There's been a lot of complaining about AI in turn based strategy games. For good reason, I think--a TBS game doesn't have the ability to tell a good story like an RPG or flash some showy graphics like an FPS or become an e-sport like an RTS, so unless you're patient enough to play with other people, the quality of the AI is really the limiting factor on the enjoyment one can get out of a TBS. (Excepting the possibility of a very well done player vs environment kind of setup, which is possible with well-crafted maps and such, but I won't get into it here.)
I don't think anyone can dispute that it's essentially impossible to make an AI that can play a TBS as well as a human. Chess, of course, is the notable exception, but that's only after years of work--more to the point--in a system that is far, far simpler than a computer TBS. Nonetheless, people tend to get bent way out of shape when an AI cheats, or when an AI makes obvious mistakes (though I'll put the excess rage down to the strange transformation undergone as soon as one starts to post on the internet). All kinds of games that are otherwise great are cited--even by their fans--as having a poor AI. (Including that great fantasy TBS, Master of Magic, by none other than myself.)
The question is simple: what's the best TBS AI you've seen? Do you forgive it for "cheating" (if it does)? What makes it good or bad? Is the feel of the AI better than its ability to win (i.e. behaves "realistically" instead of playing to win)? Comparison across games is hard, of course, because some games are inherently easier to write an AI for.
GalCivII was supposed to have really good AI, but I never got good enough to test it. Civ4 had good enough AI for me to enjoy, as does Civ5, I think. (The hardcore players here will recognize that I'm not actually very good.) I think FE is pretty good (possibly better than others), but I do feel that the AI should be better in the later stage than it is.
it depends on the game
chess is not a complex problem for current technology, so any advantage would be too much
in Starcraft-like games, it's not even hard to write an AI that can beat humans with something like 10% advantage. I think with enough effort, an AI with just 2% advantage can compete at the highest level. but that is ONLY because of the advantage, and SC is a game about turning advantages into exponential disparities
Civ-like games are more complicated, so maybe more leeway is acceptable, but it's the same basic model
my point is that it's absolutely ridiculous that 4X game developers have not put in the effort to even make the AI competent enough even with a huge advantage of 25%. it's an arbitrary number that does a decent job illustrating how backward the current state of development is.
Yes, an AI does have a faster reaction time than a human, but, can it micro-manage those units well enough to take advantage of that reaction time? At least your typical game AI, not those like the Berkeley Overmind.
Also ran a quick Google search for the "Berkeley Overmind" you mentioned, and the AIIDE Starcraft competition it competes in. Very cool project. It reminds me of the Loebner Prize, but with less grandstanding and more complex AIs. I kind of wish it was better publicized and funded.
I think I have to disagree, as far as 4X games go. I think one of the main advantages of an AI in an RTS is what Scoutdog said: they're real time and the AI has perfect control over its units (i.e. it can react instantly with all its units and coordinate them "perfectly" because it doesn't have to click a mouse). I also think that RTS games are generally easier for AI because they're smaller in scale--there are many fewer "things to do" and fewer wacky rules (i.e. spells vs heroes vs armies, etc).
I think for evidence we have the fact that 4X AI's need more help. Do you really think that it's laziness (or, more politely, lack of resources) that's holding 4X AI back? Maybe, because after all Blizzard knew that Starcraft 2 was going to sell a bajillion copies and could afford to put a bunch of resources into the AI. I'm not sure at all that it's "absolutely ridiculous".
Yes, in general, RTS AIs can get an edge with APM, but I'm really just talking about the decision-making at a high level - the part that actually relates to strategy
SC AI is easy to write because the game is extremely simple. The AI I wrote that beat the Overmind was less than 50 hours of work. Now that's nowhere near enough time for a good AI, but it barely scratches the surface of what's possible. It's just sad that professional developers do so little when they have so many resources to spend.
I actually think that those AI competitions are counter-productive, because they are about real-time games which shift the focus to a bunch of things that have nothing to do with artificial intelligence. The vast majority of work that goes into any quickly-made but competitive Starcraft AI will have nothing to do with strategy. I hope we get more stuff like that, but it should not be Starcraft.
4X games are a lot more complicated than Starcraft, but nowhere near as resource intensive. 10 years ago, compute resources were truly limited and we totally excused crappy AI, but that excuse doesn't fly anymore, especially for today's turn-based games.
It's really just a matter of effort and prioritization. It's hard to really understand how backward development is without being a programmer yourself, but for those of us who have grasps on both strategy and programming, it's a truly pathetic situation. It's holding back strategy games so much, and it's tragic.
Part of the problem may be in the different memory systems used by computers and humans. Even though there have been some advances on that front thanks to artificial neural networks.
UPDATE:
I talked about this with one of my professors today. It turns out that simulated reasoning is slow mainly because it "thinks" in a REALLY unnatural way, by looking at all the known facts, randomly generating concepts of the entire universe, and seeing which ones fit and which don't (that is, of course, the universe in the sense of the game space. As much as I wish it were otherwise, AIs do not model the entire cosmos! [e digicons](\(\[/e] ). However, there is a technique called automated planning that is more goal-directed. I could easily see it being used in a TBS game, but I don't know of anyone who has done so.
Pretty much like attempting to solve a math problem by plugging in every possible answer until the right one is found.
Things like this are why I loathe having dyscalculia. I can comprehend generalities, but complex mathematics is beyond me and likely always will be. I will never be able to fully pin down why a particular example of AI (game or otherwise) is "good" or "bad" in a specific sense, because my brain simply can't comprehend the mathematics underlying it. All I can discuss is my own entirely subjective experience of playing against it.
Fascinating subject nonetheless, though.
people often focus on why AIs will never be perfect and how how hard a lot of problems are. it's not about solving NP-hard problems and finding the best solution - it's about finding a competent course of action that can present a challenge to the player, and making sure that challenge fits within the design parameters of the game.
In a symmetrical game, how well the player is challenged is what determines "good" versus "bad" playability. For AI purposes, "good" and "bad" are just a measure of competence, so if two AIs provide the same challenge to the player, the one that cheats less is the stronger artificial intelligence.
The point is that for almost all strategy games, good AI = good playability and bad AI = bad playability. This is because the games are symmetrical and are completely designed around opponents playing by the same rules.
Games like Civ simply stop working with bad AI because the level of cheating is so ridiculous that it completely changes all the gameplay elements. When a game is about racing (racing for technology, racing for wonders, racing for land, racing for military strength), then the race kind of needs to be fair - or at least seem that way in the eyes of the player.
Without the possibility of loss, there cannot be challenge. And when losing is not perceived to be player-driven, then the game sucks. Designers are absolutely horrible at making the player think that they lost because of poor play when they actually lost because some AI got 75% cheaper everything
10 years ago, there was 1 CPU and it basically had to be entirely devoted to just running the simulation and rendering all the fancy graphics. There was at least an excuse for the horrible AI, even for the turn-based games. Now that excuse is gone for the turn-based games, even if resources are still too limited for really great stuff.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
