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

[Gandalf Parker]

I would love to see a scripting language for AIs. Ive said since before Dom 1 that games like this should have one but its probably just my MUD background talking.

It would be great to have player-made scripts. For some that would mean that the great players could create smart scripts for their favorite race so that we solo players could play "them" without playing MP. Or at least get a feel for how we would do against their tactics (a script cant be as good as a player). Of course some scripts would suck but for me (Fanatic of Random) that would be fine also. We could have scripts for playing styles of barbaric horde, home defender, slow careful expander, diplomatic, backstabber, aggressive expander, comes in waves, elite units only, etc etc etc. Then I could write a script to randomly select from the pile for each game (I love it). Player-made scripts will always allow far more variety than one set of programmers straining to think in styles different than they wouild play themselves. OR at least (as it has in some other games) it lets them say "we gave the players the means and they didnt do anything with it".

The problem is that the variables and hooks needed for such scripting to work usually has to be written into the game from the beginning.

[ October 30, 2003, 12:14: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Gandalf Parker]

The area of unit selection is really hard to move from complaining to real suggestions. To keep a database of each race and each gaming situation would be extreme. They might as well move the AI to a seperate program so it doesnt slow down the MP play. Many of the people complaining about the AI are playing with independents set at 2 or 3. The strategies and units for such a game would be very different than if it were set in the middle, and that would be different than the high setting. And thats just ONE of the pre-game settings.

OK Ive heard that the AI should not buy cheap units but instead buy a "real army". So insteadof figuring out how to get the most units with the least upkeep (patrolling strtegy) they should buy the most expensive? That would lead to armys of hvy cavalry, which I guess isnt too bad.

Personally I think an AI best bet is to buy everything. Start at the cheapest and buy 1, move up thru the choices then start over. They would reach a point of not being able to buy another hvy cavalry or elephant or hydra and would use up the left over amount on cheap troops so they would end up with slightly more lesser troops than expensive ones. But that wouldnt be too bad.

What about leaders? How do you make sure the AI buys a mix of leaders? It has no memory so it cant say "I bought this Last time and now need to buy this". Hmmmm well actually it might be able to fake that. If turn number divides by 5 evenly then buy the most expensive leader THEN buy troops. *sigh* still not great but maybe it would be better?

[Aristoteles]

I like the idea of this kind of scripting.

Another problem: The AI is sending in his pretenders to fight in the Arena. I think it should send in commanders instead of pretenders.

Forts and castles: I sorta agree with this, in the demo the AI didnt built a single one. Maybe 1 or 2 in like 6 games.

Strategic AI: I am sure that it can be improved but it will need precise scripting, also propably lot of time.

[ywl]

A scripting language which can handle the game situation is nice on paper. But it's a tremendous task - that's why I put a on my comment. So, unless the developers say that they're willing to work on it, or somebody could send them a language spec and preferrable a compiler, it'll be more or less remain just an idea.

It might be fun and easy enough to give the AI different preference to exploration, conquering, etc. But that will only change the weakpoint AI in strategy to something else . It wouldn't really solve the major issue here.

Overall, I don't think it's even realistic to expect an AI can play such a complicated game well. But some simple fixes should be able to make the AI more challenging - and we have proposed some.

[licker]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
The area of unit selection is really hard to move from complaining to real suggestions. To keep a database of each race and each gaming situation would be extreme. They might as well move the AI to a seperate program so it doesnt slow down the MP play. Many of the people complaining about the AI are playing with independents set at 2 or 3. The strategies and units for such a game would be very different than if it were set in the middle, and that would be different than the high setting. And thats just ONE of the pre-game settings.

OK Ive heard that the AI should not buy cheap units but instead buy a "real army". So insteadof figuring out how to get the most units with the least upkeep (patrolling strtegy) they should buy the most expensive? That would lead to armys of hvy cavalry, which I guess isnt too bad.

Personally I think an AI best bet is to buy everything. Start at the cheapest and buy 1, move up thru the choices then start over. They would reach a point of not being able to buy another hvy cavalry or elephant or hydra and would use up the left over amount on cheap troops so they would end up with slightly more lesser troops than expensive ones. But that wouldnt be too bad.

What about leaders? How do you make sure the AI buys a mix of leaders? It has no memory so it cant say "I bought this Last time and now need to buy this". Hmmmm well actually it might be able to fake that. If turn number divides by 5 evenly then buy the most expensive leader THEN buy troops. *sigh* still not great but maybe it would be better?

Certainly the AI can look at its army composition at the start of its turn (units and leaders) and build appropriately no? Say it sees a deficiency in heavy troops, or mages, it can start building those troops until its reached its equilibrium level. This is sort of the approach MoO3 used actually for fleet compostion, it was moddable and eventually the modders were able to 'force' the AI to build more intelligent fleets by changing the ratios of scouts to beams to missiles...

I don't see why this wouldn't work for Dom as well. You'd have a list of commander types (maybe also broken down into magic types for different mages) and a list of unit types (classes rather than specific units so indies fit in). Then a weight is assigned to each type, a crude example for just infantry could be:

LI: 25%
MI: 50%
HI: 25%

So the AI would look at its current army and see that it had only 10% LI, then it would build more LI to get the ratios set. Something like that should be made external so that modders can tweek away to their hearts content. In fact you can use lists like that to control many aspects of AI choices, you can do it for magic, artificing, recruiting, summoning, ... and have master matricies to control the embedded ones...

That's what I'd like to see anyway

[licker]

Originally posted by ywl:
A scripting language which can handle the game situation is nice on paper. But it's a tremendous task - that's why I put a on my comment. So, unless the developers say that they're willing to work on it, or somebody could send them a language spec and preferrable a compiler, it'll be more or less remain just an idea.

It might be fun and easy enough to give the AI different preference to exploration, conquering, etc. But that will only change the weakpoint AI in strategy to something else . It wouldn't really solve the major issue here.

Overall, I don't think it's even realistic to expect an AI can play such a complicated game well. But some simple fixes should be able to make the AI more challenging - and we have proposed some.

It would change the AI weakpoint to what exactly? Certainly if you think the AI is weak in many areas, improving some of them is worthwhile, it doesn't make the unimproved areas any weaker, other than on a reletive scale.

The easist thing to fix in the strategic AI is probably the unit balance within a nation. I would guess that if that were fixed (or made moddible to let the modders play around with it) other defiencies would be less obvious since the main hanicap of not fielding competative armies would be gone.

I'm sure it's a deeper issue than we touch on though, only the Devs can tell us what is realistically possible. We are just presenting different ways to look at the problem. (I hope )

[Mortifer]

Well if you ask me, separating various AI scripts sounds very good, however it would work? I have no idea, I am not an AI scripter.
The devs will know that this is a good idea or not.

Once again, the first and biggest problems are that the AI tends to use weak or mediocre units, also bigger AI armies are very rare. (in the demo)


I have a question: the AI is casting rituals in a proper way? IE. Is it summoning creatures and enlist them in his armies? Perhaps Beta testers could answer this?
(I barely saw summoned creatures in the AI armies in the demo)