AI and Solo Wargaming
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- Could we one day see Artificial Intelligence used to enhance solo tabletop wargames, providing more realistic generals to fight against on our game tables? Could AI for instance enable us to play against accurate facsimiles of famous generals from the past, providing wargamers with more realistic and challenging opponents in solo games? Or is this one step too far for a hobby that has one nostalgic foot planted firmly in the past?
- Hry
If I wanted to lose every time I play I would go down this route. So, I won't!
I hear you, and I'd probably be the same 🤣
Lol.
Until you find a way to trap the AI with a special move. Computer chess anyone?
I enjoy your videos. Thank you!
I can see an even bigger use of AI in the writing of entire sets of rules and I’d expect that it would be more logical to read than some current books. An AI could go through the statistics of historical battles and develop effective dice roll plans and movement suggestions that would be similar to the current rulebooks but could be written in a matter of minutes and even play tested theoretically by the same AI over and over. You could ask the AI to use your favourite basic mechanics but have it change certain parameters for each specific battle rather than for the whole era. Did one army in history suffer from march fatigue prior to battle? Simply ask the AI to modify the dice roll plan accordingly. Change is a certainty.
An interesting (if alarming) idea.
Not wishing to sound like I've fallen down a science fiction rabbit hole but to go down this route you will effectively build Skynet. With the best of intentions eventually it would find a military application and the race speeds up to get the best AI.
Have played around with ChatCPT to write a DnD Encounter for me to see what it could generate and it wasn't that bad.
I've been playing with it and it is scary good in some instances.
A lot of AI is already here in board wargaming, but it's very much analogue. PC wargames, of course, have had AI for decades, but it has its limitations and hasn't really progressed much since its inception.
Carnage & Glory is a computer programmed horse & musket tabletop game that has been around for years. It apparently works well, although I've never taken the plunge- tbh one or two of the mechanisms don't fit with my own ideas on Napoleonic warfare.
Interesting video- cheers.
I don't think the "AI" we've seen in PC wargaming has been real "intelligence" yet.
Even Chat GPT isn't intelligence, but it is a clever programme. We arn't at the Skynet level of AI just yet!
Hi Lee; as others have said, there is already forms of AI out there - some good, some crap. It would take a huge leap forward to create the idea you suggested (you vs a Historical commander), but then it's akin to playing chess vs the computer. I have found that some of the AI is (almost) at a level where it is able to enhance your wargaming, which is to me the best option - it should be a tool to assist you; ie you drive it, rather than it driving your gaming. The concept is good, & no doubt it will come to fruition, but who knows when.
It all depend where we are on that sigmoid curve of development.
I don't know much about A I so carnot say wether it's going to be popular with gamers or not mind you I have enough trouble dealing with a new phone 🤞🤞🤠
Definitely the tech won't be to everyone's taste (or skill level!)
The question is would it be solo wargaming anymore? Solo playing RPG or Miniature games is more about a) learning to play, b) let your mind run wild/free.
In this a AI would be more restrictiv and it hasn't the options of a human opponent. (Having a drink or so...)
But even so it will come to this. There were rumours about WotC working on AI DMs.
Interesting point
@@MiniatureAdventuresTV But it could be potentially used to control the actions of same side subordinate commanders as well as all the opposing commanders, taking away a lot of the "swapping hats" inherent in most wargames.
😅 wasn’t what I thought it was going to be about, interesting take nonetheless and has given me something to think about 😊
Glad you enjoyed it!
What we call AI today is just algorithms nested into Boolean logic loops. This is better described as virtual intelligence.
While I appreciate your thoughts, when the real purpose of AI is understood, as in the Singularity, then the only option we have as human beings is resistance.
Anyone that has worked in technology, and has experience with so called "automation", knows that tech is far from perfect and prone to failure. Failures that usually don't even show up until the tech is deployed into the real world with real world consequences.
While your idea of using AI as an opponent is interesting, it is highly doubtful it will ever interface with an analog table. Much more likely that it would interface with a digital table as in 3D holograms rendered onto a table. This would give the AI interface all the data needed to interpret decisions.
Based on my understanding of how art entertainment is used for conditioning people, I would guess that the military is already using something like I describe. Especially since the British military used computer simulation to interface with an analog table decades ago. Think of something like the movie Avatar and the holographic display in the control room.
Before anyone gets excited about AI, I strongly suggest understanding what the Singularity is and the associated consequences for us humans.
As far as the chat bots go, more intelligent people have found ways to "break" them to illicit more comprehensive responses. Both the Bing and Google bots made veiled threats against the user. Other experiments have exposed an obvious ideological bias that definitely comes from the creators of the tech. Meaning that it is possible to get false information depending on the users ideological alignment.
For these reasons, and because I have been working with technology for over 30 years, I will remain 100% analog.
Thank you for sharing.
AI could be used relatively harmlessly for programmed scenarios for solo gamers - like a lot more sophisticated version of the old WRG books. I think it could also be used to improve and refine existing rule sets for different periods by taking feedback from users on what they like and probably more importantly don't like about existing rule sets. A bit of an existential threat to rules writers though.
Actually i am very close to trying this out. I am having a small campaign where a group of players control one side and the other is controlled by an AI, mainly asking it what decisions it would make in character (work of fiction) to see the limits of what it can do.
Hey Big Lee! Technology is our future... and the Genie is out of the bottle. (Industrial Revolution, anyone?) It remains to be seen if it will be our Salvation or Damnation. I suppose, it is a tool that can be used for good or ill, depending on the choice of the user. (This is why Truth will always beat Fiction! Who could make this stuff up and be believed?!) Solo wargaming will be enhanced by AI and the imagination is the only limit Of course, the Chess World has been dealing/exploring this issue for quite some time with "Deep Blue". Can a Star Trek-like Holodeck experience loom in our future?!
Since when do users get a choice on how AI will be deployed?
The creators of the tech, as in the "elite", will decide how AI is deployed.
The elite aren't good.
Holodeck...hmm sounds interesting!
Well, maybe one day there will be the technology, but not yet. The possibilities for Solo wargaming are huge, but I personally think it will still take some time.
In wouldn't use it in my solo games, not because I am adverse to technology, but it wouldn't benefit my gaming experience. That being said, I already use some form of AI sometimes, if you can call random dice charts that.
Certainly, tables, charts and if/then charts (or something similar) can perform like an AI.
@@MiniatureAdventuresTV I particularly like the system of The Men Who Would Be Kings. I have adapted it many times.
Absolutely AI could be used - is it financially viable for anyone to develop, don't know. Solo campaigns would certainly benefit from AI and perhaps would be the first step. AI on the tabletop might be more problematic but then computer games and board games seem to manage with Bots and the like.
As I said in the video, I think it'll come down to which parts of the hobby have the money to invest in it.
I have to think about it. I would not use holograms, or apps, or anything where I could not look under the hood. I am thinking more like.... Scythe's AI. A deck of cards. And that deck would be updated each turn based on the conditions of the board... by a human. then the human shuffles, and draws a command. If the deck of cards seems too hard. I would use MSDOS from the 1980's and make a brutally simple program to do the shuffle and status.... yeah... I have to think about it. The THINKING is the fun part anyway. I would not want to buy something that removes my fun. But I would not want a system that is so tedious that fun is again ruined.
Artificial Intelligence isn't intelligent, rather it's an algorithm so it would be better called algorithmic intelligence. I say this to clarify a concept that the problem is not the problem, or the right question to ask. It can be argued that current AI is effectively the Chinese Room as discussed by John Searle in Minds, Brains, and Programs.
The argument then evolves into is human conscious awareness just an emotional response to our brains evolved ability to act as a Chinese room? Therefore consciousness is an illusion of affect. It's an interesting question, and I don't have any answers.
With regards to wargames, I would say the question is more about what one wants from a wargame? Is it just playing a game that challenges you, or is it a game that where the social activity is as important as the game?
I'm not sure we are anywhere close to genuine intelligence...but simulating it?Maybe