So...the customers wont be cheated this time?

[MStavros]

600, 800 or 1500 units, it wont make a huge difference. Basically most of the units are cannon fodders, or we aint using them at all strategically.
The galciv2 AI is much, MUCH better then the Dominions 2 AI generally. There are weaknesses in it of course, but those are mostly player exploits. I am pretty sure that the Galciv2 team knows about those player exploits and those will be fixed, maybe in patch 1.1, hence they are saying that the AI will be upgraded again, probably they gonna add AI counters for those "exploit tactics", like the hit with fast ships/planet bombing/run tactic.
Like I said the galciv 2 AI generally much better, especially if you fight against 3+ AIs on the hardest settings, it is almost impossible to win, I am usually ending up on a 2+ front war, and you cant win that in Galciv2. In Dominions 2, I could hold 3+ AIs alone without much probs on the hardest settings.

So all in all, lets wait for the doms 3 demo, and we can decide to buy the game or not. I am pretty sure that many players would buy this game for singleplayer, may I ask that how many players who bought Dominions 2 were playing multi games? I was checking out this side, and I only seen a "few" ongoing games most of the times/AARs about mp games.

I just hope that the devs can fix the Doms 2 AI errors, I am very very happy that they gonna do something with the AI castle building thing at least, that is a good start indeed.

[Gandalf Parker]

Brad has been mentioned in AI professional documents for as long as AI has had any. I was reading about him years before he finally decided that Windows had improved enough to run a trimmed down version of his GalCiv game. Most of the complaints about GalCiv are more from the fact that its AI with a game attached later. Most games tend to be a game with AI attached later. Of course now people are also complaining that adding mltiplayer should be a simple no-brainer (hahahahha WRONG!).

My perfect game would involve bits of many games but I doubt anyone would be able to put it all together into one game. I suspect that Dominions will always be a turn-based send-file hosting multi-player strategy game. That pretty much defines what it will and wont do easily.

But I wouldnt mind a solo-player game with the rock-paper-scissors balance of Dominions and its effort to support so many diffrent tactical styles, the ai of GalCiv, the huge randomized setups of Magic Realm, the player-side moddability of SEIV, the storyline depth of King of Dragons Pass, and run on Linux & Windows.

[MStavros]

Gandalf Parker said:
Brad has been mentioned in AI professional documents for as long as AI has had any. I was reading about him years before he finally decided that Windows had improved enough to run a trimmed down version of his GalCiv game. Most of the complaints about GalCiv are more from the fact that its AI with a game attached later. Most games tend to be a game with AI attached later. Of course now people are also complaining that adding mltiplayer should be a simple no-brainer (hahahahha WRONG!).

My perfect game would involve bits of many games but I doubt anyone would be able to put it all together into one game. I suspect that Dominions will always be a turn-based send-file hosting multi-player strategy game. That pretty much defines what it will and wont do easily.

But I wouldnt mind a solo-player game with the rock-paper-scissors balance of Dominions and its effort to support so many diffrent tactical styles, the ai of GalCiv, the huge randomized setups of Magic Realm, the player-side moddability of SEIV, the storyline depth of King of Dragons Pass, and run on Linux & Windows.

Like I said, I barely seen many MP games on the MP/AAR section for this game. Sure there are a couple of PBEM games going usually, but its like nothing. I mean probably much much more people bought Doms 2, who only played the singleplayer part. I dont think that a turb based game should force a player to play it PBEM. Personally I hate PBEM games, they are way to slow. I also know that there cant be other option for MP for this game, hence 1 turn takes enormous amount of time sometime. Thats all good. However Gandalf... if your opinion would be valid, the game's features are fake. It should be something like... "PBEM multiplayer game with a singleplayer learning segment", but surely not "challenging AI" for singleplayer. I meant Dominions 2. We shall see how it turns out for Dominions 3.

Btw may I ask the developers, that why the AI problems were not fixed ever in this game? Dominions 2 is an old game, but we havent seen a single major fix for the AI, like a castle building fix for the AI etc. etc.
I found it very odd, but after a few tries I gave up posting my ideas about the AI on these forums, hence the devs couldnt be bothered by the AI in Dominions 2. I had a feeling like the devs are like this. "here you got this AI, live with it."

[Kristoffer O]

> "here you got this AI, live with it."

Yep

[MStavros]

Kristoffer O said:
> "here you got this AI, live with it."

Yep

!! You cant be serious Kristofer. I hope that you are just kidding, I mean what is the point in NOT fixing an AI?

[Gandalf Parker]

The fact that they did continual fixings on the MP part of an MP game? And as far as I know, most people who have dominions are playing mp games even if its just friends nad family with no need for public scoreboards. You sem to feel you are the voice of the silent majority but I dont know if anyone is agreing with that.

I thought that the AI thing in dom2 was answered long ago. Its linear so there isnt much fix that can be done without a massive rewrite. And I asked continually for players to develop a better linear layout for the ai that didnt amount to teaching it how to play just one nation better.

MY request was for a map command that would allow map scenarios to add castles that were freebie giveaways. A #patrol or a #defence 21 type of command. Im still hoping for that

[Nerfix]

And well, a two man team must focus on certain things. I'm not sure if the expansion of Illwinter is what the two want, or if it is economicaly feasible.

[MStavros]

Gandalf Parker said:
The fact that they did continual fixings on the MP part of an MP game?

Well the feature list was fake then. It clearly stated "very good AI". Not to mention that they forgot to mention "We wont care about the singleplayer part after the release."
Just tell me Gandalf that I am not correct.
Anyways this is the past, the future can be better, lets hope...Dominions 3 can be different in support.

[Kristoffer O]

MStavros said:

!! You cant be serious Kristofer. I hope that you are just kidding, I mean what is the point in NOT fixing an AI?

Can't I
There are exactly seven points in NOT fixing the AI.
Three of them are PR related.
Three are secret.
Last tone has to do with strange cults and the orbital mind control lasers of the swedish 'Svärmöga', who sees it all.

Seriously though: there is no *point* in not fixing stuff. Fixing is good. That is why people do it from time to time.

[Oversway]

Both of these would be doable if the format for .trn and .2h files were released.

Perhaps the AI should be given some "recipes" that it seeks

Then Id like to see changes made which would heavily support 3rd party scripting. Im not much interested in Dom3 for multiplayer but Id be VERY interested if it got to the point that really involved scripts that made the host take hours to do a turn could be generated. That would turn the AI into something exciting.

I think the main concern is cheating, but you already can cheat even without the information.

I know others have asked for this, although I never saw an offical response. Perhaps there is some problem that I'm not aware of. The community could make some interesting AIs with this info.