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Blademun
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I know, hence why I note their tactics as "Mind-numbing" I'v Been 'impied' before too. Its absolutely hilarious until they take a worker..then there is hell to pay, oh yes...
Needless to say the poor bastards don't last long in my games either.
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Theseus
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The warmonger formerly known as rpodos. Gathering Storm! Apolyton Spirit!!
Apr 2002
time: 00:35
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Umm...
What makes you think the *current* Civ3/C3C AI isn't actually a lot better? It's game-balanced for the great unwashed masses out there, so that Regent is playable and winnable. Fer chrissakes, look at the Amazon reviews thread in the Strat Forum!!
Soren, mostly, had to balance AI effectiveness with bonuses and known 'cheats' to achieve optimal playability. I used to ask him pretty often for the settings that would produce KAIs... he told me, somewhere (maybe in a private forum, a chat, or an email), that when he would debug he'd sometimes see awesome AI behavior depending on world settings and whatever the latest AI tweaks were. So awesome, in fact, that the game is toned done for the average, non-'poly, CFC, or RBC player.
Considering we are still getting "one more turn" addiction reports, including yours truly, I'd say he did a pretty good job!! 
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Antrine
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No, I haven't looked at the Amazon reviews or anything like it probably.
KAI, what I mean by that is most likely different than most might think. The gaming industry is, I believe at yet another crossroads. Fast and sharp AI's are required. However, no level above Regent is necessary and every level beneath Regent needs be billed as a player handicap. Giving the AI's more material is not sophisticated, it is a old cheap shot, antiquated belonging to CIV1 and that whole time period.
AI must be programmable or tweaked by players. Aside from this consideration is a clear focus on the following goal.
An AI that can beat you One on One like chess! This gives diplomacy real teeth, if two or three other empires gain up on you, you're toast. And if you can fend them off, your a lucky genius.
Mark this, new games TBS style are being built as I type that will have 'transparent' AI routines. The AI's must not only be good but be able to get even better once a customer buys it.
This can happen many ways, player tweaking AI, AI learning from player and player getting 'outside' preped up AI engines from boards like this one.
As for mass marketing, simple, increase the handicap for players on and on, on down just like golf. Everybody plays, everybody has fun.
Oh, and thank you very, very much for a look into to some of inner workings of CIV3 with Soren, I have suspected from much game play that a killer AI in C3C was attainable given the 'right' settings.
Thanks. 
Last edited by Antrine on 05-05-2004 at 06:14
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Antrine
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I do not deny the validy of your your point spy14, however the consol market will go the same way of what preceded them, such as web portals and the like. Fancy toasters spit for a season, yet only headed for a garbage can. The market will not long tolerate 'dumbing down' for more is always better.
Last edited by Antrine on 05-05-2004 at 23:32
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Blademun
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The market? You mean that seething mass of moronic 14-15 (and under) year old boys that have their parents (and their wallets) under their thumb, have a attention span of 3 seconds and 've all the gameing skills of my long deceased grandpa..?
PUHLEASE...
I wish I could belive the 'market' was such a idealic, high minded entity but it is not. In the 'market', games sell better if they've got weed depicted in them. They sell better if their complication involves 3 seconds of thinking and 1 hour of button mashing.
The bottom line is the average (ecspecially american) buyer is a F***ing moron, or if they're not, they've got 20 million times better things (in their own mind) to be doing then wasteing brain cells on Civilization.
There will ALWAYS be a market for Consoles, due to this sad state of affairs. To think of them as fancy toasters is idealism so intense..its sickening.
((PS, I take back the Moron statement. Calmer thoughts seem to suggest that most people..lack the skills...*ahem* required to succeed at games of higher intricacy...*ahem* excuse me..))
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Antrine
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Probably, 
However, no one stays at that age and the fads that cater to them change like the wind. And whatever one generation thinks is cool the next one will gladly spurn, if not just because...
...however Civilization lives on forever! How is that blind idealism. The ages of those playing this game is of the widest range of any out there. This is endurance and it is about being true to a theme and complete.
Now for some realism, Civ is OLD, tired, frayed, bugged, bogged down to easily, and under the control someone besides us fanatics who clearly see all and know all...
My conclusion, I have none, however suspect much so far as what the future holds... happy gaming or modding!
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Krill
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On a cold wet rock, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Dec 2003
time: 05:35
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I meant what I wrote.
Yes, I want the game to be hard, or where is the fun?
And I've been playing this since I was 14, so in three years I want the AI to be better, and different. Otherwise it becomes boring.
Last edited by Krill on 06-05-2004 at 03:18
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Krill
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On a cold wet rock, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Dec 2003
time: 05:35
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Thank you, but I should be apologising for what I wrote. I'll edit it now
Last edited by Krill on 06-05-2004 at 03:18
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Theseus
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The warmonger formerly known as rpodos. Gathering Storm! Apolyton Spirit!!
Apr 2002
time: 00:35
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Alan Turing was a top British mathematician and scientist in the mid-20th century. He is well known for having been part of the team that cracked the German Enigma code during WW2, which played a major part in their defeat.
He also, prior to the war, wrote a seminal paper that provided the foundation for modern computer science (not to knock Babbage, Hollerith, and the rest), conceptualizing where the data fed into a computing device could in fact include the instructions for the handling of data.
After the war, as the implications and possibilities of computers were explored (think: 'I, Robot' by Asimov), Turing posited that a true AI could be achieved, and the test would be when a human, communicating via teletype, could not tell the difference between that and an actual human.
There is a foundation, and a prize, waiting out there for someone to write the code and pass the test.
Maybe it's my Civ bias, but I'd hope that the AI that Soren et al keeps working on, due to the vast and various decision routine challenges, has a shot. 
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Antrine
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Now this conversation is becoming truely interesting! Artificial Intelligence Engine! As a visionary many, many moons ago, I had some rather vivid dreams how this could be constructed to emulate what the ancients referred to as Cosmic Consciousnes. It is on base nine or 'three on three', what I believe to be the oldest known mathematical principle of creating.
For various reasons personal and professional I well acquainted with Ancient mathematics and/or meta-physics or now called quantum physics. I am convinced from many of these ancient writings that computers are not new, except to us (then based on crystals and magnetics, watch the direction super-computers are now going). That woohy woohy aside, Artificial Intelligence is much more than pure mathematics, it is Philosophy that can emulate personality and even life.
Well anyway, I compiled much on this subject as a writer/researcher and see links to the patterns utilized in ancient India, Egypt and Greece with Temple Oracles that convince me what direction looks good for AI development. I happen have major pieces of said Oracles and have reconstructed whole ones for use in divining. Another subject closer to AI technology than one might imagine.
Well, since this thread is on AI cheating maybe some lattitude can be accorded my comments!
I am not here soliciting anything and very content working with the few people I know.
Myriad Blessings!
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Blademun
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Heh, forgive my cyniscm. I am 18 myself, and I have been playing this genre since I was 14, myself..
Of course I'v never been a normal boy
I can't really say where software is going, but I can give you a hint on where technology is going.
"At first I thought this was a joke, but this article from Microsoft Watch confirms it: 'Microsoft is expected to recommend that the 'average' Longhorn PC feature a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today.'"
Not bad, eh? So what are -you- running at? ;p
We are already getting some of those Graphics processors. We won't be hitting 4Ghz till the end of this year though. All and all personal computeing systems, the top end, are going to be morep owerfull then ever, the growth rate is becomeing trully expotiential.
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The pirate
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The way I have always justified, to myself, AI cheats is that a true AI is a long way ahead for a comp game, (IBM and chess, okay, though i understand it acheives this through running through the consequence to the end of the game of every single move, (ie almost a fast 'database search'), rather than a 'predictive' AI, the way that humans (well at least me) think.
With this being the case, IF the AI is 90% as effective as a human at getting hold of resources (worker use and labourer allocation), 90% effective a using them (chosing what to build and where), and 90% effective at deploying the results (units etc), they are (0.9*0.9*0.9) 73% as effective as the human comparison.
So if AIs are developed to be 90% as effective as a human (me, and I am no MMer), they need an approx. 130% boost just to keep up at my level. This simple analogy omits several layers of sophistication that we demand (forward planning, dipl, trading etc), and is only a conceptual argument to make the case.
Additionally, the higher bonus at Emp and Sid are needed to make the game last longer:
There is no balancing routine where the playing field is leveled at the end of each era, so if you 'win' in the ancient age, the later ages are merely resolving the issues (by win I mean get to that position where the game outcome is determined, not actually finished). A win at medieval means the ancient era was competitive.
To make the game only determined at a late stage, Industial or Modern eras, a human cannot have won earlier (self evident, but worth stating), therefore the AI must be dominant and competive in the earlier eras, whilst the human catches up, hopefully as close to the end of the game as possible. This can be through Ai routines or bonuses. Since the game developers are not always aware of the optimal way to play the game (ie the exploits, and if they were, these boards would be much quieter) it is a little much to expect them to have a human beating AI written in the couple of years of development. How much time and money did IBM throw at beating a human at chess?
Whilst I want to see better and better AIs, I accept they will have to have bonuses, certainly at the higher levels where MM rules.
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Sir Ralph
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Long live teh Schwampel!
Dec 2001
time: 06:35
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Chess is not quite a comparison. Chess is a turn based strategy game too, the numbers are very different:
- Chess is played on 64 tiles. Civ on thousands.
- Chess knows only one terrain type (which means, none). Civ knows over ten, and all of them are different.
- Chess is always 1-on-1. Civ is at least 1-on-1.
- Chess knows six unit types. Civ dozens.
- Chess doesn't know diplomacy. Both sides are always at war.
- Chess doesn't have to deal with growth, food, production, commerce, research, tile and city improvements, unit upgrades and so on. Civ has to, and it's a big deal.
True, there are chess programs, who can deal with the best humans now, without any cheating. But look how long it took to develop those. Wait 10 or 20 years, perhaps game AIs will be able to deal with our best without cheating too. Don't worry, you won't be over the gaming age. In TBS, nobody is. Heck, I'm 46, and still TBS'ing often. 
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The pirate
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That was my point, evidently not made clearly enough:
In chess there is an AI, however it has taken a lot of time and money, and it is the game is more constrained and so not really comparable.
In the meantime, i'll accept a cheating, coniving, schemeing, dirty AI everytime.
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Krasny
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when i play CIV i dont want an AI that plays CIV like deep blue
i want an AI that plays CIV like a human being
that is CIV AIs should be capeable of competant play but also some times making mistakes
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04-05-2004 07:13
their attack, defense and hitpoints! 
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