What does "Fast AI" do?

[curi]

What I really want to know is does Fast AI make the AI play any worse? Or will it play identical?

[Peter_TSS]

It does not make it worse, because the AI still spends the same amount of time "Thinking." It makes the AI execute its moves faster, speeding up things like closing dialogs and selecting and moving units.

The longer the AI spends thinking, the less noticeable the Fast AI setting is. On the iPad Air, it's very noticeable. On the iPad 2, the change isn't very noticeable.

[curi]

Ah, cool.

Would a possible quick fix for the AI being weak be a "Slow AI" option that makes it think 5x as much, say? For those with patience who'd like harder AI. Or would that not help for some reason? I know with chess AI that giving it more time makes it better.

[daviddunham]

The Fast AI setting is cosmetic. Do you prefer watching it make its moves, as if it were a player sitting across the iPad from you, or do you just want to move again as quickly as possible?

We are experimenting with a different approach to AI that would need to think for much longer than it does at present (presumably in exchange for providing more challenge). We are pretty sure nobody wants to wait hours though. So we will roll this out only when it can give a reasonable play experience.