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Playing to Lose: AI and “Civilization” (Soren Johnson)
Google Tech Talk August 26, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Soren Johnson. Artificial intelligence is crucial to any strategy game, providing a compelling opponent for solo play. While many of the challenges of AI development are technical, significant design challenges exist as well. Can the AI behave like a human? Should it? Should the game design be adjusted to accommodate the limitations of the AI? How do we make the AI fun? Should the AI cheat? If so, how much? Do we even want the AI to win? This session suggests some possible answers to these questions using the “Civilization” series as a case study. Ultimately, developers must choose between a “good” AI and a “fun” one, with an understanding of the trade-offs inherent when deciding between the two. Soren Johnson was the lead designer and AI programmer for Sid Meier’s Civilization IV. After working at Firaxis Games for seven years, Soren joined EA Maxis in 2007 to work on Spore as a lead designer/programmer. He is currently building web-based games with EA2D, such as the moddable strategystation.com and other unannounced projects. He also writes a design column for Game Developer Magazine and is on the GDC Advisory Board. His thoughts on game design can be found at www.designer-notes.com. Download slides to this presentation here www.designer-notes.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5
This is a very enlightening video. Thanks.
using this video as a source for my psych paper, thank you so much
Yes the developers are being lazy. The question is, can they? The answer to that question can be found in another question, did enough people buy the game to profit from it?
I don’t know about you but Civ V completely turned me off from the Civ series, Civ IV’s AI “cheating” was my biggest grievance, but in Civ V so many other limitations (that can’t be modded) arose that it turned me off from the series. Plus the AI are just as dumb as Civ IV. I don’t want perfect, but I do want improvement.
The most galling aspect is his contempt for the players. They’re too stupid to notice if the AI cheats, and if they do they’re just being whiny little hypocrites because they all cheat anyway.
his example of religion providing a plausible casus belli is actually not a very good one: yes, if you are owner of the holy city you want to spread your own religion in civ 4, but other than that you would have no gameplay-reason to dislike players with different religions – yet the ai is doing exactly that for roleplaying reasons
in the paradox titles having other religions spread actually causes nasty uprisings plus you get valuable casus bellii on heathens, providing a real incentive for war
i think soren johnson establishes a false dichotomy here (roleplaying vs playing the same game). it all depends on game design: if a strategy breaks the roleplaying, eliminate it. design the rules so that roleplaying is the same as playing to win.
have a look at the paradox titles (eu3 and vicky2): they do that pretty good by having a few simple mechanics (stability, infamy, religious turmoil) that move strategies that are playing to win and those that are roleplaying close together.
@Thormodr
Yes you are 100% right Thats because sid meier and this guy and a lot of other gamedevelopers from civ 5 got an advisor role in civ 5 and john shaver got the main lead john what have you donne?
Great video and it explains exactly why Civilization 5 is so crappy. The AI should be there to provide atmosphere and experience for the player. An AI that is “playing to win
” is not fun, at least in Civ.
@apocalypse105
correction i mean it is the good AI typ but that makes civiilization 5 a really bad gameplay…
the fun AI is the AI of civ 5 its to rondom that it is litterly funny
@ORCA4312
Where does he do that? Part of the presentation is about it.
AI designer denies his AI cheats. BIG surprise.
thumbs up if wached the whole video lol
@Zerg82 he said it almost exactly the same way you said it. they just play it for the experience and not really to win.
I don’t entirely agree with his perspective of sandboxing and i hope it’s not the general attitude at sandbox players. I consider myself one, and that just means I enjoy playing the game – not to win but in the case of civ, managing and improving my civilization. Not conquering or converting. Just having a long game as long as it’s enjoyable.
@frenzyfol And what logic and factors would you use to achieve this goal? You yourself use a multitude of factors and rather complex logic based on your own intelligence, environment, and past experience (aka you learned) for the most basic decision of which cities are vulnerable to attack. Try recreating this logic in a game AI and see how well you fare.
@AlexandraDanescu Thanks for the reply. So it sounds like the method of selecting some seemingly random behavior for the ai to preform is the problem.
I’ve heard it said that for an fps game, making the ai less than perfect is the real challenge. Can we make the ai function in the game with only modest means of knowing where the player is? Perhaps something that makes sense instead of ai soldiers being connected to the knowledge of god.
It just seems like we could do better.I should read abook
@lordjavathe3rd
The more complex you make it the harder it is to make it not go off on idiot tangents because of some loopy code. The straight of assault AI is stupid, but it’s at least viable. Though not very clever.
I am REALLY interested in thsi topic but between the smacking of his lips and the fact that he is the WORST public speaker I have heard in months… I can’t get through this.. I fall asleep after roughly 10 minutes.
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very very interesting, but a whole lot of “ums” in there : /
Argh, I hate how he starts smacking his lips before talking.
Man, anyone else think these comments are somewhat hostile and unrealistic.
Game developers do not have infinite resources, time, and labor. These games require a lot more work then AI. It’d be fantastic if the AI was perfect but then we might see less time and work put into other areas of game design.
@Luke1d20 This is a pointless comment unless you define “cheating”. The AI doesn’t have eyes, is it cheating for the AI to look up the precise location of the player?