[douglas]

*lurker emerges from hiding*

From my email not too long ago:

Thanks for the great suggestion list. I'll add it to the SE5 Wanted List
and try to get in the items I can. It is a high priority for SE5 to make
the AI as tough as possible. And with the addition of actual AI scripting,
players should be able to improve them!


Aaron


On Thu, 8 Apr 2004, Douglas Miller wrote:


> Ever since I discovered it, the Space Empires series has been one of my
> personal Favorites. SEIII is the only shareware game I have ever paid for
> the full registered Version. I preordered SEIV Gold a month or two before
> it came out, and I still consider it one of the best games I have. It
> does, however, have a few areas that could stand a lot of
> improvement. Foremost among them is the AI.
>
> My #1 most desired feature in any 4x game is an AI so good it can give good
> players a challenge without any in-game bonuses for being an AI. Ideally,
> all the difficulty levels should be differentiated solely by the quality of
> the AI. I have yet to find any game that even comes close to this. Every
> AI I have ever played against in a 4x game, including that of SEIV, I could
> just about beat blindfolded unless it was given massive bonuses and/or
> cheated. I would very much like to see this trend end with Space Empires
> V. To this end, if you aren't already planning this, I would like to see
> the entirety of the AI decision-making algorithm in user-modifiable script
> files. That way, if the AI isn't good enough for me I can try to write a
> better one. I attempted this with SEIV, but too many of the problems were
> in hardcoded behaviors. Assuming the continued existence of ministers, one
> script for each minister would make sense. However, the ministers should
> be able to interact with each other by calling routines in the other
> scripts. I would set up the ministers to do nothing on their own, but
> rather respond to orders and requests for information. The kinds of orders
> and their parameters for each minister should be definable in the scripts,
> and ministers should be able to give each other orders. Separate from the
> minister scripts should be the primary AI script, which runs every turn and
> gives each of the ministers their orders. For long-term planning purposes,
> ministers should be able to make and keep static variables that have no
> direct effect on the game but persist from turn to turn for use in
> decision-making, and should be able to issue orders with turn delays (i.e.
> military minister orders himself to continue gathering a specific attack
> force next turn). These orders should, of course, be cancellable in case
> of changed plans or circumstances. Also, in addition to the main
> turn-processing ministers, the combat AI should be fully scriptable.
>
> The #2 problem I have with SEIV is the amount of micromanagement
> required. Early in the game it's no trouble, but later in the game having
> to manually queue everything I want to build, going through my entire fleet
> (which can be pretty big) giving orders, etc. gets boring fast. Yes, I
> know I could turn on the ministers to deal with some of these things. I
> tried that once, but discovered that the ministers were, to a large degree,
> idiots. Quality ministers and good ways to give them general directions to
> carry out would go a long way towards fixing this. Making the ministers
> user-scriptable would help a lot. In fact, unless the player specifies
> otherwise, the ministers should use the exact same scripts that the AI does
> as outlined above, excepting that the primary AI script would not
> run. Players could "turn on" the ministers by making a list of orders to
> be given automatically every turn, and could also give one-time orders
> during their turn.
>
> That's it for major problem areas, now on to the things that would be nice
> but aren't critical. I'll start with comments on your summarized list of
> plans.
>
> "real-time 3D rendered graphics"
> What exactly do you mean? 3D is obvious, and will definitely help satisfy
> demand for good graphics, but what's real-time? Do you mean combat will be
> real-time? That could be an interesting change, but you'd have to make
> sure commanding huge fleets in battle isn't too time-consuming. On the
> other end of the spectrum, don't make it completely devoid of strategy like
> Master of Orion 3's combat. The other possible meaning of this statement
> I've come up with is having various things on screen constantly doing
> something visual, like Civ 3's workers. This could make the graphics more
> interesting, but it's just a cosmetic issue. Don't spend too much time on
> it at the expense of gameplay quality.
>
> "a redesigned user interface"
> Sounds good. Hope you do a good job on it.
>
> "infinite technologies"
> Wonderful! I'll never have to scrap my several hundred (or is it
> thousand?) now worthless research facilities again! You might have to be
> careful about possible integer overflows, though, in case someone keeps
> playing and researching up to Energy Stream Weapons XXXVII, or some other
> incredibly advanced (and expensive) tech.
>
> "Galactic News"
> Good idea. I missed GNN in MoO3.
>
> "Warp Point assault weapons"
> Huh? Not sure what you mean here. Even SEIII (I don't know about SEII)
> had a way to close warp points. Or do you mean weapons that can "damage" a
> warp point in combat, making it unstable and therefore risky, or even
> impossible, to retreat through?
>
> "Space Monsters"
> Sounds like you've read some of the complaints about lack of "cheese" on
> the MoO3 forums. Put them in, but give an option in game setup to turn
> them off. Also, make sure the player will get some kind of reward for
> defeating one.
>
> "built in support for mod selection"
> How about built-in support for mod creation, too? Good GUIs for editing
> all moddable files would be quite welcome.
>
> "a true scripting language"
> I hope this includes the AI and ministers, preferably following the
> guidelines I stated earlier. Scripts for scenarios would be welcome too.
>
> "and more"
> There's more? Keep up the good work.
>
> Now for stuff that might not already be in your plans.
>
> A mod creation program providing a graphical interface for creating and
> editing components, facilities, technologies, races, and anything else you
> can think of that is moddable and could benefit from such a program would
> be a definite plus for the modding community. Don't forget syntax checking
> and coloring for the scripts.
>
> A scenario editor, providing full map and player editing capabilities, plus
> incorporating mods into the scenario, would be quite welcome.
>
> The ability to make scripts similar to Warcraft III's triggers for a mod or
> scenario would vastly increase the moddability of the game.
>
> That's all for now. I'll be eagerly awaiting beta-test signups.
>
> Douglas Miller

So, AI scripting is definitely planned in some form or other. What do you think of my suggestion for how to do it, and the "turn ministers on by giving them orders"? Also, if I get in the beta I will definitely try to host an AI tournament at some point (actually two: one-on-one and free-for-all).