Dominions 2. AI. Suggestions, that how to fix it.

[licker]

Heh, this is exactly why I hoped that the army compositions could be externalized, much easier (and quicker) to test that way

For my part I'm not giving suggestions as to what the best composition is because I don't know what it is, I'm too new to the game to provide meaningful commentary on this issue. I was hoping that the Gandalfs and other vets would provide the army compositions that they find succesful in their games, and use that as a starting point...

Anyway, the issue is more complicated than just 'whats the best army composition' as you have to be able to take into consideration the factors in game that control that. The income, resources, gems, available mages (and magic for the '?' mages) are all controling factors in what the 'best' army compostion will be. Also certain balance or bug issues may be negatively impacting the AIs army compostions, issues with building forts and labs come foremost to mind.

So it may be too eary to start tweeking the AI, the balance and bugs need to be resolved first. But it's not too early to provide specifics as to what an ideal army compostion should be (scale it for turn#, or gem income, or whatever if you can). Once other issues have been sorted out, we'll be that much further along to getting a more robust AI (if it's needed that is )

I'll try a specific if you like...

C'tis (non Tomb theme)
20% LI (for the javalins)
40% Falchioneers or Elite Warriors (or both)
20% Swamp Gaurds
10% Longdead + Skeletons
10% Other (poison slingers, Serpents, Dancers)

The other is somewhat based on effectiveness of blessing and availability of Undead to use with the slingers.

The % of SG should drop as more and better Undead become available. If gem income and mages allow the % of Falchioneers and EWs should drop to allow for more death/nature (ideally poison immune) summons. The % of Slingers can increase as more poison immune units are created.

Comanders...

One LK per army mininum. As the army fills out one Shaman and one Commander or Lord to help ferry units. Undead can be led by MMs or Sauromancers, or summoned (Banes or Mound kings early). Add more mages as they become available to summon more hoards of undead.

Well there you have a stab at some concrete numbers

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by licker:
I'll try a specific if you like...

C'tis (non Tomb theme)
20% LI (for the javalins)
40% Falchioneers or Elite Warriors (or both)
20% Swamp Gaurds
10% Longdead + Skeletons
10% Other (poison slingers, Serpents, Dancers)

OK that looks good. So this is what you feel would provice you a challenge to go up against?

Do you see this as an army you would meet at their castle? Or that it would show up coming at you? Since its all home units I take it that this is something for early in the game.

How large an army do you see this as being? This is an ongoing build order? When these max do you see them walking out and starting another one?

I take it for granted that this is supposed to be built in this configuration right from the start? Not cheap units first then fill in later with others (I think thats whats going on now)

So I brought up my Ctis game and bought 2 LI, 2 Falconeers and 2 Elite Guards, I didnt see swamp guards but I may have the wrong theme, and I bought 1 slinger. That worked. I ran low on resources long before money but that would allow me to buy some nice expensive mages to keep up on the need for the undead units.

It didnt look like very many troops though. Many cheap troops are usually what I would start with to get a cheap efficient patrol force. Maybe for a walking army. If I use the battle simulator map I could put in 20, 40, 10, 10 of all those troop types and test them in battle.

Well you have to decide on whether or not you want the AI to expand early and at what attrition rate.

I would contend with Indy's being set on 7 (50+ - 80 member armies per province) that the AI would react differently. As the only real efficent way to deal with the masses of LI, with a few support units (HI and Cav) is to have a tougher attack base to keep your army healthy and not waste money.

I would hope that the AI would buy the cheapest most survivable unit earliest.

Example

Ulm (Non Iron Faith Theme)
For the first 10 turns

40% of Production of LI (Maul, no Shield 18 Resources)
50% of Production of HI (Morningstar work)
10% of Production of Cav

All Commanders Master Smiths.

If you have them place them in the right formations with the right starting positions they can effectively still field an army that can kill nearby indies to upgrade their gold output.

After a certain point is reached (Perhaps 50 LI) the focus could switch more to the HI and Cav.

60% HI
40 Cav

Maybe this isn't the best strategy around but if you could put a cap on certain weaker units that they produce or maybe a turn cap; it would allow the progress of the game to be gauged by the AI somewhat generally.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Zen:
Well you have to decide on whether or not you want the AI to expand early and at what attrition rate.

Thats part of the problem. At different indep settings this can change the reqquired troops alot. And if you expand with alot of attrition then you fall to the first player that reaches you. If you are too careful then you fall to the players who expand rather than rush.

much good stuff snipped

Maybe this isn't the best strategy around but if you could put a cap on certain weaker units that they produce or maybe a turn cap; it would allow the progress of the game to be gauged by the AI somewhat generally.

That all looked good. So a rush on getting light troops made, patrol, raise taxes, then start filling in with heavy, elite, cavalry?
A number like 50 LI sounded good.

[Gandalf Parker]

OK here would be my own effort. Just in general terms (needing tweaks for specific nations)

Buy a non-special commander with high leader ability. Able to lead 50 or 75 troops? Then each turn buy one cheap non-commander type (scout, spy, assassin, priest) and as many of the cheapest units possible (slingers, light infantry). That is the patrolling army. Each round you also raise the tax level 10%?

When the patrolling army is maxxed then start a moving army. Heavy commander and a high troop leadership ability. Start building the 5 different unit Groups to assign to him. Section 1 should have a mix of all infantry and be 50% of the army. Section 2 should be shooters for 20% of the army (archers, crossbows, javelin, slingers) to be positioned directly behind section 1. Sections 3 and 4 are the flanks. Large units or cavalry making up 20%. Section 5 is longrange such as longbows or flyers.

I would say that filling up the LI, then the shooters, then section five, and Lastly the section 4 (hvy cavalry/elephants/hydra/chariots) would keep you from having to support the higher upkeep-cost and supply eating units for a long time before marching them out.

But how does that compare with what the AI does now? Should I scatter the purchases so that a low-independent small-map rush game doesnt take me too soon? If I do that then Im not playing very good for the longer games.

[licker]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

quote:

---

Originally posted by licker:
I'll try a specific if you like...

C'tis (non Tomb theme)
20% LI (for the javalins)
40% Falchioneers or Elite Warriors (or both)
20% Swamp Gaurds
10% Longdead + Skeletons
10% Other (poison slingers, Serpents, Dancers)

OK that looks good. So this is what you feel would provice you a challenge to go up against?

Do you see this as an army you would meet at their castle? Or that it would show up coming at you? Since its all home units I take it that this is something for early in the game.

How large an army do you see this as being? This is an ongoing build order? When these max do you see them walking out and starting another one?

I take it for granted that this is supposed to be built in this configuration right from the start? Not cheap units first then fill in later with others (I think thats whats going on now)

So I brought up my Ctis game and bought 2 LI, 2 Falconeers and 2 Elite Guards, I didnt see swamp guards but I may have the wrong theme, and I bought 1 slinger. That worked. I ran low on resources long before money but that would allow me to buy some nice expensive mages to keep up on the need for the undead units.

It didnt look like very many troops though. Many cheap troops are usually what I would start with to get a cheap efficient patrol force. Maybe for a walking army. If I use the battle simulator map I could put in 20, 40, 10, 10 of all those troop types and test them in battle.

---

Whether it would be challenging or not depends on many different things... In general I'd say it would be more challenging than an army composed of 80% LI and Militias though...

I wasn't real specific with the when or the wheres of that compesition. Ideally that would be an army that would be used later in the game with 80+ units I think. Initially you'd have to go with more like 70% LI and 30% 'other' probably the EWs and SGs. I didn't add any kind of logic to tweek the %s for the outside factors though, but ideally they %s would be tweeked depending on income/resource levels, gem income, mages...

I don't see patroling (to counter unrest from raised taxes) to be as useful in Dom2 so I'm not sure that I'd focus on patrols and high income early, over expansion to simply get more province, but that's a bit of a different question. I don't konw if the AI is built to up taxes and patrol or not, and I'd rather not complicate the issues at hand with that.

It would be interesting to run some tests with that basic army compostion and say a couple Sauromancers (or Marshmasters) with evocation 3 or 4 and Alteration 2. Use an LK and one other Infantry type comander. What you pit that army against... I dunno, maybe some combination of similarly gold/resource Ulm army (since that's the other nation that's been discussed).

I have to say though that as the game progresses those %s need to change, and probably heavilly. Especially if there is a good nature/death gem income to create armies with more summons. If that's the case then the poison slingers need to go up along with the poison immune units, while some amount of either blessable or heavy hitters (falchioneers and EWs) are kept around.

[Gandalf Parker]

I have to say though that as the game progresses those %s need to change, and probably heavilly. Especially if there is a good nature/death gem income to create armies with more summons. If that's the case then the poison slingers need to go up along with the poison immune units, while some amount of either blessable or heavy hitters (falchioneers and EWs) are kept around.

I think it would be best if the formulas handled the game progression. Either by using the number of turns as a factor (LI should be 50 - turns) or by having them in the %'s with a clause to ignore it if its not possible.

Such as... If I said HI 20%, undead 20%, Hvy Cavalry 10%, non-undead summons 20%, LI 50% (in that order) then of course thats more than 100%. But early in the game the undead and summons cant be done which would cause LI to be built. If only undead at %5 can be done then the rest would fill in. But even late in the game when it can make ALOT of undead it still wont end up with a completely undead army. My math sucks so Im hoping the concept is clear here. The %'s dont have to add up to 100% if the sequence is considered.

The same could be done for making magic items or casting global spells (probably before unit building). Telling the AI to create something wont matter if it cant afford to create it. As soon as it can afford it, it gets made.

I still think this might be a job for a real-life budget manager to tackle

[ November 11, 2003, 19:44: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[licker]

I like your suggestion Gandalf, seems more easy to implement than using a ton of if then else structure.

Hopefully once the full game hits we'll have ample time to see if the AI is actually doing things better after turn 40 than it appears they are before. Also there was mention of a patch, so maybe some of the formulae were already tweeked to improve the AI...

Only time (or a dev) will tell

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by licker:
I like your suggestion Gandalf, seems more easy to implement than using a ton of if then else structure.

Hopefully once the full game hits we'll have ample time to see if the AI is actually doing things better after turn 40 than it appears they are before. Also there was mention of a patch, so maybe some of the formulae were already tweeked to improve the AI...

Only time (or a dev) will tell

Yes, but if the early game of the AI is so weak.....anyways wait for the full and we will be wiser.

As for this suggestion by Gandalf. Do you think, that it is a good idea to post deatiles like.. XY would like to see 10% LI, 30% HI etc. in the early game, this and that in the late game....I think this won't work.
Someone have said that the devs will know that what and how. I agree with this. They've scripted the AI, they know the major AI weaknesses now. We've made our suggestions already. Just my 2 cents.

[ November 12, 2003, 08:09: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Mortifer:
Someone have said that the devs will know that what and how. I agree with this. They've scripted the AI, they know the major AI weaknesses now. We've made our suggestions already. Just my 2 cents.

OK we can back off on the discussions if everyone REALLY feels its left in the Devs hands. But the devs havent said they agree with all of those suggestions.

I thought the people who kept raising the list to the top wanted to pursue the subject along the lines that the devs had mentioned in their response. If the thread keeps jumping up then I will jump back in to discuss things further.