OT - Strategy games with GOOD AI

[LDiCesare]

Second, most developers are only interested in being on the team which improves graphics or designs the user interface because during a future job interview it's easier to display what visuals you've provided as compared with what AI strategies you've developed.

I am not so sure. I worked in a game company and know several developpers who worked on ai in other game companies. The devs would usually like to create a good ai, because it's an interesting problem.
However, playtesters tended to complain if the ai was too good (hard) in some games. The difficulty of the ai is aimed at casual players, and developping something more elaborate would only be interesting for a small part of the market, and cost a lot to develop.
Galciv had a better than average ai, and Elemental probably will, because the CEO codes it himself because it's his pet peeve. Opening the code can of course leads to even better ai, as Civ IV showed. I have good expectations for Elemental too.

[Humakty]

TW games (medieval 2, rome) AI is among the most retarded I've ever seen : generals charging pike walls (with the rest of their army waiting backward...) ; full stack militia when they can recruit elite units ; units piled at a bottleneck, like gates, blocking each otherwhile you shoot at them... The list is long, and modding only very partially changes that, most mods only add more gold for the AI, along with similar 'cheats'.

[Nightblade]

Master of Orion (the 1st one) has a very decent AI, i enjoy a lot playing from time to time and it always gives me a good challenge and does not seem to cheat in any ways.
playable under Dosbox for modern computers without any problems.

I remember reading that the AI in the RTS "Battle Realms" was too strong in the unpatched game and they toned it down a lot in the patches. I have no idea how it was, having only played the standalone expansion "Winter of the Wolf" that include an already patched Battle Realms, i would really have liked to try.
Winter of the wolf had a challenging skirmish AI though.

An immense disapointment regarding the skirmish AI for me was with Red Alert 2, it was so bad that even at the highest difficulty, it was actually very difficult to not cripple or destroy it.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Nightblade

Master of Orion (the 1st one) has a very decent AI,

Strategic ai that is. The tactical battle ai was utterly moronic.

[DakaSha]

I find that even the modded CivIV ai is moronic... it still cheats and just builds 15 units (literally.. somtimes more) to defend its citys while NEVER starting wars... i love how wars dont even begin till 500AD...

Ive been playing GalCiv2 again and have to admit that the AI is definetly the best ive played against. Im playing on medium maps which makes a big difference i think (i was playong on the really big maps before)

[sector24]

I think the GalCiv AI gets exponentially better on the smaller maps for obvious reasons. Although a part of loves the huge maps, I found the smallest map setting to be the most challenging/interesting.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by DakaSha

I find that even the modded CivIV ai is moronic... it still cheats and just builds 15 units (literally.. somtimes more) to defend its citys while NEVER starting wars... i love how wars dont even begin till 500AD...

Strange. With aggressive ai on, which should always be the case, the ai is somewhat aggressive. Not as much as a human, but it will strike early if it feels its neighbour is weak, akthough it depends a lot on the personality (Gandhi will hardly ever attack for instance).

[goodgimp]

It's RTS, not TBS, but try Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance WITH the SorianAI mod. You wanna see a good AI, check that out! Represents a couple years of work by a modder to get the AI in shape, and while it's not perfect (no AI) is, it's still very competent.

[sevenwarlocks]

Since no one has mentioned it - I thought the AI was pretty good in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. The problem of the AI disintegrating on large maps was there, to be sure, but on small maps, the AI could be surprising, and when it started a war with you, it usually had the troops to make for a serious invasion. The AI in SMAC seemed better than the AI in Civ4, to be sure, where the AI really doesn't even know how to effectively use different kinds of units in combination.

If I could change the AI of all games in one major way it would be this: the AI should not know which player is the human. Frankly, having an AI bulk itself up with extra units seems a less egregious form of cheating to me. If game designers followed this rule, I believe it would force them to design AI's that could generate competant game-plans, rather than just design a sort of collusion to make the game feel "balanced".

I say this because to have an effective plan, an AI need not be perfect, or even extremely complicated. The most important thing is that the AI have some plan. By which, I mean, a long-range plan that it will stick to - at least for a time. AI's that react on a turn by turn basis will never be effective. As a chess-master once said - it is better to have a bad plan than no plan at all.

[vfb]

I think I found some of the Allied General scenarios difficult to complete in the bonus timeframe on the hard settings. Probably it's easier to code the AI when it's a fixed map, and the time limit helps too.