Of aliens and bugs

Up against the clock..

Published on October 8, 2005 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

Beta 4 of Galactic Civilizations is the first gameplay beta of the game. It's as this point players will get a decent idea of whether we're on the right track.

Beta 3 and before were basically engine tests. We needed to find out what compatibility issues we were going to run into and work around them. But beta 4 is different. At that point, the clock starts. We will have from November 1 to Christmas break to essentially "finish" the game. After that, it's just polish.

And I'm worried.

Not because the team isn't doing great -- they are. I'm worried about all the computer AI that needs to be done. GalCiv II is a much more complex game to do the AI for. Luckily, I have the basics from GalCiv I to start with. But there's so much to do.

Let me spell it out:

Players can play as any race. To me, as a gamer, that needs to mean something. If I play as the Torians, who were enslaved by the Drengin, that means the game should play differently when I deal with them. Same as with other races. We don't want other races to be generic.
The AI designs ships. That's proving to be quite a challenge. It's going to take a lot of play-testing on that to nail that down to make sure the AI is doing a good job with it.
The game has fleets. This is a new concept. I am supposed to have basic AI fleet handling in for Beta 4.
The technology tree is very challenging. The new tech tree is much more compontenized. That is, there are many many different choices to go. GalCiv I's tech tree, as big as it was, put the player on a pretty typical "best path". This time, there's no best path.
The AI can play as humans. If you play as one of the 5 major aliens races from GalCiv I, you get to see the "good" planets. It's one of their native advantages (remember that from GalCiv I? the aliens knew where the decent planets were). In GalCiv II, the humans and the new races don't have that technology. That means the AI needs to build scouts and go find those good planets the old fashioned way.

The problem isn't just the difficulty in doing these things well, it's the time. I'm going on a business trip this next week so I'll lose a week.

I will get it done. That's not the issue. I suspect my Christmas break will be playing a lot of Galactic Civilizations II to get it all sorted out. For me, computer games are about AI. The other features of GalCiv mean little if there isn't a compotent opponent to play against. I don't want the AI to just be able to win, that's easy. I want it to play intelligently and I want the human player to see that intelligence on screen.

Comments

Ugleb

on Oct 08, 2005

Hmm. Good luck and drink lots of strong coffee!

Lowa11

on Oct 09, 2005

And always know where the bathroom is!

Lord_StarPilot

on Oct 12, 2005

Good luck! But don't worry! You'll get it!

Ugleb

on Oct 13, 2005

Been mulling over this again.

The AI designs ships. That's proving to be quite a challenge. It's going to take a lot of play-testing on that to nail that down to make sure the AI is doing a good job with it.

From what I've seen in beta 3 the AI always seems to go for lasers. Obviously that's not going to stay that way. Is the plan to give each race a prefered weapon type or is it going to be randomised? Could it even depend on what the AI's neighbour is doing? What I'm mumbling is, will the Drengin always develop mass drivers (example) or will they pick a route at random each time you start a new game? I imagine the AI really comes in with which defence type they develop, the player will aquire and fit whichever defence type they need to counter their current war opponents and so the AI will ideally respond in a similiar way to counter whatever you are using. I can see the challenge.

The AI can play as humans. If you play as one of the 5 major aliens races from GalCiv I, you get to see the "good" planets. It's one of their native advantages (remember that from GalCiv I? the aliens knew where the decent planets were). In GalCiv II, the humans and the new races don't have that technology. That means the AI needs to build scouts and go find those good planets the old fashioned way.

I missed your second sentence the last time I read this. That's cool, we get to do the omnipotent bit!

It will be interesting to see the AI scouting for once, I'll take great delight in shooting its scouts down!

LDiCesare

on Oct 14, 2005

Why not scrap the advantage of knowing the good planets or giving it to everyone? The former would be better for balance imo, the latter faster for you to code.

Astax

on Oct 14, 2005

Giving it to everyone is a cheap fix IMO. A totally cheap fix at that, it's kind of remenescant of all the old cheatign AIs where the computer knows everythign and the human has to figure some thigns out. Of course this time the human would know it as well, so tehre would totally be no point in exploration, start of the game would just be pure rush to build more colony ships.

Another poitn I would like to know is why the colony ship is so frikin slow? Will the AI make faster colony ships to beat their enemies to the planets? Cause I know first thing I'll do is put mroe engines on colony ships, so if I move at speed of 3 + race bonus I'll grab all the best planets hehehhehe.

King in Yellow

on Oct 25, 2005

I for one would like to see some preset preference to AI ship design. The insectile race (the name of which currently escapes me

) for instance might favor enormous swarms of highly armed but poorly shielded fighter craft around a single lumbering hive ship. And perhaps the Yor could show a marked preference to the precision of energy weapons. The possibilities are there for the choosing.

As far as "omnisciency" where suitable planets are concerned, I would suggest that it either A.) be done away with entirely (just chalk the previous knowledge of the "GC1 Five" up to what Astax calls "Cheating AI," and hey, didn't space open up for them as well with the invention of hyperdrive? Scout away, lads!) or B.) penalize those races with such knowledge by giving them "antiquated" engine technology (holdovers from StarGate tech, where fast drives meant little outside of combat.)

Either solution would, I believe, level the playing field, but of the two the second might prove more entertaining -- imagine having to decide between knowing where the goods are and taking forever to reach them (without researching better drives first, that is) and knowing that you can zip around and spread quickly but doing so wearing a blindfold. Granted, this may prove impractical in the long run and can actually hurt certain species (remember the Elerians from MOO2? Sure they knew where things were, but they had a hard time reaching them before more industrious/tech-oriented societies.)

Food for thought, I guess...

Kevin the Kitten

on Oct 25, 2005

There's nothing for it: Someone lock the doors and arrange for food and water to be delivered to his desk...

stevenutt

on Oct 26, 2005

I think a lot of these questions depend on 2 things, 1 the back-story for all this (including the years between GC1 and GC2) and the alignment of the races (i.e. pure good, chaotic evil, balanced neutral etc..).

For example if during the period between GC1 and GC2 the humans have managed to send out many more probes and find out where all the "good" planets are then maybe they will also already know where the best ones are... Or possibly the opposite has happened and the war has destroyed a lot of the other species data on planets and so they've lost out, maybe it's data that can be traded...

Also with regards to how the other races act (what tech path they take, what ships they design, etc.), taking into account something that "King in Yellow" said in earlier, would it be something along the lines of the Yor (being "machines") are more likely to go for lasers as precision weapons, where as the drengin would have mass drivers (big hard hitting, but less accuracy) and the Alterians would concentrate on their defences, maybe balancing shields and armor. The general tech tree would again depend on the story and alignment with there being vague good, evil and neutral paths which would then depend on whether that race is more warlike, money grabing, diplomatic etc.

Also within diplomacy another thing could be that if you're playing the Drengin and you need to talk to the Torians there would automatically be a high diplomacy penalty, the same if you're the Drath talking with the Alterians and visa versa.

Anyway back-story and alignment, all good...

kryo

on Oct 27, 2005

Also with regards to how the other races act (what tech path they take, what ships they design, etc.), taking into account something that "King in Yellow" said in earlier, would it be something along the lines of the Yor (being "machines") are more likely to go for lasers as precision weapons, where as the drengin would have mass drivers (big hard hitting, but less accuracy) and the Alterians would concentrate on their defences, maybe balancing shields and armor. The general tech tree would again depend on the story and alignment with there being vague good, evil and neutral paths which would then depend on whether that race is more warlike, money grabing, diplomatic etc.

As I recall, story-wise, the Drengins were the first to use energy weapons, which is why it was such a great achievement when the humans invented shields and the 'good' races became able to turn the tide against the Drengins (I don't doubt that this will figure into the campaign).

King in Yellow

on Oct 27, 2005

Hmm... an interesting point, DK. I was unaware of that bit of background story. But surely you are correct when you intimated that it should figure into the campaign -- in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see them developing more mass-driver weapons as their reliance on energy weapons has been thwarted.

Lord KiRon

on Oct 28, 2005

Why not to make some tecnologies "easier" (to research) to speciffic races ? Like umans reearch misiles faster and such ...

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