Nefarious and Sparrow: cold war!

[Zogu]

Hi! I've been working on a nice map of Lebanon for the last few weeks. The map is functional but I can't post it right now because the artwork isn't finished yet. The map is nice and balanced (41 sectors), very fun to play.

I was testing that map yesterday with 1 human and 5 bots: Boscoe, Nefarious, Brainiac, Sparrow and EvilPixie.

As usual, EvilPixie decided that he hates me -- and started pounding my countries, non-stop. As I was wrestling the control of the southern portion of the map, having a hard time... I noticed something very interesting going on elsewhere.

After a few very violent clashes, Nefarious and Sparrow actually managed to control 2 continents each, and then established some kind of an "armistice line". They both built strong defenses behind a "no man's land" (a line of undefended countries)... and then they stopped fighting each other!!!

Instead, they were laying destruction on poor Boscoe and Brainiac, who were wiped out in no time. But it didn't stop there. It seems that Nefarious & Sparrow, happy with their current positions on the map, wanted a new world order with only 2 superpowers remaining. They started BOTH putting pressure on me (without attacking each other any more than necessary!) and soon, I was wiped out too.

Next, they cornered EvilPixie in a small area and kept him on check; as soon as he would pile up any more than 25 armies, both Nefarious and Sparrow would launch a preventive strike.

The game kept going for more than 20 minutes afterwards, with EvilPixie stagnating at 20-25 armies on 7-8 territories, and the other two not bothering at all. When I shut down the game, Nefarious and Sparrow had each piled up MORE THAN 950 ARMIES. The boundaries were remarkably stable, with only a few minor skirmishes happening. Cold war, I tell you!

Should I mention that it was a game with the card bonus stable ("5, 5, 5...") and no "continent bonus inflation" at all.

So I came to the conclusion that Nefarious and Sparrow have a complementary fighting style, and they work very well together to eradicate the opposing forces. Creepy.

[Scad]

I think I've seen this with EvilPixie and Trotsky too. In that case, though, there was no pretense at Cold War; they just had stopped attacking. THey were the only two left on the board, EvilPixie had everything but Asia, and they just placed and ended, over and over and over. Pixie wound up with a lot of armies...

[Bertrand]

This is a good example of emergent behavior.

The robots are learning. We are doomed.

How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion

[Drifter]

Nice link Bertrand, I need to read that. I have used a afdb during game play against Grozoth to fend off his mind tricks, but I found the bots do not detect me as well... they are evolving, but they have a weakness still.

[octobclrnts]

Talking about emergent behavior, has anyone read (and if not you should) Michael Chrichton's PREY. It is really creepy like that...

[Mach]

Perhaps this particular comment goes in the pub or the Computer Games area, but I think it applies here...

This is a good example of emergent behavior.

The robots are learning. We are doomed.

This is obvious if you've played Unreal Tournament 2004.

Flesh is a design flaw.

But seriously, as long as we understand how the simple patterns create the larger pattern, we can understand what's going on inside. And if you're thinking in a war-like fashion, you probably attached the words "and can stop it at a moment's notice" at the end of that last sentence. After all, the programmer is the true mastermind here...


...Woe betide the current set of Luxers if the programmers decide to play...