does the AI actually play the game?

[DrwHem]

so i have been noticing through several playthrus now that the AI seems unimpeded by supply issues.
the first thing i do when an AI declares war on me is send my entire fleet to the new world and wipe all their colonies. this should cripple their income eventually as they lose access to rum, cotton, gold and oil but i hardly notice any change at all.
the AI still beat me to steam ships, despite having no new world colonies producing oil.
Does the AI even play the game? or do they just get cheat buffer resources?

[kubluu]

In Anno games the AI is just a part of the scenery, they are not real opponents.
In some ways it hurts the immersion when you discover that they are just an empty shell that can generate supplies out of thin air.
In this day and age it should be relatively easy to train a bot to play the game. But the developers have a completely different focus.

[Hundinger]

Este comentario está esperando un análisis de nuestro sistema de verificación automática de contenido. Estará oculto temporalmente hasta que comprobemos que no incluye contenido dañino (por ejemplo, enlaces a sitios web que intenten robar información).

[Dracon]

If you want real challange play against 3 players.

[Prester]

Publicado originalmente por Rhedd:

I play this game with zero AI opponents. Problem solved. >_>

I've been weird like that ever since my first game, where I finally sent a ship to discover the New World, and when it got there, every island was a thriving colony developed by my easy-medium opponents. That'll teach me to take my time and learn the game! (Or teach me that I don't need the AI to have fun managing my supply chains.)

this is a lie since AI doesnt settle on maps not yet discovered. the AI sucks, but so do lying pricks.

[Ubi-Thorlof]

Publicado originalmente por Prester:

Publicado originalmente por Rhedd:

I play this game with zero AI opponents. Problem solved. >_>

I've been weird like that ever since my first game, where I finally sent a ship to discover the New World, and when it got there, every island was a thriving colony developed by my easy-medium opponents. That'll teach me to take my time and learn the game! (Or teach me that I don't need the AI to have fun managing my supply chains.)

this is a lie since AI doesnt settle on maps not yet discovered. the AI sucks, but so do lying pricks.

Please check your language.

And no, Rhedd is correct, the AI is able to settle new regions before the player. This depends on player progression (there are certain triggers and timers) and difficulty of said AI.

[General Malaise]

Publicado originalmente por Ubi-Thorlof:

Publicado originalmente por Prester:

this is a lie since AI doesnt settle on maps not yet discovered. the AI sucks, but so do lying pricks.

Please check your language.

And no, Rhedd is correct, the AI is able to settle new regions before the player. This depends on player progression (there are certain triggers and timers) and difficulty of said AI.

But I play on Expert, and I don't think I'm really very good at the game.

When I get to The New World, there's generally one or two islands settled, but plenty left for me. It's also very easy to defeat an enemy island. If they've got a few of those flame throwers, wait until you get battle cruisers to take them out. Not only do they get less damage from them, but they outrange them too. It's not hard to build up a fleet of SoTL or Battle Cruisers, just be patient, and take whatever islands you like.

Since I've done quests for Gasparov & Graves, I'm fine with them. I've taken Lady Hunts main island, and will use it for industry when I get round to it.

The only thing hard really, is the challenge of multi tasking. Whenever you're trying to get something done, it's: Ship under attack, ship under attack, worker shortage, your people are getting sick. So even when you get past the difficult phase of struggling for $ and don't need Propaganda anymore - it's still difficult to get things done. I wanted to develop Prosperity to deliver oil to Lady Hunts old main island days ago, and I've still not done it.

It really is a game to stress you to the limit.

[123]

This actually explain why i always lose on 3 star mode
And that ai that on war with everyone
Only have one island in new world for very long time
Still can afford ship of the line here and there

[ElPrezCBF]

Publicado originalmente por Sagi:

In there defence this is quite a hard game to design a proper AI for. +Ai can always be abused in there errors. Try not to think you are competing against a human player but against an ai.

I know that but the AI can simply be given bonuses while playing by the same rules. A good example is Endless Legend because it's a 4x with complex asymmetric faction-unique mechanics. In fact, the more complex the mechanics are designed, the more it also moderates human expansion to some extent without the need to let the AI cheat. This is how the EL AI differs by difficulty: https://endlesslegend.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty

While it's still not perfect, that's the case for many other games and it could be considered fair since both the AI and player play by the same rules. If the AI is allowed to cheat, it'd only encourage human players to always focus on wiping them out asap since they disproportionately threaten you both militarily and economically otherwise. Even passive one-star AIs here are pointless imo since there's no middle ground where they can present a challenge without cheating and the player can simply prohibit their expansion to other islands while doing quests for them to keep them happy.

[arjensmit79]

I also think this cheating is needed.
If not, the war is to short, simple and limited.
We all experienced being at war with AI's while trying to manage a multi-island empire.

Really, you just want naval domination. You want patrols everywhere and you want every enemy ship destroyed before it gets to pester your trade routes. The ocean is not big enough for more than 1 player running his empire.

And that would already be game over for the AI if he played fair. He couldn't run an empire while losing traderoutes just like you can't.

[ElPrezCBF]

Publicado originalmente por arjensmit79:

And that would already be game over for the AI if he played fair. He couldn't run an empire while losing traderoutes just like you can't.

Not necessarily. Besides being a city builder fan, I'm also a 4x and Total War veteran and have seen all kinds of victory conditions that go beyond just grabbing the most land or wiping out all AIs. The AI should be expected to play by the same rules, but not necessarily need to follow the same victory conditions as the player. More complex victory conditions may be designed specifically for the human player as optional settings or made to vary depending on the leader you choose, while the AI could pursue more straightforward conditions that won't unfairly handicap its performance.

For example, to win, the human player may need to control specific locations on the world map simultaneously or hold a monopoly over a certain good across multiple regions, which may be produced and defended by more than 1 AI. Or ally with all AIs, including "difficult" warmongering ones to win a diplomatic victory. Whereas the AI would only need to control a certain number of islands or meet a relatively easy milestone to win. Add in bonuses for the AI and that should greatly level the playing field even if it's not necessarily perfect.

Indeed, the Endless 4x games have shown that designing multiple victory conditions that vary in difficulty and complexity for the human and AI can sometimes allow the AI to win in other ways even when the human is dominating militarily.

That said, I don't know of any city builder that's as developed in this aspect as a 4x or Total War game. But this is something future titles may consider.

[Tankfriend]

Publicado originalmente por ElPrezCBF:

That said, I don't know of any city builder that's as developed in this aspect as a 4x or Total War game. But this is something future titles may consider.

It might not be as blatantly obvious as in Anno where you only need to take a single look at an AI's main island to see it doesn't make sense, but the AI also cheats in all these games - be it economic aid to prop up their performance, boosts to unit stats and performance, foreknowledge of the map so they can expand precisely towards beneficial map elements without exploration and so on and so forth.

[ElPrezCBF]

Publicado originalmente por Tankfriend:

Publicado originalmente por ElPrezCBF:

That said, I don't know of any city builder that's as developed in this aspect as a 4x or Total War game. But this is something future titles may consider.

It might not be as blatantly obvious as in Anno where you only need to take a single look at an AI's main island to see it doesn't make sense, but the AI also cheats in all these games - be it economic aid to prop up their performance, boosts to unit stats and performance, foreknowledge of the map so they can expand precisely towards beneficial map elements without exploration and so on and so forth.

Giving the AI bonuses due to difficulty level and alternative victory conditions (which may also be pursued by players but you can choose not to) is not cheating. It's not the same as playing by different rules. To argue otherwise would be meaningless.

[arjensmit79]

They don't always cheat. In civ for example, there is probably some medium difficulty where everything is fair. On low difficulties the player is advantaged over the AI, on high difficulties, the AI is advantaged over the player.

Also in other RTS games like starcraft the AI is totally fair.

The common issue with that is they are all super easy to beat. Until some dev is actually going to use modern AI instead of scripts to run its "AI", that will be the case.

The big difference with anno however is how dependent your economy is on map control. In Civ you don't need map control at all. You can just stay in your corner of the map and thats totally fine. And if you lose a bit of your corner, thats also not necessarily game ending. In Anno, your economy is a complex system spanning multiple islands, maps even and losing even part of the transportation between those islands leads to economic collapse. You must have map control to secure the transports.
No 2 players can have map control over the same area at the same time. Hence no 2 empires at war can really coexist in the same area.

It would be nice if fighting for map control would not just be a defensive necessity, but offensive war consideration. For that, the game would have to be designed differently indeed.

I'm sure a decade from now, there will actually be true AI in games and we'll all have much different experiences :) (well be complaining the AI isn't handicapped enough lol)

[ElPrezCBF]

Yes, true AI in the future would of course be great though I'm not sure if all but the most elite of players would be able to match it and even skilled humans are prone to fatigue like what we're already seeing in games like chess.

Tbh, I don't like the idea of AI players in a city builder, especially a complex one like Anno where a focus on militarizing to beat the AI can "upset" the complex trade routes and force massive escalation before the disruption from AI retaliation hits the population too hard. On the other hand, if you're powerful enough to crush the AI easily and take its retaliation like a tickle, then it'd just be a tedious cleanup.

Without true AI, current city builders tend to present a more palatable challenge if they are designed in a survival setting like Frostpunk imo since there's no need for AI opponents and therefore cheating and the challenge comes from complex environmental, societal and timed mechanics. While you also see some of that in Anno, survival city builders take these to the extreme. The downside is it then becomes more of a puzzle to beat rather than having multiple ways to win since you have to play within much narrower parameters to win.

[Tankfriend]

Publicado originalmente por ElPrezCBF:

Giving the AI bonuses due to difficulty level and alternative victory conditions (which may also be pursued by players but you can choose not to) is not cheating.

We have accepted it as part of video games since non-cheating AI is usually not much of a challenge for an average human player.
But it is still cheating, and they are still playing by different rules than you are if they get resources from out of nowhere, their units are simply stronger, and they can see things on the map from the start, while you have to scout them out, first.
Imagine this were a human player - surely you would consider it an unfair advantage and cheating? There's no reason not to see it as such for an AI opponent, except we know it's *necessary* cheating.