AI – Curve my mana

My e-mail is on the fritz. Yahoo used to be so good but I might have to change to gmail. I'll try to send everyone a copy of my program on Monday.

I was thinking about how to make the AI a little better. I thought if the computer’s land was curved out, the computer would seem a little smarter. The computer’s opening hand is all spells and the computer will draw a land for the next 5 turns. This maximizes the possibility of the computer playing a timely 1 or 2 mana spell. After a few more turns the computer draws 2 more lands.

The rest of the computer’s land is artificially moved to the bottom of the computer’s deck, so the computer will always top-deck something useful. The long game will favor the computer, but the AI is still very beatable since it just plays a random spell. Currently the computer cannot evaluate the board position or anything complicated like that.

I could have gone a step further and guaranteed that the computer would be able to play a spell for the first 6 turns of the game. I might do this later. I had a hard time sorting and alternating the computer’s land so that it would look like this: Mountain, Plains, Mountain, Plains, etc… That way the computer will always be able to play a double costed card like WW as early as turn 3 and always on turn 4.

Other ways to make the computer stronger would be to have him draw 2 cards per turn. I have rested doing this since it would break the illusion that the computer was playing by the rules, but I might test it out to see if it really helps the computer.