While I can't cite game-specific code and calculations, when I look at the statistics and math modeling I am doing now compared to what I thought was amazing (and was CPU-throttling) 15+ years ago … it is incredible. Basically, the level of stuff I did then I can do with a click and it is instant … the stuff that had to calculate overnight (or all weekend … or continuously on a big Unix box under my desk) before, is now trivial.
So it is correct to think that simply removing barriers and expanding the scope of calculations, range of variables, number of terms and so on that were present in a 1998 IE game would be trivial now … that is NOT how a new game would be approached.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but if you're trying to say that writing an efficient AI that's a challenge on a human-like level, given a complex system, is - in any way - trivial due to increased power - you're dead wrong.
But even back in BG days, the AI could seem like a challenge - but that's not literally AI (Artificial Intelligence). The "AI" wasn't the challenge at all, the challenge was about hitpoints, damage and RNG. Essentially, it was a bunch of scripts written for each NPC. They hand-made behavior for the "big fights" - which means they had certain NPCs cast certain spells - or at least categorized what kind of spells would be cast in a specific order.
Not unlike what they asked the players to do in Dragon Age.
But that's what I call trickery that won't be a challenge at all once the player has learned the scripts. An AI that's supposed to be a challenge will ADAPT to the human player, and it will not follow a list like that.
In BG, all you had to do was watch the enemy cast his spells, and you'd know EXACTLY what would happen upon a reload. That's what I meant by adapting to the rules.
People perceive some games as having a "challenging" AI because they're getting their asses kicked. But it's a matter of creating efficient scripts that take advantage of the rules in a "human-like" way but which can't adapt once the player learns what to do.
One of the most challenging "AIs" like this I've tried, personally, is StarCraft - where the entire game is designed around a very specific pattern of resource-gathering. There's this optimal amount of gatherers you have to build in a very specific order - and this is something that takes quite a while to learn as a player. Blizzard designed the game in this way, because they wanted it to be highly competitive - and they wanted players to learn these patterns to be efficient.
To me, that's super boring and predictable - and it's not a challenge as much as it's simply a long hard lesson.
So, you don't need much processing power for scripts or trickery.
You DO need a MASSIVE amount of processing power for a challenging AI that actually adapts, and which you can't defeat simply by learning patterns.
If we want a game to challenge us like that, in real-time, we're going to have to wait for years and years.
Very few games even have AIs that can adapt to anything at all. I do believe the Stardock games have something, but I think that's less about providing a challenge - and more about simulating human behavior in diplomacy and what not.
That's also the reason I admire Bethesda for TRYING to do something like this with Radiant AI. Of course, when you boil it down - it's likely still just a bunch of scripts - but they're sophisticated and they do enable the NPCs to, seemingly, have a life of their own which isn't entirely predictable.
The Gothic/Risen games, for instance, are mostly fully scripted. Great for immersion - but not very lifelike once you notice how predictable everything that happens is.