MArcomage

A draw initiated by AI? How is this possible? I'm going to investigate.

It has developed it's own will! Beware :P

I'm pretty sure I forbid it to initiate draws. I'm not saying that it was a bad decision, but still it is strange. Maybe the AI doesn't want to lose :D

Ok, it's clear now. I forgot to put the draw prevention code to the final version of the AI o_O. Not sure if I should add it, though. I mean players go for draw when they smell defeat as well.

I don't see a problem with it initiating a draw, but in this case the match was not yet over. It would have made sense to wait. Xenogeist was neither about to build his defenses beyond the reach of Catastrophe finishing him, about to achieve any victory condition, able to prevent the play of Catastrophe, nor play more than one card on his next turn. It would have been reasonable for the AI to continue play a while and see what else is drawn by either player or to play in a way that increases his defenses while decreasing his stock in preparation.

I know that this would be harder to code and I'm not suggesting that you try to perfect the AI to make that call, but if the alternative is unwarranted kamikaze attacks, it makes more sense to have it avoid forcing a draw.

Well, currently the AI is set to be slightly more aggressive than defensive, so he computed that despite doing considerable self-damage, it will do much damage to the opponent. So, it looked like a fair trade to it. The AI capability to understand "context" of the game is still very limited.

I don't mind it trying to reach draws, just makes it harder to actually beat

Well, dindon is working on custom AI, which will use AI especially customized for one special deck. So instead of general strategy, it will have a more specialized behavior. This should be more challenging than regular AI.