The lazy AI developer

Published on September 23, 2009 By Frogboy In Elemental Dev Journals

The AI in Galactic Civilizations I and II has tended to get a lot of praise over the years. But it could have been better. Much better.

A big reason that kept it from being better was sheer laziness on my part. A lot of the best strategies involve algorithms that just are tedious to write.

For example, I submitted feedback to GPG for Demigod’s AI based on algorithms I knew would be effective but that I didn’t actually use in GalCiv because they were a pain to write.

My favorite example is a pretty straight forward algorithm: What is the strength of an enemy in a given area compared to mine? You provide the unit in question and a radius and it returns a value based on the relative damage potential of other things in the area and from that you can decide whether to move forward or not.

It’s a great way to mobilize units together as a cohesive mass. In Demigod, it would tend to make the AI less likely to go into harm’s way. This is one tiny example and each tiny example on its own is easy to write but taken together, they mean a lot of work that I wasn’t able to get to (or didn’t want to get to) in Galactic Civilizations.

In Elemental things are different. Oh, I’m still lazy. Dangerously lazy. But now I have Charles to work with who helps split the work on this stuff. On our previous games, I wrote the AI myself – The Politial Machine, GalCiv, Entrepreneur, etc. This time, I have a small team to help me with it.

Part of that is because the AI in Elemental is a very big deal. People are excited about the features of Elemental but to me, those features are meaningless unless there are computer players that make good use of those features. Or more to the point, intelligent use of them. While Elemental will have multiplayer (up to 32 people for starters), the focus of the game is single player. That’s the part of the game I want to make sure we absolutely nail and for that, it absolutely must have intelligent computer players.

Over the past 15 years I’ve built up an increasing library of algorithms I’ve doodled together for how computer players could play more like expert humans. Elemental will be my first real chance to see them come to life. I’m very excited.

Comments (Page 1)

TheGreatTurtle

on Sep 23, 2009

I think that it's awesome that there is a developer out there that is totally committed to substance over style. I definately believe that the longlevity of a single player game is directly linked to the challenge it can pose to a motivated human mind. I must say I have yet to be disappionted by stardocks commitment to quality in this regard. I am unashamedly a fanboy.

edpfister

on Sep 23, 2009

Silicor

on Sep 23, 2009

This is the reason I preordered... the promise of challenging AI. No matter how much I try online games, my schedule is best suited to playing against artificial life forms. I can't wait to start testing gameplay

Rishkith

on Sep 23, 2009

So uh, what is the patch schedule like? We're already sold, just don't know how many times I can re-test the same bugs

Not trying to rush you (Wait, am I?) but we're very eager to see everything in action on the tester end.

Tormy-

on Sep 23, 2009

We're also very excited!

Icepick

on Sep 23, 2009

And that Sir, is the main reason I purchase your products. There are of course many reasons, but your committment to a quality, single player experience is what I like the most.

Silicor

on Sep 23, 2009

To edphister... I tend to agree with you about the personality of AI. Personally, I think having AI with different goals would achieve this end. There should be more than 1 path of victory in this game such as dominant armies, diplomacy, superior technology, etc.. Having the AI base decisions on these goals would be a good start, but even that can become predictable. Another idea is to have the AI goals change over the course of the game which would make it much more unpredictable.

One area that has to have a lot of attention is army movement. All too often a human player will recognize patterns and use them to defeat AI.

ed anger

on Sep 23, 2009

very cool.

One thing I would really like to see with regards to AI is that not all computer players play the same. Have different personalities and add some randomness.

this.

Sycraft

on Sep 23, 2009

I have to agree that great computer AI is key. Multiplayer is fun and all, but I don't really care for it in turn based strategy. I like the big epic games that take weeks to play and that is hard to arrange with other people. A good AI is really important to me.

Another reason a good AI is important is I want it to be challenging without cheating. I've never liked games where the AI has to cheat badly (higher production, better trade with other AIs, etc) to be hard. I want one that can be, well if not hard at least reasonably good, while still playing on the same footing I'm on.

So I'm glad to hear you guys are working to have a great AI. I think that alone will make Elemental a game worth owning.

joasoze

on Sep 23, 2009

This post by the frog would make me buy the game right now, if I hadnt already

daedalao

on Sep 23, 2009

I'm laughing because this is the one thing my brother and I asked Frogboy at PAX. We were discussing AI development while he was playing with Volcanic Upheaval. Pretty sweet getting a chance to talk to the man himself.

Frogboy

on Sep 23, 2009

In GalCiv there were 6 different AI personalities. Literally different C++ code for the entire AI so that they played.

There were a lot of debates over whether the Drengin AI was smarter than the Altarian AI for instance.

ckessel

on Sep 23, 2009

Frogboy

reply 12

One thing I would really like to see with regards to AI is that not all computer players play the same. Have different personalities and add some randomness. I'd personally rather have a game that feels like I'm playing against different humans using different strategies than to play against an "expert" that always uses the optimal path. This is the thing that I think is the biggest problem in game AI right now in general.

In GalCiv there were 6 different AI personalities. Literally different C++ code for the entire AI so that they played.

There were a lot of debates over whether the Drengin AI was smarter than the Altarian AI for instance.

Cool. Particularly in a single player game, I'd rather have more varied behavior (focus/goal) in my AI opponents even if some aren't quite as tough a challenge as others. Having X AI's who are all top notch, but nearly identical in behavior, makes the game feel more sterile and less "alive".

Tormy-

on Sep 23, 2009

I think that Kohan was the first game which had different AI personalities. [Plus you could create new AI personalities also via coding/scripting]. It was fun...as I remember some player created a very good AI, it was much better than the vanilla AIs..even the devs admitted it.

Anyways, I really like this topic. Hopefully Frogboy and the team will create some asskicking AIs....because that is what we need. Not that I won't play multiplayer games, but I also like singleplayer.

Jvstin

on Sep 23, 2009

I loved Kohan. It kicked my tail up and down for the longest while, but it was definitely a favorite for me too.

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