Quitch

Join Date 03/2006

AI in 4X games

How does Gal Civ II compare?

I've not much experience in the world of 4X games, having tried Colonisation (which I hear is the poor cousin to the Civilisation series) which I enjoyed, as well as Space Empires III, which I dearly loved and the memory of it was what drove me recently to try getting back into 4X games.

A lot is spoken about the AI of GCII and how good it yes, yet it is my experience that if an under the hood feature is touted enough, people will often accept that as fact without testing it themselves. I've all too often sees AI undeservingly prasied. Seeing multiple threads on the AIs declaring wars without being in a situation to follow through, or against people who are actually militarily superior, and stories of hordes of unescorted invasion fleets, makes me wonder if the AI in this game is all its rated as.

What do people with experience of this, and other 4X games, make of the Gal Civ 2 AI? How does it compare to other 4X AI? Is it a challenge? Are there any other 4X games with good AI?

NOTE: By 4X I am referring to all games of this style, be they in space or on a single planets surface.

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The first thing to keep in mind is that there isn't just ONE AI in GalCiv2, there are, in fact, 10 for all of the races. Now, some of them are derivitive of each other, but they are all different. This makes for some very interesting battles, and allows someone to watch the AI fight it out, learning how to play a certain style in the process. Then, you have to realize that the AI are designed to be stupid at lower levels, and only become good at the "intelligent" setting just to give new players a break.

Of course, like all AI, they aren't perfect, if they were, we would all be in some really big trouble. Some of the things you are hearing is the result of the recent changes in the beta, and as such, shouldn't be used to truely gauge how well the AI plays. The beta modified a ton of rules that has resulted in some very whacky behaviors, that is expected, since it's a beta.

As for the AIs in v1.0X, they did some things well (like adapting weapon and defenses on their ship designs), and some things not so well (like diplomacy and starbase construction) which was why it is being upgraded. At a certain point, when you have learned all the tricks of the game, the AI is just not a match for you, especially if you use one of the "cheaper" tactics to exploit the AI's weaknesses.

Having said that, I think GC2's AIs is still head and shoulders above the rest of the AIs for other 4X games that I've played, simply because it doesn't have to cheat to beat you silly. It plays the game exactly as you do, and that's really saying something. In every other game in the genre, the only way to give yourself a decent challenge against the AI is to give it all kinds of bonuses.

Is the GC2 AIs one of the best I've seen? Yes. Is it good enough? Not quite, but as long as you actively prevent yourself from exploiting their weaknesses, the AI will always provide a decent challenge and a fun game. I think that alone speaks for itself.

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Read the AI development logs. They're very interesting! One more thing, GC2's AI doesn't get the 'unfair' bonuses (extra units etc.) that other games rely on to simulate intelligence. They play exactly the same way as the human.

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"Smart AI" is kind of an oxymoron. As a long-time veteran of strategy games, I can reasonably expect to take a game out of it's box, intall it, and be able to kick the computer's butt tactially in anything like an equal battle. But some AIs are better than others, and Gal Civ II is better than average for it's generation.

I actually thing the tactical AI in Civ IV is better - I've seen the computer recognize and exploit my weaknesses rather ruthlessly in that, whereas the CPs in GalCiv II tend to just charge through the front door. There are also some weaknesses in the Diplomatic AI -there are some things the thinking player just never asks the AIs to do, like declare war on each other, because it makes the game too easy.

That being said, the AI in GalCiv II generally makes for a pretty challenging game. It's also nice that the CP's diplomatic actions tend to be consistent and logical, making it not only possible, but useful to make friends and form alliances with them. And while the AI isn't perfect, it is better than anything I've seen in a previous generation of strategy games. Civ IV is the only serious compeditor, and given Stardock's commitment to improving it's own work, we may see GalCiv II surpassing it in a few patches.

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GalCiv 2 has some of the best turn-based strategy videogame AI I have ever seen. I don't consider it stunning, and I won't claim that it is better than HOMM3 (which could often beat me in balanced scenarios), but it is very good.

It has some annoying features - in order to be good, the AI is more "bloodthirsty" than "friendly", so to some extent it feels like swimming with sharks, lawyers, and politicians... they all have unique personalities, but you can't trust any of them. Still, you don't expect "friends" in a game of chess, so think of GC2 as more like a "game" than an "international politics simulator" and you'll be satisfied.

There are also some flaws in which the AI acts irrationally (misjudging relative strengths of nations or fleets, for example), and they do affect gameplay, but against 6 bloodthirsty opponents, when one makes a mistake the others just eat him, then gain strength and eat you.

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I actually thing the tactical AI in Civ IV is better - I've seen the computer recognize and exploit my weaknesses rather ruthlessly in that, whereas the CPs in GalCiv II tend to just charge through the front door.

The AI in Civ IV is actually quite bad to be honest, specifically in battle. I remember last game I played online against 5 AI's and 1 human opponent. I bribed the AI between our lands to go at war against the other human and while he moved his troops in invade him, I declared war on him and took weakened cities in the east next to my border, while he moved them away. Now, the AI kept attacking my human opponent while I was at the gates of his capital, which stunned me and ruined the game t.b.h. because I just wanted a double war so it would be easier for me, not so that the AI could destroy the other human while I destroy him, which didn't make any sense from any tactical viewpoint whatsoever.

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The AI in Civ 4 is actually really bad, it isn't alot different than any over Civ AI. If you truly understand the difficulty settings you'll know why. Basically the difficulties consist of whether the AI gets bonus or not, and how much of it. It also determines how many extra units the AI starts out with. Sure, on later difficulties they can swarm you and beat you, but that's because you gave them a distinct advantage to start the game. This is especially true given the time rewards itself system for the Civ games (the earlier you build a culture building, the more powerful it gets). IMO, there's no way you can even compare the two AIs. Then again, the developement of a 'great' AI was never the goal of Civ 4, it was to streamline the game enough to make the multiplayer experience pleasant enough for people to play against one another. This is probably because the developers knew that their AI would never be able to keep up with normal players. It's a daunting task, to expect a truely good AI, but GalCiv2 is on the right track.

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Actually, from my limited experience of the game thus far, I have to give props for the fully documented differences between the AI levels. If only the difficulty levels were as well documented

How about other 4X games? I know the Space Empire games aren't supposed to have particularly great AI, though it'll be interesting to see how the new scripting system for SEV deals with this.

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Well if your looking for a challenging AI... this game falls short. I was able to beat the AI on it's highest intelligence level in my second game once I figured out how to fully exploit star bases. (not highest overall level, but highest level before it gets resource bonus, playing that game on the highest now, least now it's putting up a fight with that +200% production bonus)
The tactical AI is pretty bad IMHO. Missing easy targets and moving into range of ships it can't possibly beat. Building ships with balanced stats rather then going for over powering ships in one area, misusing star bases, not protecting star bases, wasting space on it's planets. The list goes on.
Anyone that thinks this AI is any kind of super AI is a hopeless fan boy or simply not very good at this type of game.

But on the other side the AI is kind of interesting in how it interacts with you. Like for example I was at war with the 'dominant' race of the galaxy (in quotes because it was ranked number one by the computers scoring system, but fleets were no match for mine)
And during the entire war several other races were giving me gifts to help me in my fight. Money, ships, star bases which I found interesting.
Of course that lead to another bonehead move. First the AI gave me 2 economic star bases directly around their home planet. Totally worthless to me, but would be very important to him... now why on earth he would give these to me is beyond me. I sold them for scrap

They also gave me almost all of their resource star bases (I got 4 from the computer). Now this is very confusing since there is only a handful of these in the entire galaxy. They shouldn't ever give these away and should do everything to protect them. But regardless, I took their gifts, beat my enemy, then butchered anyone that wouldn't ally with me

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However, how does it rank against other 4X AIs? Weak, but not as weak as them, or can you name a 4X AI which handles war in superior fashion?

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I don't know... the AI is pretty bad.
Though it's some what difficult to compare since a lot of games it's hard to tell what level the AI starts cheating at.
I mean I could probably bang out an AI in about an hour, give it a 100000% resource bonus and have it beat every player out there. But that doesn't make it a good AI.
It's hard to make a comparison because I haven't played any other turn based strategy games in a long time....
Thinking back... the last one I probably played was Heroes of Might and Magic... or maybe alpha centauri? Damn it has been a while. And if I recall properly HoMM had a much better AI.
Though arguably a much simpler game (minimum base management and only a handful of armies to deal with) it's AI was at least as smart enough to take the incentive to attack weak areas and try to fight on it's terms (in castles) and run away from battles it can't win. This AI doesn't do any of that.

Overall the game is still fun enough… but the AI is a weak point IMO (they really need to put multiplayer in so we can get a challenge)

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Ashbery76

Join Date 02/2002

+36

"the AI is a weak point IMO (they really need to put multiplayer in so we can get a challenge"

Ahh, a troll with an agenda.

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What? Do you honestly think the AI is challenging?
I have to literally help it just to get a good fight out of it.

They don't have to put multiplayer in, but I think it would be a lot easier to do that then try to fix the AI.

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I thought the Dawn of War AI was really good at the highest level... but it may have been cheating.

Starbases are overpowered, take them out of the game and the AI will be a lot more challenging.

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The Insane AI in DoW had a 25% income increase (which isn't displayed, even in a replay, but you can see from the speed with which it gets money compared to other players). Harder didn't cheat and everything below that was handicapped (and used a different AI script).

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