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Cainehill said:
Eh - since when did the HoMM series have _any_ effective AI?
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List any complex game and I can guarantee topics exist complaining about the AI. Even in the GalCiv_2 the weaker AI would trade money for less money... LOL
The AI in Gal Civ 2 has so many flaws that the gamers have even requested an option to turn off Tech Trading.
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Cainehill said:
Simple player mode is campaigns, in which the only difficulty is caused by the computer having huge advantages over the human player, to the point that many scenarios essentially can't be beaten unless the human player follows one _exact_ path of buying city improvements, troops, grabbing resources, etc.
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Now you're missing a big part of the SP mode in Heroes_3. The campaign editor... which allowed many unique campaigns to be made. These campaigns can be setup to be more challenging then just brute force... I can post a topic on the Heroes forums which will have many gamers listing campaigns which provide more than what you've listed. Heroes_3 is a successful SP and MP game.
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Cainehill said:
Similarly, after the original Warlords, despite much vaunted AI routines in the games, the AI really rotted - the only challenge was in fighting superior numbers every time, winning because the computer AI didn't know how to put together effective stacks.
And with RTS games, the computer AI tends to #1, cheat, #2, be much more capable of giving orders to every unit regardless of location on the map - it's a situation where computing brute force, rather than good AI, provides a challenge.
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Even games that focused on just SP have poor AI... as seen even with Gal Civ 2. One of the most advanced games with AI opponents is Civ_4... and even this has AI weaknesses.
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Cainehill said:
I'm waiting to hear a TBS that was good both in SP and MP, that didn't rely on scripted scenarios for the SP game (ie, Disciples, Age of Wizards(Wonders?), etc.
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Unfortunately no complex games provide a good AI... name a game and guaranteed topics on a forum exist listing AI weaknesses such as the AI trading money for less money. Currently the best AI opponents are even below average... some may seem smart at first but once the players discover their patterns the weaknesses soon appear as well. My theory is the next great AI will actually have to record the actions done by the human player and then merge the data with its own strategy or examine the data and develop a counter strategy... unfortunately I doubt we'll see this within our lifetime.
In any case since a funky workaround hotseat currently exists within Gal Civ 2... I don't see any reason the developers don't make this feature available.
** EDIT
complex games mean more complex than Chess or Chinese Checkers... basically games along the same design as Heroes 3 and beyond.