Perhaps you misunderstood my post. I wasn't suggesting that an AI is "mission creep" but was rather addressing the specific point you made. It's my experience that Steve is very cognisant of not adding to the work he already has to do.ORIGINAL: pzgndr
ORIGINAL: Neilster
it basically represents "mission creep"
No, it isn't. Developing and implementing an AI computer opponent is a promised feature of the game as advertised and sold to customers. It's part of Steve's contract, it's part of the mission. We're just haggling about priorities. Clearly the priorities have been on the bug fixes and NetPlay, and then I expect things will shift to implementing the other optional rules and finalizing the other scenarios. A fully functioning global war AI will probably be one of the last things implemented. We all got that, fine.
But. AI is still part of the mission and a lot of customers who have already bought and paid for this game and others who are still waiting for the promised AI to arrive are still watching for developments. Monthly reports repeatedly state "Nothing New." Well, howzabout offering something new, anything? Clearly the AI will have to perform discrete tasks for each phase, so a lot of the AI programming will be in modules to handle nation setups, production convoys, unit scrapping, etc. So why not throw us a bone and provide some of these modules sooner rather than later and let players see something?? Or, just go ahead and poo-poo any modest suggestions about the AI like you guys keep doing. Fine. We'll wait. I can hardly wait to read "Nothing New" again in next week's monthly report for January. Thanks. [:@]
Have you read all the AI threads? A considerable amount of work has been done already. It's a bit like a kit home where the components have been manufactured but they're in storage until the groundworks and foundations have been completed. When they're brought to site the construction should happen quite quickly.
I'm very interested in seeing the AI implemented, have a Computer Science degree with a considerable AI component and helped in a very small way when we were thrashing out AI ideas some years ago. I suggested similar things to you back then, including the ability for the AI to take over major powers on your side and at the time Steve nixed the ideas. Now I'm not saying that won't change but my original post was made in the light of that and other experience.
I'd like to see as much flexibility as possible with the AI and who knows what will happen down the track?
Cheers, Neilster
