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This is a nice example of complex game state, the AI keeps running well in the latest release.
When it is winning, the AI sometimes keeps dragging the game to win even more.
Use this feature to your advantage.

ubeefx wrote:When it is winning, the AI sometimes keeps dragging the game to win even more.

I have seen that in magarena years ago and reported that back then, maybe give AI extra bonus for winning and -bonus for turns to come. I remember AI had me in the ropes big time and was stalling till I draw a board wiper and won that game.

I can give some more in depth information about this behavior.
First, Mad Wizard is a years-long evolution of Magarena, this also applies for the AI.

There are currently two difficulties, low and high.
Low difficulty will look for 2 main phases with 5 second thinking time.
High difficulty will look for 6 main phases with 10 second thinking time.
When the thinking time is passed, the AI will pick whatever it thinks is best at that moment.
This can explain for complex state that it chooses something non optimal.
The low difficulty needs to look less far ahead, so it will have less chance to timeout.
This mainly applies for MiniMax, Vegas just runs simulations until it thinks it knows what to do.

The other reason is the lookahead of 6 main phases or around 3 turns.
The AI does not take into account hidden state like drawing a board wiper.
So by just scoring the game state it could think by taking the extra turn it wins even more.
For instance by playing some more creatures or dealing even more damage.
There is actually some code in place to prevent this in the scoring, here is the comment in code.

Code: Select all

Loss score is modified in function of the turn and phase when it occurs. Encourages AI to win as fast as possible.


But it might need more tweaking. I tweak the scoring rarely as it is hard to know side effects without playing or simulating lots of games.
This problem should not occur with low difficulty as that only looks for 2 main phases or around 1 turn.

Some screens and articles about legacy Magarena can be found here.
https://mtgrares.blogspot.com/search?q=magarena

These are some screens from the remake release Magarena 2.0.

The tokens for Magarena will also work for Mad Wizard.

The Bombard deck theme in Magarena Blue.
All these Goblin tokens are a bit challenging for the AI.

Zombie deck theme.

Zombie Infestation.

Crazy interaction in Dreamwalkers.
Golden Dragon first uses rebirth on Demon Horde for four twin triggers.
Then the copies target Demon Lord for double absorb triggers.
They target each other with absorb for growing larger and larger.

Very close game.

Magarena fun with mono red deck.

More Magarena fun. Crazy card drawing for AI a bit too much.

New winter themed background for Mad Wizard.

Kiki-Jiki + Siege-Gang + Purphoros.

8 Auras on the Spiritdancer.