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Civ II game a decade old

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Re: Civ II game a decade old

#91

Post by onli »

potatolicious wrote: post #77
onli wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fear 1 would be an example for a game with a good AI. Also Far Cry 1. Can't remember on a strategy game with a really good AI though (maybe Heroes of Might and Magic 3?).

I don't think any of the games above had good AI - but rather, they had believable AI. I once read this piece by one of the AI programmers on the Halo series (can't for the life of me find it now) where he goes into the difference. A good AI will be able to beat you time and time again using ingenuity and creativity. But such AIs are rarely fun. Instead, we prefer AIs that merely give the illusion of competence (e.g.…

On the other hand, the predictability of the AI of RTS-Games (and the Civilization-games) gets critized quite often.

A good AI is a believable AI, in games. The AI of a game shouldn't be too powerful, the player has to have a chance to win. But predictable? I agree that the AI shouldn't be incomprehensible. The player should be be able to predict some moves. But if it really is utterly predictable, it is also frustrating.

Take Greedcorp as an example - or chess. If the player would never be baffled by the move of the AI, it would be no fun at all to play against them.

PS: But believability really is important. I always hated the moment in late-game of civ when conquering cities of advanced civilization with nothing in them but a temple. Always made it look like the AI doesn't even build properly and only can compete because of cheating, which repeatedly destroyed my motivation to beat the game.

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#93

Post by gbrindisi »

DanBC wrote: post #63
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The other problem is that the AI fights total wars by default. It will never engage in a limited conflict. This is why I don't play civ. Total war AIs are a bizarre choice in a strategy game. I dislike it when games are setup in a way where I'm the only one thinking strategy and the AI opponents are there to give me a sense of action. Total war in the real world is rare. >Or that one possibly victory condition in a…

Balance of Power ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_Power_(video_game) ) The game for PC shipped with a MS Windows runtime environment, for an early version of Windows. (2.x?) I remember it being really hard. ( http://pc.ign.com/articles/090/090970p1.html ) Such a game made today could be brilliant.

> Such a game made today could be brilliant.

It has been done: Balance of Power 21st century http://indiegames.com/2009/03/freeware_game_pick_balance_of....

Found via the wikipedia page of Chris Crawford: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Crawford_(game_designer)

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#94

Post by NickPollard »

danielweber wrote: post #61
jonnathanson wrote: post #52

Fascinating, and wonderful to see others are out there who are weird like me, and who will actually attempt to extend Civilization games over extremely long periods. I have a Civ4 game that I've been playing for about 4 straight years now, and admittedly the file has gotten so big that it periodically taxes my system resources to their limits (Unfortunately, Civ4 suffers from poor memory management and is fairly leak…

I don't know Civ4's AI routines, but it might be such that after a certain year passes, it decides that the only way to stop the human player is total war. Before that it can be less aggressive. I have a game of Civ1 somewhere where it takes about a half-hour to get through each turn because each city demands attention. I'd love to modify the ROM to skip the animations.

Fun fact: The original Civilization actually had it hardcoded into the AI that if the player was in the lead when the year 1900 was reached, all the AI would declare war on her.

It's slightly less obvious in the later games, but there are definitely still diplomatic penalties for the human player such that the AI are less likely to make deals with them and more likely to declare war.

Anyone interested should read Soren Johnson's blog (http://www.designer-notes.com/). Soren was lead game designer and AI programmer on Civilization IV, and he actually designed the ruleset and the AI hand-in-hand, so that they would have a game the AI could actually play well.

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#95

Post by bayleo »

planetguy wrote: post #49
Quarrelsome wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Civ games have never been known for their stellar AI. The way they keep the AI competitive at higher levels is to brutally cheat by getting free techs and units at the start and a beneficial modifier to their production and research. Considering how quick the AI needs to run (you don't want "end turn" taking forever) and how complex the game is I can appreciate its simplicity, it is disappointing though. I have…

can anyone point me towards a game where the devs actually spent a significant amount of time (relatively speaking) on the AI? Chessmaster 9000? For most games, though, AI is an unlimited time sink; every thousand hours you sink into making the AI smarter will barely enhance the player's enjoyment. Or, often enough, will make the player's experience worse ; I'm pretty sure there's no way I could possibly single-hande…

A well-developed AI is not without merit. Many players enjoy higher difficulty settings despite the added time/effort needed to complete a task due to a greater feeling of accomplishment. A good AI can offer the same inflated sense of reward.

Playing Diablo III recently was a poignant reminder to me of how badly RPG developers need to consider fleshing out their AI. In the endgame kiting again predictably emerged as the dominant strategy; developers are apparently oblivious to as to how to prevent the epidemic. Is it not worth it to program some basic responses to being kited by a player?

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#96

Post by tetha »

jonnathanson wrote: post #52

Fascinating, and wonderful to see others are out there who are weird like me, and who will actually attempt to extend Civilization games over extremely long periods. I have a Civ4 game that I've been playing for about 4 straight years now, and admittedly the file has gotten so big that it periodically taxes my system resources to their limits (Unfortunately, Civ4 suffers from poor memory management and is fairly leak…

This is why the master of orion 1 AI fascinates me, especially considering how old it is. Usually, it doesn't even care to declare war. it might just expand straight through you. It might declare war for exactly 3 systems and stop. It might go on a total war. It might just start shooting your ships without even being in an actual war. It's just weird how different it feels from many modern AIs.

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#97

Post by JonnieCache »

jonnathanson wrote: post #52

Fascinating, and wonderful to see others are out there who are weird like me, and who will actually attempt to extend Civilization games over extremely long periods. I have a Civ4 game that I've been playing for about 4 straight years now, and admittedly the file has gotten so big that it periodically taxes my system resources to their limits (Unfortunately, Civ4 suffers from poor memory management and is fairly leak…

You may well enjoy this lecture at google from one of the civ5 devs talking about the AI design, and game AI design in general.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#98

Post by ralfd »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #56
jonnathanson wrote: post #52

Fascinating, and wonderful to see others are out there who are weird like me, and who will actually attempt to extend Civilization games over extremely long periods. I have a Civ4 game that I've been playing for about 4 straight years now, and admittedly the file has gotten so big that it periodically taxes my system resources to their limits (Unfortunately, Civ4 suffers from poor memory management and is fairly leak…

>The other problem is that the AI fights total wars by default. It will never engage in a limited conflict. This is why I don't play civ. Total war AIs are a bizarre choice in a strategy game. I dislike it when games are setup in a way where I'm the only one thinking strategy and the AI opponents are there to give me a sense of action. Total war in the real world is rare. >Or that one possibly victory condition in a…

In Civ 4 the different leaders have personality. Ghandi is peaceful and will never backstab a weak player, Montezuma is batshit insane and lusts for blood, Isabella from Spain is a religious fanatic, Mansa Musa will quickly forget past wars and is happy to make peace to trade techs. A player can also befriend and ally a KI and win jointly.

There is a Google Tech Talk from the formet Civ lead programmer about this "Fun AI". In Civ 4 the Vanilla AI doesnt focus that much on winning. ManyAI Mods implement a more total War style and brutal min-max-gaming with huge armies to challenge experienced players. Also Civ 5 abandoned the Civ 4 style of diplomacy and replaced it with "hidden box" and a "Hard AI" which plays to win. It was at release date a huge disappointment of many veteran Civ players.

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#99

Post by gchpaco »

troels wrote: post #81
bdunbar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed 100%. To me, it seems silly -- not to mention cynical and fatalistic -- that the sole purpose of diplomacy in Civilization games is to add a strategic dimension to warmaking. Out here in the real world, war is a continuation of politics, by other means. Same thing, really, as your description of Civ II. The goal of diplomacy/warmaking is for one's side to come out ahead of the other. See Clausewitz, Machiavell…

I hope we've come at least a bit further since the renaissance. Diplomacy doesn't have to be a zero-sum game - indeed it rarely is in the real world. War, on the other hand, is very much that. So in that respect, war is the failure of diplomacy, not the continuation of it.

War is actually a negative sum game today; even "winning" you lose a lot. It's not clear to me if this was ever different for anything larger than Viking raiding parties, though.

Re: Civ II game a decade old

#100

Post by zem »

mynameishere wrote: post #24
pavel_lishin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting if he exported the game state, so other people could try resolving the conflict.

The game is easy and boring in the end. He's purposely letting it go on and on.

read through the thread; it's anything but easy. he's hit the point where the ai civs have decided nuclear war is the way to go, and he's reaping the global penalties for it (radioactive wastelands, global warming) while simultaneously having to divert all his resources to maintaining the red queen race of building tanks and having them destroyed rather than cleaning up his farmlands to grow food.
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