Recently something happened in the world of AI and gaming that it is not discussed enough.
Rio Grande Games put out a digital version of their card game game "Dominion" - a medieval themed game which only needs the base box to be played but that was so succesful to generate 15 expansions. The AI is based on an advanced neural network, and on "Hard" level it just obliterates any human player.
"Dominion" is a game I know quite well. In past times I played the tabletop version a lot with my daughters, friends and relatives because it is easy to learn, hard to master and full of flavour. It is also very fast, with a game lasting, usuially, 15-20 mins. For years was our family game for Christmas gaterings and such (along with Dixit).
All the above just to say that I thought how to play "Dominion". But if I look at my stats on the App I recorded 90 games with 4 wins.
The story of how this AI was developed is really interesting and can be found
here. It is a fascinating read, especially the part about how they wanted to create a AI capable to learn the game rules and apply them - a must if you want to ship the game with 15 expansions who add different rules to the base game without rewriting the code everytime an expansion is added.
As I said, I don't think that the implications of this breakthrough are fully realised. One could point out how this AI was built around a specific genre: the competitive card game. The programmers mention how there was already an earlier strong AI capable of playing Starcraft, but only "on certain maps with specific races". I now wonder if the "lessons learned" here can be applied to strategy games - and, by implicatin, to new AIs for wargames.
"Yes darling, I served in the Navy for eight years. I was a cook..."
"Oh dad... so you were a God-damned cook?"
(My 10 years old daughter after watching "The Hunt for Red October")