[unkulunkulu]

Yes, the trick could be choosing the target to optimize. I once had an online chess adversary that seemed strong but who appeared to be losing to me in complications, I even briefly considered an idea he was doing it on purpose to gift some entertainment and fun to his opponents. An AI targeted to do something creative and challenging and at the same time not trying to abuse its obvious advantages could be fun to play against.

[RugnirViking]

You've hit upon the fundamental difficulty in game ai design. It's trivial to make an AI execute strategies perfectly (in most games). The trick (and the significant difficulty) lies in making it not perfect, but in a way that is humanlike, or at least makes sense.

If a solution to make AIs function at human levels, for example a built-in delay between seeing a player and say, shooting at them, becomes noticable, it cheapens the experience for the player significantly.

[taneq]

An old quote sums it up perfectly for me: “The job of game AI is not to win, but to lose in an entertaining manner.”

[atum47]

yes, this. I love this.