Interesting idea from the main forum

**easytarget** · 10-02-2013, 23:25

This was posted up by a guy by the name of deadmarine1980, a rather intriguing idea I thought:

Hey guys last night I had an idea about an alternative way to play. Here it is: Mimic mode. How would it work? Well when you select "Mimic mode", and then you pick your faction, lets say you pick Rome. When you start the game the computer will note on how you play on the micro and macro level in the game. So when someone else connects and plays "Mimic mode" but they are playing say as Carthage their "Rome" will act like how you play Rome. So the Carthage player will be fighting a Rome that builds its cities and stacks like you build them and deploy them. In other words he is not playing you directly but playing an AI "trained" by you.
At the same time all your AI faction are mimicking other players that are playing the same mode, but I should point out that it is random and double blind. I think this mode would be very fun, because each A.I you fight will have different stacks and would structure their society differently.
I think this could be a valued mode of play. Other games have done this in the past. This could be seen as a "multiplayer light", or that a person is not fighting you, but fighting your chess peaces. But anyways guys please post share ideas on how this mode could be improved. I would like to see CA read this and consider a mode like this for the game.

**Hooahguy** · 10-02-2013, 23:53

Very intriguing, I would love if it was implemented. Which other games use this idea?

**easytarget** · 10-03-2013, 00:11

The OP didn't say where he came up with the idea, not sure that any game does it right now. But I thought it was interesting given that CA has stated on several occasions the use of meta data about how players play their games, this seemed like an interesting idea to put that sort of information to use in a way that addresses one of the challenges players have pointed out to them in the TW series repeatedly over the years.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting enough to re-post.

**Bramborough** · 10-03-2013, 00:20

Originally Posted by Hooahguy

Which other games use this idea?

I was wondering same...would be a game worth checking out.

It's a pretty interesting idea. Not sure if it would be feasible to include in R2, but perhaps a future TW..."M3" perhaps?

At first I thought "well, the two folks would have to be online & playing at same time". But I don't think this would have to be the case at all. The game could maintain an online library of player profiles. City builds, tech research priorities, army compositions at different levels of tech, ratio of army/fleet, propensity to assault instead of siege/blockade, sally-out percentage, could all be compiled over the course of a campaign to populate the profile. Once the campaign is won, this profile then becomes active in the library. When a player opts for this mode, the AI factions are loaded in with one of these randomly-chosen player profiles from past games. The campaign and battle AIs would still be largely a (hopefully improved) evolution of what we have now...but at least the city builds and army compositions would be "player-tested" from successful campaigns.

Is this workable? I have no idea.

Edit: Toward end of his post, the quoted OP did say "Other games have used this in the past." Hence my and Hooah's interest in what games to which deadmarine1980 might be referring.

**easytarget** · 10-03-2013, 00:27

I PM'd to ask what other games he was referring to, I'm curious to hear as well.

And your player profile library and randomizing that seems like an interesting idea as well.

This is a bit like the online drop in w/o the hassle of hoping someone will drop in, you play to the strength or propensity of most TW players to play SP and just collect what they do and close the loop by feeding it back into the system to help improve the factions.