Why I'm not voting

from Stardock Forums
The current poll is an apples and oranges thing. I think the AI's need to be as human-like as possible. That does not necessarily mean they have to be super-intelligent, though. Just human-like.

And I think multi-player would be a nice addition to the game.

So the long and short of it is, I vote BOTH!

225 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The devs don't have the time to develop both at the moment I think.
So you have to choose.

When they perfected the AI (or mulitplayer) they could start working on the other thing.

Alot games got lousy AI and an average multiplayer.

This game would be excellent for hotseat multiplayer or internet tho.
But if they start working on that 2 the AI might not be as good.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
In addition there are a lot of people who are just plain not interested in multiplayer games.

Cheers,
Jack
ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Multiplayer is a niche product at best right now in the industry. But long term it is a good addition to the game, but only if there are a good set of sensible rules to play by and they are enforced strictly when someone breaks them. My leaning on this is to make multiplayer a part of dregin.net for the first year or so until a good solid community of paying customers is built up. This way a set of balanced rules can be developed by a smaller group of people before it is released to the mass public.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Obliterator has it right.

Writing a game is a lot like playing a strategy game.

We have X resources and we have various sliders where to put those resources. We can't have a good AI and make the game multiplayer.

Having done multiplayer coding before (The Corporate Machine, Entrepreneur, etc.) another problem is the dark side of multiplayer coding - cheating. It's a real problem and a real resource drain. I know the TCM AI suffered considerably in order to have good multiplayer that was client/server rather than peer.

I don't know if GalCiv will ever have multiplayer. I'd rather create Galactic Federations with a UI and game mechanics designed to be real time.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I pray for the day when it will be impossible, in a strategy game, to know if your adversary is a human gamer or an AI player. The Turing test.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, I must agree that the AI is important in GalCiv. It is the AI's abilities and behaviour that made the game work in the first place. And what I look for in an AI is something that will pretty well pass the Turing test with respect to the game. Right now, we are seeing some rocky places in the AI code, though, where they seem to have abilities that are denied human players. They have to be made to go through the same hoops as the human player or the game quickly becomes frustrating.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
I think you're right Brad. A dedicated game is a better idea.......

1. It would be something that they had to pay extra for and would tend to weed out people looking for a cheap thrill.

2. it would allow you to create a dedicated structure that could enforce rules and eliminate cheating more effectively.

3. When the game succeeds it will be another great reason to buy Drengin.net!
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Well if the AI is perfected, multiplayer wouldn't be so necessary.
The Metaverse is a good addition which makes the game a bit multiplayer anyway :)

I heard that AI programming is very hard, maybe I will encounter that challenge 2 when I am learning how to program at school.