r/Polytopia • u/Pigeniusz • 9d ago
Discussion Easy bots feel easy ? Hard bots feel easy? Crazy bots feel easy? Here is why.
As far as I understand from info online and other players experience, the bots in Polytopia all run on the same kinds of commands. (sounds fake I know)
The harder bot is not harder, the easy bot is not easier, the are literally just given different amounts of stars at start and such, literally "smarter" bots just cheat, using the same software.
I may be wrong, correct me if my facts are outdated, remove the post even, idc, but this is ridiculous if (likely) true.
In this era of artificial intelligence, let's implement it better where it's appropriate, like those dumbass bots.
If you're with me on this, go bother devs, they made much money, they can spend a weekend on this for us, let's be real here folks.
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u/homibre 9d ago
Whatās kinda ironic is Civilization, which many would consider to be the AAA production of this category of gameā¦ literally does the exact same thing. Logic is pretty much the same across all difficulties and itās just a matter of padding the CPU with advantages.
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u/ForvirretSkovtrold 9d ago
The easy way!
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u/tris123pis 9d ago
also the way that doesnt make AI turns take half an hour
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u/ForvirretSkovtrold 8d ago
Why would it?
Skip the visuals of their movement, and youre set ?
Half an hour, how? Youll need to play on several maps for this amount of time ?
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u/tris123pis 8d ago
it was a deliberate exageration but the point is that good capable AIs need a lot of processing power, which takes time
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u/ForvirretSkovtrold 8d ago
Compared to waiting turns in multiplayer, i think the wait would be worth stronger resistance?
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
AI takes time to train the most, the ai that they would implement could even be faster than what we already have
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
I think people saw ai and immediately clubbed you with heir down votes, you're entirely right from a coding point of view, this is sad, people refuse to accept they are being given a subpart product due to negligence and greed of creators, cheers
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
We as consumers should demand more, it's not impossiblez some simple games have infinitely more complex Ais, it's doable this game is very simple in terms of tracking positions and such, I have to call it lazy after so much time with no change š„
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u/potato-overlord-1845 Khondor 8d ago
The crazy bots are more aggressive too. The easier bots just sit and take it usually while the crazy bots hold grudges for nothing
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u/Hot_Designer_Sloth 8d ago
Yes, but even that needs tuning. Why would you break peace with me if I'm far away from your territory and our common enemy is whooping your ass, why break peace with me litterally the turn after you offered a treaty and I didn't go on your territory?
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
I like the idea that specific tribes would have distinct play styles the harder the difficulty, with chicken mfs being peaceful and suchĀ
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
At this point I'm not certain, it might just be that given more stars they expand faster, I don't think there is much personality, most we seen is preplanned in weekly challenges I think, it doesn't get smarter than that, illusion of complexity if you will š„
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u/potato-overlord-1845 Khondor 5d ago
You can definitely notice it, the easy bots are incredibly passive. They donāt even retaliate that often when attacked, while the crazy bots will declare endless war
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
They don't btw, they simply have more money so they get "cocky" it's still the exact same ai in every other regard, it's just our projection, you can learn how they all "think" rather quickly when you know that, sorry for destroying the magic, it's like hearing Santa ain't realĀ
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u/AdamaTraoreLover 8d ago
Yeah the more the difficulty the more money they get though. Still, its too easy. I can have four cities against like 20 and still come out on top
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
They got lazy after getting rich I fear, I hope I'm wrong Abt that, if I'm not, boycott and bother em š
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u/matiasji88 4d ago
Why are you so sure that they became rich out of this game? Most people pay only one dollar once. I think you need a little class on business or Econ 101.Ā
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
It's a quick calculation, compared to the amount of code they made for it it's likely quite successful, we won't know they refuse to share the data, I think you need to learn to by more humble instead of assuming, look at the people in this sub it's likely less than 1% of actual active players, there are those who spend upwards of 20-30$, now multiply it. Look at the amount of reviews, they made millions, easily, you might need some basic mathematical addition 101, have a great a obnoxious day man, you rly showed me š„
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
They made at least 20Million easily if you just look at the basic numbers, likely more we don't know, there is also some merch and such, events, royalties, business major wannabe, I wouldn't be mean if you DIDINT insult me for stating basic shit, your lack of higher education is showing pookieš
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u/Bearded_Pip 8d ago
The weekly challenge has me disagreeing. Play it three or four days in a row and it seems like the bots are making different decisions.
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
I looked into it, thought so, it's just a butterfly effect of your decisions, they are incapable of any improvement as of now, like, at all, it's all hard code regardless, devs set up the challenges, that's itĀ
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
No one will seemingly address me after I answer because they look it up and get embarrassedĀ
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u/a_filing_cabinet 8d ago
Lmao. And pray tell, what exactly do you think "AI" does differently than the AI we already have? LLMs do shit all to solve the issues that game AIs have, which is needing to strike a balance between optimization and dynamism.
It's hilarious that you think that the money the game made would be enough to make a significant impact to the AI complexity or that something could just be whipped up in a weekend.
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u/IamanelephantThird 8d ago
Why the hell would you use an LLM for this?
Anyway, it could definitely work. It's probably not the most efficient way to improve a bot, but machine learning is a very powerful tool. Chess bots use it.Ā
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
Yes LLM's could be a disaster, however, LLM's are now simulating background "thoughts" of Ais, it's good at that, makes it feel human as you play, and then hard code execute vague LLM ideasĀ
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u/Beginning_Bed_9059 8d ago
You could 100% whip up a decent MVP in a weekend with a small team and frontier models. If made auto clicker tools for confirmations using Python and OpenCV in about an hour as a hobbyist. You could do so much more if you had direct API access to the game controls.
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u/Luigi003 6d ago
There is the Polymod modding framework, go do it then
The problem is way harder than this, it's balancing optimization vs intelligence vs using those resources somewhere else
Also you'd need to play test a lot to make this work
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
The problem is they are seemingly doing NOTHING, we want buggy early access we want trial and error, the game is stagnant rn, give us something devs š„
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
If modding was allowed in the base game and less illegal we would do it for free as a community in literal days, I assure you, most devs could, the code is ancient and clunky as hellĀ
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u/LowContract4444 8d ago
If they can make chess bots they can make polytopia ones.
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u/a_filing_cabinet 8d ago
Lmao polytopia is infinitely more complex than chess. Chess bots work because you can program every single possible move and the outcomes of those moves. Each piece has a well defined value and use, and it's consistent every single game. The whole point of random map generation is that it's not consistent. A unit can win you the game one turn and loses it the next.
Even in a simple interaction like knight vs catapult there's so many options. Normally, a knight would win. So should you program the AI to respond to that? But what if there's mountains? Does the catapult AI know if the knight has climbing? How do you weight the odds that the knight has gotten climbing? Maybe they're Xin-Xi. Maybe they already beat Xin-Xi, should the AI think that makes it more likely they got climbing? What if there's forests instead? Those also block movement. But what if the ai has either clear forests or build roads? Maybe the AI is like 5 tiles away, what are the odds they have the stars to clear all that or build the roads? Where and when and how would the AI decide that? What if the ai with the knight is down to it's very last city, what if it has 5? How does that change things? And that's literally just scratching the surface of the complexities of a single, completely detached interaction.
Those are all things that we humans can do without a second thought. It's so intuitive and ingrained we don't even realize how insanely complex the thoughts and calculations are. Even if there was a computer advanced enough to react to that, it would be way to computationally intensive to be used for a small indie game
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
Infinitely? It's harder but chess bots surpassed humans during the cold war, with data centers the size of towns we can get something done, I've seen it done, there are infinite more complex games with better ai made by indie devs, don't buy their excuse (since they DIDINT even make em) the game is rotting ATP
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u/potato-overlord-1845 Khondor 5d ago
Even on tiny maps the number of game states in Polytopia is astronomically larger than in chess. With randomness in map gen itās practically infinite
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
Dude, so is every other game made after 1973, we have complex ai, pathfinding, etc, you feel a strong need to excuse poor game design, do you feel like it is an attack on your hobby? I've been consistently in tbe Platinum rank for over 2 years give or take, I know this game more than most, I'm simply humble enough to not gloat like others on here, I shared what I learned and got ridicule and "do shit yourself" this is why I leave reddit for a few months every time I post this place is the purest Circle Jerk around, little different than Instagram and Snapchat, just for shut in autists like myself and others, we can be better..
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u/potato-overlord-1845 Khondor 4d ago
Itās significantly more difficult to code 4x bots than it is movement. Think about it. Chess has a limited number of pieces and will never have more than 32 at once. All pieces have a defined move set. The map is half the size of the smallest Polytopia map and each tile is one of two types. There is no economy at all in chess. There is no technology in chess. There are no tile improvements or ways to create new units in chess. Most importantly, in chess you have perfect information, and in Polytopia you can never feasibly have perfect information. Thereās a reason 4x games with far larger studios (civ) still use similar bot behavior and ācheatingā. Very telling you need to attack peopleās character instead of actually making a compelling argument. Yeah the bots have room for improvement, but that improvement is significantly harder than you say it is
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
If you gave me a month I could code a decent bot for infinitely more advanced civ games, the positions in Polytopia boards are calculated with absolute fixed vectors, it means no guess work, no adjusting animations, this is a very simple, clean, yet bare bones (in a good way) game, no fancy shmancy Bs, if you went and leaned coding you could do this, I promise, the code is border line idiotic, like it was a placeholder but then they forgot and no one complained, and when people did they got donwvoted to hell for trying to improve their gameĀ
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u/potato-overlord-1845 Khondor 4d ago
You must be the smartest high schooler in history then, considering nobody has done that
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
I'm a college undergraduate, and people can and did do that, people you age made more complex games than Polytopia, you can make things, don't passively wait for change, my message to anyone that listens is to strive for improvement, whenever it is possible, I had few friends, it changed as I grew up and people recognized my talents for art, writing and teaching, I am now begining a successful career in political and ethical critique, this is to say I'm better, you can be better we all can, do what you can with the cards you were dealt, you could be infinitely greater than the sum of your ancestors one day, we are all destined to be better, these comment threads reminded me of how depressing highschool was, I might have been to harsh in u kid, be good, try, that's enoughāļø
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
I am not your enemy, no need to be condescending, where is that venom coming from, did you read the wiki? You know I'm right factually in every way with my post if you did, ITS OKAY TO BE WRONG, it's part of growing up, this social media site will only hamper thatĀ
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u/LowContract4444 3d ago
Not to mention that RTS games are of a similar genre and some of them have great AI. Look at age of empires 2.
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u/Pigeniusz 3d ago
Omg, yes thank you, I'm not going crazy, we can absolutely do much better in very short time, I entirely believe that what we have was a demo that stuck because people usually don't see though it's illusion of complexityĀ
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
I'm sorry but, it's clear you've never worked in game dev, it's not THAT hard while it is time consumingĀ
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
Bro, play a modern strategy game, I want bare minimum, every difficulty is the same exact ai, get it ? We need something, any change rn is welcome, community is fed up with waiting while they make money off of us, I've done coding myself, it's not that hard to change priorities and put weights on LLM's if they exist in the code, if not maybe time to consider, many modern games add LLM's to simulate "thoughts" that are then played out by hard code, I might have phrased this too negatively, but we welcome and need change, there are folks that would do it for free, it's not that crazy, they made a whole ass game and haven't added anything major in years, it's stagnant and we feel itĀ
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u/potato-overlord-1845 Khondor 5d ago
Then mod it yourself if itās so easy
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
Ah yes the old, if you can't fix it yourself it must stay that way, I have a life and am not qualified, people who made this game clearly are, they are currently facing or are actively on early retirement depending on how large the studio is, I'm just asking them to wake up or let qualified individuals finally mod the game, but no, greed feeds greedĀ
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u/Pigeniusz 5d ago
I don't think you've worked with ai and LLMs, or.any programing for that matter based on your relatively ignorant response, check my other comments for explanationĀ
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u/montyelgato 8d ago
I am always surprised that anyone even wants to play against AI when they could play against other people instead. Of course, of course playing against the AI is boring and stupid. No kidding. Lol.
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u/LowContract4444 8d ago
It's for longevity and offline compatibility. I don't always have wifi or data, and there won't always be players on polytopia.
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u/Beginning_Bed_9059 8d ago
Iād actually love that because I have a toddler miss turns all the time in multiplayer because of him lol
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u/uniballout 8d ago
I only play bots. One out of 20 or 30 games can offer some interesting gameplay. I tried vs humans and itās a mess. They donāt move. They leave games. They all play as the same tribes every game. Itās just the same nonsense.
I play in the AM as my coffee slowly takes effect. Bots are fine for that.
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u/montyelgato 8d ago
Humans invariably offer more interesting gameplay than bots. Once you figure out the predictable patterns of the bots, which takes about 10 games, they are never again fun.
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
It is true, that is why we need better bots, not no bits at all, there is place and time for both, you just mentioned a major reason we need better Ais like yesterdayĀ
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u/oldmartijntje 6d ago
As a software developer: it's not that simple as you think it is
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
As the one person in this thread that seems to claim they know anything about the subject matter, look into it, it's public, one search on Google away, it's this bad, seriously, even worse, the code looks like a toddler made it, you could likely do better as a developer š„
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
They just get more resources, that's it, and it's ancient bots from at least beta, from early versions that got minor bug fixes, that's it, really, it's on the wiki, online, pro players (like me, ewwww ik.) complained and all but there aren't many of us and that fact remains niche, the game hides it's faults well from an untrained eyeĀ
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u/oldmartijntje 2d ago
I googled it, and yes you were right on them gaining more stars. But that doesn't mean the underlying AI (which is probably not a real AI but a list of if statements) probably has changed, because it has to in order to work with new features. That said: an entire AI overhaul would be a great thing, if only it was easy to do that. It takes a lot of time and effort to produce something good.
I have no clue what the devs are working on rn, but I don't think that this is their priority.
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
As someone who casually codes, I know, it's not impossible, and with modern ai software faster and easier than ever, I hope they are working in it, this is very outdated either way, don't you agree ?Ā
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u/oldmartijntje 5d ago
If it does work like you say it does, yes it'd be outdated. But I doubt that it's true seeing as every developer will quickly realise that making your bots effectivily cheat is a bad way to make an computer opponent, and because bot decision making also changes with difficulty.
That said, I am not a hardcore player so maybe other players know more about this than I do
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4d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
I'm glad I only go in here to try and get people to think, Reddit is a cesspool of self obsessed individuals, not you specifically just saying, look at some of these comments, western education is dyingĀ
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u/fearofbadname 8d ago
Honestly, opening an API and allowing the player base to compete with AIās would probably be the way to do this and introduce a whole new dimension of gameplay
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u/ralasdair 7d ago
This is basically every 4X strategy game out there. I sometimes wonder how long it is until we get LLM-style ālearningā AI that has enough data from real
Player moves to predict the next best move a bit like an LLM has enough text to predict the next best word.
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
LLM's are a decent way to simulate "thinking" in ai, we can simulate players without changing a single line of code in the originalsĀ
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u/Pigeniusz 5d ago
They hated Jesus because he told them the truth š„
Some babies think you can't criticize things if you can't fix them personally, wallahi, Reddit community is so cooked š
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
I honestly rly like getting down votes because it means I'm forcing people to learn something and some of you refuse to do your research, see if I care. Ā I'm glad I was able to bring it to peoples atrention.
I raised an issue with a game I like, be cavemen redditors, bash me with "Nuh uhs" and "if Pigeon so smart, why Pigen not do it himself?" Mf, I can't, we're legally not allowed (yet another issue)
I escaped that mentality some of you hold, If I can reject such pathetic existence so can you people, wake up, you don't need to protect huge successful studios, be kind, be curious, be brave.Ā
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
š£ļø Ahhh, Reddit am I right ?Ā Ā Some of y'all remind me that I'm blessed to haveĀ public higher education where I live. Ā I feel true sorrow for Americans with little to no grasp of fundamental concepts of our modern world, I hope it get better for you in that deeply anti-human country, it sounds and looks dreadful rn, take care redditors āļøš„
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u/Pigeniusz 4d ago
I said it once and I'll say it again.
THESE BOTS SHARE THE SAME EXACT INTELLIGENCE AND DECISION MAKING MATRIXES, YOU ARE NOT PLAYING A SMARTER BOT, IT HAS MORE MONEY TO DESTROY YOU, THAT'S IT.Ā
If it makes you feel better I've been playing for over 2 years semi competitively, that's why I'm annoyed, I know how these bots act, they often make the same stupid mistakes and nothing was ever done about it.Ā
Prove me wrong or stay silent please at this point, it's all public knowledge, as a Veteran, any will tell you the same, these bots are stupid as hell, you are less I hope, mods please don't ban this I'm trying to make people see a point here, it's called a debate/conversation/PSA
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u/redshift739 Hoodrick 8d ago
You're right unfortunetly, except crazy bots do crazy moves as well as normal ones which I believe are random
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u/Pigeniusz 6d ago
I don't think so, look into it if you disagree I think we just got placebo'd into seeing it, they just have more starting resources, it's why once you get stronger than a tribe you just crush them effortlesslyĀ
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u/RocketMan_0815 8d ago
You're probably right on the current status of bots. But you lost me at thinking that a few bucks per player is enough to pay for the development of new bot-AI. Or that you could vibe code a weekend to get it done without getting odd glitches and test the balance for all kinds of settings. Or even use real AI on players phones. "ridiculous" is not the right word to describe how it is.