Theory of AI

[warpstorm]

I thought the AI situation was already dealt with. Just make an editor in civ 4 that allow players to create and add AI scripts that is simple enough so the majority of players can easily tweek the AI.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the knwo has ever said that this would happen. All that has been said is that Civ4 will use Python for scripting. Nobody from Firaxis has said that AI routines would be exposed to Python or if there would even be an editor, much less one that would be useful to a non-AI programmer.

 

[rcoutme]

This is what Soren Johnson wrote in his notes for the slide presentation:

"Multiplayer: we have a working mp system already and have been playing 4+ hour games after work
Fan content: we are keeping all game data in xml which will ensure that almost nothing will be hard-coded. Further, we are integrating Python into the code-base so that the more algorithmic parts of the game (map generation, combat, triggers/events, AI, etc.) can be scripted by the modding community.

"What we are really excited about is being able to use the Civilization franchise as leverage to create an umbrella game system. The time pressure of Civ3 didn’t give us a chance to experiment with accessibility, fan-content, and multiplayer. Civ4 is very much a maturation of the franchise – we hope to see a corresponding qualitative difference in the size of our audience."

This suggests that they expect that the playing community (i.e. us) will be both able and likely to modify the AI, combat, triggers, etc.

 

[warpstorm]

Ooops. You are correct, rcoutme. It looks like there might be Python hooks to the AI exposed. Everyone has a perfectly fine Python editor on their system. It's called Notepad.

 

[Solver]

Yes, true, it will probably be enhanceable by custom scripts.

And something important for an AI to have is indeed, as has been mentioned, the concept of victory. The fact that Civ3 AI didn't gang up against the human was great, but it should try to win the game. That is, if it believes you are close to launching a spaceship and it has the ability to stop you, it should do so. A human player would attack to stop an enemy spaceship, and so should the AI.