Personalities of AI Opponents

  Developer Journal

Part of that is because the AI in Elemental is a very big deal. People are excited about the features of Elemental but to me, those features are meaningless unless there are computer players that make good use of those features. Or more to the point, intelligent use of them.  While Elemental will have multiplayer (up to 32 people for starters), the focus of the game is single player. That’s the part of the game I want to make sure we absolutely nail and for that, it absolutely must have intelligent computer players. 

End of quote

 

I completely agree.

It would be great if Elemental:WoM had the option for gamers to adjust/improve the AI with modding. With time we'd see some interesting AI's appear.

Also it would be great if the AI has multiple personalities instead of one fixed AI used by all computer opponents. HOPEFULLY AI opponents are randomly given an AI personality at the start of each game which would make it MUCH more difficult for gamers to predict what the AI will be doing in the game. Also the option to disable one of the personalities in case it's weak or bugged.

Examples:

The_Sage: Usually peaceful and more concerned with mastering spells than conquering the land. Beware he/she hungers for territories with strong magic. This opponent is also known to attack anyone with greater research.

The_Cutthroat: Untrustworthy and usually organizes his assassins to attack the same time his troops march into enemy lands. He will make temporary alliances to knock down the greatest threat(most troops & highest gold/magic). He's known to attack territories which bring high gold income.

The_WarMonger: Purely focused on taking land to expand his kingdom. Weak enemies nearby will be his primary target unless someone owns more territories which he truly hates. Sometimes known to use assassins.

The_Paladin: His expansion is based off those which do the most evil which includes using death magic, demons, sacrifices, and most importantly who is killing the highest percentage of the innocent. His actions are usually honorable... in fact always honorable in his eyes. Known to ally with a weak nation to focus on a common stronger enemy.

The_Psycho: The actions and behavior are completely random and unpredictable. Sometimes he will attack the strongest and sometimes the weakest. It's known those with the highest prestige are more frequently attacked.

The_ArchMage: No known flaws or weaknesses and is an aggressive expansionist. A hunger for magic has the archmage searching more intense than the others. Also very effective for using spells before marching into territories. The player with the most research is usually more likely to become an enemy.

The_General: Able to focus on specific bottlenecks between terrain borders as he expands. Sometimes known to proceed in setting up supercombantants(SCs) to march and take territories as a team and occasionally send stronger ones solo. He will form allies with anyone willing to attack the player with the total largest army size.

The_Miner: He's primarily focused on mining resources out of the land for acquiring rare gems and having the most superior armored troops.  He's more than happy to trade and possibly ally with anyone having resources he needs and usually attacks only after establishing an ally to help with the battles.

5,286 views 4 replies
Reply #1 Top

You'll need some randomness in the personalities, to keep them from being predictable though.

 

 

Reply #3 Top

Really better than making static personality types, I think it better to have personality attributes with a range of values. Then certain canon personalities can be crafted within that system, but also other personalities and random personalities.

Examples:

Honor: high rating means they keep their word, low means not so much.

Expansionist: high score wants to grow borders, low score turtles.

Risk taker: Will the AI go balls to the wall, or play it safe?

Share the essence: keeps essence with channeler or makes lots of weaker heroes.

Lawful vs chaotic for all you D&D fans

Vindictive vs forgiving (yes being forgiving could actually be advantageous, maybe diplo bonus for forgiving and forgetting)

Also most of the racial attributes for GalCiv2 and others could come into play.

Reply #4 Top

Personally I think both would be nice (as long as the player can't see what any given AI actually is).  It should all boil down to what type of AI coding is easiest to make competetive (I would think NTJedi's would be, but I know very little about AI programing).