So...the customers wont be cheated this time?

[Johan K]

Just a piece of information about the Dominions AI. Beating 3 or 10 AIs in Dominions is not necessarily harder than beating just one. If you are lucky it will even be easier to beat 3 AIs than one. When you have more than one AI they will fight among themselves as well and that obviously weakens them.

[NTJedi]

Besides editing the .map file perhaps an option will exist to ally specific nations before a game starts.



Ideally the best feature we can hope for is some method where us gamers can modify/adjust the AI via scripting or another method. This will greatly open the door for more challenging AIs.

[Graeme Dice]

MStavros said:
Graeme, your words are getting a bit insulting. Yes I dont know anything about scripting, but what the hell is your point?

People who don't know anything about something usually assume that something is easy. You have assumed that AI programming is easy, when it is just about the most difficult thing that can be done with a computer.

It is my fault that the Dominions 2. AI never been fixed? What are you trying to say? I understand that AI scripting is hard, but is it impossible?

Yes, it is currently impossible to create an AI that will challenge a competent human player without massive cheating in any game more complicated than chess.

Secondly, I dont expect any AIs what can beat a human player 1on1...but I expect an AI what is challenging.

And you expect the AI to remain challenging even when you become an expert at the game, which is impossible with current technology.

Beating 3 AIs alone is just annoying, 3 AIs should easily beat a human player. Do you agree? Go and try Galciv2 on the hardest vs. 2-3 AIs, and tell me that it is impossible to script a good AI.

The Gal Civ AI gets massive production and information bonuses over a human player on high difficulty levels. That's not an AI that is capable of beating a player because it's smarter than the player.

Graeme, you dont get my whole point, and you just keep insulting me with your words. I think I was objective enough, and you call it whining.

I fully understand your point, you aren't happy with the current AI in Dominions. The problem with your point is that it is impossible with the current state of the are in AI research to create an AI that would make you happy for a game as complex as Dominions. You don't understand this, however, so you keep demanding the impossible.

[Tim Brooks]

Okay guys. We will close this thread if the hostilities continue. Let me give you Shrapnel's take on the AI:

The AI "has never been fixed" because we did not consider it broken. Saying that the developers aren't supporting the game is wrong. This game has been, and will be, very well supported. Again, the AI was never considered broken. For a game of this complexity it is a solid AI for the novice and can be fun to play against for more experienced players. Those that are experts at Domionions, will find it lacking I am sure.

Is it perfect? No, there is room for improvement (as are ALL AIs) as Kristoffer O has already posted. There will be improvements with Dominions 3. Will it make the experts ecstatic? I doubt it.

And finally this isn't Gal Civ this is Dominions. Comparing the two isn't exactly productive. As has been pointed out, Gal Civ uses alot of non-AI means to make things more even at higher difficulty levels. Maybe Dominions could do the same, but the developers have a vision and it may not, probably isn't, the same as Gal Civs'.

Let's keep things civil, please.

[Nerfix]

Kristoffer O said:As a developer I have few restraints on me and I'm a quitter. If I get frustrated I quit the project and start another one. If I get feedback, from my own work or from players, I work harder. Thus many ideas are started, discarded and eventually restarted. If an improvement doesn't work I give up and do something else. That probably makes me a bad developer.

You've been working on computer games that you pretty much knew would never ever become truly, hugely, popular and make you rich and so on from around 1997, right? You've had your share of people begging for free games, complaining, bad reviews (heaven forbid those early Dom I ones! ) and so on yet still you've kept working on them.

That's so much less quitterish than you may think.

[MStavros]

Dominions are not more complex then Galciv2, I can tell you that. Sure we cant compare the 2 games, true. However, if you ever played with Galciv2, you should know, that the AI is making _VERY_ intelligent strategical moves on the hardest settings. Example there are 3 types of damage and 3 types of defense. I built 2 fleets just to test the AI. The first fleet had lasers, the second fleet had missile weapons. The AI sent in the right ships against my fleets and wasted them. The AI "thinks" on the hardest settings there, it is doing blitz attacks, always choosing the right ships to attack the best possible points and I could continue. What do we had in Dominions 2? Sure we had no castle building AI etc, but other then that, the AI moved his troops without a real point, sometimes its sending in his pretender against a big army etc. etc.
If these things would be fixed, I couldnt say a word, or the people whose playing more single then multi.

Graeme once again you dont get my whole point. I was only saying that the Doms 2. AI problems were never fixed. I never said that "script a new AI what will own everyone". I only mentioned that those things were never fixed.

I think that this discussion is very polite dear moderator btw. .. except a few sentences from Graeme.

Like someone said here earlier, this isnt much of a problem anymore. We gonna have a demo, and we can see the AI changes there. If someone wants to play single most of the time this is important. If you check the features site, it says challenging AI, and _THIS_ is why I made this thread...not to whine..or flame...just to question the developers...afterall this is my 50$ what I want to spend, and I might just spend it on an other game, if the same gonna happen like in Dominions 2.

[Argitoth]

I've been reading this thread a little, but what I fail to see is any kind of reason one would need good AI. And the majority of us play TCP/IP games, not PBEM. Plus, we all gather at mIRC a lot to play TCP/IP blitz which everyone takes turns one after the next until someone wins.

Turns begin to take so long that 1 turn a day is actually exciting and relieving. During a 1 turn a day schedule I come home excited to take my turn. It makes my day.

[NTJedi]

MStavros said:
However, if you ever played with Galciv2, you should know, that the AI is making _VERY_ intelligent strategical moves on the hardest settings.

Do you have any CLUE how many topics I've read where people have complained about flaws in the AI on Gal_Civ_2???
I can only assume you must be new to PCGames. Despite your view... computer AI for games are very far away from being 'very intelligent'. Current AI programming is setup following step by step patterns which in turn humans will discover the patterns and its weaknesses which is why singleplayer has limited replay value.
And last I checked Gal_Civ_2 has improved AI for different levels only to a point... and the 'hardest' levels no increase in AI where it just gets extra production and other cheat bonuses.

MStavros said:
Like someone said here earlier, this isnt much of a problem anymore. We gonna have a demo, and we can see the AI changes there. If someone wants to play single most of the time this is important.

Well Dom_3 is virtually finished and currently in QA testing. If you would have started this topic 10 months ago it might have an effect. Also unlike Gal_Civ_2 the Dominions_3 only has two developers which do the AI... and one of them just gives advice.

[Saber Cherry]

MStavros said:
Dominions are not more complex then Galciv2, I can tell you that.

...and that about says it all.

[NTJedi]

Here's some quotes I have found from gamers playing Gal_Civ_2... and the supposedly 'very intelligent' AI :

""#9 by Drachasor
Monday, March 27, 2006 2:56 PM

I find that in general the AI is pretty bad at noticing that you are setting up to take a bunch of his planets at once. In one game I set things up to take all but one of the Dregins planets in a single turn (it was about 8 or so planets). He should have declared war on me when he saw what was going on, but he just got annoyed (this was with the highest intelligence level). ""

--------------

""#13 by Kalin
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:37 AM


The diplomacy portion of the AI is flawed, selling techs, buying ships, starbases, bribing it to declare war with someone on the otherside and then hitting it from the back, etc... there are simply waaaay too many things that you can do that he will never expect. Then there's the matter of how much the AI will value their possesions. Some people are saying 2500 BC is a lot, that's a joke. With 2500 BC and some diplomacy, you can buy a well defended and nearly max MINING starbase (for the current tech level) or any of the trade goods that they make. This isn't just a great deal, it's an absolutely sickeningly sweet deal. Is he too militarily powerful? buy that military miner, and suddenly he's weaker and you're stronger. Is his economy too strong? buy his morale and economic miner/trade goods and he suddenly finds himself in trouble while they will make you a ton of money more than what it costs you. Heck, if you really want to cheat, just start trading him money for money. If your diplomacy is higher, you can actually give him less money for more money in return and he'll happily accept. You can then use that money you gain and buy all of his stuff.

Suffice it to say, after discovering how easy it is to slaughter the AI with the diplomatic system, I too consider using diplomacy an exploit, and have made every effort to not use it. No tech trading, no buying, etc. It's more fun this way. ""

----------------------
the list goes on and on and on.... anyone visiting the Gal_Civ_2 forums would know.

the AI will trade money for less money.... yeahh very intelligent... ROFL