Too fast!

Pedrunn · April 9, 2002, 23:29

Oh ! my god.
I cant follow CTP2 forum anymore. It is just becaming too fast. Too many posts at once. I dont participate in such a forum since i was a civ3 enthusiastic when there were just 2 civ3 forums (i know, a long time ago)
I cant be happier for such growth of my favorite game.

But i am going crazy!

I just post something and when i atualized several threads had go up again. Even the ones i just read.
I remind the time of crisis here at CTP2 when there were only about 10 people (Modders mostly) here and post were a rarity (only 2-3 a day).
Nostalgy?
No! It is much better now

Fast!
Fast!
Fast!
Brainstorm. Too much info. Everything is getting fuzzy. now black ......

PDA-CIV · April 9, 2002, 23:41

Eagle · April 9, 2002, 23:54

Hm, true, sometimes things are going sooooo fast in here.

But then, sometimes, I keep coming back here over and over to see if somebody replied on my threads, but nothing happened.

Guess, I still have to find the right time when most of the people are online ...

But, if I have a look at where everybody is from, I must say it is quite a diversified group, from all over the world !

Is there a thread or something somewhere with a list of how many regulars are from which country ??

Just to have an overview of all the countries represented here ?

Dale · April 10, 2002, 06:04

Eagle:

I'm from Melbourne Australia.

Have been coming to Apolyton since about 1999, but didn't register till 2000. I've played Civ, Civ2, Smac, Smacx, Ctp, Ctp2 & Civ3 as well as many many other games. Ctp2 is the best in my mind.

Eagle · April 10, 2002, 06:23

Dale,

Then you should be online around the same time as me. I am from Belgium, but am living in Singapore.

Only recently discovered Apolyton, but been addicted to Civ type games since way before they were invented.

Dale · April 10, 2002, 07:02

Eagle:

You mean about now?

But I usually surf from work all day. I hate my job, actively looking for another job, work knows all this, so they let me surf.

I do a little bit of work for them.

Eagle · April 10, 2002, 07:38

Well, I am on holiday for the moment, so am behind my pc also all the time.

Euh, for those that find this strange, for my job I rarely touch a pc, so it's hobby for me.

I pity those that are still on dialup following everything here or dwnldn things. I would never be able to fall back to anything less than cable. Well, that is if I am not doing my email via portable and mobile at 9600bps ...

But that's only when I'm not home.

PS What field are you looking in for yr new job ?
Why not try yr luck in S'pore ?

hexagonian · April 10, 2002, 10:20

I live outside of Chicago, and am fortunate enough to have Internet access at work, so it is easy for me to come here during the day and check up on what is happening. And I have not been too busy at work lately, so I log on here a lot during the day.

The evenings/weekends, however, are a different story. I generally avoid going online during those times, unless I know something interesting is happening. And I have limited Internet access at home (10 free hours a month through NetZero, which is usually used up by my son anyhow).

Someday I'll break down and start paying for unlimited access...

Things are definitely more lively around here though.

Martin Gühmann · April 10, 2002, 11:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Pedrunn
Oh ! my god.
I cant follow CTP2 forum anymore. It is just becaming too fast. Too many posts at once. I dont participate in such a forum since i was a civ3 enthusiastic when there were just 2 civ3 forums (i know, a long time ago)
I cant be happier for such growth of my favorite game.
But i am going crazy!
I just post something and when i atualized several threads had go up again. Even the ones i just read.
I remind the time of crisis here at CTP2 when there were only about 10 people (Modders mostly) here and post were a rarity (only 2-3 a day).
Nostalgy?
No! It is much better now
Fast!
Fast!
Fast!
Brainstorm. Too much info. Everything is getting fuzzy. now black ......

Than you should have been here around Easter, there it wasn't so full here the same as last year but after Ester last year the forum was much emptier than before and now the other way around, the community has put a lot of work into this game and it becomes better and better, also thanks to the programmers of Activision the game is so customizable that it would be just a waste to not try to get the best out of CTP2.

-Martin

Eagle · April 10, 2002, 12:03

Well, maybe it was easily said of me about having cable. I have no idea how prizes compare in different countries.

In Belgium, or here in Singapore, you pay around S$55 a month to have unlimited cable access. There are other chepaer formulas available while still on cable or adsl, but then you are limited in time or GB's. Since I am playing internet radio most of the day, that wasn't an option for me.

TheArsenal · April 10, 2002, 13:45

Well, for all practical purposes, I live in Los Angeles, California.
I have internet access at work and at home, but use the work computer for the bulk of my surfing, purely because I have a dial up at home and its much, much faster at work. I check in here from time to time to see what's going on, although the past few days I've been going through some of the very old posts (a year, two years ago) because back then *everyone* was a newbie and there's lots of information/tips/strategy helpful to those who are relatively new to the game now .... that is if you have the patience to weed through tons of "Activision sucks!" and "the AI is stupid!" posts to find the helpful stuff. Man there was a *lot* of hate toward this game in those days, I'm so glad I found it after the ModMasters fixed it.

Martin Gühmann · April 10, 2002, 13:56

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal
Well, for all practical purposes, I live in Los Angeles, California.
I have internet access at work and at home, but use the work computer for the bulk of my surfing, purely because I have a dial up at home and its much, much faster at work. I check in here from time to time to see what's going on, although the past few days I've been going through some of the very old posts (a year, two years ago) because back then *everyone* was a newbie and there's lots of information/tips/strategy helpful to those who are relatively new to the game now .... that is if you have the patience to weed through tons of "Activision sucks!" and "the AI is stupid!" posts to find the helpful stuff. Man there was a *lot* of hate toward this game in those days, I'm so glad I found it after the ModMasters fixed it.

Sounds familiar just go to the Civ3 forum of the present, and you can replace the names of Civ3 and Firaxis by some others and you wouldn't notice a huge different. Unfortunatly there is no Civ4 on the horizon for all the hopes so it is better to be realistic.

-Martin

Hermann the Lombard · April 10, 2002, 15:05

Right now I'm balking at paying $50/month for cable modem access at home...but I have a fractional T-1 at the office for downloads (and, um, "daytime" visits to Apolyton).

Peter Triggs · April 10, 2002, 19:20

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal: .... that is if you have the patience to weed through tons of "Activision sucks!" and "the AI is stupid!" posts to find the helpful stuff. Man there was a *lot* of hate toward this game in those days

And look at it now:

Quote:

Originally posted by Alexnm:
Yep, I have to agree on this. Poly CTP2 forums are one of the most civilized places I have ever seen. It is almost like travelling to Switzerland.

I don't think that 'hate' is necessarily the best word. There's plenty of immature people out there. When one of my sons was about 2 or 3, he got so mad at something that he grabbed a box of cornflakes, poured them on the floor, and started jumping up and down on them. As I recall, some of the flamers who were posting last year reminded me of this.

OTOH, if you've come across the Richard Myers' thread in the Creation Forum (he's the guy that did the AI for CTP2):

Quote:

Richard: Thanks for the questions Wes! Some of that negative stuff on the boards does sting, but in general I take it all with a grain of salt. I know that people wouldn't be so upset if 1) they didn't like the game to some degree, otherwise they wouldn't care and 2) there wasn't some grain of truth to their complaint.

It's undeniable that the original game was too easy. (I have a theory about why it was - and it applys to why so many people are complaining about Civ3's AI - but that's for another thread.) I think that's probably the main reason why people like the Mods so much, they make the game more difficult.

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal: I'm so glad I found it after the ModMasters fixed it.

IMO, the Fat Lady hasn't sung yet.

Immortal Wombat · April 10, 2002, 19:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
IMO, the Fat Lady hasn't sung yet.

She's busy with Civ3.

Pedrunn · April 11, 2002, 08:57

Quote:

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Than you should have been here around Easter, there it wasn't so full here the same as last year but after Ester last year the forum was much emptier than before and now the other way around,

I was here last year until octuber and i do remind being really bad. Easter was worse

!?!
We did a great work didnt we?

TheArsenal · April 17, 2002, 17:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Peter Triggs

It's undeniable that the original game was too easy. (I have a theory about why it was - and it applys to why so many people are complaining about Civ3's AI - but that's for another thread.) I think that's probably the main reason why people like the Mods so much, they make the game more difficult.

IMO, the Fat Lady hasn't sung yet.

I meant to get back to this thread sometime ago. I am interested in what your (or anyone's) theory on why the original AI was too easy (and even by my very limited experience, it was fairly easy). My guess would be that for most people, the ones who are not showing up here with tons of game experience, the AI was not easy at all. That combined with the fact that most people don't like to play a game they can't beat, so they made it beatable.

Hermann the Lombard · April 19, 2002, 11:42

Quote:

Originally posted by TheArsenal

I meant to get back to this thread sometime ago. I am interested in what your (or anyone's) theory on why the original AI was too easy (and even by my very limited experience, it was fairly easy). My guess would be that for most people, the ones who are not showing up here with tons of game experience, the AI was not easy at all. That combined with the fact that most people don't like to play a game they can't beat, so they made it beatable.

Not theory, simply fact: it is very, very hard to design AI code that can challenge experienced players, especially experienced players who share tips on strategy, tactics, and exploits. The customary "solution" is for the AI to cheat. It's still stupid, but it's stupid and dangerous because it has lots of units, lots of cities, and lots of development...and usually because the AI is programmed to treat the human as utterly untrustworthy ( moi?

) and to preferentially attack human civilizations.

So the Frenzy mod made the AI much more dangerous, and many of the mods give the AI more units, more tile improvements, and so forth, and many try to make the AI seem more intelligent and less artificial.

There's another major factor: the designers can't possibly anticipate all the techniques that good players use. The designers of CTP2 called the top level "Impossible," but it turned out to be roughly equivalent to "Prince" in Civ2. The designers of Civ2 apparently didn't know if "Deity" could be beaten, and it could be beaten with only one city, and even with only one city with never more than one population.

Damn. These guys are GOOD.

Then there are other critical factors: the developers have a limited budget, and top-level AI programmers are very expensive and very busy. Further, the developers are under enormous pressure to get the product out the door where it can generate revenue for the company. So there isn't enough money, and there isn't enough time to make the AI truly challenging without cheating.

Ever consider the dollars, hours, and dedicated computer resources required for Deep Blue? Remember that the rules of chess are exceedingly simple: only 6 unit types, each with a single movement pattern and a single attack pattern, and only two "special abilities:" castling and pawn promotion. Further, there are absolutely no random elements, information is complete, and there is NO interaction or diplomacy of any sort. These last three are why it is much harder to write a strong program to play bridge than chess.

-- Hermann

Locutus · April 19, 2002, 13:16

Excellent analysis, Hermann

You hit the nail on the head.

TheArsenal · April 19, 2002, 13:22

Always interesting to get the view points of people well versed in these matters.

Danke.

Oerdin · April 19, 2002, 21:12

Pedrunn is right things have picked up quite a bit around here. Personally, I consider that a good thing though. Does anyone else remember when we were lucky to get a handful of posts a week?
I'll take to fast over to slow any day.

Immortal Wombat · April 19, 2002, 21:48

amen

Peter Triggs · April 22, 2002, 18:08

TheArsenal,

This might be totally off the wall, but I've always had the suspicion that one of the main reasons why CTP2's AI is 'easy' is the new Diplomatic Victory condition. When I first heard about this I remember thinking "That's a good idea", but now with hindsight I don't think it was.

I suspect that in order to allow for the very possibility of a diplomatic victory, the AI programmer was forced to give the Human player too much control (by his proposals) over his enemy's regard and trust levels. I don't know whether you know this, but in the game every player maintains a regard level and a trust level towards every other player. These levels are affected by what diplomatic proposals you make to an AI player and what treaties you have with him (amongst other things). So, for example, when you give him gold he likes it and his regard level towards you goes up. Since it's the regard levels that determine what goals the AI players pursue against you (e.g., whether or not they'll launch slave raids against you) and, I think, ultimately when they want to go to war with you, this makes it too easy for the Human player to be in control of the entire game situation and leads to the complaints "The AI's not aggressive." And even if the Human player doesn't actively pursue a policy of pacifying potential enemies, like I say in order to allow for the possibility of a diplomatic victory the regard/trust mechanism got skewed too much in the 'friendly' direction.

I expect the programmers thought of this. There's a "DesireWarWith" flag which is probably somehow keyed to the personality of the AI civ's leader and which may be part of a system that was intended to make things more difficult for the Human. But this is more idle speculation because I've never been able to figure out what determines this flag.

Quote:

My guess would be that for most people, the ones who are not showing up here with tons of game experience, the AI was not easy at all. That combined with the fact that most people don't like to play a game they can't beat, so they made it beatable.

Hard to say how difficult 'the silent majority' found the game. All I know is that in the past year or so of brousing both here and at Civfanatics, it's the complaint I recall hearing over and over. Mind you my memory might be a bit selective here: as a result of CTP2, I've developed an obsessive interest in Artificial Intelligence in computer gaming.

As for "they made it beatable", I suspect you're right on there. The more I learn about how CTP2's AI works, the more impressed I am. I'm sure that they could have made it much more difficult, in ways better and more subtle than anything we've been able to come up with here.

Peter