Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Speedy2511

Please devs pimp the AI!

For example SOTS and GalCiv 2 have one of the best AI's in an 4X Game.

Greetings from Germany
Nico

quote:

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Although the AI issues are an issue, you can still make the game challenging.

Since there aren't any difficulty levels, which really need to be added in the near future, you just need to create an environment that is more challenging.  Make the other races larger and with a higher technology level than yourself.

And I totally agree with Brainsucker.  Mod developers have made some great AIs in other games!

quote:

ORIGINAL: greywolf1

Don't be unfair, guys. Game design is done with a lot of good ideas and intentions in mind, but without any real practical experience with the game itself, in this case by a small team with limited resources in terms of time and money.
After the game is released, there is a bunch of experienced people with time enough to study the AI, learn its mechanisms, beat it - and then shout at the designers.
The other side of the coin is that the AI is probably good enough to be a real challenge for the majority of players. It is definitely for me - and I know of a couple more ways to make my life harder when I've learnt to beat the AI easily on "normal".

Yes, it would be nice to mod the AI. It would be nice if the designers would be able to sit together with power players from time to time and adjust the AI based on the experiences of these guys. But this would cost a lot of time (discussing and agreeing the changes + enhancing the AI + fixing the unavoidable new bugs ...) - and who would pay for it? Not to mention that, whatever is done, at least 50% of the audience will not like it, would have set other priorities, moved in different directions.
Everything's possible, but not everything is feasible.

Speedy2511, have you tried to introduce handicaps? To invent special rules, like not using certain methods and/or tools against the AI, which make it more difficult for you to win without killing your fun? I'm better at RPG's than at 4X's, and I'm doing this frequently when I like a game but have found a perfect strategy to beat it reliably. Like don't use weapons, or armour, or spells, or whatever - play a different role (rather than playing your normal role differently), with other words.
How about playing the role of nomadic pirates? Or peaceful traders? Set yourself other goals, like getting somewhere, making a certain amount of money without fighting, forging a huge alliance, manipulating your opponents to fight against and eliminate each other (would this be possible at all in DW?), etc - whatever suits your interests. The AARs in this forum contain a few quite interesting examples of this kind, by the way.

YOU want to have fun. Use your NI ("natural intelligence" :-)) in creative ways rather than waiting for a greatly enhanced AI which is unlikely to come (except in quantitative ways, maybe - more of everything).

quote:

ORIGINAL: greywolf1

Don't be unfair, guys. Game design is done with a lot of good ideas and intentions in mind, but without any real practical experience with the game itself, in this case by a small team with limited resources in terms of time and money.
After the game is released, there is a bunch of experienced people with time enough to study the AI, learn its mechanisms, beat it - and then shout at the designers.
The other side of the coin is that the AI is probably good enough to be a real challenge for the majority of players. It is definitely for me - and I know of a couple more ways to make my life harder when I've learnt to beat the AI easily on "normal".

Yes, it would be nice to mod the AI. It would be nice if the designers would be able to sit together with power players from time to time and adjust the AI based on the experiences of these guys. But this would cost a lot of time (discussing and agreeing the changes + enhancing the AI + fixing the unavoidable new bugs ...) - and who would pay for it? Not to mention that, whatever is done, at least 50% of the audience will not like it, would have set other priorities, moved in different directions.
Everything's possible, but not everything is feasible.

Speedy2511, have you tried to introduce handicaps? To invent special rules, like not using certain methods and/or tools against the AI, which make it more difficult for you to win without killing your fun? I'm better at RPG's than at 4X's, and I'm doing this frequently when I like a game but have found a perfect strategy to beat it reliably. Like don't use weapons, or armour, or spells, or whatever - play a different role (rather than playing your normal role differently), with other words.
How about playing the role of nomadic pirates? Or peaceful traders? Set yourself other goals, like getting somewhere, making a certain amount of money without fighting, forging a huge alliance, manipulating your opponents to fight against and eliminate each other (would this be possible at all in DW?), etc - whatever suits your interests. The AARs in this forum contain a few quite interesting examples of this kind, by the way.

YOU want to have fun. Use your NI ("natural intelligence" :-)) in creative ways rather than waiting for a greatly enhanced AI which is unlikely to come (except in quantitative ways, maybe - more of everything).

quote:

ORIGINAL: TGS

You simply can't predict human behavior like you can AI behavior.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brainsucker

well, we are not talking about "asking" the developer / designers to sit and play with us. We just ask a AI mod so the community can evolve by their own. What the designers do just make a game, make the AI mod-able, make an adequate AI, then let the community to enhance the AI.

It won't cost a lot of budget. With the up to date AI (that created by the community), the players will play longer (it is even better if the game has PvP feature, but well...). The designer just need to throw new Expansions periodically (new feature, new idea, and new AI mod), and the game will evolve by itself in the market.

quote:

ORIGINAL: J HG T

AI in todays games aren't truly AIs if you want to be precise. Proper AI capable of creative thinking and unpredictability, backed up by the calculating power of powerful computer could easily beat any human in RTS by APM (actions per minute) alone. That's why I've begun to love TBSs more and more in recent times, as they bring both AI and human player around the same table with certain basic rules.

quote:

ORIGINAL: adecoy95

i liked that they gave the shakturi a "cheat" or sorts with the income bonus on their home world, it made them somewhat more dangerous, but it should not have been able to be captured and used by the player.

i like difficulty settings that allow the ai to cheat, as long as they are not able to do things that should be impossible (company of heroes ai used to annoy me cause they did not suffer from fog of war, so their artillery always had max range).

its not exactly elegant, to use cheating ai, but its probably the easiest way to inject a fast challenge into the game. giving the ai more planets just does not do it for me, its just another way the player can obtain the ai cheat bonuses.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brainsucker

well, we are not talking about "asking" the developer / designers to sit and play with us. We just ask a AI mod so the community can evolve by their own. What the designers do just make a game, make the AI mod-able, make an adequate AI, then let the community to enhance the AI.

It won't cost a lot of budget. With the up to date AI (that created by the community), the players will play longer (it is even better if the game has PvP feature, but well...). The designer just need to throw new Expansions periodically (new feature, new idea, and new AI mod), and the game will evolve by itself in the market.

Moddable AI? Please point to 5 games which have AIs that can be modded. Your assertion is that it is relatively low-cost and easy to do - so surely you can provide examples of it in mainstream games? Please cite your sources - 5 will do.