The AI Complaint

[Ragnarok-X]

Atrocities said:
Compare SEIV AI to games like MOO, MOO2, and MOO3 and you can see that SEIV AI is on equal footing but has one huge advantage over the others, its extremely moddable.

I disagree. I have played MOO2 for about a few hundreds of hours and the AI is pretty awesome, compared to the AI of SE4 it is, in fact, superior. Both in combat, economics and especially diplomatics.
Same goes for MOO3, though i havent played that quite as long, most probably on a 2-3 douzen hours.

[Atrocities]

They are drastically differant games and the MOO AI cannot not be modded as easly as that of SEIV. Also SEIV for how it was made, and how long it has endured, has surpassed MOO2, and 3 popularity by a considerable amount.

[Fyron]

The moddability of SEIV AI is extremely limited. You can not affect how the AI operates, as the actual algorithms are hidden from the user. All you can do is tweak the parameters. You can fiddle with designs and build queues, but the AI still behaves in exactly the same manner. Even TDM AIs are just as terrible as the stock AI in most regards. They make all of the same behavioral mistakes as the stock AI, suffer from the same limitations. Certainly, the TDM authors have done some great things to try to make up for the shortcomings of the AI, but they could not do enough due to hard code limitations. Aaron has a lot of work cut out for him to make a semi-decent AI for SEV...

The MOO2 AI is better designed than the SEIV AI. It still isn't all that good, but definitely better. Of course, it did not have to be designed to be adaptable to a wide variety of data modifications, so it could be optimized for the game better.

[ToxicSlurpee]

The problem here is the "A" part. It's artificial, which makes it not at all intelligent. A human can outsmart an AI opponent very easily by just watching to see what it does. In an abstract situation such as a strategy game, the only option that an AI programmer has is to give the AI a bonus to provide a challenge.

I think that's why some people say the AI in SEIV sucks. Mind you, it's horrid in most other games as well. The thing is, it gets a bonus dependant on difficulty. One human ship is worth more than one AI ship in many cases, as the AI is probably predictable.

Until we create artificial sentience, AI will have to do as is. When that isn't satisfactory, we'll simply have to play each other.

[geoschmo]

ToxicSlurpee said:
Until we create artificial sentience, AI will have to do as is. When that isn't satisfactory, we'll simply have to play each other.

I agree it's very difficult but I think it should be possible. The problem is a limitation of using algorithms itself. You quantify the variables, determine the best possible outcome, the most efficent means of achieving that outcome, and follow those steps. You continue on that course until the variables change and then you stop and reevaluate. It's all very logical, but isn't at all how most humans operate.

We often times ignore important pieces of data, make incorrect assumptions, reach incorrect conclusions, and don't always do what is the best in any circumstance. This intruduces an aspect of unpredictability that will sometimes result in success in spite of poor planning.

I think an AI could approximate this without having true sentience. Instead of always taking the "best choice" for instance, it could be programmed to rate various options and randomly choose one from all options that are at least within a certain percentage points of the best one.

I am sure it would be hard to code such a thing though. The key would be for it to remember what it's done in the past and what other players do in response, and factor that into it's future decision making. Other wise you'd have a bot that carreened from decision point to decision point with no clear stragetgy and constantly changing course.