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42 Artificial Intelligences Are Going Head To Head In "Civilization V"
rossgneumann writes The r/Civ subreddit is currently hosting a fascinating "Battle Royale" in the strategy game Civilization V, pitting 42 of the game's built-in, computer-controlled players against each other for world domination. The match is being played on the largest Earth-shaped map the game is capable of, with both civilizations that were included in the retail version of the game and custom, player-created civilizations that were modded into it after release.
So... someone started a really big Civ V game. This is hardly news, even for nerds.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Someone started a single player game and decided to hand over control of his civilization to the adviser?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I find this rather interesting, personally. Although I imagine that the turn lag time must get huge very, very quickly.
In manner of explanation, apparently it is actually a 43 player single player game, where the human player used a mod to a) reveal the whole map, b) delete their capital city, and c) give themselves a nuclear submarine that they parked under the icecap. That way the human stays alive, but out of the game, and everyone else can play as if they weren't there. I'm not sure how much residual impact simply having an active human player in the game might have.
On the other hand, must be a slow day for news. But then again, Sundays usually are.
Z
If everyone had written their own AI, and those AIs were being pitted against each other, that would be interesting news.
Can a Viking Longship still sink a submarine with lucky dice rolls?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Sullla is one of the best civ 4 players in the world, helped develop the game originally, and is an excellent writer to boot.
It is very far from reality.
I looked at the first stages of Poland and it expanded south - through the Carpathian Mts.
This is totally unrealistic as Poland is on Central European plain and the expansion directions were east-west.
Though I wonder how Europa Universalis would do it.
n/t
But with old Civ it was one AI and different rule sets fro each civilization. Isn't that the same case here?
Silence is a state of mime.
I know that sounds a little snarky .... but that's been one of my issues with the Civ games for quite some time. It seems like as you get into the "thick" of the game, with a lot of units occupying more and more space -- the system resources taken get pretty large. It often leads to slowdowns and a freeze-up or crash before the game can be completed.
My reaction was why Civ 5? Given the quality of the AIs in it I'm not sure 'intelligence' is really an apt description.
The AI in these games are morons. The only ones that are even remotely threatening cheat like crazy.
In video games, the AIs that will rip your lungs out, make bag pipes of them, and play El Degüello on them tend to never miss, see through the fog of war/through walls, and often as not have access to infinite resources, higher health, and do more damage for no reason.
And... THAT is why they're a threat. Not because the little idiots are actually any good at tactics or strategy.
I honestly can't think of a single RTS game where the AI wasn't a joke. Yes, you have to know how to play the game and you might need to learn how the AI thinks a bit. But that's really easy to figure out. In strategy games, winning against AIs typically requires that you just be quick about doing things. Against humans this is important as well, but humans are sneaky.
The AI for example in Homeworld only uses hyperspace jumps to run away and they only bother with critical shipyard facilities. Human players will mass a fleet, dock their fighter craft into their hyperspace capable craft, bait an attack by making it look like their capital ships are unsupported, and then when you move your forces out of position, they'll jump their forces into point blank range, spew out their whole forces, and annihilate you. Humans are also the only ones that will use cloaking fields properly or defense field frigates... etc. And that's the same for Starcraft or CnC or any of it. And in the FPS games the only thing the AIs ever have going for them is that they're damn accurate with their shots because they have auto aim... and they can frequently see through walls so they always know where you are.
What the Civ devs are talking about is not AI but behavior profiles. They do this a lot in strategy games. They'll try to mix it up by giving some of the idiot AIs a preference for air units or a preference for sea units or a preference for building fortresses or something. And that's supposed to be a different AI. But it isn't really. Its just the same AI with a different priority list.
As evidence, the only AI's of this type that tend to be dangerous are the ones that try to rush you really early. Its a high risk high reward tactic that can end you before the game really begins. Those AIs force you to build some defenses really early. I find in any of these games, if you survive that attack... there really isn't anything the AIs can do to stop you. They're so dumb you can kill them at 10 to 1 ratios in practically any game.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
So will it finish successfully without crashing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Germany has adopted the religion Judaism.
...and would like to remind them that as a trusted member of the media I can be counted on to ....
For a second I thought that I had missed an API to code Civ V AIs, and that there were 42 diferrent AI developped by 42 different people battling for the world Civ V AI champion title.
42 civ controlled by the crappy vanilla AI from civ V is much much less exciting.
Shall We Play A Game?
I've been running a 24 civ variant of this (with 24 city states on the largest earth map, domination only) and right now in move 1200 (or so) in the 25th century we essentially have two super powers (Austrians and Celts) stuck in a 1000 year long cold war. They are filling every available tile with a unit (mostly Xcom units) on land or sea. The Austrians have conquered half of the world, while the Celts have a relatively small part of the world but they have open border agreements with all of the remaining civs (America, Siam, Poland, Shoshone) and they've placed units in pretty well every single tile of these remaining countries but haven't attacked any of them.
It's really quite bizarre watching this unfold. I'm wondering whether it's glitches or whether at some time there will be a global annihilation.