AI vs Artificially Human

External Since: Oct 02, 2005 Posts: 762

Im glad to see advancement in the AI but I want to put this out here.

In games, artificial inteligance takes on a new meaning. In other
applications, the most efficient means of achieving something is the
goal. But in games, that makes for a predictable opponent.

Having many different AI with many different playing styles can help.

Having the game recognize certain changes in the game and changing plans
accordingly can help.

But both of those can pile on the code. So a simpler way to "humanize" an
AI is to add randoms. And a way to make randoms seem to be a "plan" is to
multi-level it. If making 100 of something is the right choice for
"artificial intelligence". Then at the beginning of the game it rolls ZX
between 0 and 40. Then the 100 becomes 80+ZX (range of 80 to 140) and the
multi-level "plan" is that the 100 becomes 80+(random of 0 to ZX) which
means that a ZX defines the tendency, or the "plan" but it still
randomizes with that.

Im still not an expert at this particular game so if any examples are
insane for vgap4, just wave it off. But Im thinking of variations between
how much defense vs how much offense, and a direction of expansion, and
how much pickiness for planets it settles.

So for plans Im thinking we might see spreading in a circle, settle
everything, and seek out opponents.

Or maybe colonize deeply seeking out only perfect planets and building up
defenses

Or colonize in a cone going one direction (very different results
depending on if the cone is toward center or away from it) while building
ships, then when someone else is located swarm forth like a bursting dam

Just rambling
Gandalf Parker

External Since: Dec 09, 2004 Posts: 353

Randomness is definitely a factor.

Also the amount of time that a computer opponent has to process their
turn would determine the skill level. An novice AI player may only be
allowed to complete its turn in 1 minute while an expert level AI would
have 10 minutes.

Also, AI decisions should be put into a database to keep track of what
it is doing from turn to turn so it continues on a particular target
plan over the course of turns. Another way to simulate some randomness
there is to randomly delete one of those entries in the database, so
that the computer player "forgets" what it was doing and has to process
that again.

In my opinion, AI actions need to be put into priorities based on race
and game situations. Those that are highest take precidence in getting
processed and put into the long term plans database. The rest may not
get processed due to time constraints.

Magik