do cooperate for a time, most players end up screwing an AI. So it's better for an AI to pre-emptively screw the player. It's BECAUSE you can isolate yourself and still win the game that the AI has to gang up, manipulate, and cheat.

Giving the AI a pre-disposition to do something that's bad for them can only make the game worse.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

The problem is, not everyone wants to play a Civ game about attacking each other. Going for a Cultural Victory or something is relatively pointless and near impossible with the current way the AI handle things. I also reckon that the Civ 4 AI will be leaps and bounds ahead of the Civ 3 AI, which was leaps and bounds ahead of the Civ 2 AI, which was leaps and bounds ahead of the Civ 1 AI. If that isn't the case, my idea would be pointless. If the AI is improved, those concerns are muted as the AI would better be able to handle things like that. Also, my idea touches on nothing about expansion, how they defend their cities, how many offensive troops they build, if they will go to the water or stick the land, if they would be City Walls or a Temple, etc. Those things should be handled independently. (The AI should always do what's best for them, and my idea is to give them their prefered methods, but if there are methods far superior to those they prefer, they should still go for the far superior method unless it is a low difficulty, they were assigned a '1' or a '5' (the extreme cases), etc.).

 

[dh_epic]

I guess what I'm arguing isn't to look at these issues in a vacuum. Again, the temptation is to say "make the AI play more realistic". Or "make the AI play easier so that way you can win without domination".

But make cultural domination that much more powerful. Make it nearly as powerful as conquest domination. You don't need to make conquest weaker, although that's an option. I'd prefer to make culture stronger, and to make it independent, even mutually exclusive with conquest. (e.g.: if you're conquesting really effectively, your culture is probably stagnating and you're breeding hatred of your culture around the world... if you're peaceful, your culture is probably booming with enlightenment, and earning the curiousity and support around the world.)

This way AIs can play with personalities and still WIN.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

That is a common complaint that there are no real peaceful alternatives to conquest as yet, and if they do make cultural victory better, this AI Personality idea would be good. Another thing I just thought of is that the personalities would also largely influence Diplomatic victory as well, so a stupid player might get rid of the nicer leaders and lose by diplomacy.

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, that's the kind of big picture thinking I'm talking about. Although diplomatic victory needs to be more fulfilling and challenging than "being well liked". I'd like to see it involve a certain amount of courage and actually helping other people out, even if that pisses a few others off.

But economic victory and cultural victory have the most potential to distinguish themselves from conquest. They just haven't done anything like that yet -- cultural victory becomes this little offshoot you can pull off if you get tired of conquesting. I think enough conquesting should make your culture pretty bleak and hatable.

Then AI personality makes sense, because there are victory conditions for those personalities -- incentives for those personalities.