By Algernon Pondlife:
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does not the symmetry mean that in fact there are 81!x4! (or something like that) possible moves?
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I do not see how you came up with that number with any consideration of symmetry or mirror images. Yes there is a symmetry on a Go board, but that does not mean you are exluding 3/4 of the playing field, for not all choices have to be made in the the quadra you have chosen. For example, one may make the first move in the first quadra but the 2nd move may be in any one of the 4 quadras, and you cannot get that position by merely using mirror or symmetry image rules on the first quadra. If you are talking about move ordering, then the same can happen in chess as well, so it is a cut in both games' position trees.
As for viable choices for moves, in an end GO game there are usually only 3-4 good choices, while in chess that happens throughout the middle to late game.
The challenge for a non-cheating Civ 3 AI is that it is not a single AI, but many AIs working together and there is nothing that will guarantee that the result combination will work. Civ and Civ II have AIs for each individual pieces, this is obvious by AI's way of stacking ships in a single sea square. To plan any sort of global scale strategy the AI has to be a lot smarter. In that respect I think Master of Orion have a better AI, at least it stacks its ships over a single planet when it amasses an armada for invasion.
Unvala.
