LOL I PLAYED Traveller in real life. A LOT. I even entered the Trillion Credit Squadron contest. Sniff! Me am so old.
It is VERY funny though that as proof of your strategic AI argument you chose and ENTIRELY tactical example. TRAVELLER High Guard rules did NOT contain much about logistics or empire management. The contest you refer to is about ship design for tactical combat. While there were rules about assault ships and marine boarding parties I dont see anything in that article about using them. Now IF it had said the AI then went on to play FIFTH FRONTIER WAR and kick behind at it...THEN your point would have been made.
k:
Your points about what players want and need from AI's is very good. Your point asking that "more time" be spent on Strat AI's is a gross oversimplification. I agree that often you find inferior strat AI's but that is not always due to lack of effort. I was trained to be an AI programmer. I know the difference between a moment of true AI inspiration and just good guys trying their hardest. There is NO cut and dried path to strat AI programming. It is a wildly unconstrained problem. Sometimes in games like GC2, you can constrain portions of the game itself so the AI can deal with it easier, but that is not always an option. Choosing examples based on MIT research teams is NOT your average game dev situation either.
And besides...My point was about INNOVATION. Until you get a self aware lil program running. Innovation will always be the human high ground.
But whatever...its not like people haven't made money convincing folks their AI was the be all and end all of things when its was just cleverly disguised average. I could follow the same path and babble on and on about how our AI will steal your wallet and rent porn while you play. Instead I choose to treat gamers like grownups and say the SotS AI is damn good, but the game runs so deep that a human opponent will always be more surprising a year later. (Hence my deep seated belief in multiplayer) Though I know marketing guys wince when I say stuff like that. :blink:
(For the record, while SotS ship construction is not quite so open ended as High Gaurd (which was based on tonnage and percentages, while Sots is based on a large a variety of section choices with relatively fixed attributes) the actual tactical options when it comes to weapon selections and ship performance is at least an order of magnitude more complex. And of course there is the whole actual strategic portion. :whistle: SotS also requires an AI that can handle 4 different drive system rule sets and of course racial tendencies and diplomacy)