Star Wars Rebellion

[jahcs]

In a fit of nostalgia I reinstalled the game Star Wars Rebellion and was surprised to see there were no conflicts with Windows XP! Many of my older games refuse to run in XP even with the emulation modes XP offers.

Have any other lurkers wasted hours in front of their PC with this game? While the tactical view isn't very tactical it does make a nice diversion from resource management and special missions. And who can't resist seeing your huge fleet slug it out with the opponent?




EDIT: I just learned the game was Star Wars Supremacy in the UK.

[Drasca]

Gasp! I have had the hardest time acquiring this game! Lucasarts refused to accept my CC online orders! <_<

No conflicts? I may just have to try to buy it again

[jahcs]

I did some web searches and saw that some people had some problems installing it over XP. Sound card drivers were the #1 problem listed. THe game seems to not like uninstalled and/or generic drivers.

[whyBish]

The game is interesting for one play through. Unfortunately it lakes strategy (and a challenging AI). As far as I remember the game goes: Research warp interdictors(?) then biggest fleet wins.
There are no choke-points because there are no starlanes.
The enemy doesn't follow the mega fleet philosophy so takes greater losses (which affects morale/allegiance(?) )
There was little variation between the two sides apart from the icons associated with units (i.e. no special ability units unique to one side, apart from the death star IIRC)
The hero units made little difference. (I think the only bonus I found useful was the double speed of Solo(?) but can't remember if that was just his ship, or the whole fleet)

Haven't played it in ages, so sorry if anything is incorrect.

[jahcs]

Interdictors are important, otherwise the computer will run away from a superior force. (like it should ;) )

The tactics of maneuver for intersystem fleet travel in this game is limited to "which planetary system and when." Successful espionage missions can discover if there is a fleet inbound and then you can check to see if one of your fleets can get there first.

Diplomacy, production, espionage, sabotage, and abduction/assasination are the main tools of the game. Space combat is also important but won't win you the game by itself. The computer does not mass fleets like human players but it does make ships in big enough groups to make many space battles entertaining.

The hero units are the most effective tools for the espionage, sabotage, and abduction missions, especially if they become force sensitive. And the special characters are your only means of having effective diplomatic missions.

As far as the AI goes - how many games really have challenging AI? Most games will have marginal AI with scaling 'cheats' for the computer player, i.e. Civilization. One of the few examples of real AI improvement, that I can think of, for difficulty is Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War. The easy medium and hard settings of Rebellion only affect the starting situation of the game and the chance of mission success IIRC, the actual AI pathing remains unchanged. To really experience the game play the multiplayer mode. Human opponents do not think like AI.

The game is a definite point and click game. Select a production facility and tell it to build something and send it somewhere. Then select some units and have them start a special mission, wait and see if it works. Move your fleet to enemy systems or protect your own, engage the enemy, give your ships targeting orders and some basic maneuver instructions, watch the space battle, change orders if needed.

This type of strategy game isn't for everybody, at the least it's a Star Wars game where you aren't a pilot or in a FPS. :)

[jahcs]

I've been digging around on the internet and have found several mods for the game. One of them changes the game files to resemble Star Trek instead of Star Wars. There are also various mods that tweak game values like ships and characters. Also there are a few mods that alter the enemy AI.

[whyBish]

As far as the AI goes - how many games really have challenging AI?&nbsp; Most games will have marginal AI with scaling 'cheats' for the computer player, i.e. Civilization.

I hated Civ/Alpha Centauri MOO3 et al. too for their crap AI. I did have fun a long while back (still in uni) making AI scripts for dark reign. That was an OK RTS, but had an (at the time) innovative system for AI creation. The AI was controlled by a set of parameters. The game world could be tested for a set of values. Scripts could be created that updated the AI parameters...
You could do fancy things like having a script that moved through appropriate parameter sets for various states, so that the AI would (for example):
- react differently if it was outnumbered
- calculate weak spots in the enemy line differently depending on the units it was planning to attack with
- Do growth early but produce some units (or defense) early if scouts detected a rush
- Switch back to an appropriate build strategy if it is partly destroyed
- Give text messages saying when it is "coming to get you"

That was fun, but unfortunately you still needed a handcoded AI. To date I haven't seen a game that actually uses AI, they just claim to use ArtificialIntelligence, when really they are using AutomatedHardcodedLogic (even if it is parameter based).

To be AI, it needs to:
-have an (automated) feedback mechanism (so that it can improve), such as adaptation/evolution/experimental design type techniques.
- It needs to be able to sense its environment (e.g. knowing that there is a king at D8, or knowing that it is outnumbered)
- Be able to affect its environment (e.g. move the king to a spot)
- Have a success measure for the feedback mechanism (e.g. knowing whether it won or lost (for evolution), knowing whether it was doing well or poorly (for adaptation))

The Civ (& co) AI failed on 1,2, & 4. We don't call people that fail on 1,2, & 4 Intelligent. They would be just lying on the floor in spasms, unaware that they were lying on the floor in spasms, with no clue that lying on the floor in spasms was a bad thing.

Dark Reign AI failed on 1 & 4. Which was a huge improvement, because the parameter set that defined what to do, could at least define what to do dependent on the current game situation.

Ironically, to make a real game AI, 1&4 are the easy ones to do. It is 2 & 3 that are the hard ones. This is because the evolution/adaptation/experimental design techniques require a (relatively) smooth success surface to traverse (It can be hilly as you like, but small perterbations in parameters should usually lead to small changes in the success function). The way you choose to show the AI the environmental inputs, and the way you choose to let the AI determine output actions determines the 'smoothness' of this surface. If the AI knows the position of every unit then the surface won't be (as) smooth, if the AI knows that it can see lots of your units and not many of its own then the surface will be much smoother in comparison. Of course, you can make up for a lack of 'smoothness' by allowing more time for the AI to adapt/evolve, but this brings you closer to brute force approach (and exponential time issues)

Am I off topic yet? :P

[Nystul]

Using actual AI in computer games would have a few drawbacks. For one thing, it could make things just about impossible to balance for difficulty. The other problem is that the AI might decide to start a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, and then the fate of the world would rest in Matthew Broderick's hands....

[jahcs]

Or it could decide to make one movie seem like two by switching styles part way through. :huh:

A key element for most enemy AI in games is not attacking piecemeal. Games that attack as units are built instead of waiting for a group of units to form will always be handicapped against human players. Warcraft II comes to mind as a game that had troops attack en masse. (gj Blizzard)

[whyBish]

For one thing, it could make things just about impossible to balance for difficulty.

No, it would make it easier. If you change the success function from "winning the game", to one of "the player plays often" or "length of 'time'(or moves etc.) until defeat, but punish success harshly", you can approximate a good AI that will adapt/evolve to one that each player finds challenging (and will adapt in response to new strategies/tactics that the player learns), but not one that uses a "winning" strategy that is too good for a "mere human" to play against.

It is kind of like programming in a servant mentality as the success rule. Play well enough to keep me entertained, but too well and it's off with your head :P

I have done AI in very simple self made games. For example, when I made a Chess AI, the thing 'learned' (evolved in this case) to move its pieces out of check, and to put the opponent into check, however it didn't get much smarter than that because the success criteria didn't handle draws well, so the population devolved into ones that would play into the three repeated moves=draw. This could have been fixed by using an evaluative function of draws that mark it as a success to the one with a material (or otherwise) advantage, so that in a losing position at least, the AI would have an evolutionary advantage if it did not fall into the repeated moves trap.


In the generic AI requirements I defined, the developer still ends up 'hardcoding' the success function, and the environment interfaces (senses and responses) available to the AI.
Of course purists would want an AI that can play any game and adapt/evolve. Unfortunately they don't want to wait the 3billion years for that to happen :D
In nature there is no generic intelligence that can learn anything at all. I don't want to argue the human example, but ignoring that (for brevity), things are genetically(->physically) limited in what they can learn, adapt to, associate etc. Think of the ant that will follow a circular pheromone trail until it dies, not realising that it is going in circles.
Adaptability is always more expensive than hardcoded rules (in energy terms), so if you are going to be in an environment that doesn't vary then the hardcoded, non-adaptive outcome will be genetically dominant. (also insert here a diversion to Shannons sampling theorem in relation to things an organism can adapt to must be at a frequency above the frequency of their lifespan, but lower frequency events cannot be adapted to, but can be evolved towards).

Sorry for the pointless rambling, I've been working late.