What is wrong with the AI?

[UncleYee]

Passing no judgment upon, and indeed not trying to unravel, the OP's point, I'd like to add a perspective to the "MP is the answer" line of reasoning. As an SP player who's starting to appreciate the failings of the AI, I do wish I could play against more challenging opponents.

Yet MP is such a totally different gaming experience, as I assume MP vets know very well. Perhaps, though, folks fail to fully think out _why_ and _how_ MP is so different. If a critique of the AI is to be answered by a suggestion to play MP, the implication is that playing MP is like playing against AIs, only smarter. I hope it is obvious that this is not the case. MP, if I understand correctly, is a far more social experience. It is one that involves interacting with other people to a great degree, and this interaction fundamentally (this can't be emphasized enough) changes the gameplay experience.

To put it another way, all will agree that comparing SP to MP strategies is apples to oranges, but few iterate that the difference in your opponent's tactical and strategic competence is arguably less fundamental to that change than the gameplay shift from private game to social game.

I just bring this up so that MP folks will keep in mind that while some of us might actually relish the challenge of gameplay against more competent opponents, opponents who play as well as those in this bountiful community of MP, none the less many SP gamers are just SP gamers. I don't sit in my room playing video games for hours on end because I get a kick out of interacting with other people. I mean, isn't that obvious?

I hope you'll appreciate the spirit in which this is meant. I love these boards, I love that there's a thriving community for this game, and I love the interaction here, the talking about ideas and strategies and whatnot. And yet, I don't want to play MP. It's just not the kind of playing I enjoy. I don't want to make alliances and gang up or get ganged-up on, I don't want to trade mages with hellbind heart (man that's clever), and I don't want to be a loser online the way I am off. I dont want to try and have more friends than everybody else, because I'm just lousy at making friends. Again, that's all wrapped up in my compulsive videogame playing. Chicken or egg, I couldn't tell you.

OK, I just wanted to chime in with that perspective. I think discussions on improving the AI are very constructive and relevant to the enjoyment of Dom 3 for a lot of people, even if it is primarily a multiplayer game.

[VedalkenBear]

UncleYee: A very good point, but we have no direct methods of improving the AI. About the only option we have are rather brute force methods of choking off specific decision trees (removing choices from consideration).

I wish we did, because I'm primarily a SP person.

[Edi]

Wikd Thots:

If you're the one who is asking how to go about doing something that is not possible with the vanilla game straight out of the box and then sitting back and saying "Nope, not interested in doing that myself", you're painting a huge bullseye on your arse. So don't be surprised when people take the opportunity to see if they can land a savage kick right in the middle of it.

You want variety, changes, then do the experimenting yourself if there is no mod out there that does what you're looking for. Do NOT expect that somebody will do it for you. The people who do mods and maps already get little enough thanks for their efforts, and most of that comes from other modders who know how important it is to get feedback on what you do.

If you expect others to do your work for you and then get up on a high horse about how you shouldn't need to lift a finger simply because you have offered no criticisms of the game (at least in public) when you get irate answers, you are not going to get any sympathy. In your opening post you said you wanted mods of a specific type, then practically demanded that somebody make them for you. If that's not an invitation to get flamed to a crisp, I don't know what is. It's fairly a miracle the response has been as mild as it has been.

You were already given advice on how to change maps so that they have no indies, thus eliminating the hordes of crap the AI so loves to use. There are a few ready-made NI maps out there, if you want more, take the time to do them.

The bottom line is that given the number of people who post here, or just lurk and read the forums, the people who actually produce mods, maps and documentation are few compared to the whole. They will act on their own priorities first, everything else second unless they see benefit for their own projects in doing something for someone else.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well put Uncle Yee. Personally I dont tend to enjoy MP much either. Im just not much for person-to-person challenges. Its ok but it tends to be for me, what SP is apparently for others. So I agree that the "mp is the answer" makes me wish that the conversation didnt get sidetracked that way.

As to the original questions:
Im not sure if setting the pretender and scales can be done in a mod. But it can in a map.

I can understand not wanting to play with no indepts just to get a different AI action. That would not lead to better game play. You might as well play on the mini-map battle simulator where you make the armies and they meet on the next turn. As far as whether or not thats the important flaw in AI, I dont know.

There might be a mod in the mod subforum that duplicates most of the units of a nation which you can tweak to your desire. Some of the "improved" versions of the present nations might give you a clue on how to remove the "weak" pieces. Then you can start a game with that nation, select the god and scales, and after the first turn set that nation to AI.

[Wikd Thots]

Fine, I will try to quiet down.

Gandalf Parker said:
I can understand not wanting to play with no indepts just to get a different AI action. That would not lead to better game play. You might as well play on the mini-map battle simulator where you make the armies and they meet on the next turn. As far as whether or not thats the important flaw in AI, I dont know.

battle simulator? is that a mod? It still does not sound like what I want but it might help on just the formations and what orders to give.

[Edi]

Gandalf, I know it is a well-meaning thread. My previous post might seem a bit harsh, but it is not meant to be hostile, just to express how and why this thread turned out the way it did.

That said, I will also comment on the subject of these prospective AI boost mods: Making them, one for each nation, is a horrendously time-consuming task if you want to keep intact anything like the variety the game normally has. This is another reason why there are few people interested in the subject. It's a project on the order of the CBM mods, except perhaps even more difficult unless one wants to use the suggested quick and dirty methods of neutering independents.

On further reflection, the quick and dirty method of putting ridiculous resource costs on the indies does have a lot going for it, though, with some pretty decent advantages over a NI map:

• AI will not recruit indies
• If indie commanders and select other indie units are not modded, it will be possible to avoid all the hordes of chaff, while the national AI troops will be boosted by relatively small numbers of high quality troops (such as the plate cuirass crossbowmen, possibly decent heavy cavalry/cataphracts etc)
• Players will still have access to indie mages recruitable from poptypes, allowing branching out if they do not have those types of magic
• AI will also use these mages, at least some of the time.

This type of mod would not be at all difficult to do, and the idea itself is intriguing enough that I might actually do one just for the hell of it. After all, there are not that many independent units and I have the full list of poptypes to boot.

[Foodstamp]

BTW

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

Sounds like this mod may be a good challenge for SP players.

[Wikd Thots]

YEAH! That is what I am talking about!
A better AI for Mictlan.
Thanks you Foodstamp

[Arralen]

Foodstamp said:
BTW
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1
Sounds like this mod may be a good challenge for SP players.

It's not a good idea, it's rediculous ... . Basically breaks the game, and would require tons of work to do for all nations ... .

[Gandalf Parker]

Wikd Thots said:
Fine, I will try to quiet down.

battle simulator? is that a mod? It still does not sound like what I want but it might help on just the formations and what orders to give.

Sorry I was slow getting back to this.
The mini-map is at http://www.dom3minions.com/docs/Mini_v3.zip

Create an early era game on the mini-map and join as a human player for Arcoscepphale and human player for Ermor. You will find that they both have an additional army. Set the formations and scripts, then have them both meet in one of the neighboring provinces. Watch the battle. If you want to do it again then just quit that game and start another on the same map. If you want to try different armies then use notepad to edit the Mini_v3.map file. You can select commanders, units, equipment, set experience levels, etc.

Gandalf Parker