The AI Improvement Thread
 

This thread is to list the many and sundry things that might be done to improve the AI. I think that the SP experience could use a little more love... or consider being able to add worthy AI opponents to small multiplayer games.

The fact of the matter is that the AI plays like a five year old child and if we're able to focus on the things that it doesn't do well, or properly, or at all, we might be able to home in on what makes the AI so bad against players and rectify it!

I'll start -

A simple-sounding change would be to be able to set the difficulty of the AI when you change from a player to AI. This would allow you to set the scales for a nation to something beneficial to that nation and then have something of a challenge when you change them over to Impossible.

Another thing I've noticed is that the AI doesn't seem to use items properly... they are distributed in what seems to be completely random fashion. Surely the AI would benefit from giving appropriate path-boosting items to mages and combat items to thug and melee chassis instead of the drunken-night-of-looting method that seems to be the current method? Just having path-boosted mages casting rituals and Battlefield Enchantments or even evocations would be a step up.

Let's hear a list of things that the AI can't do, and then possible fixes for each problem.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

I'm not sure there's much point in going through this, since I don't get the impression that JK is interested in working further on the AI. Most games, of course, get little or no improvements after release, so we are lucky so much gets changed. However, they only tend to work on things they are enthusiastic about, and my impression is that JK is not enthusiastic about making AI changes.

There is a lot of room for improving the AI via map commands and so on, though. For instance you can design the AI's pretenders for it using map commands, and still set them on "Impossible" so they get good bonuses. If you use Edi's Better Independents mod they will recruit far more national troops. Combining these can make the AIs far more fearsome. And of course you can go further my modding individual nations if you want. For instance, you could mod all Mictlan's commanders to #onebattlespell Divine Blessing, so their troops will always be blessed.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

Ouch! I never will do this!

Well, Renojustin, if you want challenge in SP, Llamabeast is right, there is really enough ways to improve AI.

Just to see, try a game on Aran map with 9 opponents, just at mighty level ... No map modding, just NI mod (or BI mod, as you wish) ... I'll try it last evening with Agartha, which is new for me, but the game isn't ... Bouh! I was laminated!!!
Just playing in overcrowded maps is a challenge ...

Add some map command to create AI gods & their scales, semi-random it with heavy Indies, set AI to mighty or impossible, and start a game with you and (max player for the chosen map +2 or 4), and then, let me know the result http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

One change that might not be too involved is to have a multiplier on the starting troops based on difficulty level for the AI. I think that would be a big expansion advantage to the AI if it gets 2 or 3 times the amount of starting troops.


Changing the troops would be better, but I am pretty sure that would involve using new nation codes, and these numbers are limited.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

This would also be quite easy to mod. It's just a matter of someone finding the time I guess.

Edit: Sorry, it wouldn't be possible to mod the starting army to depend on the difficulty level. But you could just mod the AI nations to have larger/different starting armies.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

IIRC, you can already add whatever troops you want in any province, including starting provinces, with map command.

Well, you haven't the surprise, but whatever, because you're not expecting encounter any neighbour nations before some turns, and if you mod indy prov. as well, the AI would have get some reinforcments to gap loses.

If you also mod gold/resource cost of national troops for AI, the AI would have more troops for the same cost than you. This could be quite challenging!
You just have to pay attention on which troops are accessible as indy, and since they all have been identified in NI or BI mods, no difficulty on this.

Of course, no possibility to mod this dependant of AI level, but this is quite easy nonetheless.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

It is unlikely that anything except the simplest and most general change might get programmed into the game. But there is a gap between the people who feel that they best know the changes that each nation should make to be AI, and the people who can incorporate those ideas into mods and maps. So if we list the ideas here we can get them to the people who can most likely help us.

As to setting the AI level when changing a person to AI in a multiplayer game, that doesnt really apply. The level of the AI mostly only applies to the creation of the god (how many points are used). When you change a player to AI you usually already have something much better than the AI randomly comes up with anyway.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

Along that line, the best fix Ive seen for ai yet is well planned gods, scales, equipment, etc. A number of threads have asked, and received, peoples favorite builds. Such as, this gives middle age Pangaea a set version of Lord of the Wild named Natural Disaster with some added equipment, specific scales, and an ally preference. The number 40 stands for middle-age Pangaea if that helps to read the code.
#god 40 812 -- Lord of the Wild
#comname "Natural Disaster"
#allies 40 48 -- likes to ally with Oceania if they are both AI
#clearmagic
#mag_death 4 -- needed for Pangea spells and a bless
#mag_nature 4 -- needed for Pangea spells and a bless
#mag_blood 4 -- good combo with the above and a bless
#additem "Treelord's Staff" -- 2 more nature
#additem "Skullface" -- helmet with 1 more death and support
#additem "Armor of Souls" -- armor and 1 more blood
#additem "Boots of the Behemoth" -- goes well with his size 6
#additem "Brazen Vessel" -- misc slot and 1 more blood
#additem "Ring of Sorcery" -- 1 death and 1 nature and 1 blood
#dominionstr 40 6
#scale_chaos 40 2
#scale_lazy 40 2
#scale_cold 40 -1
#scale_death 40 0 -- this line might need removed
#scale_unluck 40 -3
#scale_unmagic 40 -1

-- 6 points left over

The points left over dont really matter unless you want to play it yourself since you can give an AI more than the points would allow us to have. Adding those lines to any favorite map will cause middle age Pangaea to get that whether its a human player or an AI.

Suggested builds like this have been incorporated into the SemiRandomizer program of Ballbarians. Using that program will assign the AI's more intelligently designed setups from the many files that were provided from expert players. If you feel you can build a better Fomoria or Gath then Im sure he would love to have them.
edit: you dont have to give them in map commands like I did altho it helps. Just a description would work and others can convert it to commands if its interesting.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

What about the resource/gold/gem bonuses? That's more important than the extra design points in my opinion.

-Max

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

Renojustin the AI thread is great but should be organized like the shortlist threads created by Edi, such as the shortlist bug thread. This type of organization has really helped the developers use their time more effectively.

now here's a major AI issue which existed since the days of DOM_2:
AI sending its Pretender into the Arena Death Match Problem

It becomes quickly obvious the AI should never send its pretender into the arena death match when 5+ AI pretenders are being killed by each arena death match event.

Suggested Fix: Every pretender has a pretender tag... any unit with the pretender tag needs to be prevented from participating.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

See, I appreciate things like this as someone who prefers playing against the AI to doing multiplayer, and SemiRandom is basically the most powerful tool we have to prepare games for that task. I just wish that we could get an updated community collection of .GOD files like Gandalf posted above. Out of curiousity, does anyone know if Ball is getting something along those lines put together? I know he's been taking submissions through email, but I'd really like to see how far it's come along!

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

Welcome to the forums Alexandr! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

That is the problem. I have not received a single .GOD file despite 119 downloads on the editor. That's fine as long as at least a few of those folks are getting some use out of it for their own games. But if nobody shares then the only files that get added to the public library are the ones that I have created. With the number of nations in the game, just generating 1 or 2 pretenders for each nation in an era is very time consuming and that is why there are still no pretender files supporting the late era and none for the nations added in the latest patch. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

It is also worth noting that I really only want to receive complete and ready-to-run .GOD file pretenders via email, but ideas for builds or map code like Gandalf has supplied above (Thanks Gandalf!) would be great if they were posted in the RanDom or God Editor threads. Then I or others that are already familiar with the SemiRandom formats could convert them to code that could then be added to the library for use by everyone.

Foodstamp was working on a healthy batch of pretender files for inclusion, but I have not heard anything on his progress. Judging from the custom province collection that he shared with us (66 province files!) I am looking forward to his additions.

Links to the relevant threads are in my sig.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

<Max looks guilty> I'll try to play around with it some more this week.

-Max

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

My thanks for the warm welcome. Also for the update on the status of the .GODs. Hopefully the contributers can start piping up with them, but it's one of the unfortunate aspects of relying on community aid on projects is that you're usually left high and dry.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

I think that this largely has to do with that the people think that they can use your program to edit their existing saved pretender gods and then find out that this is not the case.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

In case that is a problem, I have included a link to RanDom and added bold formating to the first line of the God Editor post as follows:

Attached to this post is a tool to make creating custom pretender gods for RanDom a whole lot easier.

Hopefully that will help prevent any confusion.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

In another thread:
monster scenario project
there is an interest in how you would change Middle Age (era 2) nations so that they suddenly display an apparently intelligent change of tactics in mid-game on a large map. Have Arcos shift from expansion to research?
Have Ulm shift from using nationals to using independents?

What would you have the AI do if it found itself losing?
Have Ermor shift from armored units to era 3 undead armies?

What would you have them do if they were winning?
Have them stop filling every space with new castles?

Looking for ideas. For any nation, what did you feel it should have done in mid-game? Ctis? Jotunheim? At the point in the game when the AI should have figured out that you had a plan on how to beat them, what do you think they should have changed?
This could turn into a nice scenario for solo play.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

One thing that would be an immense improvement would be if we were able to design AI gods with the pretender creation tool. Choose difficulty, design pretender with the appropriate number of bonus points and it would be saved to an ai_gods folder or something like that, and if game setup had a "Load random predesigned AI pretender", SP would start looking a lot better.

Of course, that's a fairly extensive feature request, so not likely to happen.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

If only someone had already designed a program that could be used as a reference point in order to quickly and easily implement such an upgrade to the core game..... >.>

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

I know, I know. I will make some files for the God maker program... soon.

-Max

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

Well Im not big on pushing for the devs to do things that we can already do. Thats one of the reasons I stopped reading the wishes list. I got tired of answering "we can already do that" to so many of the posts. Id rather they spent time on things we cant do.

There is already a program to design gods and use them randomly as AIs. Im trying to take that concept one step farther and also do a mid-game change fo tactics.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

It would be nice if the AI could throw some random weirdness at us, once in a while. Like a series of AI-only events. One turn there's only 1 AI Pretender, the next turn-inexplicably-there's three. How'd it happen? Doesn't really matter. It just matters that it happened, and we as players have to adapt or fail.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

3 pretenders for the same nation?

What if the AI just had a huge list of pretender-ish multi-heroes, with an increased chance to get one each turn? That increased chance, modified by difficulty, of course.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

I can do both of those.
Hmmmmm how about mid-game the pretender is replaced by his 3 sons? Im not sure if its an AI fix. Is there a nation which could particularly benefit from such an action?

Think of a nation, think of its mid-game failure to adapt, then tell me what it needs to fix that.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

That is such an awesome idea, Gandalf. Any of the dragon pretenders could spawn 3 immortal wyrms or something. The possibilities for that are endless, considering how much the AI begins to falter in midgame.

Perhaps if you could give the AI multiheros which autocast certain BEs at the start of every fight. LA Ermor with Darkness, all ages of Abysia with Heat From Hell, etc.

Re: The AI Improvement Thread
 

OK now that we are getting a server switch to turn off cheat protection, we can have some fun with some non-PvP games.

So..
here are some of the images you can use for a GOD.
If you were to build a "can kick the tail of a human player" special god for a specific nation, does any of these strike your fancy?
http://www.dom3minions.com/sprites/