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.

Comments

news, why?

[X0563511]

So... someone started a really big Civ V game. This is hardly news, even for nerds.

Re:news, why?

[LifesABeach]

My first reaction was, "cool." It's 2 A.I.'s from Seth's crew, and 45 from other folks. It's a shame we'll not see the process of the outcome. This is only one application of A.I., not the A.I. in total. It one can see the various moves of the game happen; I'm going to go microwave some pop corn, and kick back to watch.

Re:news, why?

[kolbe]

Civ V, a game historically known for its poor programming, rushed schedules and years of repair to get playable. This game still has one of the most artificially stupid AI's in the history of the Civ series, so I fail to see how this is even mildly interesting.

Re:news, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you need to learn more about CiV's AI.

The designers thought it would be "fun" to have AI's their own "personalities". So Shaka would be aggressive and likely to declare war on you, for example.

However, the way it actually ended up in-game, is that all of the AIs appeared to be schitzophrenic - making alliances with you and then 3 turns later breaking them. Or praising you for doing something, and then 1 turn after shunning you for exactly the same thing. The AI's would make decisions based on their personality, even if they actively hurt their own position in the game by doing so.

It was a deliberate decision by the designers to make the AI's work in this fashion, hence "artificially stupid".

In later patches, they ended up exposing a lot more of the clockwork of what drives the AI, so the player has a better idea of what is going on. I think they also toned down and tightened up the rules for the personality-driven choices, but they're still there in the background.

Re:news, why?

[sarysa]

Civ V, a game historically known for its poor programming, rushed schedules and years of repair to get playable. This game still has one of the most artificially stupid AI's in the history of the Civ series, so I fail to see how this is even mildly interesting.

The AI may manage to make things interesting against other AI, but against human players...it's easy for human players with a tiny military to essentially be King Leonidas, and win. Particularly egregious if you have a bottleneck, which you can easily defend with one ranged and one melee unit. This is due to the inability to combine military units (which you could've done in Civ IV) and the suicidal aggression employed by the AI.

With that in mind, a bunch of idiot AI's battling it out actually sounds interesting.

Kind of neat, but....

[Zitchas]

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.

Already done for civ 4

[njahnke]

I enjoyed Sullla's civ 4 "AI Survivor" while he was publishing it: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/civ4survivor.html

Sullla is one of the best civ 4 players in the world, helped develop the game originally, and is an excellent writer to boot.

Re:Submarine versus Viking longship

[Linsaran]

The math still caps at 99.9% or .1% there's always a .1% chance of any unit defeating another no matter how out gunned they are. Of course in practice this very rarely comes up. And I could see a longship having a piece break off after getting shot at and having that debris end up in just the right spot to clog the subs engines or torpedo bays or something like that. Sure it's statistically unlikely, and probably not even a 1/1000 chance of actually happening, but for the sake of game play I can accept it.

Artificial but Intelligence?

[Roger W Moore]

My reaction was why Civ 5? Given the quality of the AIs in it I'm not sure 'intelligence' is really an apt description.

Re:So ...

[EmeraldBot]

Someone started a single player game and decided to hand over control of his civilization to the adviser?

Nope, what he did was use the game editor to delete his city at the start and place a nuclear sub underneath the Artic. As such, while technically still being part of the game, the human has no (measurable) effect on the outcome. This is a little off topic, but frankly, I really wish more strategy games had spectator mods. It's really useful for observing the AI, and most games don't implement one, which would allow us to avoid ugly hacks like this...

AI is a bit of a stretch

[Karmashock]

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.

Re:Submarine versus Viking longship

[Kjella]

And I could see a longship having a piece break off after getting shot at and having that debris end up in just the right spot to clog the subs engines or torpedo bays or something like that. Sure it's statistically unlikely, and probably not even a 1/1000 chance of actually happening, but for the sake of game play I can accept it.

At that point you're better off imagining the sub had a critical weapons malfunction and blew itself up so the longship wins on walkover. Or that the warrior sneaked into the riflemen's camp and poisoned their water supply.