Single player question/

[HoneyBadger]

Maybe we'll even get it in Dom3. We can hope, right?

[Saxon]

Space Empires 4 had the option to mod AI and there was a period where some rather strong AI designs came out, designed by players. Is this what you mean by scriptable AI?

I would say the AI is quite good by industry standards. They have strong openings, but the mid game and end game are progressively weaker. As another poster noted, they have strong battle planning, but their unit purchasing patterns are weak. They do not cheat like some other games, which is a pro and a con. I come down on the side of “it is a good thing” they don’t cheat, but it does make them weaker.

[NTJedi]

HoneyBadger said:
Maybe we'll even get it in Dom3. We can hope, right?

Unlikely since this change would be quite major and there's only two developers which work on this game. I estimate it would take 3 miracles and 4 wish spells for us to see this appear within Dominions_3.

Saxon said:
Space Empires 4 had the option to mod AI and there was a period where some rather strong AI designs came out, designed by players. Is this what you mean by scriptable AI?

Yes indeed... since Illwinter only has two developers including a moddable AI would allow the community to strengthen its weaknesses and the developers could focus on adding more content. Also this would allow Illwinter to say... "If you don't like the AI then improve it yourself or download an AI personality made by someone from within the community."
How I wish I could mod the AI into not sending its pretenders into the death match arena!

Saxon said:
I would say the AI is quite good by industry standards. They have strong openings, but the mid game and end game are progressively weaker. As another poster noted, they have strong battle planning, but their unit purchasing patterns are weak.

Yes the AI is good compared with other existing games, but the gaming industry still is waiting on the first powerfully clever AI opponents. From what I've seen Sid Meiers and his team might be the first to develop a strong AI opponent because last year they posted a job opening where the position focuses purely on Artificial Intelligence.

[Gandalf Parker]

I gratly love moddable AIs. But the "hooks" for each action that the AI might "see" and then the variables for its reactions are extensive and usually have to be written into the game concept from the beginning.

But mentioning SEIV was a good reference. That level of AI wouldnt be too hard to program in and it would extend the game alot.

[Dragonlord]

Oooh I loved Space Empires 4...

[NTJedi]

NTJedi said:
How I wish I could mod the AI into not sending its pretenders into the death match arena!

Heck I would be happy even turning off the death match arena event since the current prize is not worth the life of a good commander.
It's sad watching AI pretenders killing each other in the death match. The SP gamer will always benefit from a death match event as the AIs will send strong commanders, prophets and pretenders to their death.

[Saxon]

And you get to see what the enemy gods are like in combat, without getting an underpowered army killed for the intelligence.

Do you ever pick up dropped magic items when you kill in the dath match? If you have a strong SC, you might be able to pick up a slew of items. I do not normally take part, so I don't know.

[HoneyBadger]

I am all for scriptable AIs, even though I am crap at designing them. I really hope and think it would be reasonable to expect that we get them by Dom4, but-ironically enough-you can make the AI in the game better, providing you're smarter than the AI Lots of things can be done to improve it indirectly, through map editing and nation editing-it would be great if some experienced person would take it upon themselves to redo a set of the current nations specifically for use by the AI, and that future modders then followed suit with new nations, creating 1 mod for the basic MP nation and 1 for the AI SP version. I would also love-and again it's pretty reasonable-if Arena Deathmatches could be toggled on and off at the beginning of games, either whole cow or on a per nation basis.

[Shovah32]

What i want to know is who calls the deathmatches?

[PvK]

The enigmatic Arenji...