I hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of extrapolating on your question. It's a bit long, but I'm genuinely curious about this and really hope it makes it to Sid.
1. From a game designer's point of view, how much should you value game complexity against an effective AI? The new systems introduced in Civilization III, such as strategic resources and culture, add a new level to the game play, but also add another aspect of the game that the AI has to cope with.
No offense to Soren or the other AI coders on the project, but the AIs in Civilization seem to lack the ability to compete on these new cultural and resource "battlegrounds". Sure, they'll make attempts to pillage a resource tile here or there, and they'll build temples, but by and large these new game concepts just produce another way the player can exploit the AI. There are numerous exploits noted, such as camping scouts or other non-combat units on un-roaded enemy resources, and these are things the AI just never do. And, if the AI did do them, the player would get quite angry. Which leads to my next question...
2. Have you ever considered building in some sort of "frustration" level to the AI? One of the most common practices against the AI in Civ III was "herding" settler-stacks, by using multiple units to force the AI settler to move in one direction. Then, on the next turn, you would shift all the units in the same direction, forcing the AI settler to move back to it's original spot. This process could be repeated indefinitely, with the AI trying to head somewhere it will never reach. This problem arises because each turn is largely a whole new game to the AI, they have little if any memory of what the human did to them last turn. Wouldn't it make sense to have it remember such passive transgressions, and grow more and more angry at those behind the act? This same rule could be applied to remove the "exploits" known as "herding" and "oscillating wars". It's much like the existing reputation system, only driven by game actions, not just diplomacy.
3. It's clearly obvious, and acknowledged, that the AI cheats in Civ III at the higher levels. Do you see this as a valid method for compensating for AI code that cannot win a fair fight against a seasoned player? Playing a game of Civ III on "Sid" was simply absurd. Sure, it presented a challenge, but the game was so horribly skewed it wasn't Civ any longer; it was just mass produce and sprawl. While it could be argued that current AI technology on a standard PC will never be on equal footing with the human mind, do you not see it as a slap in the face to simply give the AI a 200% production bonus?
4. Have you ever considered having a "learning AI", much like that of Galactic Civilizations? I have been tinkering with the idea, and I really think it would be possible to create a sort of "game analyzer AI" that would accept some sort of "game history" file, which it could then analyze. From this analysis, it could extrapolate various patterns in human behavior, and add them to its heuristics when determining troop movement, production and diplomacy. I realize that it is not as simple as I have labeled it, "finding patterns", but in a finite environment such as any computer game is, a Neural Network could be devised to discover links between the actions a person makes. This could be done locally on the client machine, which would have the effect of making the AI adapt to the player's playing style. Conversely, players could upload their files to an online system that would analyze them and integrate the patterns found into a "collective AI", which could then be released through periodic AI-patches.
5. I'm graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in December, finishing a degree in Cognitive Science (Computer Science and Psychology) in three years. Want to put a good word in for me at Firaxis?:)
It's a $10 one time fee, unless you want to own you own land. You can just drop the $10, and create your little machines in the sandlots, and then find friendly places where you can unleash them.
I'm a college student from RPI on co-op for the summer / fall, and I'm seriously considering this idea. As previously mentioned in another post, the resume fodder is worth more than the money ever could be.
If you really enjoy a project idea, it won't feel like work when you're doing it. I really enjoy solving problems that I want to solve, and creating things I have a remote interest in.
It's a testament to the fundamental principles of the ancient methodologies of astronomy, that you can actually go in to and look at.
I've never been do the one in Salisbury, but from what I've heard of it you're not allowed to go near the rocks, let alone inside.
I thought about it, and it wouldn't make sense any other way.
While I admit that "ruling families" ala Rome: Total War are pretty sweet, it makes no sense for them to stand for the whole of human existence, especially once you start becomming Republics / Democracies.
The odds, assuming both are "regular" units, are that the Tank will beat the Spearman 98.5% of the time. Assuming they're both "elite" units, the Tank wins 99.7% of the time.
In the latter situation, the Spearman will win three out of every thousand attacks. First off, that hardly ever happens and you only bitch about it because it happened to you twice in all your years of playing and you remember it because you ran to your forums and posted a thread about it.
I'd be willing to bet that if you ran a Tank into a group of Spearmen a thousand times, in real life, eventually one of them would get caught in the treads just so, and muck everything up.
I also talk solstice in the fact that by the time tanks are around, nobody has Spearmen. If they do, you're playing on one of the difficulty levels designed for eight year olds. And, even on the odd chance that you somehow managed to race through the tech tree at an astounding rate above all the hardest AIs, and you do actually attack a Spearman with a Tank, you can think of them as if they were Somolians ala Black Hawk Down, poorly equipped for a modern war, but with small amounts of guns and bombs that are not representitive of the majority of the unit.
That said, Civilization III does have it's faults. I personally love the game, but I acknowledge various failings in the game, the most prominent being the whole "cultre defining national borders" system. But if the only reason you don't play Civ III is beacause of an event that happens once every thousand games, I feel bad for you.
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I hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of extrapolating on your question. It's a bit long, but I'm genuinely curious about this and really hope it makes it to Sid. 1. From a game designer's point of view, how much should you value game complexity against an effective AI? The new systems introduced in Civilization III, such as strategic resources and culture, add a new level to the game play, but also add another aspect of the game that the AI has to cope with.
:)
No offense to Soren or the other AI coders on the project, but the AIs in Civilization seem to lack the ability to compete on these new cultural and resource "battlegrounds". Sure, they'll make attempts to pillage a resource tile here or there, and they'll build temples, but by and large these new game concepts just produce another way the player can exploit the AI. There are numerous exploits noted, such as camping scouts or other non-combat units on un-roaded enemy resources, and these are things the AI just never do. And, if the AI did do them, the player would get quite angry. Which leads to my next question...
2. Have you ever considered building in some sort of "frustration" level to the AI? One of the most common practices against the AI in Civ III was "herding" settler-stacks, by using multiple units to force the AI settler to move in one direction. Then, on the next turn, you would shift all the units in the same direction, forcing the AI settler to move back to it's original spot. This process could be repeated indefinitely, with the AI trying to head somewhere it will never reach. This problem arises because each turn is largely a whole new game to the AI, they have little if any memory of what the human did to them last turn. Wouldn't it make sense to have it remember such passive transgressions, and grow more and more angry at those behind the act? This same rule could be applied to remove the "exploits" known as "herding" and "oscillating wars". It's much like the existing reputation system, only driven by game actions, not just diplomacy.
3. It's clearly obvious, and acknowledged, that the AI cheats in Civ III at the higher levels. Do you see this as a valid method for compensating for AI code that cannot win a fair fight against a seasoned player? Playing a game of Civ III on "Sid" was simply absurd. Sure, it presented a challenge, but the game was so horribly skewed it wasn't Civ any longer; it was just mass produce and sprawl. While it could be argued that current AI technology on a standard PC will never be on equal footing with the human mind, do you not see it as a slap in the face to simply give the AI a 200% production bonus?
4. Have you ever considered having a "learning AI", much like that of Galactic Civilizations? I have been tinkering with the idea, and I really think it would be possible to create a sort of "game analyzer AI" that would accept some sort of "game history" file, which it could then analyze. From this analysis, it could extrapolate various patterns in human behavior, and add them to its heuristics when determining troop movement, production and diplomacy. I realize that it is not as simple as I have labeled it, "finding patterns", but in a finite environment such as any computer game is, a Neural Network could be devised to discover links between the actions a person makes. This could be done locally on the client machine, which would have the effect of making the AI adapt to the player's playing style. Conversely, players could upload their files to an online system that would analyze them and integrate the patterns found into a "collective AI", which could then be released through periodic AI-patches.
5. I'm graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in December, finishing a degree in Cognitive Science (Computer Science and Psychology) in three years. Want to put a good word in for me at Firaxis?
It's a $10 one time fee, unless you want to own you own land. You can just drop the $10, and create your little machines in the sandlots, and then find friendly places where you can unleash them.
You could always do both, you know.
I'm a college student from RPI on co-op for the summer / fall, and I'm seriously considering this idea. As previously mentioned in another post, the resume fodder is worth more than the money ever could be.
If you really enjoy a project idea, it won't feel like work when you're doing it. I really enjoy solving problems that I want to solve, and creating things I have a remote interest in.
But maybe I'm just batshit insane.
So, you pay to do work that benefits the non-subscribers? Brilliant!
Oddly enough, when I went to "read more", FireFox spat this at me:
404 File Not Found
The requested URL (articles/05/03/16/1556228.shtml?tid=109) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
Looks like the bar has already been set too high!
It's a testament to the fundamental principles of the ancient methodologies of astronomy, that you can actually go in to and look at. I've never been do the one in Salisbury, but from what I've heard of it you're not allowed to go near the rocks, let alone inside.
I thought about it, and it wouldn't make sense any other way. While I admit that "ruling families" ala Rome: Total War are pretty sweet, it makes no sense for them to stand for the whole of human existence, especially once you start becomming Republics / Democracies.
Shut up.
The odds, assuming both are "regular" units, are that the Tank will beat the Spearman 98.5% of the time. Assuming they're both "elite" units, the Tank wins 99.7% of the time.
In the latter situation, the Spearman will win three out of every thousand attacks. First off, that hardly ever happens and you only bitch about it because it happened to you twice in all your years of playing and you remember it because you ran to your forums and posted a thread about it.
I'd be willing to bet that if you ran a Tank into a group of Spearmen a thousand times, in real life, eventually one of them would get caught in the treads just so, and muck everything up.
I also talk solstice in the fact that by the time tanks are around, nobody has Spearmen. If they do, you're playing on one of the difficulty levels designed for eight year olds. And, even on the odd chance that you somehow managed to race through the tech tree at an astounding rate above all the hardest AIs, and you do actually attack a Spearman with a Tank, you can think of them as if they were Somolians ala Black Hawk Down, poorly equipped for a modern war, but with small amounts of guns and bombs that are not representitive of the majority of the unit.
That said, Civilization III does have it's faults. I personally love the game, but I acknowledge various failings in the game, the most prominent being the whole "cultre defining national borders" system. But if the only reason you don't play Civ III is beacause of an event that happens once every thousand games, I feel bad for you.
[/avid civ3 pbem-er]