Monday, November 5, 2007

MTG Forge Memories

It is amazing how fun a game like Magic can be. I’m sure other trading card games must be a lot of fun, but Magic seems to beat them all. I wish you could play any card as a land, but hey, what’s Magic if you aren’t mana flooded/screwed?

I love some of the moments that happen while playing MTG Forge. Like tonight where the computer totally won the match using Liliana Vess. Usually Vess doesn’t really matter. I can generally hold her off by just discarding a spare land or something, but not this time. The computer kept making me discard and then raised a bunch of creatures from the grave. Thankfully I don’t have to admit defeat a human being. I was only beaten by software.

Sometimes MTG Forge’s AI is just brilliant or crazy or both. Picture this scenario. The computer just played Wrath of God and thankfully I still have a creature or two in my hand that I play. POW, another Wrath comes my way. I’m not sure if the computer is smart or dumb, but it won that game. The computer sometimes surprises me and that is probably as good as the AI gets right now.

I would love to make the computer able to win a tournament, but by that time we will all be living on Mars, well probably. Oh the pains of trying to program both long-term and short-term planning. I would like to make the computer have different personalities. Sometimes it might be really aggressive and other times just passive.

The computer needs to be a little unpredictable just like a real human opponent in order to make the game interesting. Maybe given the same situation the computer will sometimes block and sometimes not block, providing a little bit of tension. It does take a little bit of interest out of the game knowing when the computer will and won’t block. Keep playing MTG Forge and post any stories that you remember.

3 comments:

  1. Concerning AI, I'm interested in knowing your design philosophy to not only assist me in further understanding the sourcecode, but also to compare notes, so to speak. Incidentally I'm designing an AI for Magic and am curious if we may benefit from an exchange of ideas.

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  2. Sorry man... the AI sucks.
    The machine never beat me.

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  3. Sorry man... the AI sucks.
    The machine never beat me.

    Lol, the computer only beats me 5% of the time and that is usually when playing sealed.

    Hi Nick, you can e-mail me. And I enjoy talking about AI and Magic.

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