After playing 1.18 and trying to stay ahead of my AI competition, I had an interesting idea. What if during one play-thorugh you could “Record” actions for an AI opponent. Then play against that opponent. For example when recording your play-thorughyou research a tech, and it is recorded as an event. So tech X researched at Time Y. When playing the clone of yourself it would then research the same tech at the same time you did during the play in which it was recorded.
Other metrics that could be recorded:
Amount of cars produced each 24 hour period.
Car types sold during 24 hour period. This would include upgrades the model had and could feed into the rarity of upgrades.
Money made in 24 hour period.
As more features are added into the game they could also be tied into this system.
Using the metrics from a previous game as an AI opponent wold also open up the ability to have mini goals or challenges generated in a game. For instance produce more cars during this 24 hour period for a small bonus payout. Another thought is that you could use multiple “Cloned AI” for opponents. So you would have AI using your playbook from multiple play-thorughs. This could add considerable challenge to the AI and make each game more interesting.
There could also be a more major “endgame” goal of produce X % more cars then your opponent by Y date to “win”. I think there are a lot of possibilities with this system that could extend game play and replay ability.
anyway just my 2 cents on what I thought might be a fun addition.
EDIT: Another quick thought before I get to bed is that if the Clone AI were stored in an xml file or similar that could be moved between games, players could compete against each other’s clones. Could add even more fun to the mix.