[corimaith]

Tbh I don't think an AI for Civ would that impressive, my experience is that most of time you can get away with making locally optimal decisions I.e growing your economy and fighting weaker states. The problem with current civ AI is that their economies can be often structured nonsensically, but optimized economies is usually just the matter of stacking bonuses together into specialized production zones, which can be solved via conventional algorithms.

[Aerroon]

The problem with game AI is that they "cheat". They don't play like a human. The civ AI straight up gets extra resources, AlphaStar in SC2 performed inhuman feats like giving commands in two different areas of the map simultaneously or spiking actions per minute to inhuman levels briefly. But even with all of that the AI still eventually loses. And then they start losing consistently as players play more against them.

Why? Because AI doesn't learn on the fly. The AI does things a certain way and beating it becomes a puzzle game. It doesn't feel like playing against a human opponent (although AlphaStar in SC2 probably came pretty close).

Learning on the fly is probably the biggest thing that (game) AI is lacking in. I'm not sure there's an easy solution for it.

[Buttons840]

Maybe, but a lot of people would like better AIs in strategy video games, it only adds to the frustration when people say "it wouldn't be that impressive". It's like saying "that would be easy... but it's not going to happen." (And I'm not focused on Civilization, it's just a well known example, I'd like to see a strong AI in any similar strategy game.)

I think it might be harder than StarCraft or Dota. Civilization is all about slow decision making (no APM advantages for the AI), and all the decisions are quite different, and you have to make them in a competitive environment where an opponent can raid and capture your cities.