[Gandalf Parker]

I would love scriptable computer opponents but the handles needed for that have to be written in from the beginning.

And yes, as its been stated, "human" computer players are hard. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is actually easy, but artificially human (AH) is much harder. Its a common subject in the AI newsgroups.

An AI would figure a path from A to B as the strightest and easiest route. AI is simple and gets done often in programming. But always taking the straight line in a game would quickly be abused by human players. To be more human would have to include concepts like flanking, sneaking around behind him, multiple fronts, etc etc.

The closer to AH that programming gets, the more obvious it is that the easy route is just to add more randoms. Now it becomes deciding whether you can get closer to the goal by starting with AI and adding some randoms, or starting with totally random actions and weeding out the most extreme ones.

I do agree that this game could make good use of "thinking" time. As a hosted game it wouldnt bother me if it took hours to think out its moves. As a solo play it might be able to use spare CPU cycles while Im doing my turn but games that do that tend to become games that take over your machine. I dont think Id like that. I like Dom because it lets me keep all my work windows open and skip back-and-forth