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

[-Storm-]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Aristoteles and Particle...

Actually multiple AI personalities shouldn't take that long to program since for the most part just variables would have to be adjusted such as percentages regarding research, ritual spells, crafting items, etc... Also percentages regarding the use of gold for purchasing of assassins, spellcasters, priests, buildings, mercenaries, province defense, or something else...
Another would be percentages regarding how aggressive, defensive, productive, or (other actions I may miss)...


Once the formula for each is in place the developers should be able to create at least 10 very different personalities.

Another very important feature about this is if one of them has a flaw it won't destroy the game as computer opponents are randomly assigned the personalities before each game.
Whereas if only one AI personality exists and a major flaw/weakness appears gamers have to suffer until the next patch. Let me say again that a single AI can easily be mastered by gamers... multiple unknown personalities will leave gamers guessing as how the AI opponent will behave.

quote:

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by Particle
Jedi...what about: do not use exploits.

Actually I never do... however during multiplayer games you can't always trust opponents across the internet. That is why I wrote what I did.

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Ok, but what AI personalities are you talking about?
Can you make a list of examples?

[NTJedi]

Example=
Destroyer(Pillages lands which have been owned by opponents for long periods of time)
Architect(focuses on improving lands)
Arch-Mage(focuses on magic)
Barbarian(mainly uses brute force)
Insanity(unpredictable actions= randomly flips between all personalities every 10 turns)
Cutthroat(one out of three armies will be sneaking during movement)


With all the different levels of magic, game features and type of units... 10 very different personalities shouldn't be too difficult. If gamers could also modify these percentages with a mod tool... I'm sure we would see lots of very different ones created.


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* On a side note:
Most of the AI personalities should be designed to attack the most powerful pretender god. One persoanlity may attack the player with the strongest domain while another may attack a player with the most research and so on. I've played lots of games where once some human player became the most powerful the remaining AI opponents would fight amongst themselves instead of joining forces.

[ November 06, 2003, 12:23: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Nice breakdown. As far as choice of targets there would also be AIs who would always choose to target the WEAKEST pretender, magic, units, etc. Especially if they are a neighbor. Of course thats kindof how it does it now but with a list of AIs those should be included.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Example=
Destroyer(Pillages lands which have been owned by opponents for long periods of time)
Architect(focuses on improving lands)
Arch-Mage(focuses on magic)
Barbarian(mainly uses brute force)
Insanity(unpredictable actions= randomly flips between all personalities every 10 turns)
Cutthroat(one out of three armies will be sneaking during movement)


With all the different levels of magic, game features and type of units... 10 very different personalities shouldn't be too difficult. If gamers could also modify these percentages with a mod tool... I'm sure we would see lots of very different ones created.


____________________________________

* On a side note:
Most of the AI personalities should be designed to attack the most powerful pretender god. One persoanlity may attack the player with the strongest domain while another may attack a player with the most research and so on. I've played lots of games where once some human player became the most powerful the remaining AI opponents would fight amongst themselves instead of joining forces.

Hm nice ideas here. But still I think this would really work, if the AI would change these in the game, as someone has mentioned. Do you think that it is possible?

[Gandalf Parker]

[much that isnt necessary to read again snipped here] *hint hint*

Hm nice ideas here. But still I think this would really work, if the AI would change these in the game, as someone has mentioned. Do you think that it is possible?

Ive done programming like that before and the switching actually seems the least difficult. The biggest question that I would have is.... does the game programming seperate the AIs at all? The way the game runs now I see a strong possibility that the AI might be one long code string that does alot of common stuff first and then branches off (maybe) for things that apply only to particular nations. If its written with the basic AI code duplicated to each nation and then small modificatons done, then going to scripted AIs would be much easier. Thats not normal coding practices though so our chances are slim for that advantage.

[ November 06, 2003, 16:36: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Particle]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
The biggest question that I would have is.... does the game programming seperate the AIs at all?

Good question. Maybe JK knows the answer. The question is: We will know it?

[johan osterman]

Eh, chances that the AI will ever have different personalities are slim, chances for the AI to change personalities during the game are even slimmer.

Any AI improvements are likely to be solutions to specific problems, not improvements on the scale an adapting multi personality AI is.