quote:
Originally posted by vgriph on 04-09-2001 02:46 PM
I think that the AI may find good city placements from their visible map.
|
I can see from your answer that you dont understand the problems with programming artificiall intelligence in a game like Civ. You also have missunderstood my point with the pre-generated potential AI-city placements idea. Please, dont get offended. Instead, if you really
are interested in these problems, then click and read below links:
Arguments why its nearly impossible to program an "almost human" AI
Should the mapgenerator get scrapped?
Below is a cleanwrite of the first link. The second link is more about the pre-calculated potential AI city-placements idea.
"First of all, i DO agree what many AI-improvements can be done, in order to raise CIV-3 above CIV-2. I just think we average Civ-fanatic should be a little more aware of the built-in limitations in so called "artificial intelligence".
Artificial Intelligence has ONE major advantage over humans, and that is a huge advantage in pure numbercrunching capability. AI-Programmers can use this to setup a bunch of expressions, conditions and variables - then letting a flood wave of oncoming tasks fall through a logical boolean maze, and repeatedly getting relevant and speedy task-solutions.
By comparison humans alone compare rather pathetically (but only in terms of speed, that is).
There is a snag, however (that tips the scale heavily back in favor of the human player):
Considering today’s computer- and programming-technology, above approach only works really outstanding if the world is relatively confined (like the 8x8 square-world of chess), the variables are simple (only black and white tiles/pieces, and only 6 of the latter) and the rules are few and distinct (I don’t know how many rules chess has, but they certainly aren’t many, and there is nothing fuzzy about them either).
If any of above three factors (world size, possible variables and rules complexity) - not to say all three of them, is added to, the AI: s ability to "analyze several moves ahead" and "follow a game plan", with "intuitive" and "long reaching" tactical maneuvers, is SEVERELY limited.
To rub salt into the wound most Civ game-sessions take place - not in 100% known setup-enviroments (like in campaign games) - but, instead on random computer-generated maps, not previously analysed by the AI-programmer.
Thankfully, no one asks for an IBM Deep Blue-AI in the upcoming CIV-3 game anyway. Still, many of the upgrade-suggestions found on Civ-forums often ask for the impossible - an almost human AI, that "schemes" several moves ahead, and then moves around hordes of coordinated army-units, with tactical brilliance.
Why is it impossible (and perhaps also unnecessary)? To understand this we have to come to grips with the principal difference between human (living) intelligence and artificial (dead) intelligence:
What the human Civ-player can do (and the AI simply cannot do) is to literally OVERVIEW (experience) the game situation, and, within a blink of an eye, sort out huge parts of not-so-promising strategic/tactic solutions, and instead concentrate directly (and only) on those very few plans and ideas that actually DO seem promising.
We can describe this as a "bird eye sort out" ability, something unique the living (in our case; human) intelligence.
By comparison, the game AI (or any silicon-based intelligence for that matter) is 100% dead and non-experiencing (of course). It lives in a 2-dimensional "flat" world, figuratively speaking - by that i mean it cannot possible "overview" anything.
In practice this means that if a Civ programmer tries to create something "almost human" in terms of AI-software, he is forced to write an AI that meticulously analyzes and evaluates all the myriads of possible combinations of choose-, build-, upgrade and move-possibilities that each and every individual game-turn has to offer, no matter how irrelevant or less promising 95% of these possibilities are.
The reason for the latter, is (again) the lack of an living "bird eye-sort out" ability. Because of this, the programmers has to gather ALL possibilities BEFORE they can let the software evaluate and rank any appropriate countermeasures.
Also - he has to program it to analyze each-and-every of these combinations; at least 3-4 game-turns AHEAD! (or "deep", using chess-language). Again, remember that the AI cannot "overview" anything from above. To compensate it has to take the "flat world" approach in order to gather constantly changing game-situation data. Like in computer-chess.
This is (as we all know) not that difficult to achieve then it comes to a relatively simple and clean-cut strategy (perhaps more tactical) game like chess. But, in a MUCH more complex and option-divided game like CIV-3; the massive amounts of calculations involved to mimic any hardcore human Civ-veteran playingstyle is absolutely staggering and mind-boggling. Today’s programming-technology is simply too primitive, and our home computers are, at present state, just too slow to achieve anything near this.
Thankfully however, the AI difficulties for the upcomming Civ-3 isnt necessarily so struggling that it first seems. There are basically two reasons for this:
One is that above comparison with chess is - to a certain degree, misleading. Chess is in some ways a very different beast than Civilization. Then playing chess it can be enough to do one (1) bad tactical move in order to loose the entire game. Provided that the opponent is good enough he can exploite that single rash mistake ruthlessly and grind you into submission. In this respect chess (at least on the higher levels) is perhaps a 95% tactical game and only about 5% strategical.
Playing a turnbased computer strategy-game like Civ is a different story. If the human (or the AI-) player makes a few unadviced unit-moves - so what? Nothing that drastic will happen, that cant be repaired in later stages of the game.
One could argue that Civ is a 95% strategical game, but only about 5% tactical (give or take). Above is actually good news in terms of AI-developing. This means that the Civ AI developers can concentrate most of their efforts on tinkering with the overall strategical logistics, rather then wasting (to much) time on trying to mimic the human pathfinding and unit-moving tactics.
I have ALWAYS won the games over the AI primarily as a result of better logistics (= better resource management + more effective unit-improvement and city-improvement strategies). Strengthening the AI:s ability to handle the overall strategical LOGISTICS are the key to a better Civ AI. To summarize it in one famous semi-quote:
A successful AI civilization "marches on its belly" (Napoleon Bonaparte)"
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited April 09, 2001).]
Im not sure if they implemented the AI-contolled visible settler/worker-units into Civ-3 AI-civs as well, but if they have done that, then it is very, very sad thing. 
