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Humans are really good at temporal thinking.
Computers can't do pattern recognition in these kinds of settings and computers can't reason at all.
They can only calculate, add one number to another. Any AI has to think like chess engines do. Make a move, then make a counter-move, calculate the results. Do this 10 million times a second and decide on something. And they have to evaluate every possible move because they can't exclude any.
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what happens when you say destroy the enemy nexus that built probes that contstructed your entire base. if they left it alone i wonder if the entire base would be destroyed
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Thanks for pointing out this game, looks awesome. I can't hear the voice in the video's here, but it seems there are time waves.. well didn't understand that part but I hope I can see for myself in a year when this game is released. or so.
and about computer ai: it could cheat by computing so much so as to make the game lag for the human player... :-P and really, computer a.i. could always be written so that it beats any human, when you're talking about a game with such a multi continuous-dimensional amount of states (chess has a discrete space state). The trouble is that you want to make it look human (or alien, in this game).
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On March 31 2009 23:47 UbOs wrote: what happens when you say destroy the enemy nexus that built probes that contstructed your entire base. if they left it alone i wonder if the entire base would be destroyed
I had this problem cause i didn't watch the video carefully enough.. probably like you
until that time-wave when the nexus got destroyed doesn't reach the present you have 'time' to react
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I only read pages 1-3 in this topic, but someone said that the chronoenergy (time traveling resource) regenerates way too fast. This is false; the mechanic was changed in the test videos to make sure there weren't any outtakes. The FAQ explains this and says stuff about how chronoenergy regeneration time can be changed.
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On March 31 2009 23:49 freelander wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2009 23:47 UbOs wrote: what happens when you say destroy the enemy nexus that built probes that contstructed your entire base. if they left it alone i wonder if the entire base would be destroyed I had this problem cause i didn't watch the video carefully enough.. probably like you until that time-wave when the nexus got destroyed doesn't reach the present you have 'time' to react
yeah, i mean if the enemy left it alone.
I'm just wondering what the engine would do, i don't think it would happen in a real game too often.
edit: now that i think about it, something like this could be possible in many ways...
for example, one side could timewarp alot of damage dealing units that could take out a nexus like structure like cracklings into the past through a warp gate, link them all to a commander, attack move to the enemy base while in the present do something like destroy the enemy timewarp when they respond to your past attack...
nevermind.. you could probably do it though? i dont know honestly..
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On March 31 2009 23:10 Diomedes wrote: Humans are really good at temporal thinking.
Computers can't do pattern recognition in these kinds of settings and computers can't reason at all.
They can only calculate, add one number to another. Any AI has to think like chess engines do. Make a move, then make a counter-move, calculate the results. Do this 10 million times a second and decide on something. And they have to evaluate every possible move because they can't exclude any.
Computers do pruning, they do not (and can't) evaluate every possibility. For example, in chess, bad moves are instantly thrown out and that whole tree isn't even considered; chess engines search very deeply but really only considered a small handful of possibilities.
As I said earlier, an AI dealing with time travel really only needs to be able to know about causality, that way its easy enough to counter players time traveling attempts. As for picking points in time to attack, thats just looking for weaknesses like it already does (for example, when an expo is first going up).
On March 31 2009 17:57 The Storyteller wrote:Show nested quote +On March 31 2009 17:49 Klockan3 wrote:On March 31 2009 16:21 Abydos1 wrote: This looks amazing if its executed properly; I've always wanted to do a time travel game but haven't figured out how to deal with it properly. The time waves seem to smooth out a lot of the problems with it. For an AI a fourth dimension is nothing strange, it can play with it like it plays any other game, while a player have no intuitive advantage in the fourth dimension. Think like this, in a normal game the computer is advantaged by being able to be and see everywhere at the same time, imagine now when the computer is also capable of see anytime and be anytime at the same time. Standard AIs for games I know suck at spatial recognition, that is to say they can't recognise choke points, (Clausewitz's) centre of gravity, flanking etc. Until that changes, they won't figure out time travel either. ... But is AI now advanced enough to figure out how space works? That would be really cool.
AI can handle spatial relationships just fine, such as choke points, center of gravity, and flanking; the examples you've seen probably just have poor implementations (possibly on a large scale). It also depends on how much processing time the engine is allocating to the ai.
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This sounds epic. So much abuse in mind..
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Time Travel in an RTS: Now you can own people so bad they lose before the game even starts O.O!!
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wow crazy concept to introduce to a RTS game. is this really a RTS game anymore? 
i'm pretty sure more gamesin the future will use time travel concept as it increase complexity of a game.
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Wow it seems like a really amazing concept. I would definitely try it.
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On April 01 2009 11:22 artofmagic wrote:wow crazy concept to introduce to a RTS game. is this really a RTS game anymore?  i'm pretty sure more gamesin the future will use time travel concept as it increase complexity of a game. they call it an MTS (meta time strategy)
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On March 28 2009 05:59 Bill307 wrote:Alright, I'm going to officially say I have too many doubts about this game to continue following it. First there's the unit factory paradox I described earlier. Then there's the fact that paradoxes are resolved by a 50/50 chance. This has the potential to ruin the game at a high competitive level, imo. Finally, the fact that you can regen all your chrono-energy that quickly means they are encouraging high-level players to jump to and from the present rapidly in order to execute a large number of commands in the past. How can they not see this coming? Oh, this might explain it: http://achrongame.com/about.htmlTheir "about us" doesn't mention anything about how much these guys play games. It's possible that they have no competitive gaming experience at all. And the mind of a competitive gamer is completely different. The casual gamer plays to optimize their own personal fun, which generally means little or no effort is put towards breaking the game. The competitive gamer plays to win, which means reducing any game to the easiest possible way to win and developing it from there. And if they do have a lot of competitive experience, then why don't they say so? For me, this is the biggest indication that this game will probably fail at a competitive level. Honestly, it looks like fun... but only for a week or two, at which point I'd probably conclude the game is broken competitively and stop playing.
Seems kind of harsh to condemn a concept idea in two hours by basic theorycrafting imo... The issues you adress are generally really easy fixes in terms of balance (except the paradox thing which might need rethinking), so i think that it is a bit unfair... With that said, it is a concept. Something needs to evolve out of it. As it is now it is going nowhere.
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I think if the game is tested and patched enough it could really work out, as long as the game itself is interesting and relatively balanced aside from the time travel stuff. The implications of the time travel mechanic are absolutely huge. I'm worried games could take fucking forever to complete though, as similarly skilled players would be easily countering, recountering, and uncountering eachother and whatnot. At any rate, this would have a huge skill hierchy like Starcraft does, maybe even larger.
I can think of a game where near the end of the game a player masses enough time travel energy and warps his entire army to the very beginning and snipes the other players first buildings, timed right before the time wave would catch up or something.
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damn that sounds awesome. i'll be giving this a try for sure.
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United States12235 Posts
I just heard about this game today, I'm gonna page Bill back to this thread.
This is a pretty impressive concept. More importantly, it seems like they've really fleshed out a multiplayer method. Of course, the Chronoenergy regeneration rate was greatly increased for demo purposes, as explained in their FAQ. Additionally, they say that you cannot time travel your resource gatherers, which means all resource gathering occurs in the present, but resource spending can occur in any point in time. The concept of a time table spanning 8 minutes is interesting as well -- from what I can tell, events occurring 8 minutes or more into the past are cemented into history and can not be altered.
They also explain the "endless cycle" of constantly sending your troops back in time to multiply your forces. Doing this and issuing commands to your past troops will cost an increasing amount of Chronoenergy so it's not sustainable. I'm sure if resource gatherers could travel through time then the game would be so massively complicated that it just wouldn't be fun, but by binding them to the present you ensure that players will continue to return to the present time. Smart idea and good design decision.
I think we can all agree that this game will never become an e-sport simply because it's the polar opposite of "spectator friendly" and following what's happening in the game is very difficult if you're not the one making the decisions. However, it does seem really interesting and potentially a successful competitive game.
For everyone speaking about the graphics and UI, I wouldn't worry about it. They're an indie game developer that has put little to no resources into graphics and are basically selling their engine looking for a publisher to pick them up.
EDIT: And about the paradox scenario in multiplayer games, they explain that too (it's been covered in this thread as well). Each battle is basically decided by spendable resources versus available Chronoenergy for each player. You have a limited amount of time to travel around and each past command consumes more and more Chronoenergy, so either you will win because your opponent has not managed his Chronoenergy well enough, or because you will be ahead in the battle at the time when the timewaves shove all past events off of the timeline.
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For everyone interested in giving this game a try: Since 1.1.2010 you can play a aphla demo if you reorder the game now. Its 20$ and you will be able to play all following alpha and beta game release up untill the final game is released. According to their release calendar they are aiming for 1.1.2011.
+ Show Spoiler +Achron Alpha Demo is now available for download to those who pre-order Achron!
By pre-ordering a license to Achron, you can download the latest alpha release, and all the upcoming future releases of Achron, including the full final game. Other pre-release programs available to those who pre-order include mod tools, tournaments, community artwork submissions, community level submissions, the Resequence Engine, and possibly third party Resequence time travel games. Please see our release calendar, frequently asked questions, and end user license agreement for further details.
The current release is an alpha build that includes a handful of single-player demo and tutorial levels. Achron is NOT a polished final game yet, but we are working toward that. Multiplayer modes, level editors, and further content will be released in the coming months. Source
I am thinking about getting it next week, when I have some spare time to test it out.
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Hi there TL posters. I'm currently working with Hazardous Software on Achron and since TL is such a huge hotbed for RTS players, I thought it might be a good idea to reach out to your community regarding our upcoming beta tournament. Players can register for free at the Achron site and apply to get into our beta tournament. If you are accepted, you will receive a free account for the duration of the tournament and may earn a free copy of the game for yourself and a friend if you play well during the tournament! We're working on securing other prizes at the moment, but we can't currently announce them.
If you'd like to sign up, you can go here: http://achrongame.com/site/achron-beta-tournament-rules.php
I'd love to make sure some quality RTS players from TL get into this, so please post back here once you sign up and let me know your account. We're closing registration after 500 entrants though, so sign up ASAP!
You can see our latest press release about this over at RPS too: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/05/23/preinforcements-achron-is-coming/
*btw, I would have made a new topic for this but your forums blocked me from doing so because I am a new member. If the OP or a mod would like to update the topic title with the tournament announcement, that would be sweet.*
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Are there any of you who want to give the game a try? I just bought it, and am looking for people who are total noobs like me to play with so i don't feel too stupid.
From what i have played so far, it seems to be a lot of fun. Also, there does not seem to be any randomness in it, which some people in this thread seem to think. Basically, stuff happens deterministic, but if you do not know what you are doing, it feels random. Which is usual for many things.
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I remember reading about this when the thread first surfaced two years ago, and the concept both intrigued me and made my brain hurt. It seems really interesting, but since you zip back and forth in time, rearranging attacks and defenses all the time, does this not force the game to drag out for long as it's simpler to conserve units, and thus resources? Because from my point of view, it seems simpler to cancel an attack and hide things than to reorder an attack and find new enemy locations, thus making defensive gameplay easier on the chronoenergy thing.
Anyhow, as I said, it seems really interesting. Any more vids than the three alpha ones and the new trailer available? A full, "average" multiplayer game would be nice, so I can see the general game time for a match.
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