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Original post by Diodor
For instance, the AI players may respond by joining arms to destroy any one player that grows above everyone else by invading neighbours (pretty much what happened to Iraq). So the player won''t win by invading every Kuwait around him, but perhaps may do so by inciting an Iraq to conquests and then fighting it down to maintain the peace.

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I would note at this point that it is argued, often convincingly, that Germany and its allies could well have won the Second Great War were it not for the intervention of one of the great superpowers (the US).

Moreover, both sides formed coalitions. How do you circumvent the player forming similar alliances? Or do you? Is that one of the driving elements of the diplomatic model?

ld

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Original post by liquiddark

How would you address the need for limits on the player's power? You talked earlier about wanting to limit them to a small fraction of the total mass of force on the board, so I assume there is some mechanism in your head for doing so, but if other players are waiting Kuwaits to the player's Iraq, shouldn't they be allowed to invade? And then wouldn't you need an honest-to-dog superpower or two to stop them?

Moreover, both sides formed coalitions. How do you circumvent the player forming similar alliances? Or do you? Is that one of the driving elements of the diplomatic model?

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There may be plenty of practical methods to limit power through direct game rules. For instance, corruption limits empire growth in Civ (or makes it useless). It may also be possible to limit power through AI design - perhaps the players overgrowth triggers a common reaction by all the AI players.

However I don't have a very good practical example for this thread. Just the idea that computer player behaviour has not been exploited as a source of gameplay as much as it deserved, and there's much thinking to do in this direction and many surprises to be discovered.

Actually I do have an example: in my Pax Solaris the hardest games are 3-player games (2 AI players + 1 human) - on the most difficult level, the player starts the game with lesser units than each of the AI players. The (very simple) AI tries to attack in any direction where it outnumbers its enemies. The player must therefore retreat to shorten his front lines and sway the AI players from attacking him by having higher forces on the borders. However this retreat must be controlled in such a way that the two remaining AI players are thereafter balanced and will fight each other without either of them winning (if one AI player grows over-large, the game is as good as lost). Also, when the player decides to attack, he should rather try to attack the biggest player - and when one of the AI players starts to grow too much, the player must try to fight it down - and therefore try to help the other AI player. Now Pax doesn't have any kind of diplomacy implemented, but I've felt more of an ally of these AI players than of any civilisation in MOO or CivIII.


[edited by - Diodor on October 28, 2003 3:27:31 AM]

This is just my opinion, but I think you may be too close to that design, Diodor. I''ve not yet played the full version, but I never got that feeling at all from playing the game, and I think maybe in this case you''re seeing what you created as an author rather than through the eyes of a normal player. If the identification of the method is not explicit, you force the player to create their own meaning, and I don''t think it''s as clear-cut as all that whether they will take the same one as you intend.

I guess what I''m trying to say is this: be careful how much you try to make the player see what you see. The flip side of the games-as-art coin is that perception shapes the experience as much as anything. If you have a specific perspective that must be shared to enjoy a game, that limits what players can think in regards to the game. What effect will that have on your audience?

ld

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Original post by liquiddark

This is just my opinion, but I think you may be too close to that design, Diodor. I've not yet played the full version, but I never got that feeling at all from playing the game, and I think maybe in this case you're seeing what you created as an author rather than through the eyes of a normal player. If the identification of the method is not explicit, you force the player to create their own meaning, and I don't think it's as clear-cut as all that whether they will take the same one as you intend.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: be careful how much you try to make the player see what you see. The flip side of the games-as-art coin is that perception shapes the experience as much as anything. If you have a specific perspective that must be shared to enjoy a game, that limits what players can think in regards to the game. What effect will that have on your audience?

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It's not as much a matter of feeling and perception as one of strategy required to win levels on expert difficulty. Also, it's not something I designed, it is more of something that emerged. And it doesn't happen on very many levels - and not always - and only on very high difficulty.

I expect all players will come to learn the way the AI reacts and use it to their advantage, more or less. I don't know whether all players will find out that winning with White on the "tree" level may require an early attack that will draw Red forces that would have otherwise attacked and destroyed Green (on the other side of the map). But the very clear fact is that if Red destroys Green, White loses very soon afterwards, and that Red overwhelms Green sooner or later if White plays defensively. Seeing Green as a friend and trying to help it by drawing Red forces against oneself isn't that far-fetched anymore.

The point I'm trying to make is that if the player can trigger (in a predictable and repeateble and logical fashion) certain behaviours from the part of an AI player, he plays the game _differently_ It's no longer "what can I do to wipe this enemy out?", it's "what would happen if I do this?" I believe it is possible to design games that rely completely on this (as opposed to Pax - where this is just a side-effect).

Some ideas:
a beehive AI - attack it, and it will spawn forth its armies, destroying everything around
a rabbit AI - it will flee rather than fight as long as it has where to flee.
a herd AI - when attacked, it will launch a charge in the attackers direction - but it will continue the charge for the attacker even if in its path are found other AI players (whom the attacker wanted to destroy in the first place)
a bear mother AI - it will attack anybody who attacks its friendly AI players.

None of these ideas would be even considered when writing the AI for a strategy game. However, the resulting gameplay (such as getting two cubs of a mother bear AI to fight each other) may well be very interesting.

[edited by - Diodor on October 28, 2003 8:53:48 AM]

Diodor I definitely had the experience you''re talking about while playing Pax Solaris, getting enemies to face off against each other and all that, and extending the idea further sounds cool. This is starting to sound almost like an a-life game, in fact my first visions when reading the start of this thread were of a god game or a puzzle game, rather than an actual strategy game.

A couple ideas in the spirit of your list...
sworn enemies - e.g. white and black AIs will attack each other on sight until annihilation, ignoring everyone else
kamikaze - opposite of rabbit

That''s all I have for now... back to lurking