Bot Difficulty (levels)

208 votes

Really hope you guys add difficulties for the bot.
I would say the difficulties now are at medium.

syahmi opac (from email)

Done bot idea room Suggested by: Demiculus (30 Dec, '19) • Upvoted: 13 Mar • Comments: 14

Comments: 14

06 Jan, '20
John
Right now I think the bot has a mix of levels so it feels inconsistent and at times unenjoyable. Some moves are aggressive/competitive, and some moves are aimless and stupid (not anticipating future score from longest road/largest army, key positions, etc.,), and the trading sucks.
09 Feb, '20
player Merged
If someone is new to the game, it would seem helpful to have a "friendly bot" option. Right now it seems like the bot has a number of hard coded competitive strategies that just screw over the game board from the start. By picking friendly bot, the bot would be more generous/fair/balanced in it's starting locations.

Suggested "friendly" changes: Make the bot pick spots for a good selection of starting resources rather than aiming to monopolize all of one resource (which only appears to work
1
09 Feb, '20
player Merged
Friendly bot should also limit road building, building roads only towards places it can build and intends to build (not road spam as it does now). Friendly bot should also not cheat by knowing cards have VPs in their hand.
1
10 Feb, '20
John Merged
Friendly Robber would also back off on aggressive tactics like: robbing you and then robbing you again with a knight (if it doesn't allow an immediate play), or moving a robber using a knight card when it isn't on them (it's only on an opponent).
1
13 May, '20
Sasha Wilde Admin
"Choosing Bot Levels" (suggested by chewtrav on 2020-03-26), including upvotes (6) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
1
11 Aug, '20
Beryl
Agreed. Bots building roads to other player settlements. WHY BOT? Stop wasting your resources.
29 Aug, '20
JUAN Admin
"Friendly bot option" (suggested by player on 2020-02-09), including upvotes (1) and comments (2), was merged into this suggestion.
04 Sep, '20
Zev
I absolutely agree. We should have different levels of bot difficulty, or different bot "personalities"/strategies.
08 Dec, '20
David Bodycombe
I know human interaction is the primary way to play this game, but for quick games Bots can be great. Some harder bots would be fabulous. I think I'm currently on a 90%+ win rate, and I'm not *that* good.
31 Dec, '20
Kristin Pruett
Please add some different bot difficulty levels
07 Oct, '22
C Merged
Your Ai is way too hard. I just wish you had difficulty levels. It would allow players looking to hone their skills to actually hone their skills. I know I suck but damn the times that I have played the Ai and taken over the game the bots seem to gang up. Also a mobile version. But seriously help me out and give me difficulty levels brooo.
08 Oct, '22
JUAN Admin
"Bot levels" (suggested by C on 2022-10-07), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
30 Oct, '22
AlexInAuburn
Maybe create a Bot builder utility where players can train a Bot and give it the characteristics and skills that they would like it to have. They can then play against that Bot and hone it to their liking. If they get a nice combination of traits, then they can name it, submit it to Colonist, and earn a few Colonist Coin if it is adopted as a Colonist Bot. There could be a bot ranking feature that gives a consensus vote as to the difficulty level of each Colonist bot.
06 Jul, '23
Gary
I often play bot games when time does not permit. It seams to me that whenever bots see a player building towards a port/tile they will go out of their way to plow you as much as possible. They will only rob based on VPs. They have no clue when choosing tiles at the start of game (they will always favour tiles with highest roll probability rather than what they need). The above problems result in me winning 9/10 bot games and leaving super frustrated most of the time.

I suggest the following:
1. Robbing should be on the player with the highest win probability rather than the one with most VPs. (there is enough data already for them to be able to calculate this)
2. Bots should build roads based on their win requirements rather than simply blocking others.
3. Bots should balance the use of strategies + probability when picking tiles at the start of game. (a 3-4-5 of sheep-ore-wheat is WAAAAY better than a 6-5-9 with only brick - unless they plan to use a brick port)
1