Resources= Play-Balance Troubles - Page 2

Urban Ranger · July 6, 2001, 02:05

There are many kinds of bugs though I won't burden you with their idenfications.

If an AI routine doesn't react the way you expect it to, is it a bug? Strictly speaking, not necessarily. Mostly likely the routine just can't handle a particular combination of input values, which is more of a design flaw instead of logical mistakes.

Now it is very likely that a lot of these unexpected situations exist in games such as Civ or SMAC due to their inherent complexity. If you look at some real life programs, such as Web browsers or http servers, you'd surprised how they could posibly have so many flaws, given the much more restricted set of inputs they could have. And these are not games, these are for *ahem* real.

As Yin pointed out it's not quite possible for the programming team to simulate the full range of these input values, so many of these games are released with these "bugs."

Think of it this way. Humans often react unexpectedly to outside situations, so it seems that we shouldn't be overly nitpicky about AI routines in such complex games. Now, if you are talking about chess, it'd be totally different

KoalaBear33 · July 6, 2001, 02:53

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Resources just bring too many different figures to the equation for the AI to deal with... so, either Civ III will need a Pentium 700 with 256 MB of RAM or a scaled down version will have horrible AI.

Because of resources I predict that Civ III will be released Fall 2002.

I don't think the hardware requirements would have to be too severe. The game is 2D so that basically means that the low end CPUs are good enough (unlike 3D games like Black&White where you spend CPU cycles on graphics). Since this team has worked on Civilization, Civilization II, and Alpha Centauri, I'm sure that their code will be very optimal. I would guess that a 300MHz CPU with 128MB RAM should be enough for Civ III in single player. Multiplayer is a different story though (totally depends on how they do it).

KoalaBear33

Urban Ranger · July 6, 2001, 04:40

I reckon you don't need more than a PII-200 and 64MB RAM.

TechWins · July 6, 2001, 05:02

Quote:

I don't think the hardware requirements would have to be too severe. The game is 2D so that basically means that the low end CPUs are good enough (unlike 3D games like Black&White where you spend CPU cycles on graphics). Since this team has worked on Civilization, Civilization II, and Alpha Centauri, I'm sure that their code will be very optimal. I would guess that a 300MHz CPU with 128MB RAM should be enough for Civ III in single player. Multiplayer is a different story though (totally depends on how they do it).

Actually the units are going to be in 3D, I believe. I think the requirements out of your system will diffently be higher than Civ2's were but lower than what your projected requirements are. Multiplaying will have the same requirements as SP will.

Quote:

I reckon you don't need more than a PII-200 and 64MB RAM.

This sounds about right. You may even only need 32MB of RAM. Hopefully you only need about 4MB for your video card. I know I'll be really mad if I have to go buy a new video card to use it just for Civ.

Urban Ranger · July 6, 2001, 05:06

4MB video card sounds reasonable, maybe more if you want higher resolution or more colours.

TechWins · July 6, 2001, 05:12

Quote:

4MB video card sounds reasonable, maybe more if you want higher resolution or more colours.

All I care about is to have the game run smoothly.

KoalaBear33 · July 6, 2001, 05:40

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins

Actually the units are going to be in 3D, I believe.

I just started following Civ III recently so correct me if I'm wrong... I think the units are 2D but they are 3D rendered units.

Quote:

This sounds about right. You may even only need 32MB of RAM. Hopefully you only need about 4MB for your video card. I know I'll be really mad if I have to go buy a new video card to use it just for Civ.

yep... you don't need much.. but 32MB RAM sounds low... you probably need at least 64MB just for windows...

KoalaBear33

yin26 · July 8, 2001, 01:14

Quote:

As Yin pointed out it's not quite possible for the programming team to simulate the full range of these input values, so many of these games are released with these "bugs."

Yes, I don't want to over-use the term "bug" but rather focus on upfront time and effort spent testing and tweaking the AI, interface, etc. Basically I want to avoid at all costs the REAL testing starting after the game's release.

DarkCloud · July 8, 2001, 13:32

Quote:

Originally posted by KoalaBear33

yep... you don't need much.. but 32MB RAM sounds low... you probably need at least 64MB just for windows...

KoalaBear33

I went with 16MB for windows for a long time, until certain games required 32, and so I upgraded... Windows ran fine with 16MB...