Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: thvaz on August 27, 2008, 02:10:37 pm

Quote

Tormy, since he's his brother I'd smash thvaz in his head for such words about your brother . But your brother was not right in aspect of this thread being pointless. Well, really, he could PM Toady asking why is he so slow and get some answers (maybe and if he were polite). But making it a public discussion is rather... strange.

Well, I got angry by his post and call him a jerk, you got angry at my post and want to smash my head? This is what I call escalating violence.

And though many agreed with him about the apparent stagnation of developement, no one said he has reasons to be so unpolite against Toady and his work.

And if he acts in life in the same way he complained in his post, gimli is indeed a jerk.

I don't want to touch your head with a finger, I'm quet and in a good mood. I just was a bit Amuzed by Tormy's patience. Well, he knows his brother better .

Ahah, its ok, if one thing is pointless in life, that is arguing/flaming on the internet. 
[Plus my brother tends to be quite offensive even in real life, this opening post what he has made is actually very calm from him ]

OT - Nice fortress design there. 

Quote from: Tormy on August 27, 2008, 10:52:49 am

Quote from: Zemat on August 26, 2008, 04:03:14 pm

Quote from: Tormy on August 26, 2008, 03:32:10 pm

Quote from: shuger on August 26, 2008, 12:19:40 pm

Actually AI is not easy to code, ever wondered why commercial games progress so slowly in this matter? Because it's hard..

Actually no...in the last few years all games has been released with weak AIs. Why? Hell knows..there were games in the past with excellent AIs.
Try out Knights of Legend, its a 15+ years old RPG, it came on a few floppy disks...check out the combat, the AI is able to kick your ass. It is making excellent decisions all the time. Well well, programmers knew how to code back in the old days it seems.

The problem with modern coders isn't that they are sloppy with the AI. It's that the environments they work with now are more complex than before. So coding the same advanced behavior takes much more time and resources (both CPU and memory) than it used to. In the end they must settle for passable AI instead. But even then, coding AI, as coding anything else game-logic-wise, is like building a house of cards. You just set any parameter wrong and the game goes to hell. See what happened with Oblivion and their much publicized Radiant-AI. It ended up being a mere shadow of what it was supposed to be. Most behaviors are scripted (when it was supposed to have almost no scripting in the AI) and still the characters tend to go nuts and do silly and stupid things (DF style) with their non-scripted behavior if you push them (figuratively) a little.

Old games were very simple and gamers didn't expect too much of them. You just added a minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning or A* to your AI and it would do wonders with it. And even then most game AIs didn't use (and still don't use) something as complex as minimax. I cannot even imagine how could you add minimax or A* to a realtime game like an RTS or FPS. The preferred way to make AIs more difficult is by adding more HPs and making their weapons more dangerous.

Actually, I would like to mention Civilization 4: BtS. Combine it with the FfH 2. mod, make a custom game with like 8 AI players at Emperor level at least, and you will see some decent AI. I am seriously surprised by the BtS AI. If an AI player declare war on you, it will attack with huge forces. I am not kidding, I constaly see 50+ units big AI army stacks, and not one but more. The AI is also attacking from more directions, it is summoning units/casting spells, promoting his units perfectly, so its really neat. If you will be at war vs. an AI..you will have a very hard time to survive.
In my current game theres a global war. 4 factions [3 AIs + me] vs. 4 factions [4 AIs]. Its just plain awesome to be honest, and I am lucky that my territories are far from the actual battlefronts...since the other team of 4 AIs is attacking with like 400+ units constantly, but me + my 3 AI "allies" managed to defend against them so far. [..and to be honest its not because of me, since I have the smallest military  ]
I dont know that the AI is cheating or not [if true not in BtS], but the strategical army is just plain amazing. You should try it out.

Even though I am a civilization fan... dont use type bts without telling us it means "beyond the sword" first... and I dont even know the ffh2mod is... (wut is it?!?!?!)

bts = Beyond the Sword [expansion], ffh2 = Fall from Heaven 2 [fantasy mod]

Quote from: Tormy on August 26, 2008, 03:32:10 pm

Quote from: shuger on August 26, 2008, 12:19:40 pm

Actually AI is not easy to code, ever wondered why commercial games progress so slowly in this matter? Because it's hard..

Actually no...in the last few years all games has been released with weak AIs. Why? Hell knows..there were games in the past with excellent AIs.
Try out Knights of Legend, its a 15+ years old RPG, it came on a few floppy disks...check out the combat, the AI is able to kick your ass. It is making excellent decisions all the time. Well well, programmers knew how to code back in the old days it seems.

I cordially disagree, there are some exceptions.  GalCiv2 has mostly reasonable AI - because the developers regularly take user feedback on its weaknesses and update it to match.  Much like the "perpetual alpha" state of DF.

Ah yes, perhaps I shouldve wrote "most of the new games" instead of all of them. Yes indeed Galciv2 AI is quite good.

Uh, I really dont know, I think that his problem is the lack of new gameplay content. He said something like that at least.

I think that this is mainly because of the game itself...this game is "only" played by a small number of dedicated people basically.
Most of the people who just try out the game are scared away ASAP by the ASCII + interfance + complexity of the game.

Quote from: Tormy on August 26, 2008, 03:32:10 pm

Quote from: shuger on August 26, 2008, 12:19:40 pm

Actually AI is not easy to code, ever wondered why commercial games progress so slowly in this matter? Because it's hard..

Actually no...in the last few years all games has been released with weak AIs. Why? Hell knows..there were games in the past with excellent AIs.
Try out Knights of Legend, its a 15+ years old RPG, it came on a few floppy disks...check out the combat, the AI is able to kick your ass. It is making excellent decisions all the time. Well well, programmers knew how to code back in the old days it seems.

The problem with modern coders isn't that they are sloppy with the AI. It's that the environments they work with now are more complex than before. So coding the same advanced behavior takes much more time and resources (both CPU and memory) than it used to. In the end they must settle for passable AI instead. But even then, coding AI, as coding anything else game-logic-wise, is like building a house of cards. You just set any parameter wrong and the game goes to hell. See what happened with Oblivion and their much publicized Radiant-AI. It ended up being a mere shadow of what it was supposed to be. Most behaviors are scripted (when it was supposed to have almost no scripting in the AI) and still the characters tend to go nuts and do silly and stupid things (DF style) with their non-scripted behavior if you push them (figuratively) a little.

Old games were very simple and gamers didn't expect too much of them. You just added a minimax algorithm with alpha-beta pruning or A* to your AI and it would do wonders with it. And even then most game AIs didn't use (and still don't use) something as complex as minimax. I cannot even imagine how could you add minimax or A* to a realtime game like an RTS or FPS. The preferred way to make AIs more difficult is by adding more HPs and making their weapons more dangerous.

Actually, I would like to mention Civilization 4: BtS. Combine it with the FfH 2. mod, make a custom game with like 8 AI players at Emperor level at least, and you will see some decent AI. I am seriously surprised by the BtS AI. If an AI player declare war on you, it will attack with huge forces. I am not kidding, I constaly see 50+ units big AI army stacks, and not one but more. The AI is also attacking from more directions, it is summoning units/casting spells, promoting his units perfectly, so its really neat. If you will be at war vs. an AI..you will have a very hard time to survive.
In my current game theres a global war. 4 factions [3 AIs + me] vs. 4 factions [4 AIs]. Its just plain awesome to be honest, and I am lucky that my territories are far from the actual battlefronts...since the other team of 4 AIs is attacking with like 400+ units constantly, but me + my 3 AI "allies" managed to defend against them so far. [..and to be honest its not because of me, since I have the smallest military  ]
I dont know that the AI is cheating or not [if true not in BtS], but the strategical army is just plain amazing. You should try it out.

Suggested before. Good idea though, hence why it keeps coming up.

Indeed it was suggested, just like many other siege related stuff. Toady surely knows about them.

AND MY AXE! 

Actually, both are very Dwarfy. Though mattocks would be even Dwarfier. Like the Iron Hills Dwarves had in the Battle of Five Armies in The Hobbit.

Yes both, I agree, still axes are more fun! Chopped down limbs everywhere!