Heldenkaiser wrote:whoever would play the AI if he can play a human
Well, here I go again, Nancy.
The whole promise of computer wargaming when it came into being back in the 1980s was that the computer could give you a good game when no human was available. Part of the marketing push was to sell these games to board wargamers who could not (or did not want to) find other wargamers with whom to push little cardboard squares around on big cardboard maps and call it "fun."
SPI did a survey in the 1970s (I don't remember offhand which issue of S&T it was in, my copy having been buried in a box somewhere for all eternity, kind of like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark") showing that more than 70 percent of board wargames were played solitaire (and that is even more remarkable when you think what it took for those closet Nixon introverts to own up to the fact in those numbers).
So, the game designers and developers took notice. One of the primary elements of any game had to be an AI, or the doggoned thing wouldn't sell for sour owlsh1t. Problem was, nobody knew how to make an AI. They fiddled, diddled, whittled, and mostly built games in which the computer, if allowed to play at all, had to cheat in order to be competitive,
Even then, you the human got the privilege of playing over and over and over again so as to learn how to beat the silicon moron, who never learned anything, no matter how many times you gloriously hacked it to shreds (did I mention the advantage of staring incredulously agape at the CRT like a turkey that just felt raindrops banging on its head for the first time, exclaiming, "WTF was that? Man, I got skrewed," then immediately finding the "load saved game" button to go back to the point up to which you felt justice had been served?).
Well, it was good enough for awhile. There were some great successes, perpetrated by the likes of Sid Meyer, Gary Grigsby, and others.
Time passed. The world changed. God looked down, saw it was too calm down there, and declared, in his godlike voice that only god can use (Bill Cosby and his "Noah" routine notwithstanding), "Let there be Atari. Let it become Nintendo, which begat Sony." And it was good ... I guess.
As computers became bigger and better, the games got bigger, too ("better" is something I don't even want to start on here). The great unwashed of wargaming had to take pretty much what they were given, considering that the "Grail" had been re-named "Youth."
There was a great wringing of hands and throwing up of arms. "You just can't create a decent AI, and, even if you could, it would take too much time and trouble." So, the "computer player" has, in general, gotten lamer and lamer as the games have, ostensibly, become better and better.
What answer do you hear most often when someone b1tches about the AI? "Go play against a human, that's when the game is at its best" (you were probably wondering when in the he11 I would get around to saying something actually responsive, eh?).
Fine, if that tips your ewer. Problem is, it just ain't gonna sell. Bazillions of kiddies and wannabe kiddies sit with their game consoles clicking away happily like crickets on a hot summer night. Tons of "real time simulations" (don't get me started) have come down the pike and many have made money. Wargamer have mostly had to go play space epics (Master of Orion, Galactic Civilizations) or "I'm here to conquer the world, if I can get a government grant" stuff, or join in the "What? Today is December 7, and, if I don't get all my guys orders in the next 30 seconds, it's gonna be December 8, and I'm SOL" kind of "fun."
Where does that leave the wargamers still, after twenty years and more, looking for that "good game" the business promised our computers could give them?
Pocus, "...a nation turns its lonely eyes to you..."
