AI - Roleplay or Play to Win?

Dano13

Join Date 03/2003

AI - Roleplay or Play to Win?

One of the HUGE advantages that a human has over an AI is that we can see their thoughts. What I mean is that we KNOW for a FACT what they currently feel towards us and towards others. Barring any random event, if we are close to someone we can pretty much leave our border's undefended. The same can not be said of an AI vs a player. The AI has NO IDEA of what we really think of them (usually Empire Food- at least to me, though we pretend to be their best buds).

Consequently we are usually never backstabbed (though it HAS happened to me once, which I was happy to see). Not sure why ... it was the Screen "A Secret Meeting occured and it was determined that ... blah blah blah" so maybe it was a random mega event. If so, that is disappointing.

So once everybody loves you there is very little tension left in the game. Of course the flip side of the coin is that if relations play so little role in the game, then Diplomacy becomes trivial - ala Rome Total War. Besides people play the game in different ways. Some play to win at any cost, and some to roleplay, and of course some roleplay by winning at any cost. If the AI played to win (i.e. would happily stab a friend in the back for gain) then those people might think that this was unrealistic.

It would be really cool I think to somehow make this a game option i.e. AI - Play to Win or Roleplay. But that would double the number of AI personalities which is probably an insane amount of work.

The next best thing would be to have an option to HIDE what the race thinks of us. I mean in real life we are only given a person's expressions and words to determine what they think, and a cynic like me knows that that is USELESS.

So if this option was selected, then when you go to the race screen you wouldn't see what they thought of you. What about what they say? Well, maybe each race has a "Deviousness" rating. If they make a random roll and fail this rating then they let their true emotions leak out (WE HATE YOU), otherwise it defaults to the Neutral or Impressed type of greeting, even though they secretly hate you.

Now with this option you DO have to worry whether the Dregin are plotting something behind their chuckles and smiles.

Sure the AI would still have an advantage in that it knows what other races think of IT, (since I imagine this is an important parameter in the AI personalities, which remain untouched), so maybe kick in a few points in gamescore or whatever if the player chooses this option.

Just my 2 BC
Dano

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ToS, given your apparent distaste for "RP,"

And where the heck did you get this from?! Exactly the contrary, I was saying that Brad's excuse was bull, basically.

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Dont confuse "playing to win" with "playing for points", in your arguments. Any game that is not "played to win" cant be being "roleplayed", because any faction/race/nation would want to succeed. Unless youre playing a chronically depressed race of intergalactic lemmings, in which case racial suicide might be legitimately in-character.

What CAN be the opposite of roleplaying is the sort of point-farming gameplay the metaverse encourages. Winning the game by having fun, enjoying the immersion, and playing the sort of game you want to for your faction and pursuing and appropriate victory condition, is one thing. Only playing the game in the manner that makes for the most inflated point yield regardless of strategy, racial character, or how youd really rather be playing, is opposite of "roleplay", quite often the opposite of "fun", and reason #247 why the metaverse blows.

In terms of AI, I would always expect the AI to play to win a victory condition appropriate for their race. But I also understand that the game must be "winnable" for the player...which it probably wouldnt be on the highest difficulty settings against an AI opponent agressively pursuing a technology victory with the unmatchable productivity bonuses they get on those levels. So as long as the AI is allowed to cheat, I understand that certain things must be balanced to allow the player to compete.

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What CAN be the opposite of roleplaying is the sort of point-farming gameplay the metaverse encourages. Winning the game by having fun, enjoying the immersion, and playing the sort of game you want to for your faction and pursuing and appropriate victory condition, is one thing. Only playing the game in the manner that makes for the most inflated point yield regardless of strategy, racial character, or how youd really rather be playing, is opposite of "roleplay", quite often the opposite of "fun", and reason #247 why the metaverse blows.

I dont think its not fun that the AI does its very best to win because it gives me a challenge. I dont see any fun or point in playing a race that holds back because of trying to fit in some role. It would be like giving myself handicaps, like not building any colony ships or whatever.

For example in my last game I was in period where I had less than half the fleet strength of the top two empires. They could have at that time easily defeated me but for some reason, unknown to me, they did not. I eventually matched their fleet strenghts and continued to defeat them.

Now if the AI now would want to win it would have squashed me earlier but it didnt so it lost and I once again won. This is boring cause it's predictable and stupid behaviour from the AI which makes it easy for me to win over and over.

Therefore it would be fun to have a AI setting where if it sees an opportunity it should go for the throat, immediately and I should be punished for exposing that weakness.

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I dont understand your reply in relation to the quote you selected. The quote you chose dealt with player gamestyle, and you went on to talk about AI playstyle. The paragraph after the one you quoted had to do with the how the AI played in regards to trying to win, so it would have been a better choice to reply to.

Thanks!

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

And where the heck did you get this from?! Exactly the contrary, I was saying that Brad's excuse was bull, basically.

Apologies. Somehow I'd gotten the impression you balked at "RP" stuff for GCII. I probably misinterpreted some of your KISS talk here & elsewhere in response to some folks feature suggestions. I certainly respect the value of keeping mechanics & UI as simple as possible even if the main reason I love this game is that it can get soooo complicated

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

the sort of point-farming gameplay the metaverse encourages

Bingjack, I scoffed the Metaverse for a long while, but the "movement" folks have at least briefly persuaded me to reconsider. If the new Metaverse Council succeeds at some of its stated goals, we should start seeing a broader, more flexible ranking schema that makes room for folks who are not point-farming scoremongers.

The draft revisions to the AltMeta scoring categories include "civilian" wins and also break data out according to average map size in a player's record.

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RP is good as long as it's kept within limits, else it risks losing the RP status. Add 400 governors to a game, which includes naming them (phone book?), and knowing their stats, strengths and weaknesses, and there's no RP anymore - only more time spent managing something that eventually gets old.
As for the KISS rule, I'm all for details and complications, which this game unfortunately lacks. But you have to choose carefully what to simplify and what to complicate. SEV is excellent in that respect, it has great detail, yet it's simple to play, and very accurate where "regular" sci-fi is concerned. This game is overly simplified in what it should have complicated, and my comments about some suggestions come from that perspective. A "complicated" layer of mechanics over a simplified core, I don't think it would work very well. Some improvements are being made in DA, but there's only so much you can do on "set" mechanics.

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