What is really new?

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
In other words, there's no diplomacy, but we've gotten used to it.

Well if a player is looking for a more challenging game that player can edit the .map file and setup multiple AI opponents as allies, and this permanent alliance lasts the whole game. Otherwise there's no real diplomacy within the game.
A very interesting idea would be if Illwinter was to add a very rare event where two or three AI opponents form a permanent alliance within a game.

Endoperez said:
One other common explanation is the fact that it'd take too much of the developers' time, "and we all would rather have more content, wouldn't we?"

Yes I agree... more content until the Illwinter company expands to 5 or more developers where one developer could focus on the diplomacy. A whole developer is to prevent gamers from finding exploits/weaknesses with the AI diplomacy.

[DominionsFan]

NTJedi said:
Yes I agree... more content until the Illwinter company expands to 5 or more developers where one developer could focus on the diplomacy. A whole developer is to prevent gamers from finding exploits/weaknesses with the AI diplomacy.

I don't think that there is a way to prevent human players to exploit a diplo AI.
The human player can always send gold/resources or whatever to the AI player to make the AI player happy, so the human player can form an alliance easily that way.
[This is absolutely true about Galciv2 for example, or Civ3-4]
This is what happening in all games. Game developers cannot exclude this mechanism. If there wouldn't be something like "sending gifts" the whole diplomacy system would be pointless, hence you couldn't improve the relations with the AI. Well maybe in some special way, like offering some of your troops to a specific AI player when it is at war with an other AI or something like that.

[NTJedi]

DominionsFan said:
I don't think that there is a way to prevent human players to exploit a diplo AI.
The human player can always send gold/resources or whatever to the AI player to raise the relations with him. This is what happening in all games. Game developers cannot exclude this mechanism. If there wouldn't be something like "sending gifts" the whole diplomacy system would be pointless, hence you couldn't improve the relations with the AI. Well maybe in some special way, like offering some of your troops to a specific AI player when it is at war with an other AI or something like that.

Well actually the developers only need to include a formula which evaluates the total value of the gift in comparison to the AI opponents total power/value/attitude. If the gift does not add a worthy percentage increase to the AIs kingdoms power/resources/value then the gift has no value or even possibly viewed as an insult for being so small. The higher the game difficulty the higher the percentage. For example if a small country consisting of 3 islands sent an ambassador to the Mexico and offered a basket of fruit as a gift... the ambassador probably wouldn't even make it past the government guards.

[Sindai]

I'm 100% sure several games already do that. GalCiv certainly does. Developers aren't stupid. If you can come up with a solution in the time it takes to write a forum post you can be sure they thought of it ages ago.

The real problem with diplomatic AI is that it is usually incapable of betrayal. If it is then you have the nontrivial task of making it smart enough to betray the player only when it's logical. If it's not done cleverly and communicated to the user it will only cause players to complain about the AI being "random" and "attacking for no reason."

I think Dominions does fine as a pure wargame. It's not impossible to rationalize diplomatic AI if you change the story just a bit, though. Instead of a single supreme throne the pretenders could just be agreeing to ascend as a pantheon.

[Twan]

Hum as AI diplomacy has always been exploitable in any game having diplomacy IMHO it's useless to waste the time of someone "to prevent players finding exploits with the AI diplomacy". So not the best excuse.
For me the question for Dominions is more : is the SP game so hard that the player needs help from the AIs ?
As strategic AI is far from perfection, a diplomatic system allowing the player to make peace agreements and other deals has not to be made as it would be one more handicap for the AIs.

Now if AIs still works like St Patrik said ("AI only become aggressive when they notice that you are weak, or when you attack them", a good resume of dom2 AI) I think there is a flaw in the "diplomatic part of the strategic AI" that may be easy to correct with good effects on the SP game : make AIs attack not only a weaker player but the strongest one. I think it's very simple to implement : if a pretender is by large first in charts all neighbours should attack him instead of staying passive waiting for their turn. No need to make an alliance system for that, just make all the AIs aggressive against the potential winner once a critical power level is reached (usually by the player).

[NTJedi]

Twan said:
Hum as AI diplomacy has always been exploitable in any game having diplomacy IMHO it's useless to waste the time of someone "to prevent players finding exploits with the AI diplomacy".

The reason exploits can be found is because the AI is not able to learn from its mistakes the same as a human opponent. Unfortunately this type of AI computer opponent won't be created within our lifetime.
At least if one developer is focused on creating diplomacy he can limit the exploits and improve the diplomacy with patches. My suggestion at least prevents the usual exploit of sending small gifts to keep the AI opponents happy.

Twan said:
Now if AIs still works like St Patrik said ("AI only become aggressive when they notice that you are weak, or when you attack them", a good resume of dom2 AI) I think there is a flaw in the "diplomatic part of the strategic AI" that may be easy to correct with good effects on the SP game : make AIs attack not only a weaker player but the strongest one. I think it's very simple to implement : if a pretender is by large first in charts all neighbours should attack him instead of staying passive waiting for their turn. No need to make an alliance system for that, just make all the AIs aggressive against the potential winner once a critical power level is reached (usually by the player).

I've covered all this in another topic... perhaps we'll see the improvement within a patch or within Dominions_4.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Sindai said:
I'm 100% sure several games already do that. GalCiv certainly does. Developers aren't stupid. If you can come up with a solution in the time it takes to write a forum post you can be sure they thought of it ages ago.

Developers are definitely not stupid... which is why we have poor AI opponents in our games. There's a few exceptions and these games are only average at best. Developers are thinking of their future careers and thus focus much of their time on graphics because it's easier to promote your career by illustrating what you can create with pretty graphics compared to some extensive AI formula. Firaxis has actually taken a good step forward in hiring someone who purely focuses on the artificial intelligence... so hopefully we'll see some better AI opponents in whatever next game is being developed.

Sindai said:
The real problem with diplomatic AI is that it is usually incapable of betrayal. If it is then you have the nontrivial task of making it smart enough to betray the player only when it's logical. If it's not done cleverly and communicated to the user it will only cause players to complain about the AI being "random" and "attacking for no reason."

Yes betrayal would have to be worked into the personality formula of an AI opponent and most games don't even have AI personalities much less a betrayal factor. The betrayal factor is much more complex... from what I've heard and seen CIV_4 and GalCiv_2 do some betrayal.

[BigJMoney]

What about taking a different approach to AI? Instead of trying to make an AI "think" like a human or "seem" like a human, why not just start small?

First of all, to have the most basic aspects of diplomacy, the AI doesn't actually have to be interactable, it just needs to exhibit relations. Each AI nation chooses allies, neutrals and enemies. This can be completely random, it doesn't need to be based on relative strength and intel. If it were, the player could exploit this by focusing on large armies to keep enemies from declaring war. Neutral relations would mean they ignore you. Allies would send a message that says, "X wants to ally with you, do you accept?" They will then periodically send surplus resources to their ally, and stealthy units will never be discovered and attacked in their lands. Now, the player can't alter relations manually, but he can choose to get involved. If a nation is at war with another, he can send resources to the one he wants to see win.

A few necessities:

* war should only be declared on those adjacent
* war can be declared at any time
* if a nation is already at war, they should not choose to declare war with someone else
* neutrals should still scout and instill uprising
* spies caught instilling unrest in allied territory change relation to neutral
* assassins caught in assassinations in allied territory change the relation to enemy
* alliances can otherwise be broken at any time
* alliances and wars can be seen by all

It's not a lot, but it allows the player some ability to backstab and be backstabbed. It's also non-exploitable. The only thing the player can do is declare war. Maybe sending ally requests to neutrals have an N% chance of them saying yes. To add some risk, maybe also give it a smaller chance of triggering war.

=$=

[Gandalf Parker]

The Dom3 AI does seemt to declare war on known neighbors. The trouble is that "known" can come from scouts, spies, and spells. Also the AI must be able to decalre war and retaliate with spells when spells are used against it so "adjacent" isnt a good idea.

Also "not decare war on a second nation" can be abused alot by stealth nations. One of my favorite tactics is to hang around a war and cleanup weak points from both sides of it.

Same with "wars seen by all". I would abuse that alot. Forcing me to use scouts to see where the wars are seems ok to me.

Of course I would like more diplomacy with the AI. I would like for it to recognize gifts. But I also know that I want these things because I spend more time strategizing such things in games than other people do about strategizing combat.

[Kristoffer O]

> Twan:
> make AIs attack not only a weaker player but the strongest one.

Why? Is anyone attacking the US?
It is rare in history to attack the stong one. Ally with him and reap the benefit of a combined victory where your nation gets some of the spoils.

On the other hand, real life politics are not games and real life nations are not winners and loosers (OK, they might be loosers). So game balance wise (or from a there-can-only-be-one-god point of view) this might be a good solution:

> Twan:
> if a pretender is by large first in charts all neighbours should attack him instead of staying passive waiting for their turn. No need to make an alliance system for that, just make all the AIs aggressive against the potential winner once a critical power level is reached (usually by the player).


Perhaps the best diplo AI would include the ability to give other nations money, without any effect

Hmm, perhaps I'm too cynical

[DominionsFan]

Well 2 things about the diplo AI once more.

1. The AIs can ally with eachother -> Harder SP games.
2. Human players will exploit the diplo AI -> Easier SP games.

So the question is, is there a point to add a diplo AI to any game? Take a look at Civ 4. It takes a little effort to make an alliance with 1 or more nations in the game, that is hardcore exploiting. Just send them stuff and voila, you are all set. Galciv2 is the same...