AI longtime simulation feature

PsychoTechFreak · #1 February 13th, 2002, 04:35 PM

I would like to see a change of SEIV which helps with AI longtime simulation. The situation at the moment is, if you switch every player to computer control, you get a message like "the Last human player has died, the game is over". If a simulator window would pop up in this case, like:

-How many turns do you want to simulate ?
-Or press Ctrl+B (or similar) to break the simulation

If one of the break situations has turned to true, every player would be set to human control.

This would provide an easier longtime simulation, e.g. overnight simulation, or "where is my AI positioned after 20 years ?" and so forth.

I have sent this suggestion to MM already, but I would like to know what you Mod Gurus think about it, maybe you have some additional ideas to a feature like this, or concerns ?

P.S.: Additional idea, log file creation for the AI(s) that I want to observe, with a similar player list/radio button function

Rollo · #2 February 13th, 2002, 05:01 PM

I second this idea. I suggested something like this in the forum some ago, but never sent a request to MM (I am a lazy writer

).
Thanks, for sending that suggestion in. FWIW, you have my support.

Rollo

dmm · #3 February 13th, 2002, 05:16 PM

I third the idea.
1) I usually play solo. I like to play games to completion, even after I'm way ahead. It would be nice to have the AI play for me for a while. (Emperor goes on a well-deserved vacation.)
2) It would help with scenario generation. Set up a random game, make everyone AI, let it run for 50 turns, then go in and take over one of the weaker empires (or one of the strong empires, for newbies).

Gryphin · #4 February 13th, 2002, 07:18 PM

I forth the idea. I used to play Empire Deluxe and do that. Among other things it gave me an idea of how the AI played,
(hmm, is that cheating or is it research).
I also agree with letting the AI finish a game for me.

rdouglass · #5 February 13th, 2002, 07:35 PM

I like the idea as long as you can specify the number of turns. Don't really care personally 'bout it finishing the game. Maybe adding a capability to run AI until some condition is met (victory, declaration of war, hostile activity, treaty breakage, etc.). Sure its been said before but maybe someone will include my vote somewhere....

Egregius · #6 February 13th, 2002, 11:29 PM

I sixth this idea.

PsychoTechFreak · #7 February 13th, 2002, 11:39 PM

quote:
Originally posted by rdouglass:
... Maybe adding a capability to run AI until some condition is met (victory, declaration of war, hostile activity, treaty breakage, etc.). Sure its been said before but maybe someone will include my vote somewhere....

I guess if victory condition is met this would stop the game anyway, but I like the idea to ask for other conditions also. The intention of this thread is to accumulate the ideas for a while, and I will send them to MM within the next days.

tesco samoa · #8 February 14th, 2002, 05:20 AM

I am not one to jump on a band wagon. But I know a good hoe down when I see one.

Fantastic idea.

# of turns would be good
Summary log would be nice as well. ( Ie the score page every 5 to 10 turns for all races)
It will be great for mod testing.

PsychoTechFreak · #9 February 14th, 2002, 10:11 AM

I thought about the stopping conditions Last night. Maybe this could be done by an extension of the victory condition setup, e.g. as a kind of victory/AI simulation stop condition. There are just a few disadvantages:

-the conditions cannot be changed during a game, means: you cannot simulate until one condition, change it, and go ahead to the next condition

-the conditions seem to be requested every 3 to 5 turns or so. I have tried to run a single human player (for weapons testing, ship setup and so forth), after the first few turns (it seems to be not always after the first turn), a victory window pops up plus a question about continuing the game

All right, I guess there are better solutions.

As for the additional stop/break simulation conditions, we have now:

1. War declaration
2. Hostile activity
3. Treaty breakage
4. Score point goal
5. Research area goal
6. First contact
7. Number of turns (of course)

Any additional ideas ?

I guess some of them are not possible or needed, but let's see, what else would be important for AI testing and for scenarios (dmm: thumbs up !)...

Shyrka · #10 February 14th, 2002, 10:52 AM

The idea is very good, not only for modders but also to MM. Why not "train" the AI to improve it just as neural nets, decision trees or other algorithms? (In these structures engineers run a situation and lets the system deal with it, so they learn from them errors. With time the systems take better and better decisions).