Couple things about the AI that bug me

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Author Topic:   Couple things about the AI that bug me

Pat79 posted 03-31-99 01:48 AM ET
This is the first time I've started a new thread so I hope y'all feel it's for a good reason. This is just a few things I've noticed during my last couple games of SMAC that I hope Firaxis takes a look at for the next patch.
1. Skye was killing everyone, myself (Morgan) included. A message comes up that says something to the effect of "Due to the extreme ecological damage (mainly by to Diedre Skye) sea levels will rise....". First, isn't Skye the ecological freak so she should've tried to prevent this. Second, she later pronounced Vendetta on me b/c *I* was raping the land. Pardon me?
2. In the same game, the Spartan faction was warring w/ me for most the game. But what was weird was that they seemed to have it in for one base in particular. It was a small base I constructed late in the mid game that was in the middle of my land. Everytime (no exaggeration) *any* unit was in that base, along came a conventional missle and destroyed that unit. The Spartans wouldn't invade or drop anyone in or anything. Just "Hey! Someone's home! Let's get em!" Quite annoying.
3. This is just something that I feel is silly but others may not. The way a faction who is obviously losing to you and weaker than you will still demand payment from you to stop the war. Won't offer a treaty or anything unless I pay them off. I would think a faction (no matter who) would put survival before saving face (or whatever reason they are making demands of me).
Oh and here's something I've been meaning to ask Firaxis for but never had a reason to post it. In Civ 2 there was a very small square in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that would be the color of whatever faction's turn it currently was. Anyway you can put that in SMAC? I just like knowing whose turn it is, when they are done, etc.
K, comments welcome.
Pat79

Dim Cat posted 03-31-99 02:04 AM ET
AI for Gaians behaves really weird, or at least inconsistent with the faction profile. They keep creating havoc, changing rain patterns, etc., yet pronounce vendetta on me for doing the same.
Ridiculous money/technology demands are just silly. I was playing a game today, and build a whole bunch of drop units, so I captured all other faction bases in one turn. After I captured each base, the faction leader would jump on me and require the latest technology from me (!) to stop the war. When they had only two or three bases left, they did suggest to cease fire, but any of my requests for reparations resulted in Vendetta again (as if I really cared .
And idea with the color indicator is realy great - I missed it ever since I started playing SMAC.
yin26 posted 03-31-99 02:21 AM ET
Pat--good first post. You should have seen my first post here. Actually, I hope you missed it.
You have struck on a pet-focus of mine--enemy AI. For me, almost all the fun of a game goes down the drain once I know there are a few stupid ways to always win, or once, as you outlined, I realize that the illusion of intelligence is easily broken.
I don't see how incredibly hard it would be to have the enemy "remember" its own past wrongdoings and not fault you for having done the same. Or, if it's going to, at least is should make up some b.s. rationale like, "Hey, punk, only I'm wise enough to use planet busters." Sure, that in itself is a somewhat weak shot at intelligence, but it's something. In SMAC you mostly have to fill in the logical gaps yourself whenever possible.
And I can't even remember how many times Yang singled out a city and bombed my puny scouts every turn they came out--all the while ignoring my huge counter-attack I was mounting in other locations.
Again, how hard would it be to fix that problem? Assuming the AI has discovered the appropriate ability, it could very easily look at a combined unit strength/proximity ratio and focus accordingly. Sure, that would have to be tweaked, but certainly it would be better than what we have now.
I've heard many people claim the AI here is better than in Civ2. First, I don't think that's saying much. Yeah, it's saying something, I guess.
But SMAC was already in a corner trying to compel players to believe the sci-fi illusion. Mix in the crappy AI silliness and you're left pretty much not thinking of yourself as a faction leader dealing with competent rivals but as somebody looking to end the game before Baywatch comes on t.v.
outermost nervepath posted 04-01-99 07:00 PM ET
Originally I felt the same way -- the enemy AI lost credibility for accusing me of doing stuff that it did, too. Lal, Mr. Peace, comes out of nowhere and attacks me because we don't talk any more, and so on.
On the other hand, the Serbs are starting a war mainly due to a Turkish invasion that happened 600 years ago.
The Soviets had a word for Americans -- phonetically "nekulturny" -- uncultured. I'm only 29, but I'm pretty sure I've never had to stand in line all day for bread.
So maybe the AI does that *on purpose*... Ok, I won't buy that, either, but at least it doesn't bother me as much these days.
cousLee posted 04-02-99 04:06 AM ET
WAAA. as i have mentioned in other threads, I have not had the misfortune of being missled by the AI, but, as bug finding goes, try this: Change the name of the base being picked on, see if that stops it. if not, try to confuse the missels, rename the base to the same name of an enemy city and see what happens. it might be kinda funny. (too bad you couldn't get yang to pb hisself hahaha)
LLGamer posted 04-02-99 02:13 PM ET
I've got to agree with Yin here (although I haven't always
I think the problem seems to be the way these games are marketed and sold. There is a huge emphasis on sexy graphics up front. I think that's because when they take these games to the press and the big shows, they only have a short period of time to 'wow' the audience. The perception is that the graphics are what's hot, and the AI can't be shown off in a quick demo timeframe. So, the marketing guys say 'We need sizzle to sell the steak' and force the designers and developers to spend a good chunk of change on graphic content.
Meanwhile, us 'Joe Gamers' aren't really interested in the sexy graphics (at least not the sort that want 'true' strategy games). We tolerate the nice graphics, until it slows down the game or causes problems. First time I saw the spinning 3D units in the design workshop, I thought they were nice. Now, I think about how much time and $$$ was spent on that rather than game play or AI.
I would be interested in seeing a percentage breakdown of resources spent in SMAC on 1) graphics + graphics engine, 2) game mechanics, 3) AI, and 4) game balancing. I'd definitely put #1 at the bottom of the list, but unfortunately I think it creeps back up to the top.
I don't want brain-dead dumb graphics and UI (e.g. Destiny), but I want my steak to do more than sizzle...
PS this is not necessarily an indictment of SMAC, but a comment on the industry in general.
Dick Knisely posted 04-02-99 04:33 PM ET
Agree 102% on graphics vs. gameplay. But two points.
First, its not an either/or situation, especially for success in the marketplace. You've got to have both to sell product -- no sales, no game designers paying mortgages, no games.
Second, maybe its just me, but it sure looks to me like what has caused the most consistent negative comments about SMAC are the graphics. Some of that is simply that you'll never please everyone, but its a clear indicator that those of us who look past the pretty face or lack thereof just might be a minority.
CBH posted 04-02-99 05:16 PM ET
One thing that REALLY bugs me about the AI, is Morgan declaring war on me when he has about three bases and is hopeless in all fields of endeavour.
Meanwhile I have about sixty bases and so feel compelled to destroy him utterly to teach him a lesson But I guess he's a slow learner cos he's done the same thing in every game I've played so far <sigh>
Zero posted 04-05-99 02:10 PM ET
Hey, I've got an idea. How about open source AI code?
We know what the bugs are. Maybe we should be the ones to write the new AI routines.
Of course, the SMAC AI probably isn't too accessible to a non-programmer, so this is probably an idea for future games.
Darkstar posted 04-05-99 02:24 PM ET
Only a couple of things bug you about the AI? ;-)
About Open AI... CtP uses COM object to handle the AI. That means you can build a DIFFERENT AI engine, and so long as you maintain the AI interface (API), you can replace the factory with one of your own desgin (or someone elses). That thought had me drooling... until I played CtP. (CtP - Too Mousy on the UI and crappy UI in general, IMHO.) But at least SOMEONE thought in a similar vein.
-Darkstar
Frank Moore posted 04-05-99 02:28 PM ET
I also vote for the "colored box" to show whose turn it is. I know this is a small point (and probably relatively easy to implement) but sometimes I like to know when to let out a sigh of relief when the Hive's turn is over and they didn't conquer my undefended base.
evil_conquerer posted 04-05-99 03:01 PM ET
Open source would be great.
Netscape was open source and a major security fix was written just seven hours after it was released.
Linux was open source and it is probably the fastest, stablest OS out there.
Make Alpha Centauri open source (or at least make the AI open source) and it will be amazing.
BTW, writing a good AI is *hard*. SMAC has one of the best AI's out there (especially compared to Civ2 or C:CTP ) in today's games. Still, it could be better.
outermost nervepath posted 04-05-99 04:47 PM ET
Nah. I'd love to see Westwood's guys write an AI to take on the SMAC AI. If you account for the age difference between the games, I think Westwood would whip 'em (and would probably put their artists on call to render up some high quality replacement graphics).
Every time I've tried to imagine a COM-based plug-in player (basically what a COM AI "module" would be), it just becomes too complicated too quickly. You'd need piles of interfaces to let the thing query to discover what it does and doesn't know about the world, etc. etc.
I think I can describe it this way: It would be like having to design two completely different user interfaces for the same program, each targeted at users with totally unrelated needs. One of whom happens to have no physical senses and a one-reply attention span. Very difficult.
Xotor posted 04-05-99 05:33 PM ET
No what Firaxis needs to do is make the AI use a compiled script language (like Java, or something even easier) to allow for AI tampering.
Also an engine for learning the tactics used by humans.
Maybe Patch 4.0 could include these.
-Xotor-
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Author	Topic: Couple things about the AI that bug me
Pat79	posted 03-31-99 01:48 AM ET This is the first time I've started a new thread so I hope y'all feel it's for a good reason. This is just a few things I've noticed during my last couple games of SMAC that I hope Firaxis takes a look at for the next patch. 1. Skye was killing everyone, myself (Morgan) included. A message comes up that says something to the effect of "Due to the extreme ecological damage (mainly by to Diedre Skye) sea levels will rise....". First, isn't Skye the ecological freak so she should've tried to prevent this. Second, she later pronounced Vendetta on me b/c I was raping the land. Pardon me? 2. In the same game, the Spartan faction was warring w/ me for most the game. But what was weird was that they seemed to have it in for one base in particular. It was a small base I constructed late in the mid game that was in the middle of my land. Everytime (no exaggeration) any unit was in that base, along came a conventional missle and destroyed that unit. The Spartans wouldn't invade or drop anyone in or anything. Just "Hey! Someone's home! Let's get em!" Quite annoying. 3. This is just something that I feel is silly but others may not. The way a faction who is obviously losing to you and weaker than you will still demand payment from you to stop the war. Won't offer a treaty or anything unless I pay them off. I would think a faction (no matter who) would put survival before saving face (or whatever reason they are making demands of me). Oh and here's something I've been meaning to ask Firaxis for but never had a reason to post it. In Civ 2 there was a very small square in the bottom right hand corner of the screen that would be the color of whatever faction's turn it currently was. Anyway you can put that in SMAC? I just like knowing whose turn it is, when they are done, etc. K, comments welcome. Pat79
Dim Cat	posted 03-31-99 02:04 AM ET AI for Gaians behaves really weird, or at least inconsistent with the faction profile. They keep creating havoc, changing rain patterns, etc., yet pronounce vendetta on me for doing the same. Ridiculous money/technology demands are just silly. I was playing a game today, and build a whole bunch of drop units, so I captured all other faction bases in one turn. After I captured each base, the faction leader would jump on me and require the latest technology from me (!) to stop the war. When they had only two or three bases left, they did suggest to cease fire, but any of my requests for reparations resulted in Vendetta again (as if I really cared . And idea with the color indicator is realy great - I missed it ever since I started playing SMAC.
yin26	posted 03-31-99 02:21 AM ET Pat--good first post. You should have seen my first post here. Actually, I hope you missed it. You have struck on a pet-focus of mine--enemy AI. For me, almost all the fun of a game goes down the drain once I know there are a few stupid ways to always win, or once, as you outlined, I realize that the illusion of intelligence is easily broken. I don't see how incredibly hard it would be to have the enemy "remember" its own past wrongdoings and not fault you for having done the same. Or, if it's going to, at least is should make up some b.s. rationale like, "Hey, punk, only I'm wise enough to use planet busters." Sure, that in itself is a somewhat weak shot at intelligence, but it's something. In SMAC you mostly have to fill in the logical gaps yourself whenever possible. And I can't even remember how many times Yang singled out a city and bombed my puny scouts every turn they came out--all the while ignoring my huge counter-attack I was mounting in other locations. Again, how hard would it be to fix that problem? Assuming the AI has discovered the appropriate ability, it could very easily look at a combined unit strength/proximity ratio and focus accordingly. Sure, that would have to be tweaked, but certainly it would be better than what we have now. I've heard many people claim the AI here is better than in Civ2. First, I don't think that's saying much. Yeah, it's saying something, I guess. But SMAC was already in a corner trying to compel players to believe the sci-fi illusion. Mix in the crappy AI silliness and you're left pretty much not thinking of yourself as a faction leader dealing with competent rivals but as somebody looking to end the game before Baywatch comes on t.v.
outermost nervepath	posted 04-01-99 07:00 PM ET Originally I felt the same way -- the enemy AI lost credibility for accusing me of doing stuff that it did, too. Lal, Mr. Peace, comes out of nowhere and attacks me because we don't talk any more, and so on. On the other hand, the Serbs are starting a war mainly due to a Turkish invasion that happened 600 years ago. The Soviets had a word for Americans -- phonetically "nekulturny" -- uncultured. I'm only 29, but I'm pretty sure I've never had to stand in line all day for bread. So maybe the AI does that on purpose... Ok, I won't buy that, either, but at least it doesn't bother me as much these days.
cousLee	posted 04-02-99 04:06 AM ET WAAA. as i have mentioned in other threads, I have not had the misfortune of being missled by the AI, but, as bug finding goes, try this: Change the name of the base being picked on, see if that stops it. if not, try to confuse the missels, rename the base to the same name of an enemy city and see what happens. it might be kinda funny. (too bad you couldn't get yang to pb hisself hahaha)
LLGamer	posted 04-02-99 02:13 PM ET I've got to agree with Yin here (although I haven't always I think the problem seems to be the way these games are marketed and sold. There is a huge emphasis on sexy graphics up front. I think that's because when they take these games to the press and the big shows, they only have a short period of time to 'wow' the audience. The perception is that the graphics are what's hot, and the AI can't be shown off in a quick demo timeframe. So, the marketing guys say 'We need sizzle to sell the steak' and force the designers and developers to spend a good chunk of change on graphic content. Meanwhile, us 'Joe Gamers' aren't really interested in the sexy graphics (at least not the sort that want 'true' strategy games). We tolerate the nice graphics, until it slows down the game or causes problems. First time I saw the spinning 3D units in the design workshop, I thought they were nice. Now, I think about how much time and $$$ was spent on that rather than game play or AI. I would be interested in seeing a percentage breakdown of resources spent in SMAC on 1) graphics + graphics engine, 2) game mechanics, 3) AI, and 4) game balancing. I'd definitely put #1 at the bottom of the list, but unfortunately I think it creeps back up to the top. I don't want brain-dead dumb graphics and UI (e.g. Destiny), but I want my steak to do more than sizzle... PS this is not necessarily an indictment of SMAC, but a comment on the industry in general.
Dick Knisely	posted 04-02-99 04:33 PM ET Agree 102% on graphics vs. gameplay. But two points. First, its not an either/or situation, especially for success in the marketplace. You've got to have both to sell product -- no sales, no game designers paying mortgages, no games. Second, maybe its just me, but it sure looks to me like what has caused the most consistent negative comments about SMAC are the graphics. Some of that is simply that you'll never please everyone, but its a clear indicator that those of us who look past the pretty face or lack thereof just might be a minority.
CBH	posted 04-02-99 05:16 PM ET One thing that REALLY bugs me about the AI, is Morgan declaring war on me when he has about three bases and is hopeless in all fields of endeavour. Meanwhile I have about sixty bases and so feel compelled to destroy him utterly to teach him a lesson But I guess he's a slow learner cos he's done the same thing in every game I've played so far <sigh>
Zero	posted 04-05-99 02:10 PM ET Hey, I've got an idea. How about open source AI code? We know what the bugs are. Maybe we should be the ones to write the new AI routines. Of course, the SMAC AI probably isn't too accessible to a non-programmer, so this is probably an idea for future games.
Darkstar	posted 04-05-99 02:24 PM ET Only a couple of things bug you about the AI? ;-) About Open AI... CtP uses COM object to handle the AI. That means you can build a DIFFERENT AI engine, and so long as you maintain the AI interface (API), you can replace the factory with one of your own desgin (or someone elses). That thought had me drooling... until I played CtP. (CtP - Too Mousy on the UI and crappy UI in general, IMHO.) But at least SOMEONE thought in a similar vein. -Darkstar
Frank Moore	posted 04-05-99 02:28 PM ET I also vote for the "colored box" to show whose turn it is. I know this is a small point (and probably relatively easy to implement) but sometimes I like to know when to let out a sigh of relief when the Hive's turn is over and they didn't conquer my undefended base.
evil_conquerer	posted 04-05-99 03:01 PM ET Open source would be great. Netscape was open source and a major security fix was written just seven hours after it was released. Linux was open source and it is probably the fastest, stablest OS out there. Make Alpha Centauri open source (or at least make the AI open source) and it will be amazing. BTW, writing a good AI is hard. SMAC has one of the best AI's out there (especially compared to Civ2 or C:CTP ) in today's games. Still, it could be better.
outermost nervepath	posted 04-05-99 04:47 PM ET Nah. I'd love to see Westwood's guys write an AI to take on the SMAC AI. If you account for the age difference between the games, I think Westwood would whip 'em (and would probably put their artists on call to render up some high quality replacement graphics). Every time I've tried to imagine a COM-based plug-in player (basically what a COM AI "module" would be), it just becomes too complicated too quickly. You'd need piles of interfaces to let the thing query to discover what it does and doesn't know about the world, etc. etc. I think I can describe it this way: It would be like having to design two completely different user interfaces for the same program, each targeted at users with totally unrelated needs. One of whom happens to have no physical senses and a one-reply attention span. Very difficult.
Xotor	posted 04-05-99 05:33 PM ET No what Firaxis needs to do is make the AI use a compiled script language (like Java, or something even easier) to allow for AI tampering. Also an engine for learning the tactics used by humans. Maybe Patch 4.0 could include these. -Xotor-