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

MStavros · #1 October 29th, 2003, 12:03 AM

Indy strength on 7 won't help at all. I had a game right now. 40 turns was not enough to kill the AI, but I almost did it.....It had like 2-3 provinces left, when the 40 turn limit ended my game.
I didnt met with a decent AI army, I only fought against some small forces...

Mortifer is right. This is very frustrating. The spellcasting AI is so cool, I wonder why is the strategic AI so weak?

MStavros · #2 October 29th, 2003, 12:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:
I saw army big enough for early game (at least 50 to 60 units) many times. Overall, the strategic AI behaves quite similar to Dom 1.

I have several observations:

1) AI tends to have a large number of crappy units, whereas human will go for quality (knights, emerald guards) whenever practical.

2) When you're seiging the AI capital, they'll keep trying to retake it. It's a sensible thing to do but being so predictable will make it easy to exploit. It doesn't hurt to add a degree of randomness to it.

3) Even without the tax-n-patrol trick, I can still expand faster than the AI. Do you guys have similar experience? Is there any way to improve the situation? We all know that if you lost the open-game, it's very hard to catch up.

4) Are there any nasty tricks hard-coded for the AI? Any experienced human players would have a wide arsenal of them, the AI need some to be competitive.

Yeah the AI either have small forces or mediocre army with bad unit/commander combinations, IE weak units etc.
There must be a way to improve this...

Oh just a little addition. I think that the research AI is good. Usually the AI is doing good in research as I see it from the graphs.

So battle AI, spellcasting AI, research AI seems ok, but the strategic AI is too weak in many ways.

[ October 28, 2003, 22:07: Message edited by: MStavros ]

Particle · #3 October 29th, 2003, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MStavros:

So battle AI, spellcasting AI, research AI seems ok, but the strategic AI is too weak in many ways.

I agree with this statement....

->Hopefully Illwinter will upgrade the strategic AI somehow.

If you ask me...if the strategic AI would be as good, as the spellcasting AI....the AI would kick the you know what of the human players.

[ October 28, 2003, 22:19: Message edited by: Particle ]

LordArioch · #4 October 29th, 2003, 12:56 AM

The AI assasinated one of my researching mages...that was pretty annoying.

Gandalf Parker · #5 October 29th, 2003, 02:33 AM

Do you know how to psuedo code or basic? Not really programming but writing out a set of instructions. What kinds of things would you add? Im not trying to be funny its just that for me this would be where I wouild go next after saying the AI needs some smart code.

If (indep less than 5) or (mapProvinces less than 140) then
spend income/2 on PatrollingUnit
endif

If (PatrollingUnit = MaxAssigned) then
go forth as large army
begin new Patrolling Unit
endif

If (neighbor not owned by me) and (neighbor not owned by indep) then
purchase elite troops
endif

[ October 29, 2003, 00:34: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

LordArioch · #6 October 29th, 2003, 03:44 AM

I'm not to be trusted near code...but I find the AI should be perhaps more agressive...I have yet to see a computer player take the initive in attacking me so I can deal with them one at a time. If they were more agressive I'd definitely be losing the resultant multi-front war.

Nerfix · #7 October 29th, 2003, 08:14 AM

BTW i just saw AI having army of 110 units... I have also seen armies of 30-50 units several times. The AI also uses province defence a lot. The Machaka AI i played against used blitz forces made out of Spider Riders, Spider Knights and Black Hunters.

[ October 29, 2003, 06:16: Message edited by: Nerfix ]