Dominions 3 Announced

[NTJedi]

johan osterman said:
I assume you want a better AI as well, but I couldn't see you mention it.

GIFTS FROM HEAVEN this is important.

One of the greatest features lacking in almost every game is a challenging AI. There are several important decisions which could definitely improve the Artificial Intelligence. Hopefully the following listed below will be considered for improving the existing AI opponents:

1) Multiple AI personalities available which are randomly selected at the start of each game. This would keep human players surprised and uncertain what to expect from their neighbors.

2) Providing option to disable/enable starving status for AI units. The AI opponents are not aware of food supply levels within provinces and thus should not suffer the penalties of starving which include diseased units and low morale.

3) Allow scripting or some other tool where Users can develop and customize an artificial intelligence which can then be added to the list of random multiple personalities.

4) Don't have computer opponents send their pretender into the death matches. The battle afflictions, horror marks, and curses are not worth the risk.

5) Higher difficulty setting should have the computer opponents be more aggressive against human opponents as well. This makes sense since its the human player looking for a greater challenge when increasing the difficulty level.


I'm sure there are others but these will greatly improve the AI for the game. Double Thanks !

[Vicious Love]

Simple suggestion: More feedback regarding stealth, or at least more goodies in the manual. I honestly have no idea how effective a +30 stealth modifier is, how effective a patroller is, or how said effectivities counterbalance. If you were to ask me which was more likely to be caught:
A) 40 stealthy(+30) units vs 20 patrollers
B) 5 stealthy(+0) units vs 20 patrollers
C) 1 stealthy(+30) unit vs 50 patrollers
D) And so on, and so forth,

I wouldn't have the vaguest idea. I'm not even sure if 20 patrollers are always twice as effective as 10 patrollers, or 20 sneaking troops twice as effective as 40.
This should not be. I'd like to see stealthy armies and agents work as a result of a well-conceived battle plan, not a shot in the dark and a stroke of luck.

[Vicious Love]

NTJedi said:
5) Higher difficulty setting should have the computer opponents be more aggressive against human opponents as well. This makes sense since its the human player looking for a greater challenge when increasing the difficulty level.

Disagreed. I always hatehatehateHATEit when a game goes out of it's way to foil me, the player. You'd think those friggin' Darloks would accept my offer of peace, after all the free tech I've given them, especially considering my ability to burninate their space-cottages in the blink of an eye, but no, they're predisposed to hate me, simply because I'm Player_1. Makes everything seem less like a gameworld, more like a game.
To me, higher difficulty implies no more than tougher, cannier neighbors, not some sort of partisan, anti-human computer bias. I'm happy with the system as it presently stands. Tougher nations, greater challenge.

[Yossar]

Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't want too much programming time wasted on the nation AI (besides the developers, I guess). Dom3 could be a great single player game if it had great AI, but with the limited resources of Illwinter, I'd much rather they just cut their losses and focus on making another great multiplayer game. But maybe that's just because I view single player Dom2 as just a place to practice for multi.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Yossar said:
Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't want too much programming time wasted on the nation AI

Nothing could be more wrong

[Tumba]

Yossar said:
Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't want too much programming time wasted on the nation AI (besides the developers, I guess).

My opinion exactly. There are whole organisations creating AIs and still their robots bump into flagpoles and try to mate with rocks.

Considering the resources available for this project. I'd advice to do only the necessary tweaks to AI. Maybe try to improve the battlefield behavior of both player and AI troops a little bit. On grander scale, maybe some randomness into AI troop movements. I hate to be able to channel the AI to attack where I want it to attack just by tinkering with PDs.

A more random attck path would give a very impressive picture of the AI. A simple "not always attacking the most logical province"-rule would definitely result in some: "Whoa! The super-smart AI actually bypassed my trap!" -reactions.

[Chazar]

Yossar said:
Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't want too much programming time wasted on the nation AI (besides the developers, I guess).

I need to agree again: SP is there for learning, MP is for playing! I do not understand how a strategy game can be fun in SP. Its just some Maths and Randomness, but no clever design and hideous scheme behind the marching armies. And furthermore, the AI doesnt even bother if conquered by your ingenious plan...

[Zooko]

I agree that Illwinter shouldn't spend their precious resources improving the strategic AI. But they should spend their precious resources opening up and documenting the turn protocol so that modsters can implement their own strategic AIs. Then Illwinter can take the best of those and put them into Dom3. ;-)

[Gandalf Parker]

As a solo-player I would love to see more done in AI, but Ive accepted that it would be purely a personal wishlist item. It cant be a "broke" or "must have" because of the kind of game it is. In fact, many of the "absolutely important to fix" things I see should automatically be scaled back to "well I personally think it would be great" wishlist things if people keep in mind that Dominions is a multi-platform Play-by-EMail MultiPlayer game. Thats what it is. Thats what it does well. Thats a market where there are few other games that can come anywhere near being a competition to Dominions. And it also tends to make some things harder to add to it than other things without drastically changing what the game is. I cant loudly want Illwinter to make an effort to spread themselves into other market niches unless its something they want to do. I would rather see them happily and excitedly pile on the things they do well than to see them force themselves into a shift of direction. Make your pitches folks but if you cant convince Illwinter to WANT to do it, then the results wouldnt be worth pursuing InMyHumbleOpinion

[ioticus]

Zooko said:
I agree that Illwinter shouldn't spend their precious resources improving the strategic AI. But they should spend their precious resources opening up and documenting the turn protocol so that modsters can implement their own strategic AIs. Then Illwinter can take the best of those and put them into Dom3. ;-)

I agree that allowing people to mod the AI is a great idea I'd love to see. We could see some very challenging AI that way, much better than the developers could make.