Cheating AI makes me furious. It is probably my single biggest pet peeve about video games. My second biggest pet peeve is when games are too easy. It may sound like I'm contradicting myself here, but I don't think that
challenging AI has to mean
cheating AI.
From a programming perspective, in a well developed AI system, the AI algorythms will be
completely independent from the actual player control. A player control model will recieve input from
somewhere, but will not know if it is recieving input from an actual, human-operated controller, or an AI algorythm. That way, the computer controlled opponent can do everything that a human controlled opponent can do, but
nothing more.
If such a system were well designed, the AI could still be ridiculously challenging, but it wouldn't be have to be cheap and frustrating. There would have to be different AI levels, so that only one opponent would have the most tallented AI model. This would make it more likely (
but would not ensure) that that opponent would always come in first or second, making the point distribution uneven and making the game more challenging.
Unfortunately, very few videogames actually incorporate the separation of AI and player control as described above, and this aggrivates me to no end. For example, in the GBA games Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, the AI can cheat.
These are not real-time games, they are turned-based games resembling board games, but the AI still cheats!!! Specifically, the AI is able to ignore fog of war. For those of you who have played the games and know what I'm talking about, the AI is able to move a unit next to one of your concealed units in a forest, and attack that unit, in the same move. This is impossible for a human character to do. When a human moves next to a forest, the contents of the forest are not revealed until
after the player has selected "wait," making the unit that he moved unable to attack any concealed units in the forest. The human player may still be able to bring in
another unit to attack the enemy's unit in the forest, but the AI doesn't need to do this. The AI can reveal and attack your concealed unit in the same move.
[wtd] Nintendo!!?? Fog of War is such a kick-@$$ idea but it is completely meaningless if it doesn't affect the AI!! I'm mad! MAD!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!This is not a signature.
Edited by - Hirocon on 3/7/2004 6:45:48 PM