AI \"personalities?\"
 

I thought I read something about the AI having different personalities this time, like aggressive, defensive and mixed. Do I recall correctly? Are you able to set these parameters before the game starts or are they randomly determined for each AI? Sounds like a neat feature that would add much to the single player game if true.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

IIRC you can set the AI parameters (agressive, defensive, normal, and mixed) at the beginning of each new game.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

That's freakin' awesome, thanks NakedLunch!

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Yeah. This is neat. Btw hopefully the AI wont move his pretender/commanders with like 2 troops to conquer provinces like in Doms 2...in most of my SP games the AIs are loosing their pretenders pretty fast, because of that.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Yes currently three AI personalities exist:
Defensive, Aggressive and Standard


I recall reading each can be placed for an AI opponent before the start of a game. Hopefully a random option exists as well.

Not sure what new modding options exist, but I would love to see a modding option for the AI personalities ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

There is one. The settings are Normal, Agressive, Defensive, and Random. I just checked.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Can't wait to play against a bunch of AIs on random. I'm so glad we have that option!

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

How big is a bunch? How many AI's do you want to play against?
Lets see (checking to make sure the devs have released all the info Im about to use..)

30,000 x 30,000 map
1500 provinces
21 x 3 nations = 63 total
(and Johan has stated in another public forum that "with abit of work" you can play against other eras)

So would you take Late Ulm play a game against 62 AI's on a 1500 province map? That would only be a 23 province per player game.

Heehee. Obviously from the screen shots we see you will be selecting an era then choosing one of the 21 nations to play within that era. At least in a normal game. But if its possible, then you KNOW I will be making monster games downloadable from my site.

Hmmm maybe I should hold off on making things like that available right at the release. It might ruin peoples impressions of the game to change Johan/Kristoffers game so drastically and so soon

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

You bet I would!

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Ok, bringing back a stale thread with a new question... Will the AI personalities ever change during a game?

That could add a lot of surprise. Suppose there were some BIG trigger events for nations, like losing the home fort, or death of the pretender, or loss of >20% of armies in 1 turn, or even breaking an alliance, ... and this would cause a chance of switching the AI at random to another personality. So you are really attacking one AI hard, and smash a large army, then it might change from a Defensive to Offensive posture and send all it's home guard after you. It would have to be unpredictable or it could be exploited.

This could even work with AI alliances. The same kind of big events could trigger the AIs to possibly ally with each other. As you begin to try and crush the smaller AI nations it becomes more likely that they will become allied against you, unless you can finish them quickly.

Sill

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Hm...global triggers for AIs sounds good. However, if we gonna have dimplomacy like that in the game, the human player must be involved in it as well. IE. Make an alliance with an AI. However this would be too much to add in a patch for sure, since this would be hardcore and long programming. The Galciv2 diplo system is excellent btw, something like that should be used in Doms 4. or in a Doms 3. expansion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Actually certain trigger events might be easier to do than most of the suggestions Ive seen. It doesnt involve the AI having a memory. Its a simple list of "if this happens then toggle this". Im not sure if the game supports changing such things once the game is generated on the first hosting, but it could work.

It would also stop one of my tactics. Sitting at the edge of two nations fighting and grabbing weakened provinces from both. If an AI could recognize that its at war with me and another AI is also, then ally so they dont attack each other..

Hmmm but then you would need another trigger to turn off the alliance later. I can see some nasty loops and such. I need to think about it some more.

But yes, at this point its probably something for the Dom4 wishlist.

Gandalf Parker

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

I agree... combining the best diplomacy features from GalCiv_2 and Civilization_4 then adding them into Dominions_4 would be terrific.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

You could always have them affected by a random event. Certain events switch them to agressive or defensive, others may even set it to random (death of the prophet?).

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

I created a topic asking events be included allowing much greater and more unique maps. Not sure if gamers will be able to setup events for maps, but I pray for this feature.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

That would be abit more involved since it would involve the map, which gets setup at the beginning of the game to create the fthrlnd file. Then it would have to create an event which gets tracked each turn. Maybe for Dom4.

Or if it were a mod thing. Then its something that gets used each turn. I probably wouldnt mess with it since I dont do much with mods. I prefer maps. But it might work better that way.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

For extra realism, you could have the AI suddenly start staling turns http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Hmm, maybe AI could be granted internet access and start posting tips and taunts in these forums ...

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

LOL that would be fun. Im almost tempted to do that. Maybe when the game is released just to answer questions from newbies. Kristoffer should do that. RPG the AI.

Ive actually written posting bots to serve as help people in IRC, MUDs, Customer Support chats, etc. But those were to avoid drudgery and FAQ. Actually playing the part of "the AI" could be more fun here.

Gandalf Parker

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Well if the AI from Dominions_2 would post tips on the forum it would say stuff like:
1} Don't pay attention to food supplies it doesn't do anything.
2} Expect troops to get diseased it's just a random factor which seems to happen when many troops are gathered in a province. Nothing can be done about this.
3} Send your pretender into the death match at all times... I'm sure this time it will work.
4} Don't summon the elemental royalty commanders such as the air queens and fire kings... it's better to use the gems to power up weaker mages.
5} Never cast ghost riders, flames from the sky, and send horror... I'm not sure what these do thus don't use them.
6} Don't waste time building SCs... makes the game more challenging.
7} Never build labs or castles... I have a personal phobia about these two buildings!
8} And finally no matter what stage of the game make sure to summon lots of cave drakes, fire drakes and ice drakes... because they look kool.

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Heehee. I guess thats true. Shouldnt necessairly trust "tips" from the AI

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

It would be terrific to have a AI bot answering questions. One never knows, perhaps it wouldn't be a bot at all, like in that song where the bot turns out to be a hot blonde...
http://basshunter.m0o.eu/anna/index_en.php

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Well, it would make moderating these forums much more interesting, thats for sure. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Can't listen to it at work, but I assume it is Europop! Looking forward to hearing it tonight http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Nice of Annette to make a cameo appearance for them there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Everyone can have internet fame, even an AI bot apparently.
I really liked it. Thanks for posting it.
(Ive done alot of customer support bots for irc, mud, webchats, forums)

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

OK how about playing against 78 AI's on a 1500 province map?
That gives you each 18 provinces before being forced to war. Thats all 3 ages of player nations plus the modders empty nation slots plus a couple of special nations.

Thats as high as Ive been able to get it although I havent tested the official release yet. And thats not a player option in the game. In fact I dont think its meant to be possible. Its a trick that the host can do with a bit of effort. Most of the games will tend to be a single age. All early age nations against each other, or all middle age, or all late age. All at once is possible but tricky (and takes a pretty good host server)

Gandalf Parker

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

That's both pretty impressive and ridiculous at once. How about you play such a game to turn 40-50 and tell us how long it takes to host a turn?

Sill

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Meh, atleast in dom2, even games with 10 players can become impossible to host. (Try taking AE Ermor, save up lots of and lots of death gems and then burn them all with Stygian Paths on all your armies - and see how the game freezes during hosting)

Re: AI \"personalities?\"
 

Well it was originally meant as a test. But Dom3 has made fantastic improvements in load handling. I have run a number of tests beyond 50 turns. I have a pre-host script that records the system stats like time and load, then the post-host records it again.

First off, since Im a linux host Im running it in text mode (which is the most efficient). And I dont care how long it takes to process since many of such games are 24 hour turnaround. But these numbers show that a linux server could easily manage a game this large. And at the same time many smaller mapped 2 or 3 player blitzes.

But the latest "me vs 78" game is in turn 74.
Here are the load stats

turn #1
pre
15:45:38 up 1 day, 1:24, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
post
15:58:27 up 1 day, 1:37, 4 users, load average: 0.99, 0.91, 0.54

turn #74
pre
11:41:31 up 25 days, 21:20, 6 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
post
12:02:52 up 25 days, 21:41, 6 users, load average: 1.08, 1.05, 0.75

Gandalf Parker