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Playing to Lose: AI and "Civilization" (Soren Johnson)

Google TechTalks

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  • Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by Soren Johnson, lead designer and AI programmer for Civilization IV
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 16 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

66K views16 years ago2 recommendations

Game developmentAI and machine learningGame programmingGame design

Soren Johnson discusses the design challenges of game AI, explaining why making an AI fun is often more important than making it strong.

Google Tech Talk August 26, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Soren Johnson. Artificial intelligence is crucial to any strategy game, providing a compelling opponent for solo play. While many of the challenges of AI development are technical, significant design challenges exist as well. Can the AI behave like a human? Should it? Should the game design be adjusted to accommodate the limitations of the AI? How do we make the AI fun? Should the AI cheat? If so, how much? Do we even want the AI to win? This session suggests some possible answers to these questions using the "Civilization" series as a case study. Ultimately, developers must choose between a "good" AI and a "fun" one, with an understanding of the trade-offs inherent when deciding between the two. Soren Johnson was the lead designer and AI programmer for Sid Meier's Civilization IV. After working at Firaxis Games for seven years, Soren joined EA Maxis in 2007 to work on Spore as a lead designer/programmer. He is currently building web-based games with EA2D, such as the moddable strategystation.com and other unannounced projects. He also writes a design column for Game Developer Magazine and is on the GDC Advisory Board. His thoughts on game design can be found at designer-notes.com. Download slides to this presentation here: designer-notes.com/PlayingToLoseGoogle.zip

Why it's here

2 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as an enlightening look at the philosophy of game AI design and the trade-offs between challenge and fun.

JonnieCacheon Hacker News • Recommends

On “How games cheat to help players”

Continuing my theme of posting relevant google tech talks, here is Soren Johnson, the lead designer and AI programmer on Sid Meier's Civilisation, discussing this very subject with specific reference to the evolution of civ's AI over the years. Extremely enlightening, whether you are a gamer or not. link to this video "Artificial intelligence is crucial to any strategy game, providing a compelling opponent for solo play. While many of the challenges of AI development are technical, significant design challenges exist as well. Can the AI behave like a human? Should it? Should the game design be adjusted to accommodate the limitations of the AI? How do we make the AI fun? Should the AI cheat? If so, how…
View on Hacker News

JonnieCacheon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Civ II game a decade old”

You may well enjoy this lecture at google from one of the civ5 devs talking about the AI design, and game AI design in general. link to this video
View on Hacker News

aggronnon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Game AI vs Traditional AI”

You might enjoy a talk by the designer of much Civilization AI: link to this video Its a very good talk, but applied video game AI as a field is kind of a let down.
View on Hacker News

therealbatmanon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Game AI vs Traditional AI”

Soren Johnson gave a similar talk on AI Playing to Lose: AI and "Civilization"0. Here he split AI into two groups, Good AI(Chess) and Fun AI(Tower Defense), While the good AI plays the same game as you with the same rules and tries to beat you,Fun AI is asymmetrical, playing a different game whose objective is not to beat you, but you might still be defeated. 0 link to this video
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ryzawyon Hacker News • Mentions

On “'Civilization' Creator Sid Meier: “I Didn't Really Expect to Be a Game Designer””

Calling it "lazy game design" is not only offensive to me as a game designer, but it's plain wrong. Here's a talk about AI in Civ from Soren Johnson, Lead Designer/AI Programmer on multiple Civ games: link to this video
View on Hacker News

ggggtezon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ask HN: Game devs, what is the hardest part about designing an AI for your game?”

"Playing to Lose" : link to this video Personal preferences aside, they specifically talk about how to make the game "fun". For example, they try to account for things like real-world leader's personalities. "Gandhi" shouldn't just attack his neighbors unprovoked, but maybe "Caesar" should. And why do the AIs even bother to ally/trade/help the player at all, since the player is the only enemy that really matters anyway? Because the player is also the only person that matters in terms of having fun, and making the game too hard isn't any fun.
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6gvONxR4sf7oon Hacker News • Mentions

On “DeepMind’s StarCraft II agent will play anonymously on battle.net”

That sort of game AI isn't designed to be strong. It's designed to be fun. See e.g. this talk titled "playing to lose" link to this video
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chonglion Hacker News • Mentions

On “OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III”

I would say diplomacy is the most misunderstood feature of the series. Players constantly say they want a stronger AI that's smarter at diplomacy. But whenever they have built an AI like that, their play testers complained that it doesn't behave like a real world leader (too ruthless). This experience led Soren Johnson (co-designer of Civ III and lead designer of Civ IV) to the realization that Civ AIs are supposed to "play to lose" 1. 1 link to this video
View on Hacker News