🚀 go-pugleaf

Mark Hanson <mar...@winternet.com> wrote:

>I think Warcraft II edges out C&C because of the AI.  In the 
>multi player games the AI in WCII will build bases and expand 
>them.  It is much more challanging than C&C.  I've also noticed
>that WCII is slightly more stable in modem play.
>Just my 2 cents (hoping Westwood will read this and make a 
>more challenging AI:)
>
>Mark Hanson

Nope.  Blizzard has much to learn from Westwood, and not the other way 
around.  It touts the AI for Warcraft II as being heuristic: it'll learn 
from what you do.  But in actual practice, this only means:

1) outnumbered troops retreat
2) as the enemy upgrades, it sends tougher troops...but that's
   hardly a case of it learning from your behavior

In fact, so stupid is the AI that it won't attack walls.  Troops get 
stuck in twisty rock and forest corridors.  They sometimes "time out," 
standing there while you slaughter them.  And the AI control of peasants 
will send them to certain doom: straight into your line of fire.  The 
computer may expand its bases, but -- and this is a big but -- often 
without terribly altering its attack strategy.  So you simply kill off 
its troops and then spend a longer time wiping out its base after all the 
defenders are gone.  Or simply kill the peasants, and the game's over.  
That's "slightly more challenging than C&C"?

Any C&C fans considering buying Warcraft II should know that it's hobbled 
by AI that will guarantee the same playing experience over and over 
again.  There are no surprises.  You can design levels with a 
sophisticated editor...and then get the same play as you would from 
Blizzard's built-in levels, if your level "works" -- if, that is, you've 
given the AI a straight line of attack, tons of resources, and no 
complications that it is woefully equipped to handle (say, a bend in a 
mountainside that it can't figure out how to go around).  Unless Blizzard 
makes drastic improvements, you'll be tremendously let down if you expect 
play on a par with C&C.


Richard Cretan