Is there a strategy game with a good AI?

[bryce777]

It takes a human mind to pose a significant challenge for a non-newbie player -- that's an axiom at the moment, unfortunately, as no equivalents of the brain exists.

Have you considered playing some of the TB games with friends? I mean, not the online retarded gamespot shit, but directly to your friends?
In games like Homm3 you could do that even through email, and I think there is a way to play through TCPIP avoiding the pay-servers... ANd, of course, if your friend is living in your town, you could just make a modem connection and play all you want.

But the most fun is using hot-seat mode... ahhh, I'm savoring the sheer joy of playing homm3 with my buddies at my workplace... It's a perfect way to spend a lunchbreak.

With CPUs... nah.. it's only for the first playthrough, then it's ALL about multiplayer.

So, basically, just try playing those campaign-bsaed, script-heavy kinds of TBS, where the inferiority of CPU is compensated with good level design and scripted challenges/handicaps that don't look like cheating.

Well, basicallly, you can get very goos AI that can stop a player, but it is hard work. You have to really have your game system down part from the start, which developers seldom do. You also have to be very good with the rules and familiar with them. One or two exploits and your AI is cooked. That usually means lots of playtesting, and we know how well that works out, and hopefully a system that is not unbelievably complex. Since sequels change so much between iterations in most case and often use different developers, things seldom improve much....