Soren Johnson: The Chick Parabola

The whole Idea was to avoid uninteresting combat. It failed because of the bad AI. If there's other way to implement interesting combat, I welcome it.

Well, I believe you're mistaken about the intention of 1upt in the first place. Civ 3 and Civ 4 both had interesting combat systems, already. The goal of 1upt was/is to reduce the importance of huge stacks of units.

I am doubtful that anyone set out with the goal of making Civ even more combat-focused and mired in tactical detail. It's already a long game.
 
I'm not deeply convinced by your argument here: assuming a Civ 4-style "best unit defends", then 1 UPT places more of a premium on unit quality, and hoses a defender more, than any larger N.

I wasn't talking about "best unit defends", I was talking about neptune's suggestion with tactical map combat. In that context, whoever can enter that tactical map with more total strength has a nonlinear advantage.
 
If they had the battles on a tactical map it should simplify it for the AI. The AI could have a set list of opening formations/postures depending on the units/terrain involved, and a list of behaviors.
All games with such a system that I know have been riddled with a tactical ai even worse than the strategic ai, so I very much doubt a tactical map would solve anything.
MoM, MoO are old examples, Elemental a recent one.
 
All games with such a system that I know have been riddled with a tactical ai even worse than the strategic ai, so I very much doubt a tactical map would solve anything.
MoM, MoO are old examples, Elemental a recent one.

The Heroes of Might and Magic games generally have an adequate tactical AI (better than the strategic AI). Not brilliant but good enough. Again, that's partly because of alexman's original point, the tactical battle system was designed so that it doesn't take a lot of brilliance to get reasonable results.

But I still don't think very many people want to add even more tactical combat detail to Civ. I thought the main issue for most people is that the combat is already too involved and time-consuming, for what is fundamentally an economic game.
 
The Heroes of Might and Magic games generally have an adequate tactical AI (better than the strategic AI). Not brilliant but good enough. Again, that's partly because of alexman's original point, the tactical battle system was designed so that it doesn't take a lot of brilliance to get reasonable results.

But I still don't think very many people want to add even more tactical combat detail to Civ. I thought the main issue for most people is that the combat is already too involved and time-consuming, for what is fundamentally an economic game.

One of the things about the HOMM combat was that through spells/unit abilities you could change the balance of power, so you could win a battle when unit strength/movement tactics alone indicated you shouldn't.
 
One of the things about the HOMM combat was that through spells/unit abilities you could change the balance of power, so you could win a battle when unit strength/movement tactics alone indicated you shouldn't.

This is true but I'm not sure what it has to do with the AI. The AI is able to handle both aspects of combat moderately well, because the spells are powerful yet mostly simple enough that using them effectively is not hard. You could create spells that would have a powerful but more complex and subtle effect, and that would have the effect of tilting the game further against the AI, which wouldn't use them as well as a human player.
 
This is true but I'm not sure what it has to do with the AI. The AI is able to handle both aspects of combat moderately well, because the spells are powerful yet mostly simple enough that using them effectively is not hard. You could create spells that would have a powerful but more complex and subtle effect, and that would have the effect of tilting the game further against the AI, which wouldn't use them as well as a human player.

It made me still want to take the time to fight a battle where the odds were stacked against me. In other words (and the combat was a lot of fun besides). As I think you noted before and I alluded to wrt Civ, HOMM's tactical combat is a bigger part of the game than Civ's, so it makes more sense to make it more robust. Although I would enjoy if Civ had a tactical battle map where I could fight 60-40 or 70-30 (on either side) encounters and see if I could come out better than a simple calculated model. This would really only work in Civ for single player though, and I'm sure the devs could probably spend their time fixing plenty of other things.

You said you thought people were complaining about combat being too involved. Most of the complaints I've noticed seem to be about the logistics of bringing troops to the front and positioning them in 1UPT, longbowmen being able to fire across the English channel, and the insufficient AI. With an emphasis on the insufficient AI.
 
I wasn't talking about "best unit defends", I was talking about neptune's suggestion with tactical map combat. In that context, whoever can enter that tactical map with more total strength has a nonlinear advantage.

Kind of like the advantage of initiative in combat in real life. The advantages are that movement on the strategic map would be simplified enormously, which would advantage both the computer opponents as well as the time between turns. Combat would be much more realistic, combined arms would be meaningful because your army wouldn't be comprised of only 5 units, and the tactical AI could be seriously improved because the tactical map would be simplified and finite compared to the tactical combat on the strategic map paradigm.

As for scaling, a largish upper limit on the size of armies could be handled well by scaling the size of the tactical map to the number of units involved, which would help a 1upt system immensely.
 
Opening library or library of played chess parties can severely reduce the number of states the computer has to walk through

Not true.
Openning library stores early states of chess game. (normally, a lot of them)

1. If a chess program can locate one state in the library that match current state of a game, it immediately knows what is the next move. (This means the act of seeking among the recorded states replaces the act of calculation for the next move)

2. If it can't find one, basically that ends the openning stage. (That means a program find no help from the library and has to start calculation for the next move)

either case, openning library does not reduce the number of states the computer has to walk through. So the below is also absolutely false:

(the algorthims typically try to throw away trees that they already know outcome of),

and the below made-up story is ridiculously:

without it the computer can't go deep enough and will have not sufficient memory probably for such task.
Openning library is irrelevent to how deep a chess program can go.

Please state only real and common sense accepted logics, don't lie and mislead others in the forum. :mad:

Thank you. :D
 
It's sort of bizarre that this thread has been taken over by arguments about chess and yet the two most vehement arguers both know so little about chess.

Isn't it sarcastic that someone (or two of them) who know so little about chess can argue with you to this extend?

I thought you want to go back discussing the parabola thing of Civ5, I thought you have realized you can't pretend any more that you know a lot about chess program...

It is sort of bizarre that after your previous post which contains only a single word "(Deleted)" you still return to the discussion of chess AI. :D:D:D
 
Isn't it sarcastic that someone (or two of them) who know so little about chess can argue with you to this extend?

I have learned never to underestimate people's ability to post at great length about things they know nothing about, even when they are entirely wrong.
 
You said you thought people were complaining about combat being too involved. Most of the complaints I've noticed seem to be about the logistics of bringing troops to the front and positioning them in 1UPT, longbowmen being able to fire across the English channel, and the insufficient AI. With an emphasis on the insufficient AI.

Are you talking about Civ 4 or Civ 5 now? I said that one of the goals of 1upt (i.e., the change from Civ 4 to Civ 5) was to reduce unit density and make for a simpler and more straightforward game that could play somewhat faster, while still giving people the ability to wage effective military campaigns. I don't think the goal was to add additional complexity or make the game longer, which is what you seem to want.
 
I don't think Civ5 with stacks would work without some very core changes. It would have to be much easier to produce a unit (so it is possible to actually focus on your military) or else the player would just be overwhelmed by the computer's mere numbers. It also seems that the computer doesn't do a good job accounting for the -33% penalty on flat tiles.
 
I have learned never to underestimate people's ability to post at great length about things they know nothing about, even when they are entirely wrong.

Ha Ha! Me too, I have learned that it is possible for:

Two people who know nothing to debate in length with one who pretends he knows something... :D
 
don't think Civ5 with stacks would work without some very core changes. It would have to be much easier to produce a unit (so it is possible to actually focus on your military) or else the player would just be overwhelmed by the computer's mere numbers. It also seems that the computer doesn't do a good job accounting for the -33% penalty on flat tiles.
Ofcource, the production cost should be lowered for all units to balance things. You just cannot add stacks To this CIV 5 and think it will be oke.

Hclass wrote
1. It is technically possible now for a computer program (a good one) to keep winning a human GM without openning library.
Lets make it practical, shall we ! Where are they then, those Computer programs you speak of ?
 
The Heroes of Might and Magic games generally have an adequate tactical AI (better than the strategic AI). Not brilliant but good enough. Again, that's partly because of alexman's original point, the tactical battle system was designed so that it doesn't take a lot of brilliance to get reasonable results.

But I still don't think very many people want to add even more tactical combat detail to Civ. I thought the main issue for most people is that the combat is already too involved and time-consuming, for what is fundamentally an economic game.
I forgot about HoMM because I just dislike the system which I feel too artificial.
I agree that I wouldn't want more tactical combat indeed.
 
Yes, the HOMM system is completely the opposite of the kind of realism that Civ is aiming for. Large stacks of units that all move identically and attack together, no matter how many there are, and a large stack can instakill a medium stack with no losses. I think the system works in a fantasy game setting, but I don't think most people would like anything like that in Civ.
 
1UPT shouldnt be too complicated for the AI. We modern multi core CPU's, moving units effectively that doesnt take 1 minute to process should easily be possible. It really wouldnt have been hard to consult a couple of mathematicians to create an efficient algorithm to handle AI movements. Movements could have been totally predictable for the AI, hell, make it so his units always have +1 sight on higher difficulties if thats what it takes.
As a guy with a Masters in CS that took some AI classes along the way, and have even created a couple of very basic games outside the pruned alpha-beta scoring tree mold ... I nearly lol-ed at how naive this comment is.

If it "shouldn't too complicated," "should be easily possible," "wouldn't have been hard," etc etc ... well then sir, I invite you to show us all how it's done! :rolleyes:
 
To start my post, I remind people that every problem-solving "machine" (whether the human brain or a computer) works based on algorithm, which is a set of mathematical instructions that must be followed in a fixed order, and that, especially if given to a computer, will calculate an answer to a mathematical problem.

But human mind differs from computers in the sense that, once an algorithm does not provide a satisfying answer, the mind creates a new fresh algorithm to work on, while the computer will stick to the resulting calculation of the algorithm it was provided to him by human input.

So, for instance, if a computer needs to pick the most optmal choice after a roll of algorithm calculations, it will pick it based on a limited number of algorithms that tell it which choice is best, either by random number rolls or by picking the result that best fits pre-set scenarios.

However, it won't create a new algorithm to better weigh the variables involved and get to the best result possible, which is a thing that man alone can do. Man, and man alone, can see "Well, this surely isn't the best result possible" and go there and create a new roll of algorithms, whether or not he'll eventually get a better result.

If you give a machine an algorithm which will always return bad results, it will pick those results nevertheless. Man, faced with that same algorithm, will discard it and build a new one.

So, when someone creates a game focusing on singleplayer, the AI must be the top one priority. It has nothing to do with the number of variables involved, and how they relate to each other, but to how many algorithms were coded to provide the AI with a wide range of viable choices. This is especially true for games with several variables to consider: if you don't have many complex algorithms that take into consideration all variables involved, the AI won't be able to handle itself in any viable way.

And it seems that people in Firaxis just forgot that when they were programming Civilization 5, because, based on the feedbacks I've read, the AI is really crippled, even though the game isn't less complex than Civ4 for the AI, as the loss of some game features was compensated with 1upt and pathfinding problems.
 
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