by Citizen Quitch - 4/16/2005 12:46:30 PM
One of the features mentioned in relation to Galactic Civilisations was the metaverse, more specifically the fact that players can upload their games and then the AI can learn from the games on the metaverse to improve its play.
How well have people found that feature works?
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The metaverse is fun in itself by all the Empires competing and socializing in the forums.
The AI do improve over time and if you keep playing they will change how they do things. It is a great idea and has worked well over the years the game has been out.
Though now I think the AI has learned all it can and the AI in the next version will be a lot smarter I would bet. 
NeoTech Games Network is a Galciv Fansite  Link with a lot of information for playing galciv and many good players are members. We support any game that is moddable. 
        
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The AI did improve a lot and some cheese was removed. But I doubt that they will continue to tweak GC1 since GC2 is already in beta. Currently the Metaverse is nothing but a ranking system. You can join an Empire to get even more ranking
       
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#5
by Citizen Quitch - 4/20/2005 1:58:09 AM
@PJ
That's the impression I got from the website... so, how does it work exactly?
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| The AI do improve over time and if you keep playing they will change how they do things. It is a great idea and has worked well over the years the game has been out. |
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I have to be honest and say I have never seen this happen. The patches and upgrades have certainly changed things, nerfed others, etc but that is how all strategy games change over time. Give Stardock their due: they are committed game designers who accept feedback and incorporate it into new patches, so in that sense they are better than 90% of the game publishers out there. Like most, I thought as PJ - but there is no "learning AI" here; just an efficient development team (which is no bad thing).
  
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I noticed a data on my hdd called "AI development" or something like that. Take a minute and look into the folder "data" there you should find it.
In fact, there is an AI development, but it´s hard to tell whether it´s influenced by the metaverse or your own playing style or even both.
Patching may overwrite this data.
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| Take a minute and look into the folder "data" there you should find it. |
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Well, there is none from an install using a full download with SDC
| Patching may overwrite this data. |
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Or perharps delete it when patching with SDC.
[Message Edited]
  
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Hm... very suspicious... but you´re right, I should have mentioned that I installed the main game from CD and patched via galciv, not SDC
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When I read about the AI improvement through metavers I never thought of an automatic feature like neural networking.
What I understood is that the developers look from time to time in the strategies of the top players.
And I think that this is exactly what happened. The AI got counter-strategies for popular human strategies. Culture bombing got harder, the Arceans got an alternative technology strategy etc. But as I said before this will not happen for GC1 anymore.
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| What I understood is that the developers look from time to time in the strategies of the top players. |
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Agree.
There´s surely a file which records the own gaming style on your hdd. Depending on successful game playing it changes the the original game formulas by some extent. And for the best players submitting to metaverse that will be mentioned - but it has to be transferred into a new patch by the developer at first.
Otherwise it means that everyone who´s going to metaverse will then have the utmost difficult level availabe. Don´t think that the metaverse AI is that kind of smart recognizing every single player´s skills and being able to improve difficulty by the appropriate extent and not all at once - since that will strike newbie players.
But I think one day it could.
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Don't forget that AI don't act the same on the various intellligence settings: a dumb AI will always stay a dumb AI. You won't see maso AI on cakewalk settings
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| Don´t think that the metaverse AI is that kind of smart recognizing every single player´s skills and being able to improve difficulty by the appropriate extent and not all at once - since that will strike newbie players. |
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Phoenix, don´t blame me for my cakewalk setting 
- you know I´m still a small bug, but I´m growing 
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There isn't any automatic/neural learning by the game from the metaverse submissions but like some have pointed out, it's the developers who are learning.
When your game is submitted, information about your game such as the map played, tech order chosen (and other stuff which I don't know) are submitted so they use this info to tweak the AI to respond better to various player tactics or cheese.
We saw quite a lot of this tweaking when the game was still pretty new.
    
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