ORIGINAL: killroyishere
I disagree with this since your majority of computer gamers are solo players. Eliminate the AI and you'll lose that market just to gain another.
Actually I TOTALLY agree with you. What I think you may have missed was my point and dream: Eliminate AI's but make games playable solitaire another way. I am very much a solitaire gamer pure and simple. Revenue rests with solitaire gamers.
@ Erik: I have trully immersed myself in many PC games over the years eg: Steel Panthers 1 and 2, Alpha Centauri, my beloved 4am sessions of Lords of the Relam 2, Third Reich, Flight Commander 2, Command and Conquer 1, Squad Battles Vietnam, War Over Vietnam, Battles in Normandy, Carriers at War, Tropico. but time has moved on!
Let's look at just the war games in that list and I'll tell you why an older me, just can't play them anymore:
- Steel Panthers (its AI just couldn't attack in cities).
- Squad Battles Vietnam (same problem) though the Wargamer published 2 of my AAR's for this game.
- Third Reich (the Allied AI loses steam in 1942 and doesn't recover - it's also DOS).
- Flight Commander 2 (great game but no mouse scroll - come on this game in 1990's!).
- Carriers at War (played too long waiting for the real patch, the novelty is now over).
- Battles in Normandy (I won as the Allies, the Allied AI is hopeless to play against as the Germans and in any other scenario the AI is brain dead).
Even my beloved Lords of the Realm 2. What awesome strategic gaming! But when the game zoomed into the tactical battles, it was always easy to corner the AI into a rain of arrows and win).
So what's left Erik that isn't to this day bugged (and requires a micro mangement freak)? Russo-German War? Guns of August? Crown of Glory? Napoleon's Campaigns, Uncommon Valor etc etc etc - all to this day still bugged.
Many games did make the grade 10 years ago for me but time has moved on. Bugs are no longer novel, weak AI's are no longer acceptable.
If anyone here is having fun with the game in which this thread rests, whilst the AI masses forces and doesn't not know how to attack with them, all well and good.
But I say, it's no weakness of the developers here. They're facing the same issues as the developers of the AI's belonging to SSG, HPS, Schwerpunkt, Firaxis, EA, Ensemble et al. It's impossible today to get an AI to execute a planned string of attacks and counter-attacks in succesful support of a strategic goal. It's hard enough to get an AI over a river and set up its cannon!