I stop playing for now

[Kayoz]

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.

[Sithuk]

I'm surprised the Civ 4 better BUG AI hasn't been mentioned:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354019

Extensive community improvements have been made to the Civ 4 Beyond the Sword (BTS) latest official AI. Have a look at the Better BAT AI too (a merger of Better BUG AI with other mod improvements):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=421897

[TGS]

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.

Sorry I haven't responded until now I haven't been paying much attention to forums the last couple weeks. As much as I want to agree with you the fact of the matter is that you are talking about a specific form of AI and a specific form of game. If you are talking a tactical game ranging from Chess to say StarCraft you are right you can easily throw enough power behind it and make an AI that cannot be beaten but that isn't to say the AI still can't be predicted. You can predict something and still lose to it.

But when you mention "APM" I think games like Starcraft which essentially get broken down into a measurable APM which can largely define how "good" a player is but that concept does not actually translate into larger more epic games such as the 4x strategy games. In fact I often have the arguement with people that games like starcraft are not actually RTS games so much as RTT games (real time tactics) because they are largely about tactical battles and conflicts with an immediate fast paced strategic overlay. While the overlay is strategic any game that lasts 5-30 minutes average is not much of a strategy because you aren't managing an entire theater of war or a large scale conflict you are managing a bunch of micro-battles and it's about small numbers of units which also denotes more tactics imo. Think squad vs regiment. Squads are roughly 12 soldiers or units where a Regiment is thousands.

Now I've realized I'm kind of ranting so I'm going to finish my point by saying that in large scale games you can have much wilder variations in AI behavior but at the same time you also have to have them somewhat limited due to the processing power of machines and them simply not being able to devote that much to AI routines which leads them doing predictable things. That's why humans will always be superior opponents because humans don't just take raw data and employ strategies/decisions based on that data. Quite frankly humans make things fun. So forgive me if I've ranted a bit I'm tired but I did want to respond to this because I find this game very intriguing and I would love to see what it would be like with other players.

[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.

[TGS]

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.

Oh man I hate that. There are some games that are notorious for that. I know one in particular that I won't mention because otherwise it's a good game but I would often build secret bases off the beaten path fully equipped with stealth enhancements and really in a place that you'd only stumble upon it if you knew to look there and lone behold "randomly lol" AI scouts would end up visiting it even though they couldn't possibly know it was there and if they were players they wouldn't.

It's an annoying tactic some developers use to essentially give the AI/NPC's/Mobs etc a separate ruleset to players and for the most part players do not like it. The reason a lot of blizzard's games are so insanely successful is due to the fact that for the most part the units/NPC's/Mobs all use abilities very similar to that which the player can obtain in some cases they are identical with exception to it scaling up higher for the mobs because they are meant to be tougher than the average player. Imo that concept is what makes a lot of games fun because it simulates similarities between players and AI and in some cases if done right it can almost fool the player into not knowing what's a player and whats an AI. Some first person shooters are really bad about that as well for example AI snipers that seem to magically be able to headshot you from insane distances while you're moving without missing a single shot before.

[MartialDoctor]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

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.

I don't play enough games to know of more, but I can point out three right off the top of my head:

Shogun 2 Total War (Universal AI Mod, Darthmod)
Rome Total War (Europa Barbororum had some modifications that affected AI)
Civ 4 (Fall from Heaven 2 mod was completely different from the original Civ IV and the AI not only handled the spells and new units effectively but was much more challenging than the AI from the original game; I believe there was also an AI enhancement mod but never played it)