Thunder:Game Head
We have had visitors! The gang from Game Head, the show on SPIKE TV, stopped by to film some footage in our office and interview Graeme Devine. I believe they were grabbing this footage for a Halo-themed show that they have coming up, so perhaps they will slip in some stuff about Halo Wars. I believe they do have a new piece of art from the game, a render of the Spirit of Fire, the ship that the game revolves around. Watch for on or around September 25th! (Possibly TONIGHT!) Once the episode airs, we’ll post the image here on the website for you.
I must say, the UNSC Spirit of Fire looks absolutely awesome! So awesome that I'd like to see it again. I watched the Game Head special tonight (least I could do since I can't get the game), and as predicted, it was there.
Monastery:A good RTS AI... Well, For starters, the AI should be able to react to threats appropriately, and be able to react to your actions. For example, if you keep hitting a certain spot of their base repeatedly, the AI should be able to patch it up and improve defense at that point. But at the same time not neglect other duties, like army building. Also, an AI shouldn't be an all-knowing all-controlling intelligence, able to simultaniously repair defenses, build troops, launch an attack on your base, attack outposts (if those are available), know where your army is at all times, improve their economy, mass a second attack force, and meet your army all at the same time without missing a beat on any task, infact, excelling at them. A human would be hard pressed to keep up. Also, the enemy shouldn't have what I like to call an 'arrogance bug'. this is where they'll mass forces outside your entrance, building an impossible to destroy army, and then not attack. Just wait (arrogance). Letting you waste hundreds of units trying to destroy it, ending in you surrendering out of frustration. Last, i think allied AI should coordinate with you to a limited extent, such as send a number of reinforcements if your getting screwed over horribly, yet not send their entire army, leaving them defenseless and doomed to die. And if the AI is like my last example, the enemy will immediately jump on this weakness. Also, on limited coordination, they should maybe send a small cadre of troops to help your attacks (assuming they're prooccupied), but join your attack if there is only one opponent, allowing the two of you to overwhelm them. Many battles have been pointlessly drawn out by AI allies seeming ignorance to your presence in other games. These are things i think a good AI should have.
I think that there should be a level of difficulty at which the enemy reaches that all-knowing all-controlling intelligence, but I have definately seen that as a major flaw in RTS games in the past. One thing that has always really bugged me is when the enemy AI doesn't actually have to be collecting resources to have an economy. Most games will have it so that if you take out all the AI's resource gathering units, the resources with slow off, but I have seen many a game in which the AI seems to collect resources at an ungodly rate. But then, resources may not even be neglagable in Halo Wars. Basically, I am looking for an AI that makes mistakes, but that does so in a seemingly unpredictable way, and that doesn't do so too often. I'm looking for a more human AI.
I like pi.