Why I am concern about including Blake work and Khael FFH work in BTS.

[Monkeyfinger]

My personal worry is that Firaxis will take Blake's knowledge of how to program a good AI and do the wrong stuff with it.

We at CFC needed to smack Blake around a bit, but we eventually made him realize that with the smarter AI there needed to be toning down of the AI's existing advantages. Less handicaps, and less anti-human bias.

Okay, so, it's confirmed that that first change is going to be in BtS. What about that second one? Will the BTS AI treat the human player the same way it treats the other AIs (which is how it is in Blake's mod and how it should be), or will the BTS AI pick on the human player and be nicer to the other AIs, which is how it is in vanilla and 2.08?

I don't trust Firaxis here. Sid Meier's always made the AI discriminatory in his games. This idea of having the AIs treat other AIs just the same as humans has been around for a long time, but near as I can tell Blake was the first person to actually implement it. He better as hell not be the last, that's what I'm saying.

It would suck ballsack if the AI still discriminated against humans, and had the intelligence Blake is capable of giving it to back that behavior up.

 

[Mutineer]

Are you saying that when someone plays multiplayer against competent opponents, he has more options than in SP?

If so, can you give a couple examples?

Yes, human has.

War wareness is one of examples. Im MP if you trap your opponent army on your land and destroy it, player more or less forced to seek peace, otherwize he suffer war wariness for nothing or you can use it as way to get ahead of him with out using mach resources.

Pillage of food resources is an other. Quick raid to pillage 1-2 food resources cripples human opponent ability to whip army early on and drastically reduce his production. Just prevent him from improving them and you forcing him to whip his low population to remove your blockers. Pillage AI food has Mach smaller effect.

On other hand many of diplomatic options player has againt AI can not be used again human player, he generally mach less stuped. There is a real reason why MP mostly played with no Tech trade. Still, even diplomatically
IN MP one can achieve a lot, if one undestand well trade ballance and power ballance.

 

[Blake]

I think many people forget betterAI was only ever a work in progress. Sure some will enjoy the last version like I do, but there are definitely problems with it. But to say that these problems are because of Blake's incapacity or inability to understand the core game mechanics is ridiculous. The biggest problems were simply because it was unfinished.
I don't pretend to understand how difficult it is to make a mod, especially one involving AI changes, but I'm sure a pretty solid understanding of game mechanics etc. would be necessary. Besides, I reckon Blake would have felt like he let people down when he stopped working on betterAI. The loss of contact with Blake (presumably due to some confidentiality contract) was an unfortunate circumstance of him joining the BtS team, but I believe it is unfair, or perhaps just misguided, to criticize his product (betterAI) when he himself was not yet satisfied with it.

+1


If there is one thing I want to say, it's this.

I do not act without all due consideration. If people needed to complain a lot before I made a change, that is because I would not make the decision lightly without at least attempting to evaluate the ramifications. My philosophy is more of one of cautiousness than stubbornness.
I would also like to point out that complaining something is broken is not the same as providing a solution. This is broken. Yes I know it's broken. But it's going to stay broken until someone (probably me) comes up with a satisfactory solution, I'm not going to make some random half-arsed change just to appease those who complain it's broken. Related to this is that certain changes were made, with the full awareness that they would or at least may break the game and that future changes would be needed to return it to a state of balance. This comes back to cautiousness, I needed to convince myself that I was prepared to deal with the consequence cascade before I started the cascade. The too many defenders debacle was an excellent example of this - I knew without doubt when I started that that it would cascade into a cycle of various states of brokenness, but that I'd also eventually stabilize it and have an AI which plays an improved defensive and offensive game. I am completely aware that I am not an omniscient being and that there are limits to my cognitive abilities, limits which must be worked within when possible (not breaking stuff) and around when necessary (being prepared to fix what breaks).

I hope I have explained what my design philosophy actually is.

 

[vorshlumpf]

I'm trying to understand the original post, and not succeeding. And, no, I'm not referring to English proficiency.

Concern about changes to the AI, which would affect the entire game, I can see. Whether or not that concern is valid... I think Blake's post covers that issue fairly well. I personally feel Blake has done wonderful work with the AI and look forward to many hours facing it in BtS.

Now, concern about the Fall from Heaven scenario being in the expansion... what?! Your criticism of specific design choices for FfH II would belong nicely in the FfH II forum (the balance thread, in particular), but what does that have to do with BtS? Kael already said that Firaxis rejected his Golden Girls civilization, so worries that his 'misunderstanding' of Civ IV game mechanics will destroy BtS are invalid.

Seriously, though, why are taking specific examples of game mechanics from an incomplete mod to Civ IV when discussing concerns about the expansion. Game mechanics in FfH II have nothing to do with the BtS epic game. Also, you do realize that FfH II is only in the second of 4 pre-release phases, right? Mechanics in that mod change all the time and it'll continue to be that way until it is complete.

So, again, I try to figure out what the point of the original post is. And after typing, deleting, and re-typing, I'm at a loss. I shouldn't have bothered to respond, I suppose, but I felt it necessary since it seems your post can simply amount to: you don't like Kael's and Blake's work. My response: you are in the minority.

 

[jkp1187]

Zoolooman, to answer your question to me, I will simply quote your entire post, boldfacing the particularly relevant sentence. It accepts as its basic premise the notion that because Blake's original work (which never even reached version "1.0",) had some flaws in it, you are therefore skeptical of anything that he will produce in future.

Mutineer's points are excellent, and I think it's worth discussing these problems before the expansion is released.

I followed Blake's AI closely. In the beginning, it improved city placement, city specialization, and AI military behavior. These improved the AI's competitiveness while maintaining the AI's fun-oriented behavior.

But with time, Blake began to make some changes with no regard to the AI's intrinsic advantages--and only after massive complaining did he even introduce the first (and only?) altered AI handicap file. I remember playing a Better AI version where Blake introduced the AI's new military defense logic. In my first game with it, Mansa Munsa produced 52 skirmishers to defend four cities and built almost no infrastructure. Whenever he felt I was producing enough forces to endanger him, he produced more defense, and so my army was always dwarfed by his massive defensive forces.

At first I didn't mind. I expected that this huge defensive investment would cripple Mansa, but lo and behold, Mansa was still rich! He had almost no upkeep costs and could afford to build all these units while nearly matching my research speed (thanks to more AI advantages!). When he hit Feudalism, he upgraded all 50+ skirmishers to longbows in one turn, and at that point, I decided that I would rather play Warlords 2.08.

It's that type of experience that makes me wary of Blake's contributions. One should prevent the AI from doing something stupid, but one shouldn't make the AI so effective that it abuses its own cheats like a player would--if those cheats were available to the player.

 

[monkspider]

I am always glad to see "The God of Civ" post. Thanks for the interesting thoughts Mutineer.

 

[sunrise089]

If there is one thing I want to say, it's this.

You're alive! Then perhaps you'd like to request a skip in RBW2?

 

[Jet]

^--

 

[Zoolooman]

Zoolooman, to answer your question to me, I will simply quote your entire post, boldfacing the particularly relevant sentence. It accepts as its basic premise the notion that because Blake's original work (which never even reached version "1.0",) had some flaws in it, you are therefore skeptical of anything that he will produce in future.

I disagree, and I think it's unfair to paint my position as mere blind skepticism. The basic premise is that his design choices reflected an intent to reduce the effectiveness of popular human strategies. Because I saw that intention in the past, I was wary of its return in the future.

"Was" is the operative word, since Blake graciously explained himself in this thread. And though his post was understandably defensive, it gives me the sense that he won't rest until any issues are resolved. But I think that feeling is neither here nor there, as far as we're concerned.

Taking a page from Mutineer, I think this thread should focus on the subtle balance that must be restored once a stupid AI begins to use "human" strategies as a human would. And to facilitate that discussion, people (not including you jkp) need to stop pretending that Mutineer's posts are incomprehensible. The man speaks understandable English and has a great grasp of the issues. Give him his due.

 

[Atlas]

I favor the changes that Blake is making to Civ for two reasons

1. I have memorized the AI- it is stale, I know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, there are no surprises. Anything that changes AI behavior is refreshing.

2. I would prefer that the AI play like a human, Blake's AI comes closer to this than any other Civ incarnation.

 

[onedreamer]

So your opinion on warlords 2.08 was another opinion most people disagreed with I don't even understand how you couldn't see the difference, but anyway.

No, it's not an opinion that I didn't see such a difference to make me change the difficulty level, it is a matter of fact.

 

[onedreamer]

1. I have memorized the AI- it is stale, I know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, there are no surprises. Anything that changes AI behavior is refreshing.

No project will ever be able to change this. What the AI does is already written, so once you learn how whatever mod changed what, you will be at a point where you will know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, yet again.

2. I would prefer that the AI play like a human, Blake's AI comes closer to this than any other Civ incarnation.

The AI will never play like a human. That's why it is an AI. A human can just take some senseless decision, or it can overlook something and take a wrong decision, a human can be unpredictable, an AI can't, see point #1 why.
And to answer someone's else question, this is why a MP game offers many more possibilities than a SP game.

 

[Atlas]

No project will ever be able to change this. What the AI does is already written, so once you learn how whatever mod changed what, you will be at a point where you will know what the AI will do in almost all circumstances, yet again.

Of course it can, by changing the AI you provide a new set of AI behaviors to learn that are different from the last, so it splashes fresh water on the game so to speak

The AI will never play like a human. That's why it is an AI. A human can just take some senseless decision, or it can overlook something and take a wrong decision, a human can be unpredictable, an AI can't, see point #1 why.
And to answer someone's else question, this is why a MP game offers many more possibilities than a SP game.

I want the AI to play competently, intelligently and pursue victory (like a human). Blake's AI does this better than any other option.

Finally consider this-
"Does there appear to be an active agent against whom you compete? If the answer is no, then I call the activity in question a puzzle; otherwise, it's a conflict. Most of the simpler videogames appear initially to be games, but after some amount of use, the player recognizes the algorithms at work and the activity becomes a puzzle rather than a game." - On Game Design by Chris Crawford