Find a way for it to be interesting singleplayer, for people who want to try to "optimize" their play.

We all know the limits of AI in these games. We also know it's basically impossible to get people together for a serious game that stays serious. This is the EL discord in a nutshell, a dozen or so people with hundreds/thousands of hours played, wanting an opportunity to sincerely use their skills and finding it maybe once or twice a year. That's just the nature of the genre, which is why we need something else. I don't know what it would be exactly, perhaps world settings that would make it difficult to survive even as the only player, some looming, spreading threat? Some ridiculous overpowered "faction" that only the AI can play, because that's what AI needs to be a perpetual threat? Some ecological disaster that tanks economies? EL Quests alone didn't really fill this niche, they worked as "cost/benefit opportunities", but I don't see how they could be more without taking over the game (not to mention that fundamentally, they either get finished immediately be skilled players, or have arbitrary waiting periods and nobody wants that).

Developing dream cities as a solitaire game is fun for a while, but at the end of the day if I wanted to play Sim City I'd just play Sim City, and do all that stuff faster and without trivial strategic gameplay getting in the way. We need something that will let us feel good about mastering the strategic elements, without having to wrangle human players into the one-in-a-million PvP game where strategic play actually happens (as opposed to everyone quietly using the RPG elements until someone gets ahead and crushes everyone, which is probably inevitable, but shouldn't be the only way to justifiably do anything interesting in these games).

Your humble request for perfect AI is duly noted!

On a more serious note, we're going to do our best to make sure this game is ticking all the boxes. Stay tuned for more...

Frogsquadron wrote:

Your humble request for perfect AI is duly noted!

On a more serious note, we're going to do our best to make sure this game is ticking all the boxes. Stay tuned for more...

As another humble request, worry less about ticking all the boxes and do a great job on the boxes you do tick.  :)

More seriously, I understand this is a AAA game and a large player base will be needed to make it a commercial success.  A certain amount of box ticking will therefore be needed to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.  I for one, though, am hoping that Humankind offers re-playability because the core gameplay is simple but enjoyable.

Better than my request. My request was to not go to EGS.

Frogger, what makes the "perfect AI"? 

It's important to me. I will probably play single-player forever. I have 4,000 hours in Civ 6 alone, all in single player. 

First_Medic wrote:

Frogger, what makes the "perfect AI"? 

It's important to me. I will probably play single-player forever. I have 4,000 hours in Civ 6 alone, all in single player. 

He was clearly joking. Impossible task. Making a good AI in these games is nearly impossible, so the game itself has to be structured to accomodate that.

SpacesuitSpiff wrote:

First_Medic wrote:

Frogger, what makes the "perfect AI"? 

It's important to me. I will probably play single-player forever. I have 4,000 hours in Civ 6 alone, all in single player. 

He was clearly joking. Impossible task. Making a good AI in these games is nearly impossible, so the game itself has to be structured to accomodate that.

and it's viewed as unrealistic due to, presumably, the cost and manpower it would take to achieve a highly specialized a.i similar to the one used in Starcraft competative play that one time.  not to mention creating perfect A.I requires us to bring down the humane brain into an applicable mathematical equation that can be built upon to be used as a framework--by that point Amplitude should make their next Showcase be at a science forum as I'm pretty sure they created a workable frame for sentient artificial intelligence.

Pfft, just use OpenAI and let it learn to make the best decisions, and eventually become unstoppable to play against.

(Totally kidding, before anyone thinks otherwise)

Amplitude's REAL response to this post:

https://twitter.com/Amplitude/status/1322236947000152064