Winning on Impossible

[felipepepe]

Not even Dark Omen has frustrated me so much as Sonic All-Star Racing's Expert Mode... it's a Mario Kart clone FFS, but I can't fucking win! D:

 

[Destroid]

It's just not practical. The number of layers a game like Civ has, with resources, terrain, technology, units, trade, reputation, culture, wonders, improvements, city buildings, specialist citizens, great people... how the fuck do you make something that combines all of those factors each turn to choose the best path? Worst of all, probably the most important single variable in each match is predicting how your opponent will behave, which means the computer would need to learn what the player's habits are. At that point you've basically created true AI. And considering how long it takes to resolve a late game turn of Civ as is... yeah.

Of course, the way humans play these games (or do anything involving significant complexity) isn't by simultaneously cross referencing all the factors. We form a hierarchy of strategies within strategies.
- I started near metals and can use production better with units than building so I will be aggressive this game.
- I'm being aggressive this game so I will build archers instead of spearmen, and will attack my nearest neighbour.
- I'm at war so I will pick war technologies to pursue, and ignore culture and trade
and so forth.
You don't pick what technologies to pursue based on what resources you have (or maybe you do, but then you don't decide to be aggressive on that basis, but on the basis of your technology. The point is that it works like a flowchart rather than some sort of weighted equation of all variables at once.)

As far as impossible difficulty goes... I'd assume a sufficiently brutal combination of options on AI Wars would be impossible, or close enough.

I've been thinking about some of these problems (I'd like to make a 4x one day), I believe some of the technical aspects can be addressed by making a truly simultaneous turn system. This way the AI can think long and hard on the spare cores while the player does their thing. You might get some waits if the player is hammering the next turn button, but otherwise it would be able to run a very computationally intensive AI. Simultaneous is also a lot better for multiplayer.

I'm finding Master of Orion 1 pretty damn difficult on hard, winning maybe 2 games out of 8 or 10. Impossible is the next step up, and highest difficulty setting. Of course a lot of the difficulty also depends on what races you and the opponents select, and also how large a map you play (I player on small and medium maps with 2-4 enemies). Even with a fairly favourable setup, it's difficult.


EDIT: In SotHR I got stuck in what I assume was the last or near to last mission, a massive battle against Skaven. Just got slaughtered over and over.

 

[octavius]

Did someone say it is?

Generally the hardest difficult is just HP bloat.

In CRPGs, yes. Which is why I usually play them on normal/core difficulty, and which is why I love mods like Sword Coast Strategems.
Too bad there's no such mods for games like Civilization (not the early ones at least), HoMM and Age of Wonders. But then it's easier to make a good tactical AI than a good strategic AI.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Did someone say it is?

Generally the hardest difficult is just HP bloat.

In CRPGs, yes. Which is why I usually play them on normal/core difficulty, and which is why I love mods like Sword Coast Strategems.
Too bad there's no such mods for games like Civilization (not the early ones at least), HoMM and Age of Wonders. But then it's easier to make a good tactical AI than a good strategic AI.

Even in some of those games they just make the AI develop/build faster in cheating ways.

Games with solid AI like Alien: Isolation are a rarity. (inb4Aliencheats)