THE VIDEO SHELF · game ai design
Playing to Lose: AI and "Civilization" (Soren Johnson)
Soren Johnson, a lead designer and AI programmer on Civilization games, discusses game AI design, including whether AI should cheat, behave like a human or be fun rather than strong. He uses the Civilization series as a case study.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN commenters recommend it as the key talk on why game AI is built to be fun rather than to win.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Google TechTalks
- Topic
- game ai design
- Format
- talk
- Level
- intermediate
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 8
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2011–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Continuing my theme of posting relevant google tech talks, here is Soren Johnson, the lead designer and AI programmer on Sid Meier's Civilisation, discussing this very subject with specific reference to the evolution of civ's AI over the years. Extremely enlightening, whether you are a …
JonnieCache on Hacker News · 2011-12
In How games cheat to help playersYou may well enjoy this lecture at google from one of the civ5 devs talking about the AI design, and game AI design in general. [VIDEO]
JonnieCache on Hacker News · 2012-06
In Civ II game a decade oldYou might enjoy a talk by the designer of much Civilization AI: [VIDEO] Its a very good talk, but applied video game AI as a field is kind of a let down.
aggronn on Hacker News · 2012-09
In Game AI vs Traditional AI
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.