I thought it was quite interesting playing through it. Then I remembered that I hated RTSes. But maybe someone else will appreciate it...
Hi there, thanks for posting the link about the game, even though it wasn't quite to your tastes!
I'm actually the dev of the game, and saw the referring link in my site logs.
Hmm...
It looks pretty decent. I'm skeptical of its AI claims though. These type claims have been made through the years.
Yeah, I know what you mean -- I've heard it before, too. That's why I did a detailed rundown on why my AI is at least built on a completely different foundation than most games:
http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2009/06/designing-emergent-ai-part-1.htmlThis approach isn't perfect, I'm sure, but it does give much better results with much less programming. I'm not really an AI programmer, my background is in databases, but the reasoning works the same in many cases. When most companies make claims about having great AI, at least in the RTS genre they usually tend to just have a really huge, advanced implementation of the decision tree approach. And that always just tops out at some point or another due to the limitations of the approach.
But the proof is in the pudding! Check out the demo, and see what you think of the tactical AI.
Personally AI has been one of my longest standing gripes about video games. The oppenent shouldn't be solely tougher because it simply has more hit points, or does a shit load of damage. It should be harder, because it can out play me.
Yep, I've always had the same gripes, long before I was a dev. The AI in my game has more ships, but they are spread out and it is limited in how it can attack you with them. So when it is attacking you, when the strategic/tactical AI is in play, it usually has a somewhat similar number of units to you (often fewer on your planets), and how it uses those is what is important. It often has fewer guys coming into your planet, but it can wield them like a scalpel and gut your planet if you aren't careful. Anyway, see it for yourself, if you're interested -- my talking about it isn't going to convince anyone, nor should it.
But I'm sucker for all things RTS, so I'm checking it out regardless.
Awesome, let me know what you think if you are so inclined. I'm big on feedback, and have already been implementing feedback from various players on various boards around the net. We do weekly free DLC releases, but I also put out links to prereleases so that people can see their suggestions in action pretty much immediately. I can't do everything, but I do everything that I can that reasonably fits with the basic game design.