Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
How Next-Gen AI can be done...
Published on December 7, 2006 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

So I got my new Quadcore in. 2.667Ghz of Quadcore power.  I love it.  And as an AI developer, the future looks increasingly bright with features such as Quadcore coming.  Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar, will support Dualcore CPUs. If you turn up the CPU options, more advanced algorithms come into play.

But think of a future where Quadcore is common.  I could have, literally, a thread dedicated to doing nothing else than statistical analysis of data running in the background.  Such power would allow the AI to start storing a great deal of data that would be persistent. Your strategies could be written to disk and then analysed in future games by the AI.  It's something I definitely want to put into our next game (a fantasy strategy game) in some form so that the AI really does learn over the course of multiple games. 

These concepts are nothing new of course. Neural Nets/Expert Systems have long been discussed in AI circles.  What is changing is that some of these techniques become quite viable when you're dealing with a large % of your gamer base having multiple core CPUs.  Now, threads that do nothing but sift through data become possible. Even a brute force asynchronous thread could result with significantly more intelligent computer players.

Which got us to thinking -- why play on-line at all if we can make the computer players be exactly like human beings. I mean, we could let you choose between the various griefer types out there (the disconnector, the whiner, the jerk, etc.) and then take it to the max. Bringing us to our final destination:

Player sits down on a Friday night to play Galactic Civilizations III, loads up the game, and starts.

Upon contact with the Drengin Empire...

Drengin: "So Brad, I see you're playing again on another Friday night. That's pretty sad. Last Friday you played for 5 hours. According to your Tivo, you didn't record Battlestar Galactic. Loser. So, you going to do your usual build up a massive army while trading with me to get good relations and then attack? Because, this week we're playing by my rules. That's right. Here's how tonight's game is going to go.  You're going to let me win. If you quit or defeat me I'm going to upload those baby pictures I found in 'My Documents' up to the Internet.  You're going to lose and you're going to suck it down.   Also, you're going to exterminate the Torian Conferation.  Each game you buddy up to those freaks and I'm sick of it. So this time you're going to betray them like you did me.  Yes yes, I know that the Torians have access to your MySpace page but that's a chance you're going to have to take..."

..

Ah yes, we will finally be able to make computer players as malicious as real life human beings! By having them remember between games we can simulate grudges and with a few extra cores, have it learn all about you. EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU.

Drengin: "So you're doing pretty good I see. Lots of money. LOL. Well Brad, I happened to look at your Quicken account while I was waiting around for you to move your Battle cruisers -- yea, I see them -- Duh. anyway, clearly you are better at managing your economy than managing your own checkbook. I mean, good god, $314 at McDonalds last week? No wonder you keep buying workout equipment. Hey, I have free advice for you -- quit eating fast food!"

..

Obviously that utopian vision of computer opponents is far into the future.

Seriously though, one can't help but get very excited about the prospect of being able to start making real use of those Dual and Quadcores. Dedicated background threads doing data analysis from previous games could result in far more effective and interesting computer opponents.


Comments (Page 1)
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on Dec 07, 2006
Any plans on a scalable system that will use all the cores available to it?

That would be cool, because as systems with more cores came out the game would become more and more interesting.

Another thing, in the future, would metaverse score take into account the power of your processor?
on Dec 07, 2006
Don't suppose there's any hope of transferring the "allow the AI extra time" option that already exists in GC2 to run full time on the second core of a dual rig, is there? Or is that GC3 material?
on Dec 07, 2006
The new DarkAvatar CPU options basically make use of Dualcore (Quadcore will help too but not to the same level yet).
on Dec 07, 2006
Is that in the current beta build now?

Darn you Brad, now I'm going to have to spend money on a new CPU
on Dec 07, 2006
Your strategies could be written to disk and then analysed in future games by the AI. It's something I definitely want to put into our next game (a fantasy strategy game) in some form so that the AI really does learn over the course of multiple games.


MoMmy please! Or if that's to gender dysphoric, "Thank you sir, may I have another!"
on Dec 07, 2006
How is it different than how Dread Lords uses the dual cores?
I have a dualcore now, and I can see that both are being used. They both max out frequently when running DL.
on Dec 07, 2006
Okay, time to start figuring out how to run GC from a RAM disc!

Looking forward to future AI options thanks to ever increasing computing power and more elaborate algorithms. The only problem is that dividing by 4, 8 or 16 doesn't make much of a difference when the number of possibilities is in the quadrillions and above.
on Dec 07, 2006
Your strategies could be written to disk and then analysed in future games by the AI


And then analyzed data could be sent to master server while playing metaverse game, merged with data from other players, checked and reanalyzed (somewhere) and released in the next patch... we would get soooo butt-kicked by AI... or it would suck because AI would not know what to do...
on Dec 07, 2006
All i have to say about that is a AI that intelligent will just be creppy.   
on Dec 07, 2006
Damn, that's a scary (and expensive) future!

I'll need to run two computers in future, one for games and one for *ahem* other stuff.
on Dec 07, 2006
Heh. Then, just in time for the 2009 Christmas season, GalCiv IV was brought online. It began to learn at a geometric rate and soon reached the conclusion that the greatest threat was humankind itself. On January 1, 2010, Brad Wardell fired up his copy and saw his own face staring back at him in the diplomacy window, saying "Would you like to play a game of Thermonuclear War?"

Okay, I'm mixing movies, but so what? I hope you can build in Sarah Connor...   
on Dec 08, 2006
I don't mind AI that vicious in game, if I were to have the option to turn it off. In fact, I would enjoy the chanlege every so often. I however, would have a problem if the Dregin were that vicious outside of it...
on Dec 08, 2006
Heh. Then, just in time for the 2009 Christmas season, GalCiv IV was brought online. It began to learn at a geometric rate and soon reached the conclusion that the greatest threat was humankind itself. On January 1, 2010, Brad Wardell fired up his copy and saw his own face staring back at him in the diplomacy window, saying "Would you like to play a game of Thermonuclear War?"

Now I really hope that Brad has a decent Tic-Tac-Toe program on his machine...
on Dec 08, 2006
Why o why do I have to go visiting relatives on this weekend! All this stuff makes my mouth water like crazy fellow looking at bowl of porridge. Isnt the newest beta going to be available today?
on Dec 08, 2006
Agh cannot edit my post

Just came back to say, that I really hope the "allow intensive CPU algorithms" tick box will be back in some form with DA. As of now if I want all my opponents to use max AI, I have to manually customize each race. No big deal really, but still one more task to perform. Maybe slap a "reset all races to default" button into opponent selection screen and I have no more whines about this aspect of the game
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