There is no AI

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Donald X.

I decided to check up on the AI. See if I could be playing this game for fun sometimes.

There is something artificial but it has no intelligence.

Turn 1 - Lord Rattington
L plays 5 Coppers.
L buys and gains a Silver.
L draws 2 Coppers and 3 Estates.

There were many sensible options; there was no special attraction for Silver. It's simply that bad. Its next $5 was also a Silver; on turn 6 it finally went for a Hunting Party. I opened Spice Merchant / Black Market, like someone playing Dominion.

It's July 21st, 2017. This is a ridiculous failing.

Let me know when there's an AI! Until then, I would lock this subforum; there's absolutely no point to reporting AI bugs until there's an AI.

santamonica811

One word response:  ouch!!!   

(Of course, our benevolent creator is commenting on something we regular 'bot' players have known all along.  One hopes it will get better.)

LastFootnote

Cross-posting an old post of mine:

QuoteI think better AI should be a top priority for Shuffle iT right now, probably second after eliminating all the log-only UI stuff. iOS and Android versions are important, but not having them is just putting off potential future players (who may already be totally put off by the subscription anyway). The bad AI is damaging player experiences right now. Here's a recent example of a new player who played a game where he lost to Lord Rattington, where Lord Rattington played Smithy-BM. The game AI should never ever play Smithy-BM, because it amounts to telling the player the game is broken. The game itself knew that the best strategy was this boring one! There should be a "bad" AI that messes around buying a bunch of stuff, like a newbie would. And then there should be some "good" AIs that play more complex strategies. No AI should be intentionally playing a boring strategy.

I just cross my fingers that Stef understands that a good game AI isn't one that wins the most. It's one that's challenging but not too challenging, and overall fun to play against.

Donald X.

Quote from: LastFootnote on 13 August 2017, 06:00:33 AM
Cross-posting an old post of mine:

QuoteI think better AI should be a top priority for Shuffle iT right now, probably second after eliminating all the log-only UI stuff. iOS and Android versions are important, but not having them is just putting off potential future players (who may already be totally put off by the subscription anyway). The bad AI is damaging player experiences right now. Here's a recent example of a new player who played a game where he lost to Lord Rattington, where Lord Rattington played Smithy-BM. The game AI should never ever play Smithy-BM, because it amounts to telling the player the game is broken. The game itself knew that the best strategy was this boring one! There should be a "bad" AI that messes around buying a bunch of stuff, like a newbie would. And then there should be some "good" AIs that play more complex strategies. No AI should be intentionally playing a boring strategy.

I just cross my fingers that Stef understands that a good game AI isn't one that wins the most. It's one that's challenging but not too challenging, and overall fun to play against.
I don't think Lord Rattington "knows" that Smithy-BM is the move, to any degree, ever. It doesn't know anything. It just tends to play mostly money, whether it's good or not.

I think the move is to make a bot that's as good as possible, and then use it as a base for other bots, by just handicapping them or lying to them (e.g. the attacky bot spends the first 6 turns overestimating attacks). I wouldn't start out trying to design a fun bot.

LastFootnote

Quote from: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 11:28:16 PM
Quote from: LastFootnote on 13 August 2017, 06:00:33 AM
Cross-posting an old post of mine:

QuoteI think better AI should be a top priority for Shuffle iT right now, probably second after eliminating all the log-only UI stuff. iOS and Android versions are important, but not having them is just putting off potential future players (who may already be totally put off by the subscription anyway). The bad AI is damaging player experiences right now. Here's a recent example of a new player who played a game where he lost to Lord Rattington, where Lord Rattington played Smithy-BM. The game AI should never ever play Smithy-BM, because it amounts to telling the player the game is broken. The game itself knew that the best strategy was this boring one! There should be a "bad" AI that messes around buying a bunch of stuff, like a newbie would. And then there should be some "good" AIs that play more complex strategies. No AI should be intentionally playing a boring strategy.

I just cross my fingers that Stef understands that a good game AI isn't one that wins the most. It's one that's challenging but not too challenging, and overall fun to play against.
I don't think Lord Rattington "knows" that Smithy-BM is the move, to any degree, ever. It doesn't know anything. It just tends to play mostly money, whether it's good or not.

I think you misunderstand. I know that Lord Rattington doesn't know anything, and you know that, but the new players that are getting beaten consistently by Lord Rattington don't know that. They see themselves getting beaten by this terrible AI using a boring "strategy" and assume that it's a good AI and that the boring strategy is the correct one.

Quote from: Donald X. on 13 August 2017, 11:28:16 PMI think the move is to make a bot that's as good as possible, and then use it as a base for other bots, by just handicapping them or lying to them (e.g. the attacky bot spends the first 6 turns overestimating attacks). I wouldn't start out trying to design a fun bot.

Yes, agreed. But having fun AIs is still more important than lots of other things, so I'm hoping there won't be a large time gap between the advent of the "best" AI and the advent of some lesser ones.

Donald X.

Quote from: LastFootnote on 14 August 2017, 09:25:10 PM
I think you misunderstand. I know that Lord Rattington doesn't know anything, and you know that, but the new players that are getting beaten consistently by Lord Rattington don't know that. They see themselves getting beaten by this terrible AI using a boring "strategy" and assume that it's a good AI and that the boring strategy is the correct one.
Okay. You meant "the player thinks that the game knows that the dull strategy is the best."

I saw the thread you're referring to. I don't disagree that it's bad. It's uh. I damn it with faint praise. It's just another bad thing about not having AI; not having AI was already so bad.

You could argue that the bots should just be disabled until they're real, rather than offer up a dull game that incidentally may convince you that Silver is the be-all end-all. They're useful for some things though. I guess, the bots could be renamed, Dummy Player #1. The option to play against bots could be hidden on a settings screen.

Ingix

Online Dominion is many different things to many different players. Some play (almost) exclusively against humans they never met in real life. Others play (almost) exclusively against humans that sit 3 feet away from them. Still others just play game after game against a bot.

Hiding the bots will just anger the latter player base for no real gain. If somebody wants to open a Dominion Academy that teaches better Dominion play, I'll be the first to sign up, because I really need it. But most beginning players will not get better if they are being beaten by "Lord of the Engine" instead of "Lord of Big Money".

Just as many other suggestions, better (and varied) AI would be nice, but takes time to do.

Donald X.

Quote from: Ingix on 15 August 2017, 03:36:14 PM
Online Dominion is many different things to many different players. Some play (almost) exclusively against humans they never met in real life. Others play (almost) exclusively against humans that sit 3 feet away from them. Still others just play game after game against a bot.

Hiding the bots will just anger the latter player base for no real gain.
I mostly play IRL. When I play online I just play vs. bots (so right now, I don't play online). So I mean I am one of those players you think would be angry if pretend-bots weren't there. The pretend-bots are a slap in the face to anyone who wanted to play against bots.

Quote from: Ingix on 15 August 2017, 03:36:14 PM
If somebody wants to open a Dominion Academy that teaches better Dominion play, I'll be the first to sign up, because I really need it. But most beginning players will not get better if they are being beaten by "Lord of the Engine" instead of "Lord of Big Money".
I'm not sure I follow you. I agree with LF's point that when you beat a player with money, they think "this game is stupid, it's broken, play something else." I have seen this come up endlessly on BGG from games IRL. They all buy too many actions, this game is fun but we are bad at it, then one player buys just money and wins, oops no game here. So beating up new players with Lord of the Engine is in fact better than beating them with Lord of This Game Sucks. It's way better. As LF notes though you can do even better by having Lord of the Not Bad But Buys Too Many Attacks and so on.

Ingix

Good point on the "A game where a Big Money strategy consistently wins is bad"-argument, that I've heard from another board-game player as well. I thought that was an exception, but apparently it isn't.