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[Mephansteras]

I'm curious which games exist that either are designed to simply be watched or ones that are interesting to set up with only AI Players and then watch.

I don't mean idle games that are just numbers going up, but ones that have AI that you can observe doing things in the game.

Any out there that people like watching?

[nenjin]

Preferred genre? Most FPS's that have bots will let you load a game full of them and just observe. Killing Floor and Red Orchestra 2 (both by Tripwire) come to mind.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Most Paradox strategy titles with no fog of war probably count. I recall reading something about Civ being ok for that kind of stuff with a bit of tweaking as well.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, I'm generally thinking more strategy type games, although I'm cool with any suggestions people have for stuff that's fun to watch.

I've done Civ games in the past. Haven't tried any paradox games, although I could see CK2 being pretty fun in that mode.

[Zangi]

Prison Architect: You can watch your prison go about its business once you set it up?  Though, it will screw up every few hours...

The cooks will end up trying to pick a single stack of trays up, but not be able to... which leads to no food getting cooked/distributed, huge backlog of trucks and ultimately the starvation death of everyone but the few prisoners who pass by the hospital often enough. 
Don't worry though, you can easily replace all the dead after one of those events, considering the backlog from the trucks and the fact that you can now bring in a block of 300 prisoners at one time(100 of each security level).  Well, as long as the prison is good enough to keep big riots from happening, despite starvation.

Actually, it might be caused by the lesser +move speed mod, which I recently removed.  I finally noticed that the gardeners and janitors kept getting stuck trying to clean stuff and the workers took forever to load up garbage onto the trucks.  All of it fixed on that mod's removal.

[n9103]

I would say any RTS that has either a renowned AI or one that has had significant fan-made AIs.
I can't specifically name you one of either category, mostly because I haven't been big into RTS in a few years, but have run into both over the years.

Effective RTS AI have been around much longer than effective FPS bots, so I would expect better results.
In both cases though, past the lowest difficulty level or two most AI opponents tend to be made harder through more extensive cheating, so YMMV.
Generally I would rank most AI levels as: Incompetent player, Competent player, Cheating player+1, Cheating player+2...

[Bohandas]

Conway's Game

[Zangi]

Oh right...  Distant Worlds, its a realtime sci-fi 4x...  You can set everything to automated and turn off notifications.  Sit back and watch.

...  I should actually do this next time I get into an idle/observer game funk.

[Bohandas]

You could watch ESPN

[Sonlirain]

I think Submarine Titans has a scrimsh mode where you could select only AI players so put in the maximum number of AIs set them on hard and watch the fireworks.

[nogoodnames]

Depending on how far back you're willing to go there's SimEarth. Just set up the initial conditions and watch as life forms from the primordial ooze, spreads to the planet's surface, and eventually gives rise to a civilization which proceeds to doom itself through a combination of global warming and nuclear war, leaving the planet in a lifeless state akin to Venus (except populated by robots).

[Robsoie]

I remember setting up battles in Operation Flashpoint mission editor, then placed myself as a civilian and observed the AI armies duking it out, despite some AI quirks it was lots of fun to edit or change the various units soldiers and vehicles positions to see how the battles would be influenced.

[sambojin]

Madden NFL is surprisingly good for an observer game. Just like real NFL, but without all the stoppages or ads. I use the SNES/Genesis and PS1 versions on my phone when I'm bored.

Does anybody know how to get Brutal Sports Football or Brutal Sports Hockey on the Genesis into AI vs AI mode?

[Itnetlolor]

Find some custom AI scripts, and plug different playstyles into Age of Empires or something. You might learn some tricks in the process.

[birdy51]

I sometimes enjoy watching CPU's battle on fighting games like Super Smash Brothers. Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but sometimes it's interesting.