All other difficulties have the normal HP amount. Won't this mess up people's multiplayer senses? Wait, so the enemies on normal are the only ones with normal HP? Sigh, I don't mind them sending more waves of enemies at me, but I don't want enemies with more health on Brutal. Also, the amount of enemies/buildings also changes. Casual is 50%, normal is 100% and it goes up from there.
Some aspects require very long term planning, like build orders, and considering expansions, but these can be considered at a much lower temporal resolution.The most obvious changes are HP values of enemies. Some aspects of the game are time critical but there is negligible benefit to anticipating them far into the future, like micro skills. By splitting the game into different layers, running each on a different clock and anticipating each one a computable distance into the future. What I proposed was a compromise that could just about be done on today's hardware if someone was clever enough to program it. But theoretically, yes it can be imagined. No supercomputer in existence today or the foreseeable future could do anything close to what you are asking. And with RTS, the limit would occur much earlier than in chess because the game has a higher computational complexity. But if it takes your computer 2 weeks to run that simulation, then the result becomes worthless before the calculation is even completed.Ĭomputation time multiplies up (at least doubles) with each step into the future you consider. You can run a really detailed simulation of the weather to predict what it will be like at 9.00 tomorrow morning. In RTS, the results have to come in before the next clock tick, otherwise you're predicting a game state that has already become history. It would lose because it was too slow in making its moves. A computer AI which thinks that deeply would run out of time considering even its first move. Lots more complex than chess.Ī chess computer CANT think 25 moves ahead - there would just be ridiculous amounts of information that couldn't be sifted through in any reasonable time. The point I'm making is that it's a complex game. Also a complex analytic AI could take a big chunk of the cpu, and games designers prefer to put more emphasis on good graphics and supporting big numbers of units. But AI is hard to develop, requiring very intelligent people, and it isn't a big priority considering that most players are happy competing with their peers online.
I think it is very possible to do what you are asking. Maybe 1 consideration every 15 seconds would be enough. But the clock can tick quite slow for that.
The economy and macro would need thinking a long way ahead, like 10 minutes or so. Recon is less critical than micro, so the clock can tick slower for considering updates to that. Of course you don't have to anticipate micro skills that far ahead, maybe 10 seconds ahead is enough there. How many moves ahead? 5 minutes worth? 10 minutes worth? So you have to make it think deeper than that. If we had an AI in a chess game that only thought one move ahead, you'd easily win it. Strategy goes much deeper than considering 1 movement ahead. RTS is a complex game in terms of choices available at any one time.