Why AI must evolve after release

To keep the game fresh

Published on June 30, 2006 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

So you've bought the game and you really like it but then time passes and it starts to get old. It's not that the game is boring or bad but that you have figured out how to "beat it". You crank up the difficulty level but then it's ridiculously hard to the point you know you have no chance.

If the game has multiplayer, you play people on-line but as you get further away from the original release, the harder it gets to find people and in particular the harder it gets to find normal people -- people who play the game as it was designed to be played as opposed to exploiting every minor game mechanic flaw to their advantage which tends to suck the fun out.

So ends the typical strategy game. It's usually a question of when, not if, the game reaches the end of its playable lifetime.

When we made Galactic Civilizations II, we budgeted some money for after-release work. We did go a little overboard with that with 1.1 and 1.2 in that the guys just never came down out of "crunch mode" and continued to put in crazy amounts of hours to deliver immense numbers of changes. Now things have returned more to a normal pace and so we look forward to 1.3.

Version 1.3 of GalCiv II will largely involve computer AI work by me. It's not just about making it tougher as much as it is about making it play differently and more intelligently. It will also likely involve creating additional difficulty levels and fixing the $@#$@ thing that causes some AI players to be set to stupid while others are at hard in order to average things out (i.e. someone setting the overall difficulty level to "Painful" only to find that 3 of the AIs are set to being really hard and the other 5 are set to being brain dead -- your best solution for now is to set the players you want to be intelligent or better if you're looking for a challenge and control the players rather than having the overall difficulty system try to guess what kind of gmae you want).

I have a lot of ideas on how to make the game play better, particularly with regard to the CPU option for the AI being able to use better algorithms. The expansion pack, Dark Avatar, will have a LOT LOT more of this kind of thing. But my job is to make sure that the AI continues to provide an interestig experience for players during the summer months.

Comments (Page 2)

Suralle

on Jul 05, 2006

AHH, now that explains alot of what I have been thinking lately. I bet that would fix the races that build their planets poorly also.

Thanks again to you all. Wish I had a more leisurely schedule but this week is dedicated to "Cedars Point" as our 8 year old calls this park that we are at for our summer adventure.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

Alfb

on Jul 05, 2006

I encourage you to also consider helping with some of the more mundane parts of the game. When I say mundane, I mean things you need to do where there is no real thought or strategy involved, just extra work. Not in any particular order:

1 - Make the explore setting work better/more efficiently
2 - Take some of the manual work out of updating starbases
3 - Simple way to colonize, like right click and say colonize and the next colony ship built goes there, an ordered queue might be needed with this.
4 - Have the initial settings for things like Taxation, Spending, Spending Distribution be remembered or have a place to change the initial settings
5 - Not part of the mundane issue but allow building older buildings, not just the latest researched version.

e-stab

on Jul 06, 2006

More AI tweaks and the CPU option - I like what I read here.

Future Guy

on Jul 07, 2006

How much are Dual Core Processor's being used currently by GalCiv2? The market of people that have them is growing and I would like to see an option we can check that will take advantage of it.

Matt Lavery

on Jul 09, 2006

I'd like to see more balanced options for "alignment defining" events. It seems like the "evil" otions are the only ones that come with benefits, and the "good" options almost always come with penalties. All ethical options should come with balanced pros and cons.

For example: Higher production if you press the indiginent life into slavery but a penalty to loyalty. Lower population limit if you try to coexist with the natives, but a bonus to morale.

The way it now, it seems the game system is trying to make us all into its evil minions.

gallagher118

on Jul 09, 2006

I think the alignment options are fine. Choosing good shouldn't have immeadiate benefits. Otherwise an evil civ would pick them...

The only problem is that the down stream consequences of evil are not signficant :

1) Fundamentalists are a joke, i can generally retake the planets in a week or two.
2) Limits to trade, trade is a joke. I routinely leave the UP. The only good thing about trade is improving relations.

Make trade better, and give the fundamentalists some ships. (or give them the ships in orbit)

Kblore

on Jul 10, 2006

Love everything I'm reading about 1.3. Hope it is as good as the talk.

pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

on Jul 11, 2006

Choosing good could provide a moral bonus. This helps you keep the moral at 100% for maximum population growth and which in the long run would make good civs economic powerhouses (short term pain for long term gain).

v1.3 will be addressing the load/save bug which many have complained about. Please also address the bug that occurs when you get a new planetary improvement tech (via research or tech trading) on the same turn an instance of previous version of the tech is completed on one or more of your planets. For example, you get the tech for building a "Factory" on the same turn your "Basic Factory" completes. You will see a "Factory" instead of a "Basic Factory" without any production.

Frogboy

on Jul 15, 2006

bump.

cadleo

on Jul 17, 2006

Or you could just make it multiplayer. I really appreciate the effort you put into your game, and I think the marketing and software decisions you've made thus far have been insightful to say the least. All but the decision to not include multiplayer that is.

The challenge of a realistic AI is only part of the equation. What about the simple fact that I like gaming with my friends instead of recanting tales of my game to them over coffee? I like the personal feel of having adventures with my friends. Cmon man, you know you want to make it multi. If you do a turn based fantasy strategy and dont make it multi. .. I will die. Waiting so long for Master of Magic remake. So long.. I know you know where I'm coming from. Do the right thing.

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