Curve the Computer's Land

by **mtgrares** » 08 Dec 2008, 19:56

This is just a thought. To slightly improve the computer AI, you could automatically curve the computer's land. This way the computer will always have a land to play on his first couple of turns. In MTG Forge I also put the rest of the land at the bottom of the computer's library so he won't get mana flooded.

I'm going to try to explain this, but it might not make sense. Before the game starts you could curve the computer's mana like this, put a land at 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 (assuming we are talking about arrays that start at 0). Putting a land at [6] means that the computer will have one land and all spells, so the computer has a better chance of playing something on turn one. Putting a land at [7] means that the computer will draw a land on his 2nd turn, which is good. Obviously curving the land like 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 is just a suggestion, the important thing is knowing WHY curving the land would help the computer.

If you wanted to get fancy, you could sort the computer land like Mountain, Forest, Mountain, Forest, so the computer could always play a 1GG card on at least his 4th turn. MTG Forge does this but it was a pain to code correctly.

Another idea is that you could let the computer draw 2 cards a turn. I haven't implemented this in MTG Forge because I'm afraid it would brake something, but it seems like it would make the computer AI better.

by **frwololo** » 09 Dec 2008, 00:04

I've seen this somewhere on your blog already, but to me that's no more than having the AI cheat in order to win... A better step for me would be to implement Mulligan.

Edit : I'm not saying that it's not a good idea, but I'd like to try other things before this one. I think the AI can be improved a lot without "cheating"

by **mtgrares** » 09 Dec 2008, 18:44

I understand. Although I have mentioned this on my blog, I wasn't sure if you read every posting, but it seems like you do. I just wanted to mention it. My AI is still so weak that it doesn't unbalance the gameplay. I understand not wanting the computer AI to "cheat" but cheating is just easier, lol. Have fun coding, Forge