More diaries are always interesting. And they give me stuff to complain about, which is always nice.

Personally I'd be surprised if there is much AI work going on though. You've got to settle on how the game wors before you teach someone how to play it. Most of the problems I have with the AI would be more easily fixed by changing the game. Ie, stopping the player using teleport all the time so the AI, doesn't have to compete with that, or simplifying the settlement system so that I can't win the game by rushing certain techs, or making groups easier to train etc etc.

One can only hope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_of_Wor

I lol'd

He's also the only A.I guy at Stardock. He has said that he can't find any A.I people to hire and he himself is busy enough as it is by running Stardock and making WoM v.1.3.

An A.I developer journal is something I expect around BETA time. We may see one sooner but that would be a theoretical one of how he plans the A.I.

On the good side, since Fallen Enchantress comes later than War of Magic, the A.I will hopefully be allowed to use more CPU resources.

Right now, I'd say AI is my biggest concern about FE.

This discussion really deserves a more lengthy response but I'll try to give you some of the highlights:

So as some of you know, Stardock has historically had 3 business units -- the software unit, the games unit, and the distribution unit.  From 2000 to 2009, the software unit dominated the vast majority of our energy. In 2010, the distribution unit took the lead at which point we decided to sell it off (we like money too but I didn't exactly get excited about waking up and putting my creative energies into selling other people's games).

At net result is that I have quite a bit more time. Right now, we're hiring up very aggressively and so I've been spending a lot of my time recruiting people so that we can effectively get two game studios going at once by July 1 while at the same time putting together the projects for the software group for the rest of 11.  

So in July you'll have Team A (FE) run by Derek and Team B (unnamed) run by Jon Shafer (not counting team C which is a combined Stardock/Ironclad team working via VPN managed by Brian Clair - Yarlen and Blair Fraser). 

The AI work for FE won't get started until after v1.3 is complete. But because I've got a third less work on my plate (Impulse being sold off) and that my work on these projects is only very high level I'll be able to dedicate massive time to FE.

We have also agreed internally that we won't ship until the AI is on par with the GalCiv AI even if it means delaying the game even though everything else is wonderful. So you may be in store for a pretty long beta phase with this game. And when the complaining begins, refer them to this post because mark my words, people WILL complain. Not everyone (not even most people) care about AI. They'll argue that we should just crank up the AI bonuses and call it a day. 

Unlike with GalCiv, I've got Dave Stern who Random House graciously gave me the okay to hire from them to do the writing. So I can have the AI have a lot better and richer dialog with players.

...

Now, all that said, the WOM AI is going to get an overhaul in v1.3.  I need to learn how the tactical battle AI works as I wasn't involved in that part of the game. That way, I will be already somewhat more familiar in FE where the tactical battles are going to be a lot LOT more sophisticated (due to all the special powers and abilities and weapons).  The weapon stuff in FE is, frankly, insane. If you're not a medeval weapons expert, you will be. I never realized how different even different swords can behave.

That's the spirit.

Hoping to see some truculence from the AI.

Also, delaying the game until the AI is really, really good is AOK with me. Smart choice.

AI was just about the only thing wrong with AOW:SM, the only reason I stopped playing that game (I had to really work my mind to figure ways when making maps to get around the ai's incompententcy so my friends could be challenged).   Extremely happy to hear that this will be a major concern. 

Side note:  I've played alot of space games & Galciv was by far my favorite but not till recently did I put two & two together and realize that the game I liked so much was Stardocks.  Thought surely I've played this before & went through my old games & there it was, just didn't pay much attention to the name before.

On the AI complaining- the best way to handle that is the way you already do it, have the open betas, and let people play a beta version in the meantime.  People won't complain if they can play something, especially if that something is good as it is and you're still improving it.

I think AI is the 2nd most important component of a single-player game behind gameplay.    The replay value of a single-player strategy game is mostly determined by the AI itself.

The only downside is with a really long beta, the game can sometimes seem you've played it a ton when the game is on its release date  (with Twilight, I actually felt I had gotten my money's worth by the time it was released)

Wait a minute....If is is the best and only AI guy in Stardock and WOM AI sucks then that does not bode well for FE.  Me thinks there are other AI guys flying under the rainbow or Brad is actully working more on FE than WOM.

FE doesn't share WoM's problem of changing so frequently and drastically that the AI is being written against a constantly moving target. It's a more formally specced out thing and thus you can expect the AI to have a better idea of what it's supposed to do.