Player2 on 26 March 2014
| Norris2k said: Yeah, clearly that's BS, the guy doesn't even know what he's talking about. I will make a digression on strategic IA (not theft one), I'm not even sure it's possible to have a good (strategic) AI. The reason the cpu cost is low is that it's not even an AI, it's just a (hard to code and hard coded) collection of a few tricks and scripts relying a lot on cheats. You script a build order that will execute perfectly, add some build order rules (don't build to extend max cap if you are far from it), use cheats (know where the player is, cheat on costs, know player units), and set a few attack rules (for example send units when you have 10 units if player has less than 7). You will make it more complex, with added rules and build order, but it will never be enough to give focus, game and map understanding, long term strategy. For example in Starcraft the AI will follow a predefined and optimal build order, and send units to you, directly to your base (no fog of war). The idea is to put you at a disadvantage that will make the battle harder (or even beat you), and the AI seems better. At some point, as the AI has no focus, no strategy, no understanding of what battle it can win or lose, and does not even have micro management. It just follow unrelated and suicidal directives, so you will overcome and prevail. With some experience, you will be able to manage it to the point you can handle 4 to 7 AI. 1 versus 4 is a lot more than 4 times more powerfull, it's something you can't achieve with players that have more than 10 hours of training. Go beyond that seems extremely difficult. For example, the go game is very simple compared to a computer game. Only 1 unit, very simple rules easy to code, and a very limited and regular board : 19x19. Lots of people are trying to make an AI, and so far the results are not really impressive. It's not even real time. Chess was solved by brute force, a solution based on search tree because the number of possibility (what you can do in one turn) is limited enough in term of possible moves at every step... to have a super computer from top 500... search for the next move for one unit... in 5 minutes ! |
Well, he has never worked on a strategy game IA ;)
"(...)A single-player strategy game will live or die based on its AI. I've never written something like this (...)"
He thinks that strategy IA is a context-sensitive IA that plays by the rules, which of course would take a lot of effort from the devs, hence why what you explained is what it's used.
The article's bottom line doesn't change though, more power won't improve IA, the ball is on the devs' roof.
