WHY THE FUCK IS THERE STILL NOT A SINGLE GAME WITH DECENT AI TO PLAY AGAINST?

>>2083390 (OP)
Chess

>>2083390 (OP)

>Highly realistic AI gets accused of cheating even more often than its dishonest brethren, because on some level, all players are unnerved by the idea that a computer could outsmart them. Part of the fun is learning the patterns of the AI and successfully predicting them, and when computers don't act like computers, the only psychologically safe assumption is that they must have accessed information they shouldn't have. AI isn't allowed to gamble, or behave randomly, or get lucky-even though humans do al l of these things on a daily basis- not because we can't program it, but because experience tells us that players will get frustrated and quit, The same phenomenon doesn't happen when both opponents are humans, because they've already tempered their expectations for the possibility that the other guy is crazy. computers are too smart to be crazy, so if they start acting that way, we can't shake the suspicion that they know something we don't. Thus, from the designer's perspective, brilliant AI is usually not our highest priority.
>t. Sid Meier

>>2083998
Cope.

>>2083390 (OP)
the traditional (not blackbox) method with state-based and heuristic-based decision making can be built to be more modular, and devs tend to go that route because its easier to modify whenever you add/edit a feature in the game, even if minor. however that has the drawback of retarding it, which some devs have tried to fix by adding "personality" and hidden goals.
on the other hand reinforcement learning would work, but then you would need to unfreeze layers and retrain every update, because it could schizo out even if you wanted to add a minor hotfix to something

They could just generate a heat-map of player decisions from telemetry and generate AI decisions by sampling it. Now you are playing against variations of other human players.

>>2083390 (OP)
AOE2DE has decent AI
It doesn't have the variety and unpredictability of a human player but it plays competently and doesn't cheat no matter what difficulty you play it on

>>2083390 (OP)
it is extremely hard to code emergent activities in AI behavior without them essentially having a form of "slow godmode." As in the AI fully knows what you are doing at any given time and will plan strategies and release them at a crawl. Even then, you can't have any ingenious moves coded by AI. It's not like you could have an AI program a pure "resource bash" run against a player's eco and target nothing else unless it's just hard-coded to want to smash eco. Most of the time when you code shit like this in it leaves it open for repetitious gameplay anyway.

The only difficulty comes from opponents who are capable of thinking more than two steps ahead.

>>2083390 (OP)
Because you can just play against another human.

If an AI would be competent it would be just playing against another competent human and then people would get mad just like they always get mad when playing against another human.

What even is the point of playing against an AI then?

>>2083390 (OP)
Have you seen ChatGPT trying to play Pokemon? Just because "AI" is a hyped topic nowadays doesn't mean it's actually any good.

>>2083390 (OP)
because society and technology started to regress sometime after the late 00s recession

>>2083998
mother of all copes
>umm we can't make good AI because you wouldn't even like it! we just know somehow you wouldn't!

Sid Meier really is a hack

>>2083998
That sounds like complete bullshit and I don’t believe a single word I just read

>>2084060
Main issue is it goes full retard and trickles units into castle and towers. I feel like it wouldn't be too hard to program it to focus on massing up a suitable attack force before moving out.

>>2083998
This happens in aoe2, AI is hot garbage against people that know at least half of what they are doing, feels like is cheating for people that don't want to put the effort to learn to play, but is decent at the end of the day.

>>2084086
>What even is the point of playing against an AI then?
The AI is up at 3am and ready to play for 7 hours nonstop without breaks and with much faster turn times

>>2083998
>if we made realistic AI players would accuse it of cheating
>so we made shitty AI that cheats

>>2084104
>>2084102
>>2084000
>>2084674
Yeah, it's the game designer that's coping. Gamers are so well known for their gratitude and appreciation of all the hard work developers are doing. :^)

Bait so weak I’m not even gonna reply.

>>2083998
based Sid Meier's® Sid Meier making anons seethe. Meier is like an autist hyperfixated on what makes normgroids tick.

You have 30 seconds to explain why you need super-AI when multiplayer exists

>>2085489
I'm gonna pirate the game

>>2085489
"sorry gtg grandma just died :("

>>2084682
I mean, he wasn't able to implement good AI, so he tried to claim he never even wanted to. He is indeed coping.

>>2085503
You mean he's not talking from experience of beta testing games?

>>2083998
Proof that Civ was never good

>>2085489
I don't want AI to be super challenging I just want it to not be boring. Program it with say a dozen different tactical approaches that can't be cheesed, rather than one single approach that can be cheesed like now.

>>2085506
The first few Civs were good, when they weren't yet minmaxxed to appeal to as many people as possible (actually they already were, but the audience using computers were different back then).

>>2085489
multiplayer games take forever to setup and fall apart after just a few sessions because people leave/no show

>>2083390 (OP)
Because you're supposed to play against humans.

>>2084674
The AI cheats but is still dumb. The challenge is bumped up numbers, spawning doomstacks and maphack.
But once you know, you can fight back. You'll notice more and more patterns. And you're now playing a game of cracking the code, which will result in making the AI look very dumb.
Look at these Warcraft 3 vids of 1 guy vs 7 Insane AIs. He shouldn't have ANY chance, but wins, because he knows every single move that the AI can do.

>>2085489
I like playing long games and I don't want to wait for other players to finish their turns. And most players can't roleplay for shit.

>>2084674
I lol’d thanks anon you have a good night

>>2083998
All of this is absolute bullshit considered the ridiculous boni they give AI to make them competitive. Isnt that cheating? Computers arent smart, and they cant make them smart.

>>2086551
AI is not supposed to be competitive, that's the whole point. If you want unpredictability and real challenge you play against humans. Unless you're one of those faggots who think that literally everybody copies one build order and somehow plays exactly the same everytime then please don't reply.

>the zoomies in this thread seething at Sid Meier because they truly believe it is lack of capacity that made him (and others) not program an AI (a machine capable of taking instant actions relatively to humans) to play his games perfectly and always curbstomp the player
Lmao

>>2083390 (OP)
Magarena did pretty well for MTG. For the nerds:
https://github.com/magarena/magarena/wiki/AI-Overview

>>2083390 (OP)
Why are you so afraid to play against other human beings?

>>2085489
>You have 30 seconds to explain why you need super-AI when multiplayer exists
The desire to press pause whenever and for whatever reason I want.

>>2086551
>Computers arent smart, and they cant make them smart
lol

lmao

Last win by a human against a top tier chess bot was November 5, 2005.

>>2087191
Whoops, Novemeber 21st.

>>2083390 (OP)
I didn't play very much with it, but the time I spent with Brutal AI mod for OpenXcom was fun and made the AI capable of pulling off legitimately clever tactics at times.

>>2087286
It was a lot of fun on normal maps but utter cancer in base invasions with blaster launchers involved.

>>2085504
I've read the book, he never gives any examples. He's full of shit.

Like I said before we need wet wired humans instead of AI. Round up some street urchins off the streets of Brazil, India, and the Philippines. Amputate their legs so they cant escape. Get them all hooked on some highly addictive drugs Shove them in a secure basement and force them to learn how to play a variety of games, if they win they get their drugs, if they lose they get none. Pretty soon they will be good enough to provide an excellent opponent in any of the major gametitles. Now insert electrodes directly into their brains. This allows them to play several different games simultaneously and removes the need for screens and controllers. Not all will survive the procedure but enough will. Keep them strapped into chairs with tubes delivering nutrients and removing body wastes. Then interface them into a server. The server is marketed as a "smart human-like AI service for gamers". For a small fee you connect to the server, choose the game you want to play, and the kid on the other end provides the opposition. For all intents and purposes you think you are just playing against a human-like AI, with all the devious cunning, variation, and uniqueness of an actual human. In fact you are playing against a wet wired drugged up amputee who has had a lot of practice playing whatever game you choose. Its smart but also fallible, so you dont always lose. Its available 24/7 to play for however long you want, its always available the next day, never rage quits, never gets bored or ghosts you. A database will keep track of your winds and losses.. By altering the dosage of drugs the kid can be dumbed down so you dont lose too often. A bit of cold turkey is good to keep them on edge.
Now the burn out on these kids will be high, continuous under performance for any reason will result in the flow of nutrients and drugs being cut permanently. But there are plenty more of them to be found on the street as replacements. The best part is nobody will miss them. Happy gaming!

>>2083998
/thread

I participated in Patrician 4 playtests and you DON'T want AI that's either competent or proactive, unless the goal is to simply defeat the player and do so in a very quick order. And that's just a simple trading game. Machine by design is immensely more efficient at churning data and never gets distracted.
People who bitch about "good AI" usually have no idea what it means in practice when the computer isn't playing under artificial handicaps, but is using all the resources effectively and focuses on winning moves and only winning moves. Not even hyper-autists play like that, while machine can. Which will always result in the same outcome: AI beating your ass, so it will be accused of cheating. Especially when it is not cheating or even can't cheat to begin with.
Another aspect of bitching about AI are Paradrones, who are so used to the vanilla AI intentional idiocy, when you throw at them custom AI personalities (possible to be simply modded in), they get instantly overwhelmed, because AI no longer has a glass ceiling limiting its reach. Another good example, and Sid-related, is AI in SMAC/SMAX. Flip around few basic patterns and brace yourself for hyper-competent AI that won't need artificial resources to own your ass, because it will simply stop doing useless terraforming and plant its bases in far more efficient way, ALWAYS achieving maximum efficiency, and always needing for that the 5 seconds the turn cycles, not a conscious, 5 minute effort a human needs to plan and execute.

>>2086551
You can just say bonuses dude

>>2087455
Don't you know the 0.3 second saved by not typing the actual world allows zoomershit to accumulate per day about 10 extra seconds, which is enough to watch one more TikTok clip?

>>2085489
I don't want to embarrass myself infront of other people.

>>2085489
>when multiplayer exists
People suck

>>2086738
Instant actions are useless if you don't know what the fuck you are doing.

>>2085489
I'm not goycattle who only plays the newest releases.

>>2083390 (OP)
Too much investment for little return.

For me good enough AI is the one that doesn't have maphack, doesn't have infinite resources and tries to use the same tactics a human player would have tried to use. Like how in Tiberian Sun for example the AI most of the time just sends waves of infantry and vehicles, but occasionally it might send Subterranean APC's full of Engineers and Cyborgs as Nod to fuck your base up if you didn't put any pavement, or send a pack of Hover MLRS through water ways as GDI to flank you, now if the AI was also able to sneak in Cyborg Commando as Nod using the APC, or drop Mammoth Mk2 inside your base using Carryall as GDI, it would have been based. Now how good the AI should be at that is the right question. Moving on to later games in the C&C series, C&C 3 has handicap option that can be applied to anyone, not just AI, but all it does is reduces the stats of units and buildings, so even a squad of junkies in nothing but hoodies can rip to shreds multi-trillion dollar three-barreled super tank/harvester in a matter of seconds. Now, even if the AI was put into the same constrictions as the player, its still has the total control over all his forces simultaneously, a handicap option can be made that can limit how many actions per minute the AI can make. Also camera view for the AI, so it would see the battlefield the same way as player does, not literally, what i mean is that AI would be able to focus only on one portion of the map at the time, the same way as the player.

>>2084674
Players want tougher AI, not smarter AI. An enemy that will put up a fight and won't quit, so that after three hours of grinding your forces against his you could say 'man, that was so much fun'. If you want a competent opponent who will outplay you from the start, defeat you in a matter of minutes, and mock you for being a noob, you might as well get into a multiplayer match.

>>2087445
Best post in a thread full of fuckwits.

>>2087445
This isn't 40k dude

>>2087445
The best part is we can fulfil our DEI requirements and shield ourselves from accusations of racism because we only hire minorities.

>>2088216
So if we implemented it for DoW it'd be ok?

The truth is the time and resources need to make actually good AI is beyond the scope of pretty much any game dev, they would have to focus solely on the AI first to make good AI at the expense of everything else.

In which case the game would basically just be a bunch of dots with really good AI.

Guess what
That doesn't sell

Better to make strategy games that look nice and interesting and strategic but then play like shit

Cause guess what? By the time the player realizes the AI is shit, they already bought it lmao

Its been the exact same for decades
Gamers are stupid, and Game devs are incompetent greedy assholes

>>2083431
this

>>2083390 (OP)
Master of Orion / Remnants of the Precursors
Old World
Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition
AI War 2

>>2083998
This sounds plausible, and maybe it was true in the 90s or whenever Sid wrote it, but today it's just cope.

Example: Lichess has Maia bots that are specifically designed to emulate human play at a specific rating. These bots have played millions of games, they are very popular. They are much more fun to play against that ordinary chess bots (that either crush you, or occasionally play a shitty move on purpose). People don't get frustrated playing them since they already expect them to play like a human.
I don't see why the same type of bot wouldn't be popular in any strategy game. The important part is that the bots emulate human play at a given rating, instead of some frustratingly perfect world-class performance.

>>2083390 (OP)
The truth is that making good AI is hard which is why real AI companies rely on blackbox with reinforcement neural training. In comparison game AIs are very simple as the devs have to manually code every interaction and it's weights. In the future well get actual nerual bots, but it's probably too costly rn. For example Cicero was able to communicate in an online version of the board game diplomacy, a game where communication is the only path to victory and win a real tournament.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8bEKCGNA04&t=144s

>>2087453
so make the ai play slower, not dumber

>>2084102
It's literally true for Paradox games. There's very little incentive for the devs to invest resources in making sure the AI can actually use all the new systems introduced during their endless DLC pump in any kind of coordinated manner. The average player gets discouraged if they lose a war and they reload or eventually stop playing and buying their shit. The players think they want a competitive AI, but they really just want to feel like they're outplaying the enemy, no matter how bad it is.
Shit like HOI4 was/is incredibly popular while the AI probably still doesn't know how to build and use fleets properly lol. It's really not a priority for devs, no matter what the players think they want.

That one ex-Total War dev even confirmed it in his blogpost: he was directly told to not make the AI able to use rallying cry or something, and not use developing time to make sure the AI remembers units that go behind their line of sight. They just immediately forget, and everyone can see how fucked the AI formations get in those games. Yet they've been popular forever. The AI mods don't even really fix much, but the players are coping that now they're playing against good AI if they download Darthmod.

>>2087445
Your edgelord post got me thinking about the return on investment of hiring some indian on demand to play against a player as some sort of special paid feature to increase difficulty or create a diverse gameplay, and if it would be better to pretend it actually is ai or come clean.

>>2094470
>t. clueless retard
If you are making AI slower, you are making it dumber, you absolute moron.

>>2087453
Tell me more about these smac AI settings

>>2094501
if you let out that you were paying people to play the game then you'd have millions of people trying to get you to pay them to play the game

>>2095210
>you'd have millions of people trying to get you to pay them to play the game
That would just mean that you can suppress wages even more and keep a bigger piece of the payment given by actual users.

>>2083390 (OP)
AI WARS. PLAY AI WARS

>>2100145
And then they wonder why the genre is dead

>>2083390 (OP)
Because programming ai takes effort and modern devs are allergic to that, not to mention a complete lack of passion. It's why they use pre baked engines and store bought assets

>>2083998
vst copes and seethes at this post, but the truth is most self-proclaimed strategy gamers don't want to play games where coming up with good strategy is necessary, they instead want games that allow them to roleplay as master strategists, and for this it is necessary to have easy wins against a stupid enemy ai that fields stronger than normal armies

>>2100170
>Make good AI
>It obliterates players with ease
>Game sells like shit, gains opinion for being unfair
vs.
>Make AI that's either predictable, roleplays or both
>Even a drunk faggot playing for 5 minutes can figure it out
>Game sells like hot cakes, money rolls in
But sure, tell me how it's lack of passion and talent, while repeating like a good monkey the exact same fucking moves in your game of choice and having a perfect build for it, too.

>>2094488
>AI probably still doesn't know how to build and use fleets properly lol.
AI still doesn't know how to build a division, even if they've changed base mechanics regarding that thing TWICE, and introduced three different DLCs affecting it just for a good measure.
>but the players are coping that now they're playing against good AI if they download Darthmod.
The mother of all cope is Pirates Uber Alles for Empire, since it's not just "the AI Is better!" (it actually can't play the mod for shit, but is handled better units with tech tree progression and free upgrades) and also the fact there is now bazillion of units to pick from, so players think they are outsmarting anyone, because their musketeers now have +2% higher chance of score the shot and the bayonet upgrade offers 0.0125% increased chance of instantly killing enemy unit on charge. AI is still as incompetent as it was, economy is still largely broken and naval combat is still a complete joke, but you've got sooooo many options to dominate the AI, rather than just shitting out 6 units of line infantry per turn and then marching a stack of them toward enemy army

Said all that, I still enjoy FotS. Precisely because AI can't play it for shit, and playing against human players allow me to abuse the shit out of how broken various mechanics are on someone, ruining their day.

get a T injection and play multiplayer, pussy

>>2083998
AI play Civ 3 like a person with 100 IQ would
>plays Civ 3 like a person with 100 IQ would

>>2094488
that's bullshit and the devs could have multiplayer bots/agents that simulate how real players would play

>>2085489
it means I can still have fun even after the game dies

>>2101958
Why don't they? Because there's no financial incentive, because the players don't actually care enough.

>>2102110
there's a financial incentive to play against people that you think are people.
great way to keep games alive if there's no organic multiplayer market (potentially could attract one).
think of it as a turing test for gaming

>>2102199
>potentially could attract one
solve the chicken & egg problem of getting a critical mass of players to catch on.
have a temporary fake critical mass supplemented by AI bot/agents, then replace that with organic traffic as it comes into the game.
eventually the critical mass is replaced by human players and the game sustains (and if it dips, you supplement with AI bots that fill in the hot seat).

>>2087462
Boni is the actual latin word, mongo

>>2101847
Easily solved by doing something like against the storm does and lock the harder difficulties past a few wins

100% of players who refuse to play MP and that say they want a challenging symmetrical AI are lying

>>2102221
and you're not writing latin are you, faggot retard?

>>2083390 (OP)
civ4 with Kmod , Stalker with AI mods, Caster of magic for windows, BG1/2 with SCS mod

>>2102933
MP is just meta shit, I want an opponent that is intelligent but not just focused solely on meta so they can win

MP with a friend who is on your own mindset of having fun and not just being comp shit is the best but of course its hard to find that