Re: suggestion about commanders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If the AI did actually sneak stealthy units, I expect some of them would be intercepted by my patrols eventually. Yet I've never seen it happen. OTOH I've seen lots of AI spies, assassins, etc. in standard battles.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No answer needed from the devs, I just ran a quick test to prove you wrong. Edited the Europa map, removed all #specstart except Pangaea which I relocated in Iceland. Added 10 Pandemoniacs to speed research up, and an air-4 Manticore pretender. Added a couple "BLasted Heath". Recruited the first non-mage merc available. Researched Conjuration 4 and Enchantment 4, then switched the nation to AI control. I did all this to make sure Pangaea could cast Call of the Wind/Wild and Seeking Arrow, while being unable to move outside its capital or to use Astral Projection.

My second test nation, Arco, was randomly placed on the other side of the map, in Aegyptus. One of the leaders here was pinned by a Seeking Arrow the very turn after I switched Pangaea to AI. Even if Pangaea had received a Stone Sphere as an event, it needed an extra turn to use it to locate Arco. QED. The AI knows where you are.

Now what's really funny is the AI seems to be fond of casting "The Eyes of God" - what a waste of gems ;-)

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If the AI did actually sneak stealthy units, I expect some of them would be intercepted by my patrols eventually. Yet I've never seen it happen. OTOH I've seen lots of AI spies, assassins, etc. in standard battles.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've had the AI try to assasinate one of my commanders - having to go through some of my territories stealthily to do so. But only once, so it doesn't seem like the AI uses stealthy critters much. And this doesn't answer whether or not the AI uses spies to gather intelligence.

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You mean stealthy units = stealthy armies? If you are talking about armies I have seen Panganea on several occasions try to sneak an army to my home province (didn't see other nations though). As far as spies, assassins, black servants, etc. goes I use them often to mark target. So if you see a lot of them, why wonder if AI knows where to shoot?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is probably true (almost certainly since we can’t tell what info AI gets when you switch control in mid game) but that means that AI can see where to shoot those spells, not that he has all info about your troops, movements, or that he can declare war on you from other side of the map without spotting you with spies first. He could be using "cheat" info only in that aspect of the game. He doesn't appear to see everything judging by his actions (e.g. movement troops, directions of attack).
The thing is that we don't play same game and even if AI could see everything in Dom I things could have changed somewhat in Dom II. So, "no need to ask devs" statement seems a bit rushed. We are both guessing something they know.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Waste of eyes too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

I just realised (reading Sunray_be's website) that one of the negative random events is an assassin trying to kill one of your commanders - so it may be that it wasn't the AI.

So just ignore my earlier post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">... if you see a lot of them, why wonder if AI knows where to shoot?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I mean I've seen lots of AI *unsneaked* spies, etc. participating in standard battles with other regular troops - just like if they were regular foot commanders. I can't see how these unsneaked spies could gather more intel than the regular commanders they journey with ;-)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As Pangaea I had absolutely no info on Arco when I switched Pangaea to AI - let's say that was in turn N. And this Seeking Arrow did hit in turn N+1, so the spell was planned the previous turn (turn N), at a moment we know Pangaea had no "real" knowledge on Arco's location.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">On the contrary I've seen strong evidence that the AI monitors your leaders' moves, and I believe he's particularly fond of targetting heroes - I remember one occasion when I used the Caelum hero named Caelos to ferry troops deep into my core provinces, and guess what? 3 turns in a row, in 3 different provinces, the poor unescorted Caelos was targetted by Seeking Arrows.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My test proves otherwise, since Pangaea couldn't send spies outside of Iceland to spot Arco. Or maybe you don't consider a Seeking Arrow serious enough to qualify as a declaration of war? Then I've news for you: I generated a couple more turns and Pangaea started sending hawks and wolves on Arco.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AI = dumb. It can't analyze positions like you do, but from that you shouldn't infer that it hasn't access to the info.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sorry if I didn't make it clear, every bit I wrote was related to Dom 1 only.

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Play a 1-on-1 game on a huge map against an AI nation like Caelum or Pangaea, after a dozen turns it will start landing hawks or wolves on your provinces.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yes, I remember that it does that, but it seems quite random. Often they will bump on a group far too big for them to handle. So this is far from being an evidence that they are scanning your empire without fog of war.

edit : ok, I replied to a post of you, without having yet read the other Messages (and your testbed).

I would like to have Johan or Kristoffer drop a line on this, at least I hope that if the AI see thru fow, thats only for distant spells and not for planning how to counter your armies? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

[ October 05, 2003, 06:31: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

I didn't make the AI, but I believe that the AI acts as if it had the input of a human player (mostly military info of neighbouring provinces).

However it also has access to ownerstatus of provinces. Thus it can cast spells from afar without regards to the military precense of a province.

I'm not sure to what extent it has knowledge of the wereabouts of special commanders.

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

wtf? cheating AI? AI will see everything on the map in Doms 2???????????????????????????????? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

I hope that this IS NOT TRUE!
I thought the the AI will be lot better than in Doms 1, so what is going on? We will have a nice cheating AI, which basically won't be better than the Doms 1 AI?

Damn now I will wait for the demo. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

Hey, no need to call the mighty AI a cheater!

It does play with fog of war and has no idea where your little arch mage is walking around peacefully, searching for magic sites. Unless he has a scout there, of course.

To make the AI creation a possible task there are some differences in how it and a human player get information. But this should have no noticable effect on how the AI plays the game, compared to a player with the human information. It does have info on the ownership of provinces when targeting spells, but in most circumstances a human player would have a very good knowledge about that too by looking at the score graph, using some old scout info and making a qualified guess.

I think the Dominions II AI is exceedingly honest. If you assassinate one of its arch theurgs it really must cancel that order for 45 gladitors if it wants to replace him. If you conquer half of its provinces it really looses half of its income and he will be in just as much trouble if he gets sieged by a barbarian horde on turn 5. And of course he receives just as many unlucky events as the next player.

I think it is important that the AI plays by the same rules as much as possible. I really don't like a game where the AI is unaffected by any attempts to destroy its economy and instead it sits around with an enormous pile of cash waiting for you to get powerful enough to destroy it in one swift blow instead.

If the Dominions AI gets a pile of cash it will just spend more money in order to eliminate you faster. Therefore it is always short on cash just like any normal player.

/Johan K
Creator of the AI, God of War, patron of merchants

Re: suggestion about commanders
 

Amen (or Oom if you prefer so) to that Johan.
It's good that the AI is honest.
And with cheating i indeed did mean getting extra design points, sorry for any confusion...

[ October 05, 2003, 11:40: Message edited by: Nerfix ]