I've decided to bring this subject back up after giving it a few months of rest, to talk about the ethics of playing strategy games.
Since the strategy genre was first created A.I that could outsmart an average human player, or at least give him or her a challenge, was sought. The thing is, as A.I gets more advanced every day we may come to the point where when we sacrifice a single soldier in pretend-combat to, say, distract an invading threat, we may be killing a thinking entity that is self aware.
Some A.I in games really separates itself, I for one think that the A.I in Starcraft is superb, it always strikes at your weaknesses and pinpoints the easiest way to get inside of your base, it adapts to trouble and hardly ever gives up in a fight (this is not unheard of, though). It is definitely a challenge until, that's the kicker, until you manage to build up a large force that can wipe out whatever the computer has. It appears to be based more on guerilla warfare, strike frequently but with small forces, but this is always its undoing, since small, cheap troops cannot stand up to the might of a fleet of carriers.
So when will these games get to the point that they'll begin to really exhibit a thinking ability, exploiting us and countering whatever we do, tricking us in diversions, the stuff of real battle and real-life strategy. Starcraft is really like the computer strategy version of chess, it's strategic abilities are limitless, so maybe by the time that blizzard (the company that manufactures starcraft) comes out with a starcraft 4 or something we'll be in the situation I've just talked about.
Since the strategy genre was first created A.I that could outsmart an average human player, or at least give him or her a challenge, was sought. The thing is, as A.I gets more advanced every day we may come to the point where when we sacrifice a single soldier in pretend-combat to, say, distract an invading threat, we may be killing a thinking entity that is self aware.
Some A.I in games really separates itself, I for one think that the A.I in Starcraft is superb, it always strikes at your weaknesses and pinpoints the easiest way to get inside of your base, it adapts to trouble and hardly ever gives up in a fight (this is not unheard of, though). It is definitely a challenge until, that's the kicker, until you manage to build up a large force that can wipe out whatever the computer has. It appears to be based more on guerilla warfare, strike frequently but with small forces, but this is always its undoing, since small, cheap troops cannot stand up to the might of a fleet of carriers.
So when will these games get to the point that they'll begin to really exhibit a thinking ability, exploiting us and countering whatever we do, tricking us in diversions, the stuff of real battle and real-life strategy. Starcraft is really like the computer strategy version of chess, it's strategic abilities are limitless, so maybe by the time that blizzard (the company that manufactures starcraft) comes out with a starcraft 4 or something we'll be in the situation I've just talked about.