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

[licker]

Originally posted by HJ:
To try to contribute a little to the discussion.
I was thinking about the AI pacing back and forth in the border provinces. I don't know how the AI handles that situation now, and whether it's actually reacting to the border and neighbouring armies by amassing troops but then running out of supply in that particular province and hence moving the troops out. But to make it a little less predictable, maybe something like this would help:
IF (enemy army present in neighbouring province)
THEN (stay in the province for 1+x turns if not starving, where x is a random dice number)

It would seem that the AI knows when it's threatened, judging by the amount of local defense it puts into threatened provinces, and it should know whther it's out of supply as well, so maybe this would work if it's not already working this way, and the only problem is the supply route, which brings us back to the castle issue.

That seems like a reasonable idea. I'm wondering if the AI is getting caught in some kind of a yo-yo effect where it keeps seeing different threats and keeps moving to react to them, only to see them disappear in the same way that it's forces are disappearing...

The AI should be able to keep a properly suplied army in a province as well, I don't see why it's moving in too many units anyway, unless it understands the abusability of the supply rules... which is something else that could be fixed... but I digress

Originally posted by licker:

The AI should be able to keep a properly suplied army in a province as well, I don't see why it's moving in too many units anyway, unless it understands the abusability of the supply rules... which is something else that could be fixed... but I digress [/QB]

Maybe this would be flag for the computer to build a castle or overrun one of the building provinces if it had a chance, instead of seperating itself to be caught with it's pants down.

[LordArioch]

I'm not sure how much the trouble the AI should be having with supply. During my Dom II games I've gotten the impression supply is easier to come by then it seemed to be in Dominions 1. During my demo games I very very rarely get starving armies. During my recent game as jotunheim, completely ignoring supply I only had starvation 3 times. Once when most of my army gathered in the smallest supply province around, once when my excessive patrollers in my blood search province started starving (and unrest still went up pretty fast), and a third time when a lot of jotuns got completely cut off from my castles.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by licker:
I wasn't actually replying to your post Mortifer

It just got in the way, that's all

I think all of this discussion is worthwhile and interesting. If the devs agree, great, if they don't... it's still not hurting anything, and some of us can read between the lines and improve our own games from this discussion

Hehe its all cool, no hard feelings, because you were right.

Gandalf has quoted a post by Kris, and I've seen that he asked about forts in it.
IMHO the AI should place forts in strategical locations, IE in deep homeland provinces, between 2 mountain edges, between 2 lakes etc. The key here that don't let the AI to build forward forts, that would be a waste. [Forward fort: placing a fort to a newly conquered border-province.]

[ November 13, 2003, 09:10: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[Gandalf Parker]

OK Mort, Lets pin down castle tactics. Im just rambling out loud here...........

So you would have the AI maintain (a scout? priest? small army?) which moves seperate from his larger expansion army. When it finds a province that has (I forget what the formula players say whether its high resource or high gold). The province needs to have no bordering neighbors that are not owned by the AI (avoiding front line positions) and no bordering neighbor that already has a castle. That sounds good.

And by preference it should have 2 bordering provinces which are water or mountain? Im not sure how code would go about recognizing a chokepoint. Two water neighbors which dont also border on each other? It might be able to see that. The impenetrable mountain walls like on the Eye map Im not so sure about. That would be "a province which should be a neighbor but doesnt have a #neighbor statement" which is what really makes them impenetrable mountains. That extra-thick borderline is just for visiblity.

But even if it cant specifically recognize chokes (I dont know if it can or not) that might not be too bad . Mountain areas are supposed to represent a difficult terrain for movement in Dom2. And if the 2 water neighbors happen to be next to each other thats not so bad since I often discover a need for some coastline defense.

Hmmm but the formula so far would want me to own those 2 water provinces. And what about the water nations? Hmmmmm I think this formula is getting "smarter" than its worth.

[Gandalf Parker]

How about something simpler that would be "usually good enough". Such as, for every X number of provinces (5?)you own you should have a castle. Find a province with no castle, no neighboring castle, and no neighbor owned by another player, then build there. Maybe it should also have a minimum number of neighbors. 3? 4? 5?

And what about the cost? Should it be "do this before all recruiting"? I think that has worked for me (in fact Ive come to realize that I play rather like an AI). Doing it that way would tend to automatically provide some controlling limits since the AI would rarely (should rarely if other formulas are done right) be able to afford a castle at the beginning of a turn without saving up for one.

So the AI sees that it has 10 provinces and only 1 castle. If it finds a spot where a province has at least 4 neighbors with no castles, and none of them owned by another player, and IF it has enough money, then it builds a castle there. Oh yeah, and increase the defence (I always do that where I have a castle)

OH wait a minute. That would be better if it came first. In a province it feels is going to be a castle, it should raise defence to (21?) first and then build a castle. Hm that could get expensive.

OK stop me. I think too much in the mornings.

[DominionsFan]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
How about something simpler that would be "usually good enough". Such as, for every X number of provinces (5?)you own you should have a castle. Find a province with no castle, no neighboring castle, and no neighbor owned by another player, then build there. Maybe it should also have a minimum number of neighbors. 3? 4? 5?

And what about the cost? Should it be "do this before all recruiting"? I think that has worked for me (in fact Ive come to realize that I play rather like an AI). Doing it that way would tend to automatically provide some controlling limits since the AI would rarely (should rarely if other formulas are done right) be able to afford a castle at the beginning of a turn without saving up for one.

So the AI sees that it has 10 provinces and only 1 castle. If it finds a spot where a province has at least 4 neighbors with no castles, and none of them owned by another player, and IF it has enough money, then it builds a castle there. Oh yeah, and increase the defence (I always do that where I have a castle)

OH wait a minute. That would be better if it came first. In a province it feels is going to be a castle, it should raise defence to (21?) first and then build a castle. Hm that could get expensive.

OK stop me. I think too much in the mornings.

The AI should build 1 castle in every fourth province.