Single Player Rant

[Evil Dave]

Gandalf,

What I meant was player-controlled blacklists/hint lists. I've watched Dom3 think; that's one reason I think it's a good job. The problem, of course, is that the AI doesn't know what the player is trying to do. It's trying to optimize a situation it doesn't really understand, so it gets it wrong sometimes (like the recent thread on it making archers and mages berserk).

I'd really like a GUI/configuration file to be able to say, "No, please don't cast this spell in this battle." or "Yes, you may use a pearl to cast Power of the Spheres even against weak opponents, but don't use pearls for anything else.". Really, I want that. Double pretty-please with the devs' favorite sweets on top.

[Hadrian_II]

I think the problem with the dom3 AI is that it does not know complex tactics, but just throws lots of Units at you. If you survived the first 30 Turns on a SP game you are almost sure to win, as the AI from then on just cant cope with you. I think the only game that i met that had some AI that was actually challenging after the early game was in GalCiv II. (as soon as it works in WINE i become really happy)

[Fate]

Many open-source games -including civ-evo and Wesnoth- have opted for open AI editing. In theory this could allow the players to develop the AI as the strategies change.

I think it would be nice if the devs could do one of the following:

A) Add a -info or -i command that dumps all information, including sites, provinces, troops, etc...

B) Add an "unencrypted" option that doesn't encrypt the fatherland file so it can be read.

Then an external AI could read it and output a .2h file as if it were a human. I have never tried making an AI, but I haven't really had a reason to.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive pushed for open source AI, and some bot-accessable hooks to the game since day one. We have gotten some output changes which have helped but more would be nice.