Chris Pine – its vacation time now, but if (and then) you eventually read this post, you should perhaps considering posting new response thread. As you can see we have contributed with a rather impressive amount of AI-related suggestions – some of it feasible, some of it unrealistic or even halfbaked perhaps.
Anyway, i think i can speak for many of us then i say that we all need some kind of feedback response from you here. I’m not talking of “revealing civ-3 blueprints”, or anything like that. We just want some overall barebone feedback, held on a strictly AI principle level. For example: What is your principal guideline response to the idea of…
* Replacing some key-units (like settler, caravan, spy) with appropriate management-screens instead (completely or partly) in order to simplify the AI workload. Is that a good/ potentially meaningful idea?
* Bypassing the AI with editable scripts/ queue-building templates in order to “save the AI from itself” as much as possible. Is that (with some reservations) a possible/ sound idea?
* Introducing counter-measures in order to battle the “bigger is always (and only) better” syndrome that plagues Civ-2 and SMAC?
* Removing the annoying ICS (Infinite Cities Sprawl) problem by its roots, once and for all, making it easier for the AI to compete (hopefully)?
Finally, i quote Steve Clark:
“As a veteran of software design and development, it is proper to ask users (or consumers) what they would like to see in a product. However, you run the risk of setting unrealistic expectations. The way to counteract that is to communicate back to the users what the specifications will be. If Chris would to come back in the AI thread and define what the parameters of the AI will be in Civ3, that will help us understand what Civ3 will be”.
What can one say? I agree totally of course.
(Ps: Vacation-time 
for me three weeks ahead. Why not give this thread a “bump” every now and then, so Chris Pine doesn’t miss it. By the way: why not add some short principle AI-related questions yourself?
[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited July 08, 2000).]
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