Dominions 3 Announced

[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.

[PhilD]

Once again, Gandalf speaks words of wisdom...

A good AI is always a good thing for a game, but it's something that takes a lot of work, and Illwinter should most likely focus on their strengths: Dom2 is great for its amount and variety of content, and because it fills a niche in the "deep, multiplayer-oriented, PBEM game" genre. With limited programming/development ressources (I guess), they should try to improve in this direction, or similar ones, instead of "wasting" efforts in orthogonal directions.

Now, exporting configuration to outside, moddable files, is also a good thing. Allowing for AI customization, if it can be added, would let the community of players try to improve on the supposedly dreadful AI - or, at least, we'd get to see if the "itshouldgothisway"ers and "justdothis"ers can actually improve on it, or just talk

[Zapmeister]

I'd like to see a solution to the problem that led me to give up Dom2. For me, the game is not fun if I've been losing for a good while, and in the late-game it can be not-fun even if I'm winning. There's no point in playing if you're not having fun.

The problem is that there is no way (short of finding a sub) to exit from the game without spoiling it for the remaining players.

Maybe make the quitter's provinces impassable and out of the game? I don't know - I don't claim to have a solution, I'm just putting the issue forward for discussion because I don't believe I'm alone in thinking it's important.

EDIT: Oops, just noticed the wishlist thread.