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Monster AI
See thread Colonization Minister Secret Revealed for what has gone before. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For...ML/003169.html
Discuss my Clays MonsterAI here. First topic - I will change the Clays back to Carbon Dioxide Gas Giant like the Eee in the next game. Atmosphere None races cannot convert Gas Giants to breathable because there is no such thing as a Gas None. That means that I WILL make another map with Co2 planets in the center of the nexus systems rather than Nones.... Possibly if people really like the challenge of a Nexus map, Aaron could be persuaded to have the game build nexus style quadrants automatically rather than each being a hand crafted work of art.... Possibly he could be persuaded to add Giant style size 200 planets along with sizes 50, 75, and 100 to the regular game so that people do not have to mod. Until then change all references in Clays_AI_Planet_Types from small to tiny then medium to small, then large to medium then Huge to large, and finally Giant to Huge. That is, if you do not like the bottomless pit giants... [This message has been edited by LCC (edited 18 July 2001).] |
Re: Monster AI
Well, it did not take that long to play, but there was a lock up and I had to figure out why. What I have learned :
Turn 72 - 3.8m/3.0m/60.0/6.5/316/10/469/256.3/1569/202/0 Learns Last tech next turn by leaving the nexus to plant colonies... Turn 73 - 4.0m/3.1m/58.6/6.5/370/35/545/270.9/1569/214/0 Turn 74-75 took 12 minutes! 4 new systems 114 colonies planted... Turn 77 - 4.3m/3.2m/59.0/7.0/370/49/912/348.2/3430/293/0 Turn 88 - 6.7m/6.2m/61.0/44.1/370/49/1182/542.9/3556/38/0 1) The increase in units is a call to build mines for colonies 349 to 545 done on turn 73. 2) It is obvious that the game is skipping the calls to build warships, perhaps because it already has some and is still in exploration state. 3) Turn 72 is already posted. I am uploading turn 77 and 88 now. 4) Turn 77 is near bankrupt again with the ship queue about to halt. Also it is building lots of atmosphere modification plants, getting into bankruptcy on organics and radioactives as well as minerals and having lots of forced farming/refining colonies. What the AI needs to do is have the colonization manager rethink its orders and select a different destination to plant rather than forcing the colony type of a low productivity planet. 5) Turn 88 is just before a lock up on the transition turn 89-90. When Clays are switched to player there is no problem. It turns out that since all tech has been learned, the research colony on Aye XVIII A wants to build a solar generator III. Under AI as I said it locks up, but player controlled with full AI on starts the facility. 6) Another thing I noticed is that one and only one of the 30 Research colonies ever was allowed to build research facilities. Is that because the Clays research ability is nonexistant ? If so, then NEVER go nonexistant! 7) Since all tech has been learned the AI should have scrapped the research facilities to build something else. Research colonies ARE being run, they have lots of facilities just no research centers. I checked, only the one colony had research centers before the Last tech was learned.... 8) I waited an hour to get turn 90 then finally and reluctantly did CTRL ALT DEL. After thinking about it I checked. There IS A QUICK AND EASY way to determine if the game is locked up. Just click the little window icon in the upper right hand corner to go back to windows. If it does not take you to windows within a minute, the game is locked up! To get back to the game click the game name on the windows bottom screen bar. When the turn is complete it will pop you back up to the game. 9) Most turns executed in 3 minutes or less. But when the AI reluctantly decides to colonize in new systems, it takes a LONG time to decide which ones to use. This needs some execution time optimization. 10) In turn 88 sorting the colony list etc takes a minute or two. Just give it time, there is a lot to sort..... I am going to bed after doing the uploads. Today I created a monster AI that if unchecked will plant 1000 colonies before turn 80! A GOOD DAYS WORK!!!! |
Re: Monster AI
I just posted a new patch and map10 in scenario/mod archive SE IV maps and scenarios. I changed Clays to be Co2/Gas instead of Rock/None. I added new planet sizes NexusTiny, NexusSmall, NexusMedium, NexusLarge, and NexusHuge to replace the single Giant size. As with the Huge, a regular Large can be created as NexusLarge on random planet creation etc. This means that home planets can start with very different sizes even though they are all supposedly Medium or Large, because some will be Nexus style. It should be an interesting challenge for those who usually use AI bonuses. The new map also has a better distribution of ruins and more nexus feeder and destroyed nexus buffer systems. It will take me a few days to break up the map into clusters and post again...
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Re: Monster AI
The attached zip creates a new subdirectory "test" containing the new Clays empire files, a patchsys3 file containing patches to make a nexus quadrant, and Clays_AI_Planet_Types which is required to get minimal usage of the new planet types.
The Clays are an evolved Eee with Organic, Crystalline, Religious, and at 5000 points Temporal picks. They are NOT a space monster, my choice of description "Monster AI" is unfortunately confusing given the other thread about "Space Monsters". It is taking a LONG time to build my latest map10a from map10 in the Map Editor because I want it to be my LAST map for a long time. Another couple of days should see it done. Then I will do the research tree and ship design. Until then the AI is on hold, but the planet types file alone should be useful to get better AI colonization and recovery from bankruptcy for ANY race. Just change Small to Tiny, Medium to Small, Large to Medium, Huge to Large, and NexusTiny to Huge. |
Re: Monster AI
Map10a is posted at Last - See Map10a and Really big games Version 3
I will rip off ship designs from other races and not worry about research for the moment since the AI gets tech off the ruins really fast... |
Re: Monster AI
You wont a moster race??? Watch this space I've nearly made my first one, you'll love it!
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Re: Monster AI
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by out_law:
You wont a moster race??? Watch this space I've nearly made my first one, you'll love it!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If it modifies any tech, components or facilities, then get together with the people on this thread : http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/For...ML/003235.html which deals with space monsters. If it is a hybrid AI using all standard game files but a new AI, then feel free to post here! |
Re: Monster AI
Well, our new house finally got a phone connection, so I am back Online. I worked on warship design for my AI for a couple of days, doing the attack/defense ships/bases and the colony ships. I then decided to run a test game and ran into a stone wall at exit from second bankruptcy turn 88-89. I thought at first that I had busted the game with my 915 colonies with yards, but it turned out that the game engine still can handle it. Unfortunately it takes **** 9000 seconds **** more or less to execute a single turn when building ships/units. It only takes a couple of minutes for 915 colonies when doing only facilities. It only took a few minutes with 186 of 915 colonies with yards at entrance into second bankuptcy. So execution time when specifically building ships/units is directly proportional to the SQUARE OF THE NUMBER OF YARDS AVAILABLE times some HUGE number of instruction cycles. My best guess is that the AI has no memory at all of which is the fastest yard available, and rather than cycle through all colonies ordered by yard rate and number of turns already scheduled, it cycles through colonies in the order planted. So for every single colony with a yard it does an evaluation of every single other colony to see if that colony would be a better choice for building the current item. If there is a better choice then it moves on to the next colony in the list. The item gets sheduled only if there is no better choice available compared to the particular current colony. When it has run through all the colonies and has scheduled something, then it starts the whole charade over again and basically repeats the cycle up to 30*30/2 times depending on how many different yard rates are available. Then if the current item in the ship/unit queue is successfully fully scheduled, the whole process basically starts all over again for the next queue entry. When at least four or five turns of work has been scheduled at all colonies then nothing gets scheduled and the circus grinds to a halt for the current turn.
I have a Compaq Presario with AMD K-6 3d processor bought in 98. It runs Windows 98 Year 2000 Update 2 operating system and has 64 megabytes of memory. With SE IV running it reports 77% resources free during a turn, but there is no way to check while the AI is running to next turn because the minimize to windows button is ignored during the AI processing of a turn (another issue). Nevertheless I think that the execution time is NOT due to my computer limitations but instead to the generation of TRILLIONS of instructions by the AI engine. I did my first AI in 86-89 by rewriting a public domain 4x game called "Conquest" for the Commodore Amiga. I also wrote a performance analysis tool called "Debugger" to study the game and improved its execution time by a factor of 50+. In 91-92 I spent a couple thousand hours writing my own 4x game for the Amiga called "Galactic Zoo". I abandoned it and released it as public domain in 92 when some people who looked it over said that nobody would play it because managing an empire looked too much like work. A year or two later the first Versions of Civilization and Master of Orion came out and became big sellers, proving the analysts wrong, but by then my Amiga had died from over 20000 hours of hard usage. In case you other folks in this forum did not know it, a (labor intensive) strategy game pays a breakeven wage to the developer compared to a regular job only if it sells 100-500 THOUSAND units depending on the royalty percentage per unit actually sold delivered to the developer. Game writing as a profession SUCKS. So my sympathy goes out to Aaron fighting an uphill battle just to pay for rent and groceries. OTOH his AI engine is LOUSY on an absolute scale although it is ok compared to what many game designers put out. The absolute scale I use for comparison is the AI for the Space Shuttle, which I became familiar with while working on simulations at JSC in 79-81 and again in 87-88. Since tens of MILLIONS of dollars are spent on improving that AI every year that may not be very fair, but it does give me an idea of what is POSSIBLE. During the past few days I have fought the AI engine in my game uphill to reach turn 125 at which time it is finally building some ships besides colony and minelayers, rather than skipping their queue entries (another issue). While waiting the long hours for each turn to process I am unable to use my computer to do anything else. I have spent the time staring at the screen and speculating as to just WHAT THE **** he may be doing with his AI engine that takes so ******* LONG. I think by now that I have a fair idea, and am in the process of writing a LONG list of DETAILED suggestions to improve the execution time, plus reporting yet more bugs/features observed during this test game. My original interest in this game was for playing, but the AI was not challenging enough. My second interst was development of an AI that could survive at the center of Nexus maps, but that has been overridden by my latest interest. That interest is HOW THE **** can this ******* AI engine be improved to manage over 1000 colonies with yards and still take only a couple of minutes per turn. If I can get him a factor of 50-75 execution time improvement as on earlier games without even seeing the source code then I can later brag about that too. So Aaron and his game distributer get free labor until I can resume work on my AI, which is also free labor of course, but somewhat more personally satisfying. I will not post save game files for this current test game because I already posted files in the scenario/mod archives for the previous one, which is of similar size. What I thought was a lockup after the Last save of the previous game almost certainly was NOT. It just never occurred to me that a game could possibly take over an hour to process a single turn for a single player and be functioning as designed. The only reason why the game was allowed to run a turn to completion at exit from second bankruptcy in this test game was that I was very tired, had no phone to go Online with, and just did not bother to hit CTRL ALT DEL and exit the game before going to bed. To my extreme surprise, when I got up in the morning the game was waiting for me at the next turn! I also will not bother to post the AI minister bugs/features because nobody commented on my previous postings and they are a matter for the Beta testers and MM to resolve. So until the AI engine is 50 times faster there will be nothing else to report about my AI..... Edit : It is probably 30 times not 30*30/2. I do not know why I thought it was that way when I posted. I need to catch up on my sleep again.... [This message has been edited by LCC (edited 01 August 2001).] |
Re: Monster AI
QUOTE:
I did my first AI in 86-89 by rewriting a public domain 4x game called "Conquest" for the Commodore Amiga. /QUOTE Hey, I think I might remember that. I used to play it against my brother. Don't know if it was your Version or not. I certainly remember "lore of conquest", which was out a few years later... ------------------ "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?" |
Re: Monster AI
If it was the Version where planets increased in capacity without limit using investment of part of the production, then it was probably mine. Also I designed the AI to fleet its battleships and cruisers together and whip around the map blowing up planets no matter how many missile bases and advanced missile bases they might build. The clincher is if the characters for fleets and planets were color coded, which was a new character manipulation trick not possible on older machines....
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Re: Monster AI
Such a long time ago... I remember a game with 24 planets, with names starting
A-Z. I think there was colour coded rings and things on the map to tell you what was happening in that place. I think the ships went something like Scout Escort Missileship cruiser dreadnought Railgun Or something like that. The combat system knocked out the smallest ships first, except the railguns, which hit the bigger ships first. I don't know, I'm probably confusing three different games here. I'll fire up my 'miggy tonight and see which ones I still have installed (most of them probably, I haven't changed the contents of my amiga's HD in years.) ------------------ "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?" |
Re: Monster AI
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The combat system knocked out the smallest ships first, except the railguns, which hit the bigger ships first.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Wow, does that bring back memories. A quick rummage through my Amiga floppies confirms that the game with that combat resolution system was Conquest. I'm pretty sure I have the color Lore of Conquest Version, but both of my Amiga 500s are down right now until I have time to cannibalize parts from one to fix the other, so I can't double-check. Before the current breakdown, I still fired up the Amy to play old games while this system was tied up with long downloads, virus scans, or defrags. ------------------ Cap'n Q The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" |
Re: Monster AI
Hehe -yeah, my 1200 is still in full wrking order. In fact I still plan to upgrade it into a comptitive system - you'd be amazed what you can do to them these days, if you're prepared to pay more than the equivalent PC upgrade.
It's currently mounted in a full 9 bay tower, but when I get some serious cash I plan to start bringing it up to speed. If I can get the cash, thre's no reason I couldn't get a high-end voodoo video/3D card in there, a high end RISC PowerPC CPU (like they use in macs), PCI cards and SCSI storage, lots and lots of memory... a system like that would give any PC on the market a run for it's money. Amiga's website will give you an idea of what's possible these days. ------------------ "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?" |
Re: Monster AI
For my Version of Conquest - that was 24 SYSTEMS A-Z and up to 24 FLEETS a-z all color coded. I forget what code I used except that enemy systems and fleets dispatched to enemy systems were in red. Each system had up to 9 planets and each planet start size varied from 10 to 90. But as I said I changed it so that investing part of the production not only built factories, but also increased the planet capacity and the current population. IIRC the most I ever got before wiping out the AI was cap and pop 2700 from one that started as a 90. There were only 4 ship types - Transport (T), Scout (S), Cruiser (C), and Battleship (B). There were 48 commands (A-Z and a-z), but again I forget what they were. The map shared space with the system list of planets in the left hand window, so you could have one or the other but not both. The right side was a seperate window that had the ship list or whatever you were looking at. It was all very primitive text stuff with no graphics. The AI was pitiful by today's standards but I thought that the 5000 or so lines of C code for each of colony management and ship dispatch was hot stuff back then....
The Galactic Zoo game was another concept and would have been graphics. The system map was a 255 by 255 by 255 sized cube with 64 'planets' scattered through the volume. Each of 16 races got 4 of the planets as a starting seed. You could also build an outpost at any location in the volume which was the same as a planet except that it could not refine fuels (there were 8), grow food, mine minerals, had no sun, and its population had to have energy units delivered or go into stasis. The energy units had to be charged up by solar sats deployed at a planet and delivered as cargo along with food, population, and more colony units to increase the population capacity of the outpost. Mostly outPosts did research, which gave income to be spent on buying stuff from the zookeepers. There were standard hulls from size 7 to 255 hull units. You could put various engines, power plant, armor, cargo, long range and short range defenses, and LR/SR weapons on a hull. Each race was allowed 255 different ship designs and IIRC I gave about 144 standard designs that could be bought from the zookeepers. They ranged from the Insect class Tiny series hulls up to the Whale class Gargantuan series, thus the name "zoo". There was no limit on how many facilities could be put on a planet or modules on an outpost except that you could not have more than 65535 of any one thing at any one place. I had the economics, outpost planting and ship/cargo management fully developed at 24000 lines of C. I decided to get an opinion before writing that much again to do battle and battle strategy. As I said the guys looked at all the data about planets or outPosts or the empire that was available. After about 20 minutes they said it was all too complicated and looked too much like work for anybody to want to PLAY it. Like an idiot I BELIEVED them. Now look at these third and fourth generation 4x games and laugh at all of us fools who PLAY something that ****LOOKS TOO MUCH LIKE WORK****...... Edit : I had no tech tree, all tech was known to buy anything, research just generated income. But so far as I know I was the VERY FIRST to build a 4x carrier. A medium class hull could carry up to 7 tiny hull and a Whale class could carry up to 7 mediums, with nested carriers allowed. I was also the first to make a Kamikazi, which was just a hull outfitted with engines and fuel that would pour all of its fuel into the engines at once and cause an enormous explosion, bigger than the broadside of a Whale size battleship. [This message has been edited by LCC (edited 01 August 2001).] |
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