Kaziglu Bey
Mortal
posted 29 July 2002 09:10 AM
EDT (US)
4 / 47
Quality AI means worlds to my gaming experience too. Although some of the new elements that ES brings into this game will make it a quite complex scene for the AI to analyse, I'm still certain that they will show us something that is impressive. After recently trying out several RTS games with nothing but disappointing AI I'm really hoping for them to score big and get recognition in this area. Reviewers in general talk far too little about this aspect. The AI of AoE2 is still having a pretty strong position, wich I kind of hoped that the rest of the RTS industry would have made the base level by now. But I guess it proves that AI is a difficult thing. So undoubtedly the AoM AI will also have some shortcomings that can be exploited just as others do, but given the complexity of the game it should be nothing to complain about.
CDooku
Mortal
posted 29 July 2002 09:40 AM
EDT (US)
6 / 47
I don't know anything about computer programming, but I realize that it will be very difficult for the AI to use god powers and choose minor gods according to the game situation. That is just a very humanlike thing to do. However, I know that ES will do its best and I think I will be impressed with their final product.
petard_rusher
Mortal
posted 29 July 2002 04:16 PM
EDT (US)
12 / 47
AIs are always predictable... those kind of rules govern lots of adanvced stuff in AoK AIs (such as if you see this many knights, build pikes). The thing is there is so many that no person could memorize them all, also you could vary them up a little so that at the beggining it chooses a number, or it chooses between hitting the enemy base or his army.. etc. But stuff like that that adds randomness also adds more code, and they only have a limited amount of time to make the AI and they have to make it work on fairly bad computers (basically it cannot be very long or it would take too much proccessor speed).
petard_rusher
Mortal
posted 29 July 2002 05:18 PM
EDT (US)
15 / 47
Immhotep give 10 programers a few years and an unlimited amount of processor and they could make an AI that would blow your socks off. They could make an AI so close to perfect that no human would stand a chance (think of chess comp proggiess.. better than any person but take the best processors available to run). Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it), that's not gonna happen.
petard_rusher
Mortal
posted 29 July 2002 05:29 PM
EDT (US)
17 / 47
Immhotep trust me on this, it wouldn't be all that hard to make an incredibly good AI; it would just have so many options to go over that no normal processor could handle it.
Kaziglu Bey
Mortal
posted 30 July 2002 10:06 PM
EDT (US)
21 / 47
Designing a great AI takes time and resources. Not only does it have to be made by a gifted team of designers and programmers, it has to be fitting into the game as well. The more complex the game the harder it is to do it, because the more "real" AI is needed and less "scripting of events" can be relied upon. But hardware is not a limitation when it comes to games. Here's an example. Over the last 2-3 years the generic level of processing power in computers have more than doubled, but games released to day does in fact not have much more advanced AI than they did 2-3 years ago. Quite a few gamers may think so however, because most gamers don't have much of an idea of what game AI really is. For instance they confuse the ability to beat a human player with the quality of the core of the AI.
AzN
Forumer
(id: AznKnightmare)
posted 30 July 2002 10:29 PM
EDT (US)
22 / 47
The level of AI has infact became much better. A great example of that would be Halo for Xbox. It has probably the most advanced AI you will ever see in a FPS for a long time to come. If you thorw a gernade, the Elite will jump out of the way, while the peons will wobble away (which usually does not help, but at least they do). If you throw a sticky gernade on them, they will run away from the group, and sacrafice only themselves. If you keep firing, they will hide until you reload, much like humans do. The AI never gets stick in corners. They dodge and they call for backup. They even hide to recharge thier shield in areas that is hard to reach. This is the closest to a newbie human AI has ever gotten. So yes, AI has improved a great bit, FOR CONSOLES! Why do we not have such great AI for computers? Because not everyone has the same specs, and not everyone can handle it. For consoles though, everything is uniform. So you can push the envelope for everyone. If this were to happen to PC Games, I would think 75% of all people with computers couldnt play the game.
Kaziglu Bey
Mortal
posted 30 July 2002 10:40 PM
EDT (US)
23 / 47
Halo is not "a console game". It was primarily going to be released on the Mac and the PC, but then Microsoft bought Bungie, who was making the game. Now they're holding it back to boost Xbox games because it's one of a few really good games that exists for it. Consoles in general have a very uninspiring level of pure processing power, so any PC game released at the same time can be expected to have by far most of its customers using at least as capable hardware. Bungie made a great job and they stand out from the crowd of game makers, but that's all about that.