Is there a "skirmish" mode?

[HorseDemon]

Impire DOES in fact contain two different factions for you to play. There is also a skirmish mode for 2-4 players. (You can't play the skirmish mode solo as the single player AI was made to handle the story campaign and not centered around building opposing dungeons. We wanted a more specific "crafted story" feel to the campaign, which is something you don't see these days when procedural generated content is common, so that's where the focus was. (Not that there's anything wrong with procedurally generated content- Impire just works better as a hand-crafted experience where every level is unique.)

 

[HorseDemon]

It's a $20 game so my expectations are set accordingly. If this were a big budget $60 title like Starcraft II and it wasn't shipping with skirmish AI it'd be another story altogether! Expanding AI from knowing how to play a scripted campaign to being able to free-form create dungeons in a competitive way is a large undertaking, which is why I wouldn't mind paying for it if it's an included feature in a DLC content pack or expansion.

As a game maker you always want to include everything possible in a game to make it as good as it can be. At the same time, you have to work within the scope of your budget. One of the things I'm really proud of with Impire is how much we actually managed to cram in there. We're nipping at the heels of games that cost LOTS and lots more to make, with much larger teams. Somehow we even managed to get AAA voice talent in there- people that act in mega-budget titles that sell millions. I've explained a lot that the Cyanide team working on Impire in Montreal is completely new and that this is their first game together, and after this I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do next. A huge budget isn't always to your benefit either- there can be a tendency to feature creep if that little voice in the back of your head says "just throw some more money at it". There's this friend of mine in the industry that is fond of saying "You have to respect people in this industry that can actually dig in and deliver content." and I firmly agree.

Oh, and yes... there IS incentive to replaying the campaign for a few different reasons- customizing Baal, branching story... things like that.

 

[HorseDemon]

The campaign should take the average player 20+ hours to complete on medium difficulty, NOT counting replays if you want to try the alternate branch of the story. It it quite long.

While the game does have very robust multiplayer, it IS heavily focused on single player. Coding a skirmish AI that plays like a human player building his or her own dungeon is not something that is done in a week or two- it's a fairly large undertaking. I'd love to have a skirmish AI in there too and if this game had a budget the size of certain AAA titles (together with a AAA price tag) I'm sure it would be included, but as I've said before, if you want to bring the oven and the refrigerator, sometimes you just have to leave the kitchen sink behind and see if you can come back for it later. I can't say exactly what the future holds for the game yet beyond that we will do our best to support and expand it it as long as the player base supports it. We'll certainly be listening to what everyone wants to see once the game is out there. Just a few hours away now!

 

[HorseDemon]

I refuse this AI ORIENTED DLC nonsense. DLC's like skins n such are for dev support I understand. Artificial Intelligence is core game concept for a games that are NOT PURE MULTIPLAYER and should stay like that and delievered possible fixes/patches for free. If you want to throw your support at devs, you can buy more than one copy of the game or send them your support directly.

Also using GAME PRICE as a shield against "Incompetent AI" argument is unacceptable.

Hey guys, let's not argue on this gloriously Impish day. IF it becomes possible to do something in the way of solo-skirmish play somehow I promise you guys will find out about it as soon as possible. Right now we are very focused on getting the game out the door so that everyone can start building their evil underground domains.