Artificial Intelligence or Plain Cheating? - Page 2

Mad Mariner · February 19, 2003, 18:09

Agreed, to start of with the preprogramed cheats do seem fine but then (whilst playing civ) and learning refining u suddenly see why the A.I has plonked cities down it what seems like pointless locations ie thar be oil down there! this kind of game play, i feel, really detracts something from games.

It is kinda sad that the games companies would rather rush out a quick money spinning sequel based on the same tired cheat system than to break into that big ol pot of profits and give us the ultimate in A.I I know its pie in the sky expecting this to happen but still...

CerberusIV · February 20, 2003, 05:43

I do wonder whether the AI planting cities on resource tiles is as much a cheat as some people suggest. I find that there are a fair number of occasions when a resource pops up under one of my cities, especially salt. I may be good or lucky but sometimes it must be chance for the AI as well. You can see times when the AI has put a city next to but not on a resource tile so it is not simply going straight for a yet to appear resource.

Also there are usually plenty of AI cities in rubbish locations with no resources

theNiceOne · February 20, 2003, 08:02

CerberusIV: I can assure you that its 100% sure that the AI values a tile higher if it has a resource, even if the resource is a future one and the tile is in a place where the AI not yet has a map to.

I have made a scenario to verify this, and Catt has done similarily.

This, and the fact that the AI knows everything else about the map (including unit position) is the only real cheat that exist in the game though.

CerberusIV · February 20, 2003, 08:45

Thanks for the info.

I don't regard it as much of a cheat though since if I want that resource I will simply take it. I do think it is a bit of a pointless debate since an AI that can run on a PC and be good enough to take on a human on equal terms would change a lot more about our world than how TBS games are programmed.

bongo · February 20, 2003, 10:15

Finding the weak spots in the AI is part of the fun with civ3. It would scare me if the AI were able to beat me on a regular basis cause it was smarter than me..

Mad Mariner · February 20, 2003, 10:39

Quote:

don't regard it as much of a cheat though since if I want that resource I will simply take it. I do think it is a bit of a pointless debate since an AI that can run on a PC and be good enough to take on a human on equal terms would change a lot more about our world than how TBS games are programmed.

Very true!! Dont spose we wanna encourage computers to go all "skynet" on us, and at the end of the day the A.I no matter how good it is will still be operating and making decisions based on pre programed tatics ( ie if player one does this then A.I will do that) which any decent games player will eventually suss out

PLATO · February 20, 2003, 10:46

Quote:

I can assure you that its 100% sure that the AI values a tile higher if it has a resource, even if the resource is a future one and the tile is in a place where the AI not yet has a map to.

Didn't know that was part of the cheat. Thanks for the info.

gnome · February 20, 2003, 21:38

Quote:

Originally posted by WarpStorm
vmxa1 is correct. Soren, the main AI programmer on CIv3 has said that this is the one area where the AI 'doesn't play by the rules'. He said it was too hard to get the AI to effectively wage a war without it. They don't have the ability to remember troop movements through the fog, compile intelligence data, and make good conjectures on where the axis of the war is going.

I don't see this ever being changed in Civ3.

Why don't they go find some of the guys who programmed "Warlords"?

IIRC, the AI in warlords (at least as far as Warlords 2, and possibly 3) had the same issues to contend with and:

1. Didn't cheat in any way.
2. Only knew what a human player in the same position would know, including fog of war, unexplored areas, and city defenses.
3. Could hand you your ass pretty nicely on the highest level, unless you were really on your game.

Feel free to throw egg on my face if I'm wrong about any of this... it's been a while.

vmxa1 · February 20, 2003, 21:55

I don't know about eggs, but Warlords is in no way as deep and complex as CivIII or any civ. Note I did not say which is better, as I love Warlords as well.
Warlords II is even less complex as it does not have to deal with routing units that are queued up to be built, IIRC.
Anyway, trade is not in the game, diplomacy is really nothing more than peace or war or not. Not a complex set like Rop or Mpp and if one conflicts with another.
No land with borders, only defend the castle.
What about structures, only upgrade or not, not a long list of building and tech requirement, not to mention resources that may need to be available to that city.
Even the pathing is much easier as you do not have to honor cultural borders.
What about happiness, it just goes on and on.
I dare say not many games have the complex interactions and myriad of components to meld together.
I will call shrines with quest more or less the same as huts, although more decisions are made, they are not more than choose A or B.

vmxa1 · February 20, 2003, 21:57

P.S.
SSG is working on Warlords IV so they are busy (lets hope).

gnome · February 20, 2003, 22:04

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
I don't know about eggs, but Warlords is in no way as deep and complex as CivIII or any civ. Note I did not say which is better, as I love Warlords as well.
Warlords II is even less complex as it does not have to deal with routing units that are queued up to be built, IIRC.
Anyway, trade is not in the game, diplomacy is really nothing more than peace or war or not. Not a complex set like Rop or Mpp and if one conflicts with another.
No land with borders, only defend the castle.
What about structures, only upgrade or not, not a long list of building and tech requirement, not to mention resources that may need to be available to that city.
Even the pathing is much easier as you do not have to honor cultural borders.
What about happiness, it just goes on and on.
I dare say not many games have the complex interactions and myriad of components to meld together.
I will call shrines with quest more or less the same as huts, although more decisions are made, they are not more than choose A or B.

This is very true, that Civ has a lot more depth, and a lot more for the computer to contend with. It's a far greater AI challenge (and the increased depth is exactly why I abandoned Warlords to become a Civ addict)... BUT my point was that the challenge regarding position and movement of troops, and organizing attack and defenses... and map views...is not that much more complex than Warlords used to be... and I'm disappointed to see a game 10+ years later that doesn't seem to do as good a job of that.

vmxa1 · February 21, 2003, 00:57

I think I understand your point and maybe it not all that wrong, however..
Consider that Warlords has a stack of units, they may be mixed or not and have a leader (usually). Combat is not tactical, so really it is just rock/paper deal with a few traits to use. Well I won;t go into the whole thing, but what does the Ai have to deal with in Civ3.
Maybe a large number of units that have completely diffent skills, planes/art/swords/retreat and so forth.
They move at differnet speeds. They have tactical combat. They have terain.
So if you want to say they are both the same level of difficulty, I am not so sure.
If you say they could do some thing better, ok.
Should they and would it be easy, I am not sure.
Remember that with a complex AI like this any changes are fraught with danger and places to mess up.
If it was much better, then even more people would complain about it being to hard to beat. Note that people are for the most part, here are very well aquainted with the game. That means we are not the norm. I go on other boards that have noting to do with Civ and see all kinds of people that still claim to be clobbered at chief.

Azeem · February 21, 2003, 01:20

Quote:

I go on other boards that have noting to do with Civ and see all kinds of people that still claim to be clobbered at chief

So we suck. Is that a crime?

I seriously suck at CivIII because I can never get pass Regent level. My first time at Chieftain level was a disaster.

vmxa1 · February 21, 2003, 03:35

NO that is perfectly fine, we all stink at something, some at everything.
I was only saying that devs have to be careful about making a better AI. It will make more players shy away from the game. It is a fine point to make it a challenge, without making it way too hard.
AoW2 had that problem. Many people (me too) with tons of TBS playing and a vet of AoW found it tough sleding when it came out. The very first misson of thefirst campaign. This make many toss the game, not a good thing. They actually came out with a patch to making an easier level, but I bet they have forever lost sales, especially for any possible addon.
Not too worry, I never think it is a problem to "suck at a game".

The Mad Monk · February 21, 2003, 06:28

Quote:

Originally posted by Mad Mariner
Surely tho there must be people out there who are capable of programing the A.I well enough to give u a good game without allowing it to "cheat"? i can imagine how much time and effort goes into designing something like the civ series but it just smacks of laziness if the only way the A.I gets more difficult is by allowing beneficial multipliers and extra units at start up

Many different companies, with different programmers coming from different backgrounds, and often with a lot of funding, have tackled this problem. All have had results similar to what you see here.

My guess is that it's not any specific flaw in any particular company.

Jarouik · February 21, 2003, 06:47

Quote:

Originally posted by theNiceOne
CerberusIV: I can assure you that its 100% sure that the AI values a tile higher if it has a resource, even if the resource is a future one and the tile is in a place where the AI not yet has a map to.

I agree that with strategic resources this can be quite a bonus for the AI. I have noticed, however, that more often than not the AI tends to found cities on top of other resources such as cattle and wheat and consequently not getting the tile bonus, since for some reason they decided in Civ 3 that the city square cannot produce 5 food or anything like it, even when it is on a bonus resource. I always steer away from bonus resources, founding my cities next to them to get the maximum bonus.

As for the original problem of jumping to next unit in a war, I think the writer meant that if you have units on the same square or next to each other, the game doesn't always offer to move all of them in a row but instead sends you to the other side of the world to move other units in between. I agree that this could be made better with a patch, so that the original movement order of units would be linked to their geographic location.

Of course you can still change the order during the turn by selecting the units to move right away and using the Wait command to move some later... but it indeed is irritating that all of your units in the war front are never activated right after each other.

Rommel2D · February 21, 2003, 15:20

Quote:

Funny that in RTS games like C&C, the designers have to add weaknesses to the AI to make the game fun, since the AI is so good at doing thing in real-time. But in TBS games like Civ3, the designers need to add bonuses to the AI to make it competitive. Both types of AIs are equally dumb, it's just that one is allowed to use a computer's inherent advantage over humans, speed, while the other cannot

I haven't purchased PTW yet, but have read that one of the MP features includes a turn timer. Is this available for SP also?

Limiting the player's time available to micro-manage and doublecheck settings would help balance out the computer's strategic shortcomings. IMO, from a historical perspective, this would make for a more realistic RTS game than anyting in the proper RTS genre.

Alotting the player a certain amount of time WRT the last AI turn
would produce a fair and challenging game without resorting to AI cheats.

[Just a matter of semantics: If the only AI cheat is its ability to see through the Fog, what is an AI that receives extra starting units and reduced production costs? "Procedurally challenged"?]

player1 · February 21, 2003, 17:30

Quote:

[Just a matter of semantics: If the only AI cheat is its ability to see through the Fog, what is an AI that receives extra starting units and reduced production costs? "Procedurally challenged"?]

That's difference between Chieftain and Deity.

At chieftain that's penalty to AI, at deity it's bonus to AI.

All that to adjust challenge for different types of players (beginers vs experts).

It still plays by the rules.

You just set them the begining of the game.

PLATO · February 21, 2003, 17:30

Quote:

if you have units on the same square or next to each other, the game doesn't always offer to move all of them in a row but instead sends you to the other side of the world to move other units in between. I agree that this could be made better with a patch, so that the original movement order of units would be linked to their geographic location.

This is, to me, the most irratating thing that can be easily fixed. Firaxis: Please address in the next patch!!

Mad Mariner · February 22, 2003, 00:02

Quote:

That's difference between Chieftain and Deity.

I disagree, the A.I to A.I trade multiplyers are fine as an enhancement but giving extra units and reduced costs is just another A.I cheat, the A.I is never penalised by these factors as u suggest, at the lower skill levels of the game the A.I is just forced to start on a level playing field

Ps is this a world record for mentioning the word A.I in a three line quote?

vmxa1 · February 22, 2003, 01:58

It is called a handicap, not a cheat. The AI has only one level of play for all levels. If it is to have a chance on Monarch and above, it must get a handicap. As you go up the handicap is larger. What is the problem with that? If they did not do that, we would only have on level.

Mad Mariner · February 22, 2003, 10:49

Quote:

It is called a handicap, not a cheat. The AI has only one level of play for all levels. If it is to have a chance on Monarch and above, it must get a handicap. As you go up the handicap is larger. What is the problem with that? If they did not do that, we would only have on level.

Yes and this is exactly the problem that i (and others) are complaining about, with the level of technology and programing ability around today this form of A.I is well past its sell by date. Besides there are many other factors that could be used to give the A.I the chance to keep up with the human player (such as the trade multiplyers and born happy citizens) without using the lame old see all know all extra units ect

JanB · February 22, 2003, 13:24

We know that the AI must have certain advantages. It seems to me that this is not the real problem but rather that the AI is in your face - it brings its advantages to your attention! This must be well hidden to enable us to suspend our disbelief.

vmxa1 · February 22, 2003, 14:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Mad Mariner
Yes and this is exactly the problem that i (and others) are complaining about, with the level of technology and programing ability around today this form of A.I is well past its sell by date. Besides there are many other factors that could be used to give the A.I the chance to keep up with the human player (such as the trade multiplyers and born happy citizens) without using the lame old see all know all extra units ect

It is not as easy as you make it out to be. I have not seen the code, but I have been in computers since 1963 and I undestand that it cost money to write a better AI.
If you were to do, it would it require too much in the way of resources to accomplish the task. Would it actually be pleasing to th eplayers? As you add levels of complexity the amount of effort to do it and test grow expotentially.
I am not saying it could not be done, only that I am not sure it could and should be given all of the constraints.

Azeem · February 22, 2003, 15:25

I'm won't complain about the AI because I think the advantages given to them are understandable.

And because I suck.

Mad Mariner · February 22, 2003, 21:46

Quote:

It is not as easy as you make it out to be. I have not seen the code, but I have been in computers since 1963 and I undestand that it cost money to write a better AI.

This is the whole crux of the matter, yes i agree to develop a better form of A.I it will cost money but surely the big games companies are making plenty of money and to plough some of those profits into making this a reality wouldnt hurt em too much? and in the long run they would benefit. Unfortunatly it seems the quick quid earnt is the one they are after, and while the buying public allows this and continues to buy the games and add ons at ( to a large degree) the exhorbitant prices they are sold at, then no changes will be made

vmxa1 · February 23, 2003, 00:15

Mad, the reason for that are many, but one that I have mentioned is that the vast major of people do not need a better AI, they are having all they can handle already.
People on these boards are sort of fanatics and are beating it and are teaching others to beat, most buyers do not visit these sites. This is why the companies do not spent time and money.

Master Zen · February 23, 2003, 01:20

Well, I would have liked it if the AI would be less predictable at war. Many wargames have great AI and I would like to see a Civ game with that type of logic built into it.

As it stands, I cannot but think that the AI is cheating on Emperor/Deity since it can only win with those handicaps (and usually it can't even with those

)

Mad Mariner · February 23, 2003, 09:46

Quote:

Mad, the reason for that are many, but one that I have mentioned is that the vast major of people do not need a better AI, they are having all they can handle already.

Yeah i know just had to get me rant out of my system

WarpStorm · February 23, 2003, 09:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Mad Mariner
This is the whole crux of the matter, yes i agree to develop a better form of A.I it will cost money but surely the big games companies are making plenty of money and to plough some of those profits into making this a reality wouldnt hurt em too much?

The problem with this logic is that the developers of strategy games are the big game companies. Firaxis, for example, is a fairly small company. According to their website they have around a dozen programmers total.