Bots should refuse to trade with high point winning player

Comments: 37

• 29 Aug, '19
  Esqarrouth Admin

  "Bots Should Refuse Trades with People 1 Point Away from Winning" (suggested by tyrion on 2019-08-29), including upvotes (1) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.

• 03 Sep, '19
  Andernut

  There's other conditions you could add.
  
  - Refuse 2 pts from winning and at least 1 dev card
  - Refuse when 2 pts from winning and they are 1-2 roads below current LR leader.
  
  I'm sure there's other scenarios.

• 05 Sep, '19
  Andernut

  Just as an additional comment, bot trades often seem to give the win. I don't know the bot criteria for trades but assume it's not that sophisticated.
  
  Maybe bots that takeover for a player shouldn't trade?

• 30 Sep, '19
  Jon

  I agree with Andernut. Bots that replace abandoned players should not be allowed to trade

• 29 Oct, '19
  PotatoRiot

  Yes I agree with Andernut, either a very sophisticated trading algorithm for bots or no trades at all.

• 21 Nov, '19
  player

  Logic almost seems reversed right now, bots seem easier to trade with for winning point.

• 10 Dec, '19
  player Merged

  While I probably came off as bitter, rather unproductive, lol... the bots really seem to have broken trading. Another game where no bots would trade with me at 5 points, but another bot at 4 points, with 5 dev cards in their hand, 2 knights already played, clearly dominating the game - and bots are freely trading with it. It's mind boggling. ... Even worse when someone quits a game and a bot joins, the might as well be over.

• 10 Dec, '19
  player Merged

  Combining this with Bots punishing you for having longest road or a VP in your hand but only 2 settlements, it's absurd.

• 10 Dec, '19
  player Merged

  There doesn't appear to be sufficient consideration given to whether someone has cities (or even 2 cities on the same resource), resource ports, or likely to take largest army/longest road. No ability to measure the strength of positions, let alone score/strength from their next build.

• 10 Dec, '19
  Connor Merged

  If i was winning i would not trade with you either. If the AI is programmed to try to win, its in the AI's best interest to not trade with someone who could potentially come back by getting the resources they need. This sounds more like a temper tantrum than a need to change the AI system.

• 12 Dec, '19
  Esqarrouth Admin

  "Pretty shit game when I'm in last place at 3 points and the AI refuses to trade the entire game" (suggested by player on 2019-12-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (4), was merged into this suggestion.

• 15 Dec, '19
  player

  @connor: So you think it's good AI logic that me offering the AI 3-4 resources and it refusing to trade with a low ranked player is good logic when it trades 1:1 with a player who is at 8-9 points? What kind of drugs are you on. Of course it's frustrating when the AI hands the leading player the win with indiscriminate trading and you are stuck at 3 points. You fail to consider that low ranked players are a good source of resources AND allowing them to build blocks opponents

• 15 Dec, '19
  player

  @connor: If the AI appeared like it was taking a calculated risk, that's one thing, but it doesn't appear to be doing that. And the number of trading flaws is to the benefit of the player who is generating the highest income every roll (because they have more to trade, and more the game the bot with)

• 15 Dec, '19
  Connor

  Trading with someone winning and not trading with someone losing is not what i read the first time. What i read the first time was someone getting pissed about the bot refusing to trade with them when they are losing.
  
  If bots are trading with people who are winning and not with those who are losing, thats a different problem that what i responded to. Hard to judge when not to trade though. You can refuse trades because someone is winning, and because you're going to win. Hard to say.

• 15 Dec, '19
  Connor

  "You fail to consider that low ranked players are a good source of resources AND allowing them to build blocks opponents"
  
  Perhaps. You might fail to consider that the bots are not using the kind of strategy you are expecting them to have. Could also consider not playing against bots. But then again, its on the devs to decide. Dont let a board game get you so flustered.

• 30 Dec, '19
  Matias

  I don't feel like bot trading adds anything to the game. Bots are easy to take advantage of. When a player leaves often the winner is the one who can exploit the bot most. Because of this, paired with the fact that it seems to be difficult to make a good AI... I'd like bot trading to be turned off in PvP or a checkbox to toggle whether you want bots replacing players to trade.

• 30 Dec, '19
  Matias

  I think that would be a good solution. As long as their AI is basic as it is at this point, bots serve more of a placeholder rather than an actual player.

• 18 Jan, '20
  Alex Bruski

  I agree with being able to click a check box at the game creation point to turn off trading for bots. I would also like the ability to choose AI profiles for the bots. This way, people playing against them can try out different profiles until you find the one that everyone agrees is the best. Then that can be used for the final version of the game. You could maybe collect statistics at the end of the game from each of the real players participating in the game for that AI profile.

• 18 Jan, '20
  Alex Bruski

  If bots are going to be competitive players, that have personalized playing traits, then they will need to be able to trade. I think the bots should be like real people that are unpredictable and learn what works and what doesn't work, so they will progressively become better players. Maybe there should be a few different bots with descriptive names. NonTraderBot, Level1Bot, LearningBot, AdvancedLearningBot, etcetera.

• 21 Jan, '20
  player

  @Connor "consider not playing against bots" ... ffs, you realize that people quit out of every game and we don't have the option to "not play against bots". Honestly, you sound more like one of these win at all costs player who robs last place relentlessly because it gives them an edge up (but then still loses the game because they don't target the strongest position)

• 26 Jan, '20
  Matias

  Just played a game where the bot traded away 3 resources to get 1 brick. Brick was scarce but it resulted in a road and a settlement for the blue player. https://i.gyazo.com/96076004e08da88d3cc5b6a5246648a2.png

• 29 Jan, '20
  DA

  or just make it so cpu doesnt trade at all(for now). cpu trading away games way to consistently. Very irritating.

• 17 Apr, '20
  Endeby

  I agree with DA. It's not easy to create realistic and fair bot AI, so straight out disabling bot trading, either by default or as an option, seem like the play to me.

• 30 Apr, '20
  Dracolirg

  Bots are extremely easy to manipulate into trading. I'm not sure how to fix this other than advanced coding.

• 30 Apr, '20
  Dracolirg

  Bots are extremely easy to manipulate into trading at every point in the game. I have no idea how to fix it as it would require advanced ai.

• 23 Jun, '20
  Konidias

  100% agree with this. Had like 3 games ruined tonight alone because someone would leave and then whoever was in the lead just abused trading with the bot to get everything they needed to maintain the lead and win. Absolutely stupid to lose because the bot just trades anything and everything no matter the situation. Honestly the bot either needs to not be able to trade at all or the seat should just be empty. I'd rather a 4v4 turn into a 3v4 instead.

• 30 Jun, '20
  Matthew

  Easiest way to tackle this issue is to make the bot unable to trade, karma penalties are a minor nuisance for whoever leaves and the game ceases to play as intended when bot trade abuse is possible.

• 15 Aug, '20
  JP

  This is idiotic. Why is this item even worth voting on? Bots who do participate in this behavior effectively ruin games. Fix it!

• 16 Aug, '20
  Jamie Martin

  Please disable the bots from trading

• 18 Aug, '20
  JUAN Admin

  "BUG: Bots shouldn't trade with someone about to win." (suggested by player on 2020-03-30), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 20 Aug, '20
  Sam Merged

  Bot doesn't rob or block the player that is about to take the spot they want.
  
  Do the bots actually add any value to the games here, their play is highly flawed and only look like they work because of their flawed trading system

• 21 Aug, '20
  JUAN Admin

  "bot should block the player they are competing for a spot with" (suggested by Sam on 2020-08-20), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 25 Aug, '20
  Nick Merged

  One of the most irritating things for me when playing with real people and bot combos is that the bots agree to some very unrealistic trades. While that in itself isn't very controllable, what might be is programming them not to trade at all with a player that has 9 points (or 1 point away from winning). I've been apart of many, many great games that ended very anticlimactically because a bot gave away the game. Hopefully there something you can do, because almost every mixed game I play ends th

• 25 Aug, '20
  JUAN Admin

  "Bots programmed not to trade with players one point away from winning" (suggested by Nick on 2020-08-25), including upvotes (1) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.

• 31 Aug, '20
  Kjell

  I give this 600 votes, this is absolutely ridiculous. Have thought about a gentleman's rule not to even suggest trades to bots at 1-2 points before win. I think this feature is like this because bots don't bring money. They want real players to play, bots are just fillers. I get that, but still. There's a hundred other flaws in bot behavior too. Please fix it.

• 01 Sep, '20
  Anthony

  Would it make sense to model this a little bit more like a human? For example, bots get one of 2 random personalities. The first personality is fairly open to trading early game. The second is less likely to trade at the beginning. Both personalities tend to trade more often after other accept their trades. In the late game, very minimal trading with players that are ahead of them unless there have been alot of "reputation" trades with those players.

• 19 Jul, '22
  Villi

  I don't have evidence to back any of these claims up, just what I've vaguely experienced:
  - I find that bots are very susceptible to taking 2/3:1s even when they don't help said bot's hand.
  - I find that bots build very poor roads. They will attempt to settle on their initial placement fork, then absentmindedly build roads.
  - I find that bots don't fight for win conditions very well. They won't strongly contest road (but sometimes get it due to the above point), they don't buy dev cards at high enough volume to take army, and they have poor vision for expansion spots during placement.
  Again, just my experience. I'm completely fine with the bots being terrible in fact; it would suck to lose a ranked game to a bot. Moreover, the bots creating a terrible game experience incentivizes people to not leave (so as to create guilt for ruining the game they just left). But people who play against bots (dont know why anyone would do that but some people do) might want more intriguing experiences.