People Over Estimating the AI?

[VetteroX]

I really think some people here are over estimating the abilities of the AI. BlueHooHoo playing on Chieftan? (don't want to offend him, im appreciative of him giving us info) Other people saying they will start at chief/warlord and MAYBE try for prince, like it would be some death sentance? A lot of people talking about startegies to come back up when your behind? I don't know how other people were playing, but I found Civ 1/2 CTP1/2 and SMAC pretty easy.

Civ1 I did badly the first try, but once I figured out found cities in these spots, this far apart, expand asap, rush to these techs, do this do that, it became pretty easy. Then I applied same rules to Civ 2, CTP, etc. It was a long time ago, but my first game of Civ 2 was on prince I belive, (I start all new games I get on the medium diff level) and I won. CTP I started on the medium level and quit by like 500 ad because it was way too easy, so I bumped it up. SMAC was a bit tricky at first, just because it was so different looking. Once I figured out what land was good and how to edit units and what thoes weirdo tech names actually meant, I could play on the highest difficulty levels. All my games of the civ series after the first 2-3 games was on the highest or second highest difficulty level, and it was still too easy. I remeber in Civ 2 cheating for the computer, giving them units, improving thier land, giving them techs.... still too easy.

A problem in all the games is the comp is good at defence, but horrible at offence or counter attacks. They will vey rarely try to interecept an attacking army, or mount a compain against a single important city of mine, only cities closest to them will be attacked by a few random units in the previous games. I always wanted to fight vicious battles where Id capture 2 cities and lose one the ext turn, only to do a counter attack and just barely capture it again, or have to fight with all my resourses to hold my border from an enemy, slow slowly setting some resourses aside for a counter attack. Sadly these things rarely happen. Having one of my cities captured by the computer was a VERY rare event. The only times I would lose cities in the newer games (not Civ1 where a warrior had a chance of beating infantry....) was in ancient times when maybe I was expanding too quickly and had a very aggressive neighbor, or because of my messing up... say disbanding all my old phalanxs, forgetting that I hadnt built rifelmen in one of my many many cities, and the comp takes it, but I retake it next turn.

I know the AI in Civ 3 will be the best yet, but honestly, I have more confidence in my abilities then the computers. I will read over the manual on the bus ride home from the mall, maybe do a 5 min tutorial just to become familiar with the new interface, and jump right into king, and I think I will win. If I dont, ill be surprised, but I will just give it another shot, and I will assuredly win on the second try, if the game is anything like the pervious civs, which I know it is.

There are a lot of new things of course, but I will do same old, same old: Rapid expansion. I will be America, so I have exploreres. Build 2 warriors, then on to settelers. (maybe something else first until I hit pop 3 for the pop 2 settlers) The capital will then set on building more settelers, then workers, then improvements. All cities do this, founded, defence, 2 settlers, workers, improvements. 20+ cities in no time. Worked in all the other versions of Civ. It starts a little slow in $ and sience because your cities will be small from making all thoese settlers, but you have lots of cities, and you quickly catch up and surpass the enemy with your huge population. Anyway, Ive rambled for too long. If you have played a lot of civ which I think most of you have, come on, have a little faith in yourself, start at prince or higher, if you lose start over again with new knowlege. Whats the point of starting on chieftan or warlord and winning? is that really any accomplishment? BTW, when I get Civ 3, Ill post "ok starting on King" and give updates about how im doing... I promise to be honest

[Kc7mxo]

Dude! Use a paragraph or two now and then. icky, what a mess.


well, from the bit of your post i read, i gather you think everyone is expecting a glorious revolution in ai from firaxis? well, i don't think everyone is cause i'm not.

actually i'm expecting to dislike civ 3, but thats beside the point. I think that the AI will be very similiar to smacs, reasonably competant, and whose attacks tend to be masses of units tossed into the area.

After a few games, I doubt it will have anything suprising for me.

But if it really bothers you, i suppose you could find some people online and play some multiplayer . . . . . uh. hmmm. guess you'll just have to suffer.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Dude! Use a paragraph or two now and then. icky, what a mess.

Agreed. I thought there might be some interesting thoughts here but I couldn't get past the first few sentences.

[VetteroX]

eh, sorry. I have to do all that editing junk on papers for school, hate doing it when I dont have to but I will in the future.

Anway, it says why would you want to start playing Civ 3 on an easy level like chieftan or warlord? 1) are people really that scared of the AI? 2) Whats the point of winning on such easy levels? its no real accomplishment.

[Pembleton]

Originally posted by VetteroX
Anway, it says why would you want to start playing Civ 3 on an easy level like chieftan or warlord? 1) are people really that scared of the AI? 2) Whats the point of winning on such easy levels? its no real accomplishment.

Because there are so many new elements to the game, that much of the first couple games or so will be learning how the actual mechanics work. It's more difficult to do if you're getting smashed by the AI.

IWhen you make a mistake with something unfamiliar you won't get punished severely at a lower difficulty level just beause you misunderstood something. I don't think people are really scared of the AI as much as they want to learn all the new features of the game first, before actually playing competitively.

[dennis580]

I think people are SEVERELY UNDERestimating the AI in Civ III, but I guess that's only natural since Civ II's AI sucked so bad.

One of the things I think the AI will really be good at is cutting off our resources from our roads. Jeff Briggs said the AI was pretty crafty, and I think this might be one of the parts where the AI will be surprising a lot of people.

[VetteroX]

Valid point Pembleton, but I really dont think too much is different... maybe im wrong, but I think the same ould things still hold true: 1) Expand quickly, found cities in good spots, make useful land improvements asap. 2) Early on, block in our take out troublesome nieghbors. If your warrior captures the second or 3rd city they found, it can be devistating to them and huge help to you. 3) race for things like great library, hanging gardens etc.
4) Kiss up to thoes stronger then you are while you must, take advantage of thoes who are weaker.. same old same old stuff.

I think many of the new things like the new way trade is set up has been explained well.... I have extra horses which you want, you have extra saltpeter which I want... lets trade. Doesn't seem hard. Maybe I'm wrong, but I still think it would be better to skim the manual while on your way home or installing the game to learn what you dont know then to play on chieftan vs a stupid and gentle AI.

[Bakunine]

Well i think (and hope) the AI will be much better in CIV III than in any Syd game made before.

However i won't play EVER under Prince. I have no problem if i get slaughter really soon. Just have to restart again.

Actually i hope in my first games my civilization would be always the weakest. That is my biggest dream in any strategy game.

[dennis580]

Well I always start every game I get no matter what type of game it is on the hardest level. So I will be playing only on Deity. Anyway on the lower levels the computer cheats in your favor and on the higher levels it cheats for itself. Prince is the only level that it don't cheat for your or the computer, and I expect Civ III's Prince level to absoloutely destroy Civ II's Deity level, and I also expect Civ III's Deity level to absoloutely destroy Civ III's Prince level.

[VetteroX]

to dennis and Bakunine. Diety For a brand new Civ game is pushing it, but I will do King first game. I also like struggling, as long as I have some chance to win.

[soaringknight]

I will play on Prince first time just to estimate AI abilities.
No doubt, in ONE versus ONE game without cheating AI has no chance.
It is STRATEGY game, more complicated than chess, so AI is doomed to be moron player anyway .
But it would be interesting if weaker AI civs could work together against dominating CIV (that is, human player's CIV). Some sorts of trade embargoes, coordinated attacks etc.

[ruckus9]

...more complicated than chess, so AI is doomed to be moron player anyway .

Yeah I agree. I'm not some computer expert but I know a computer can kick a human's ass in chess because it can calculate all the moves, variations and implications almost up to the end of the game. And even then it can barely beat the best of human chess players. So I don't expect an AI to be outdoing me much in a game that's way more complicated than chess.

[Mars]

I'm hoping that the combo of 16 civs on a huge map with improved AI will all create a challenging game on Prince. from some of the reviews ive seen it sounds like the AI is killer. What fun. Although the only way i'll play on cheiftan is once, just for fun to see how badly i crush the AI

[The Rook]

I am hoping that the other changes for CIV3 will prevent us from totally dominating the AI.

For instance, what if you find expanding too quickly actually hinders your growth? Historically, large empires fell apart because they were too big for their own good.

I hope the strategy to win the game is different than just a race to build cities.

[Comrade Tribune]

Vetterox, I agree, same old strategies will mostly work, perhaps with minor modifications to take care of trade and culture.

I will start on King, and expect it to be way too easy. I will be very pleasantly surprised, if King is not a walkover.

[jsw363]

I read that the AI will handicap the game for you on Warlord and Chieftan levels and then on Prince there will be no cheats. King and Emporer will have AI handicapping. Deity I think as far as the last review I read is so far unbeatable by firaxians. If this is all true, then I think we can expect a lot from the AI. It will be a challenging game.

I also read an encouraging account of an AI civ betraying a human player at a critical point in the game. Sounded like they put a lot of effort into making it a true opponent. I am looking forward to trying it out...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Im gonna start at Prince. After I win three times in a row (with different victory conditions) im gonna move up to the next level etc. By the time i beat Deity, i hope Civ3 multiplayer will be out.

[Mars]

Originally posted by jsw363
I read that the AI will handicap the game for you on Warlord and Chieftan levels and then on Prince there will be no cheats. King and Emporer will have AI handicapping. Deity I think as far as the last review I read is so far unbeatable by firaxians. If this is all true, then I think we can expect a lot from the AI. It will be a challenging game.

I also read an encouraging account of an AI civ betraying a human player at a critical point in the game. Sounded like they put a lot of effort into making it a true opponent. I am looking forward to trying it out...

yah, but they also said civ 1 deity was unbeatable, and later the said civ2 deity was unbeatable. although i do think it should be a good challenge

[TCO]

Originally posted by dennis580
I think people are SEVERELY UNDERestimating the AI in Civ III, but I guess that's only natural since Civ II's AI sucked so bad.

One of the things I think the AI will really be good at is cutting off our resources from our roads. Jeff Briggs said the AI was pretty crafty, and I think this might be one of the parts where the AI will be surprising a lot of people.

That's just marketing hype saying the AI is strong. We've heard it before with Civ2 and SMAC. I expect a very similar AI to last time. The emphasis was on adding new features. Not on improving the AI. Just listen to all the crap about different civs etc. Very little real play on aa ny revolution in AI.

[joey703]

Originally posted by jsw363
I read that the AI will handicap the game for you on Warlord and Chieftan levels and then on Prince there will be no cheats. King and Emporer will have AI handicapping. Deity I think as far as the last review I read is so far unbeatable by firaxians. If this is all true, then I think we can expect a lot from the AI. It will be a challenging game.

I also read an encouraging account of an AI civ betraying a human player at a critical point in the game. Sounded like they put a lot of effort into making it a true opponent. I am looking forward to trying it out...

People keep saying that they're gonna play on prince because the computer doesnt cheat for or against you. I've never seen someone offer proof as for this being true. If Civ3 is like CIv2, CIv1,civnet,smac, then it should be that on the difficulty level king there will be no cheating at all.

Btw, I plan to play the game on king my first game. Additionally, i expect that the reason no one at firaxis can beat the game on deity is not because the ai is better than previous civ games, but due to the ai cheating a lot more on the deity level in civ3.

[VetteroX]

What a joke, they REALLY said diety was unbeatable in Civ and Civ 2? LOL maybe unbeatable for a chimp... no... even he could do it. maybe they meant for a house cat randomly walking over the keyboard diety is unbeatable. I also dont take much stock in previewers saying the game is hard.... remeber, they are writers/reporters first, gamers second. While they were writing about games, we were playing Civ, so I doubt we would have the same ideas of hard as they would.

[Comrade Tribune]

I suppose if we found the game challenging, the reviewers would give it a bad mark, because they would believe it´s unbeatable.

[dennis580]

Well I will make Yin look like a saint on this board if Civ III's AI is anywhere even close to Civ II's AI.

[Kc7mxo]

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What a joke, they REALLY said diety was unbeatable in Civ and Civ 2? LOL maybe unbeatable for a chimp... no... even he could do it. maybe they meant for a house cat randomly walking over the keyboard diety is unbeatable. I also dont take much stock in previewers saying the game is hard.... remeber, they are writers/reporters first, gamers second. While they were writing about games, we were playing Civ, so I doubt we would have the same ideas of hard as they would.
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Deity is very easy. After you've put a rather large amount of gaming time in and you know the correct strategies to win.

Don't discount the game too badly. The ai isn't great, but by its nature the game makes it self challenging.

However, I agree that the the firaxis team probably didn't spend much time thinking about ai. most of their time was on those stupid leader heads.

[The Negotiator]

I'm just thinking how much time it would take to do the AI stuff when playing with 16 civilizations.

Ahh I still remember those days with Civ 1 when I still had Amiga 500. Expecially later in the game.

[dennis580]

Well from everything i have reid it seems to me like they have put a lot of time into the AI.

[old dog]

One unknown variable is how well the AI will do in attempting the new kinds of victory. In my experience, the AI wasn't too bad at the spaceship victory. If they also are clever in attemting diplomatic and cultural victory, you could face an interesting challenge. And, has been said by others, the AI may be clever at denying you needed resources, which could also be interesting.

[Peter Triggs]

GP:

That's just marketing hype saying the AI is strong. We've heard it before with Civ2 and SMAC.

You missed one:

just about all of the AI code was rewritten, so it's difficult to answer lots of specific questions. Let's suffice it to say that it's much smarter and much more conniving, and you can expect much better attack strategies from AI players.

That was written about CTP2's AI! Since then, I'm from Missouri.

edit: this was written minutes before the Soren Johnson interview was released. His comments have more content than those I quoted above.

[Rhysie]

Actually they did not say civ 2 was unbeatable in deity. At some point in the manual (hey, I read it a number of times, I am a sad civ fan) they actually thanked someone for ensuring that deity _could_ be beaten. So they have themselves beaten civ 2 on deity to prove it could be done before it was released.

Just wanted to clear up that apparent misconception.

[Imran Siddiqui]

http://apolyton.net/misc/interviews/...njohnson.shtml

You are welcome