Soren Johnson on AI » Forum Post by zespri

good speech, it is worth to see

thanks the link

Hey, everybody, have a look at it!!!

Successfully updated karma reason!

Interesting video.

Note #1.: Imo the [patched up] Civ4 AI is far from being perfect [it's mediocre] and it's been made for a "simple" game basically. I am pretty sure that the EWoM AI will be very good later on, but you shouldn't forget 1 thing: EWoM is a much more complex game than Civ4. So writing the AI for EWoM is/will be much more harder than writing the AI for Civ4.

Note #2.: Do you know that would be really challenging for an AI developer? Writing a decent AI for Dominions 3.

Successfully updated karma reason!

If we can get a variety of AI's (some community written) and then assign them to the individual empires. Perhaps this could be done at random (to maintain the surprise factor), ideally with some control (e.g. this AI is suitable for the following empire nations but not for the kingdom). You then have another whole game - AI verses AI.

look here

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewforum.php?f=65&sid=5ccd906610d8e28a6f4f5b3ac0f0ff0b

for what can be done on a problem that is slightly more capable of analysis, but still tough.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Tormy-,

reply 2

Interesting video.

Note #1.: Imo the [patched up] Civ4 AI is far from being perfect [it's mediocre] and it's been made for a "simple" game basically. I am pretty sure that the EWoM AI will be very good later on, but you shouldn't forget 1 thing: EWoM is a much more complex game than Civ4. So writing the AI for EWoM is/will be much more harder than writing the AI for Civ4.

Note #2.: Do you know that would be really challenging for an AI developer? Writing a decent AI for Dominions 3.

your right, ewwom is much more complesx, I have to worry about city happiness, city rebellions because they have been conquered, different religeons impacting me, not to mention the constant threat of sea invasion.

Then theres the fact my latest city Dragon Horn thats built on the Edge of the Mighty Urogoan dyansties border is so enthralled with them they want to join them,

Oh wait thats Civ 4.

The only thing thats more complex is unit creation and thats a joke because of how its implemented, EWoM is not a horrible game mind you its fun but not complex anyway way, its the arcade game of strategy. Dynasties are a nice idea but not thought out, Total War did and did it better.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Tormy-,

reply 2

Interesting video.

Note #1.: Imo the [patched up] Civ4 AI is far from being perfect [it's mediocre] and it's been made for a "simple" game basically. I am pretty sure that the EWoM AI will be very good later on, but you shouldn't forget 1 thing: EWoM is a much more complex game than Civ4. So writing the AI for EWoM is/will be much more harder than writing the AI for Civ4.

Ummm, no. Right now, strategically, Elemental has a fraction of the complexity of Civ. I've played Civ for years and still drown in it. You've got extensive city building, social issues, economy, government, religion, varied diplomacy, strategic resources, trade, combined arms, culture... this list goes on and on of things that are not yet in Elemental.

Like many others in this forum, I "figured out" Elemental in the first game I played. You can beat all the AIs on the highest difficulty in under 200 turns. The fundamental principle of strategy games of having lots of stuff to do and having to make difficult choices doesn't exist yet. There isn't much to do and you can do it all without penalty. Simply spam cities over all the available terrain, build every building, churn out some squads with the best armour and weapons and go after the AI who are still struggling to build much of a military even by turn 75.

Brad will churn out a perfect AI for this in a month once he'd had some time to concentrate. The current mechanics make it ideal for an AI, as you don't have to make difficult choices. Give the devs an year to add more strategy mechanics to the game, then we'll talk.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Tormy-,

reply 2

EWoM is a much more complex game than Civ4. So writing the AI for EWoM is/will be much more harder than writing the AI for Civ4.

What makes you think that? I'm seriously curious...

As other have already pointed out that doesn't appear to be the case at all

Successfully updated karma reason!

What makes you think that?

Perhaps because the AI in Civ only needs to worry about building its towns and normal troops, while Elemental's AI needs to worry about keeping its Sovereign alive, recruiting heroes, equipping heroes/sovereign, leveling heroes/sovereign, fighting monsters, doing quests, clearing goodie huts..

The games have their complexities in different mechanics. Civ doesn't have the RPG stuff that Elemental has. It's a straight up Empire builder, and that's all its AI needs to worry about. Elemental is lighter on Empire building, but heavy on the RPG elements and tactical combat, and the AI needs to worry about *all* of that.

Taking Civ4's AI and somehow plugging it into Elemental will make it fail spectacularly because it doesn't know how to do anything other than build cities, in the simplest terms. It would have no idea how to use a Sovereign, how to go and recruit champions, how to buy gear for them in the store, so on so forth. Same as how Elemental's AI would fail in Civ, since it has no clue about happiness, corruption, etc.

The two games are just too different to directly compare their AIs. Civ's depth lies in empire building mechanics, Elemental's depth lies in many of the more RPG-ish elements.

Strictly in terms of the "number of things the AI needs to do", I think Elemental will win over Civ, since it has a fair number of things that Civ doesn't have, even though it's very Civ-lite on empire/city building mechanics.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I would rate Civ4 as being 10s of times more complex then elemental... Literally.

Also the Civ 4 AI is so much better then elemental in almost every way... I doubt many people here can beat a game on Epic Vs max amounts of AI in Civ4.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

If Brad's AI got to cheat as much as Epic AI's in Civ got to cheat, no one would ever stand a chance.

Not a fair comparison at all.

You should compare the AI's at Normal for Civ IV and Challenging for Elemental

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 7

Taking Civ4's AI and somehow plugging it into Elemental will make it fail spectacularly because it doesn't know how to do anything other than build cities, in the simplest terms. It would have no idea how to use a Sovereign, how to go and recruit champions, how to buy gear for them in the store, so on so forth. Same as how Elemental's AI would fail in Civ, since it has no clue about happiness, corruption, etc.

That was never the question

As you said the games are really different, all I wanted to know was just WHY he thinks Civ is a simpler game. Many of the thing you are pointing do not appear reallly hard to me, and they actually cancel each other since Civ AI has lots of things to worry about that Elemental AI hasn't. [edit: also, Elemental AI is not very good at managing Sovereigns ATM, so I'll leave that point out...]

Resource management is much more complex in Civ, same for culture and religion, units levelling is different and much more complex in Civ.

Diplomacy allows you to do a lot of different things, victory conditions are much deeper. Even research strategies look more complex in Civ than in Elemental to me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't want to sound rude (if I did, sorry!)

I was genuinely curious about his point of view!

edit: also, the point is not wich AI is better, I was arguing about the complexity of the game. And just to point out, Elemental AI cheats too. A lot.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 7

Perhaps because the AI in Civ only needs to worry about building its towns and normal troops, while Elemental's AI needs to worry about keeping its Sovereign alive, recruiting heroes, equipping heroes/sovereign, leveling heroes/sovereign, fighting monsters, doing quests, clearing goodie huts..

I think the question here is how difficult it is to write the AI, not whether the AI of one game can handle the gameplay of another. Having said that, I fail to see how any of those things are more complicated than what AIs of most empire building games have to deal with. Keeping the king alive is a no brainer. Recruiting heroes, well that's easy - there's not much difference between them at the start aside from the one bonus they give... just decide how many you want or how much you're willing to pay and keep hiring them till done. Equipment - again, get the best you can afford. There's very little trade off in the equipment as has been pointed out many times. Always go for the best. Build a good economy so you can afford the best. Fighting... well, that's a mainstay of every 4x game. Clearing goodie huts - every 4x AI knows how to explore. Civ and others have "goodie huts" too. Doing quests - they're simply fedex quests, so accept them if you're not at war and have nothing better to do than explore. Levelling up heroes - like with Civ promotions, assign each hero a class and concentrate the stats assignment maximise their effectiveness in that class.

Balancing the thousands of variables in a typical 4x game like Civ, which even a human after years of play can only figure out by intuition, now that's a difficult AI.

Edit: I believe Noble is the "fair" difficulty in Civ and even that's much harder than Elemental on Ridiculous right now. But with a fixed AI Elemental will be much harder, but only because the game is more mathematical and easier for an AI to optimise (edit: I mean easier for an AI coder, such as Brad or Soren, not for one of us).

Successfully updated karma reason!

Thanks for posting this!

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting falconne2,

reply 11

Edit: I believe Noble is the "fair" difficulty in Civ and even that's much harder than Elemental on Ridiculous right now. But with a fixed AI Elemental will be much harder, but only because the game is more mathematical and easier for an AI to optimise.

Seconded!

Successfully updated karma reason!

Every developer knows what makes a good AI, the trick is always trying to create/implement it for a specific game. Elemental is not Civ4 or Civ5, get over it! Maybe if there is a Elemental 4 or 5 in the next 10 years, then the AI maybe as good! Don't kid yourself, the AI in Civ4 still cheats, it's just done well enough in a game that's balanced, that players don't notice!

Successfully updated karma reason!

TBH in terms of scripting it easier to do for the so called complicated stuff in Civ games (resources happiness corruption etc as with all this it as simple as just coding happiness drops below A do X, Y or Z as a priority) where for unit controlling behaviour it harder to get a balance right (IE the AI will use Sovereign as a throwaway troop or it never use it's Sovereign for anything).

The complexity of Civ is in terms of human understanding of it, how complex a game is for a human has no relevance to an AI.

You just try to workout what 145663*12434 is and compare to how easy it is for a basic calculator, but then try to hold a conversation with a "chat bot" with out said bot sprouting some kind of nonsense in response to what you told it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting pad152,

reply 14

Don't kid yourself, the AI in Civ4 still cheats, it's just done well enough in a game that's balanced, that players don't notice!

I assure you, the AI in Civ cheating is neither well done nor unnoticeable. Ever played a "Deity" game ?

Successfully updated karma reason!

As you said the games are really different, all I wanted to know was just WHY he thinks Civ is a simpler game. Many of the thing you are pointing do not appear reallly hard to me, and they actually cancel each other since Civ AI has lots of things to worry about that Elemental AI hasn't. [edit: also, Elemental AI is not very good at managing Sovereigns ATM, so I'll leave that point out...]

Well, I was responding of why I think he thought Civ was a simpler game If I was to make that argument (and I'm not, I don't like comparing games so broadly), I would point to Civ being mostly a deep "builder", and Elemental being a builder + RPG stuff. Of course, because Elemental being broader means the individual features lose depth (it's a no-brainer that Civ's city building is a lot more involved than Elemental's, for example), I personally stay away from making broad game-wide comparisons

And no, you weren't sounding rude, hopefully I wasn't either as that wasn't my intention

I think the question here is how difficult it is to write the AI, not whether the AI of one game can handle the gameplay of another. Having said that, I fail to see how any of those things are more complicated than what AIs of most empire building games have to deal with. Keeping the king alive is a no brainer.

Well, that comment was mostly aimed at the people who directly compare the AIs of the two games as one being better or worse than another. Because each needs to do very different things, I don't think it's a fair comparison. A lot of complexity is added by the number of things the AI needs to deal with, not just how complex an individual "thing" is. I think your comments grossly oversimplify the complexity of the decision making required for some of these things, though. It's a lot easier, I think, to write AI that bases its decisions on number crunching: a lot of city building - you need to keep track of corruption, happiness, etc but those are values that can easily be plugged into a formula that decides when the AI does something about it. It's a whole other ball game when you need to have the AI decide something less clear. It's true that in the most basic terms you need "best you can afford" equipment. But there are lots of other factors. For example: When should the AI go back to re-outfit (immediately after researching, or when needed)? Say immediately after researching. Okay, so now the AI's sovereign is one turn away from your city, which has poor defenses and can easily fall. But hey, it finishes research for more equipment, so it moves the Sov all the way back. Bad AI, obviously it should've taken the city. Okay, so you change it so now it looks if it can accomplish its previous order (city capture) before going back. So it captures the city. But wait, now that city needs immediate improvements, so does it buy the gear or improve the city? Is there an enemy army nearby so it needs the gear to be able to beat it, or can it spend the money on the city?

See how quickly it gets very complex for even the simplest looking things? I'm not saying the Civ AI doesn't have some decision making like this, but Elemental having its RPG focus requires the AI to make more human-like decisions. It has more to juggle and make sense of, and that does add complexity as well.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 17

And no, you weren't sounding rude, hopefully I wasn't either as that wasn't my intention

You made your point perfectly clear and didn't sound rude at all .

I wrote that because, being not a native english speaker, I sometime find difficult to sound pleasing or sarcastic [god knows I've been accused of being rude when I wanted not]

Successfully updated karma reason!

Don't forget that there were Civ I, Civ II, Civ III, Civ IV. And Civ I was released in 1991.

So they had enough time to polish the AI.

I think we don't have to wait 20 years to get a challenging AI. Let's give the developers a bit more time.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 17

Well, that comment was mostly aimed at the people who directly compare the AIs of the two games as one being better or worse than another. Because each needs to do very different things, I don't think it's a fair comparison. A lot of complexity is added by the number of things the AI needs to deal with, not just how complex an individual "thing" is. I think your comments grossly oversimplify the complexity of the decision making required for some of these things, though. It's a lot easier, I think, to write AI that bases its decisions on number crunching: a lot of city building - you need to keep track of corruption, happiness, etc but those are values that can easily be plugged into a formula that decides when the AI does something about it. It's a whole other ball game when you need to have the AI decide something less clear. It's true that in the most basic terms you need "best you can afford" equipment. But there are lots of other factors. For example: When should the AI go back to re-outfit (immediately after researching, or when needed)? Say immediately after researching. Okay, so now the AI's sovereign is one turn away from your city, which has poor defenses and can easily fall. But hey, it finishes research for more equipment, so it moves the Sov all the way back. Bad AI, obviously it should've taken the city. Okay, so you change it so now it looks if it can accomplish its previous order (city capture) before going back. So it captures the city. But wait, now that city needs immediate improvements, so does it buy the gear or improve the city? Is there an enemy army nearby so it needs the gear to be able to beat it, or can it spend the money on the city?

See how quickly it gets very complex for even the simplest looking things? I'm not saying the Civ AI doesn't have some decision making like this, but Elemental having its RPG focus requires the AI to make more human-like decisions. It has more to juggle and make sense of, and that does add complexity as well.

I disagree. You are classing everything that Civ does as "builder", and saying Elemental does "builder" and a whole bunch of other stuff. "Builder" is essentially city building, and that is more complex in Civ, but Civ also has a myriad of other things going on aside from city building which I would say (and I think most people would agree) are more complex than the RPG elements of Elemental. Addressing your point about formulas, most game AIs I know don't create long term plans and store them with the game. They make static analysis based on the current situation and do this by plugging values into formulas. Civ does it and I bet Elemental does too. The trick is how complex the formula is.

As for your re-outfit problem, that's exactly the same as an AI in Civ having to decide if it's city attack stack should be brought back into friendly territory for upgrade, because it just discovered a new tech, or keep going to the target. Usually they keep going. But when it gets there if it decides that the defenders are too strong, it's got a dilemma - does it fall back and come back with more troops, giving the defender more time to reinforce the city now that they know it's under threat, pick a different city, or just attack anyway to weaken it for the next wave. All 4x AIs must make this decision.

Your capturing city case is a good example of where more strategic depth is needed in Elemental. When you capture a city in Civ it's going to be very unproductive and riotous and it will have lost size and territory. Getting it back up and running takes valuable resources away from your blitzkrieg and it's difficult for an AI to know whether to keep going or reinforce here first. In Elemental you take over a city and you get it all... including all the territory influence. The city is 100% productive from the get-go, so all the AI has to do is leave behind the standard city garrison, as defined by it's rules for a city under threat and keep going. There's no need to worry about unhappiness or loss of tiles, because none of that happens.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Annatar11,

reply 7

What makes you think that?

Perhaps because the AI in Civ only needs to worry about building its towns and normal troops, while Elemental's AI needs to worry about keeping its Sovereign alive, recruiting heroes, equipping heroes/sovereign, leveling heroes/sovereign, fighting monsters, doing quests, clearing goodie huts..

This + other stuff like the AI in EWoM must be able to use the proper global/combat/enhancement & counter spells later on, not to mention the tactical combat. It's like a "sub-game" [chess style] within the game itself.

Now what about Civ4? Building cities/units -> expanding & taking care of culture,religions & happiness? You call this complicated? The gameplay mechanics of Civ4 are pretty simple imo.

The Civ4 AI [which is cheating like hell @ higher diff levels] is much better than the EWoM AI right now, this is pretty clear, but I wasn't talking about this at all.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Also, do not forget City upkeep. In Civ the AI has to consider his economy before and after both war and expansion, while in Elemental REXing is the way to go, new city do not cost nothing and are able to produce EVERYTHING your capital does... Except for diplomatic units, but that's a whole different story!

Quoting Tormy-,

reply 21

counter spells later on

???

Also, tactical AI is not the point here. And just to be sure, Civ combat isn't as easy as you make it. For one, it's done in the same world as the citybuilding happens, so that's a point for CIV complexity, not Elemental. It appears you are dismissing a lot of CIv's AI strong points

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting pmaura,

reply 4

your right, ewwom is much more complesx, I have to worry about city happiness, city rebellions because they have been conquered, different religeons impacting me, not to mention the constant threat of sea invasion.

Then theres the fact my latest city Dragon Horn thats built on the Edge of the Mighty Urogoan dyansties border is so enthralled with them they want to join them,

LOL! I'm not uberl33t at Civ, but I NEVER worried about sea invasions, much less the compy absorbing my cities. Sure, they could theoretically, but it happened a total of maybe once every 20 or 80 games.

Civ4's AI was a lame duck, which was compensated for with cheating. Lots and lots of compy cheating. Which was great. Playing on Emperor (and *gasp* Deity) was fun. No doubt - Civ's AI was acres beyond Total War's, but it was simple. Civ4 is great, but AI is not one of its greatest strengths.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Tormy-,

reply 21

Now what about Civ4? Building cities/units -> expanding & taking care of culture,religions & happiness? You call this complicated? The gameplay mechanics of Civ4 are pretty simple imo.

Well that's where we disagree. If I can figure out a few simple rules to blitzkrieg Elemental in 200 turns, it's not complex enough.

I know the game will be made more complex later, but I can't see what you're finding complex about it now. City building is trivial, weapons and units are trivial - always go for the best, spells are mostly the same between all books, just get the summons, a ranged spell and a global effect spell and you're good. Dynasties aren't much good except to pump out a few more heroes. As for adventuring - pop a quest hut, they tell you to go to place X, kill the monsters and bring back the goodies for a reward - not exactly taxing for an AI. Tactical warfare is predictable... you know exactly how the AI moves. It's all just... so... simple.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting divvu80,

reply 22

Also, do not forget City upkeep. In Civ the AI has to consider his economy before and after both war and expansion, while in Elemental REXing is the way to go, new city do not cost nothing and are able to produce EVERYTHING your capital does... Except for diplomatic units, but that's a whole different story!

Quoting Tormy-,
reply 21

counter spells later on

???

Also, tactical AI is not the point here. And just to be sure, Civ combat isn't as easy as you make it. For one, it's done in the same world as the citybuilding happens, so that's a point for CIV complexity, not Elemental. It appears you are dismissing a lot of CIv's AI strong points

You are overestimating the complexity of the gameplay elements of Civ4.

- counter spells -> you know, ice shield vs. fireball / x dmg type vs. y resistance type via magery [This isn't part of the game right now, but I am pretty sure that the devs will add it later on. The funny thing is, that we will be able to mod in this counter spell system AND we will be able to modify the AI as well regarding the effective use of the system...but it won't be easy...you bet! ]

Successfully updated karma reason!