From: "Tom Holub" <doosh at inl.org> > On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 11:51:58PM -0800, Daniel Damouth wrote: > > > > Most commercial human-vs.-computer strategy games take the some approach, > > which can be described as "the only way to challenge the human player is to > > play under different rules". For example, in Civilization, the computer has > > to cheat extensively to challenge the human player at higher difficulty > > levels. Nobody really likes the fact that the computer has to cheat. > > "Cheating" by having one brain controlling 8 ships on the same team is > a lot different than cheating by having all the other races in the game > gang up on you, or by changing the resource allocation rules. I think > it's the wrong focus for the project and I don't think it will provide > useful returns, but I don't think it's philisophically a big problem. I don't care if one robot is controlling the others through the message board, like a human captain directing a team. They can use any organizational structures they want, just as a human team can. And they will still have a huge speed advantage in communicating. But if the robots get to communicate cloaker positions and all the other tactical information through direct client-to-client sockets, then they aren't playing with the same rules as a human team with blessed clients. That's all. Dan Damouth