Good game, but....the AI is very bad.

[guybrush threepwood]

Hi,

First, I certainly think that every krone spent on this captivating game has been spent well!

And I certainly understand that the AI can be an extremely difficult thing to come up with good algorithms for.

But I just wanted to point out that improvements to the AI would certainly be highly appreciated by many people. If it is possible to find the time to do it of course.

Anyway, I find comments about "not getting what you paid for" hard to comprehend.

Cheers,
Thomas

[proteus]

1. I am NOT MStavros he is my older brother, and we are using one computer.
He introduced Dominions II. to me, and you know what?? We bought 2 copies not just one !!!!. I am playing multi games with him usually.
I didnt knew about his old topic, so Ive started a new, after we had a discussion about the AI at home.

I am a kinda new D2 player, I have like 2 months of experience, and I love the complexity of it.

I think that this is positive critism, isnt it??
Scripting must be hard I am totally sure, but this is nonsense to me still. Half year and no AI improvements....definitely not a good way to raise the 'fame' of IW.

Mr Parker, if you are a solo player, I simply cant understand your points at all. Even I can beat the crap out of this AI easily, and I am a newbie compared to you.
So what is the fun for you in the SP than?

IMHO the devs should make a statement, that they wont raise the quality of the AI, and people like me, who would like to enjoy the SP part as well will shut up once and for all, and play lot less with Doms II. [Only MP if we will have time for it.]
However I really hope that the devs wont forget about the lot of SP fans...eh well for 6 months they did actually.

You know I am reading that old topic, what my brother mentioned and all of those hella old problems with the AI are still not solved.
Perhaps IW should hire a new coder, if the current coder doesnt have the time to upgrade the AI...because it seems so..

[Norfleet]

You seem to believe that AI coding is easy, and that you can just "hire another coder".

I'm sorry to inform you that this is not the case. AI coding is damn hard, and even if you hire some overpaid code monkey, there's no guarantee he won't produce something which sucks even more. Name ONE game that has truly had good AI. Then tell me what its production budget was.

Do you think Illwinter can afford that?

[ May 08, 2004, 23:03: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[proteus]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

What I dont like is to see people saying its broke, making it sound like some falsified rip-off, demanding work be done on it, and generally turning it into something that the devs dont want to touch (well one dev programmer actually). Its not the subject I disagree with, its the tactics. Not only do I think they wont work well, I think they go in the opposite direction.

I apologize I never wanted to be 'demanding'. Simply this is my opinion.
I respect IW and their work, the game is really good. The only thing what I dont like, that the Doms II. AI improvement idea is totally dropped as I see.

A dev comment that it might be fixed...however they cannot guarantee it after lot of months..made me pissed.
So sorry for the tone of my Posts, but that made me very angry.

[proteus]

double post sorry.

[ May 08, 2004, 23:12: Message edited by: proteus ]

[proteus]

Indeed the game is complex -> hard to make a good AI.
there are lot better AIs for various games, take a look at HoMM3 for example.
It is not as complex that is true, but there the comp is making huge and strong armies, its really decent. Also it is using them very well.

Just go and play with it on harder settings you will have hard days, I guarantee it.

The Doms2 AI is hella weak compared to the homm3 AI for example. These little light infantry armies and the various other AI problems wont offer a little challenge at all.
I guess -as someone said- lot of people would be thankful for AI improvements, lot of people bought the game to play and enjoy the SP part as well, the game was advertised as a sp-mp game.
The core game had a bad AI, but why do we have a bad AI after a half year still? THIS is the real question here.

[ May 08, 2004, 23:13: Message edited by: proteus ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Name ONE game that has truly had good AI.

Other than games where a decision tree can be mapped out for all possible combinations of moves like Chess, I don't think that such a thing exists anywhere.