ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
ORIGINAL: a white rabbit
..Thank you berto..
..it all exists now, 24/7 internet at high speed, anti-virus programs that phone-home and auto-update, so why can't Elmer contact a patterns library ? computers that run 24/7, home computers that could run a moon landing and a pooled military/wargames experience that must run into 100s of years actual playing time..oh, and an engine that despite our bitching, actually works well.
..just gotta join up the dots..
You'd have to be careful because of privacy concerns, but tracking all moves and either analyzing the games off-line on the player's PC or optionally sending a summary of the games moves to a central point to be analyzed (or some combination) is theoretically possible. You need to be careful about this, because it's easy to unbalance the AI, especially with Neural Networks.
Heck, just getting Elmer (Future name Bugs(?)) a strategic layer that's good enough that he could play against himself to try to determine the best strategy against the human's plays might be helpful in building that up too.[;)] If you can determine that on turn 10, an apparent strong concentration on the left flank can probably be successfully be responded to by ... he's got a leg up. Figuring out how to successfully do that, however, is a tough problem to solve.
If nothing else, having a finer layer of tracking than the current one-turn VCR might help with figuring out ways to send in error reports and a better way to tune Elmer/Bugs/Scenarios.
For the near future, I'm keeping my options open about what the best way to do these things is. I suspect that there isn't going to be just one answer, but a combination of different approaches.
Ralph
..re privacy concerns..i wasn't really thinking of a p2p, eg emule, approach, more a central library similar to the scen libraries already in existance, The latter gives Elmer a lot more reference data always available and makes
dling optional. If he only stores automatically in the player's computer the actual game, then compares the developing patterns to previous games in the library, he should be able to work out what's most likely to happen in future moves...
..re strategic layer.. i don't see it being possible without a second map, possibly a third at max zoom out for big scens, simplified at the relevant scale, and the formations simplified to one piece representing the center of the formation ? Don't forget this map level isn't a combat level map, it's a planning map, the one used to compare patterns, he get's his own technical data from the combat map, by assessing as now but simplified, eg loss = -1, draw = 0, win = +1 , no combat= 0, add these for each unit in the formation and then " is the formation's attack possibility greater than x (pick a number), y/n ?' store result, go on to next formation and when all formations have a result compare with the patterns till one fits (gets most correlation points) and is a game winner..execute..
..re stategic layer 2..i'm not suggesting that we try to make Elmer intelligent *, just that we find a way to give him memory/ chance to study, just as the best chess and iGo games have. Pattern comparison he can do, a simplified zoom-out map is all he needs to do it quickly and efficently, after all on the more popular scens he's gonna have a fair few pattern maps..
..* not immediately anyway..
..an after thought, is there any reason why the library couldn't have pbem and vs PO games in it ? that would seriously increase his abilities..
