AI Questions

[NTJedi]

Ubercat said:
It seems like there may be many spells and actions which are pointless against AI players.
I've never noticed any rhyme or reason in the locations of AI armies.

The current AI has no strategies for blesses, supercombatants, expansion, research, defense, death_arena, diplomacy, trading, gold income and food supply. All reasons why a scriptable AI would allow the AI to become stronger as the community continues to improve different unique AI personalities. The AI probably shines its best on the battlefield knowing to place archers in the back, cavalry on the side with attack rear or hold and attack rear, and other attack commands/positions.

Ubercat said:
I wonder, is there any real benefit to assassinating AI characters, Horror marking them, etc? Does a spell like Wrath of God serve any purpose in an SP game?

Assassinating AI commanders/mages near or at the front line does help minimize the armies marching into your provinces.
Wrath of God is useful during any type of game... anyone on the receiving end quickly feels its pain even when far far away from its owners dominion. I usually avoid casting Wrath of God during SP games because it provides the human player too much of an advantage.

Ubercat said:
What's the consensus of the experienced players?

From my experience to get the best SP game experience map tweaking is needed and banning of specific spells. Adjusting the .map file so multiple AIs are allied, giving all AIs a growth_2 or higher starting setting to help prevent starvation, and sometimes giving the AIs SuperCombatants at the start of a game since they can't build any of their own and almost never summon the elemental royals.
Specific spells need to be banned as well since they provide too great of an advantage for human players. The spells I have banned for my SP games are Ghost Riders, Send Horror, Flames from the Sky, and Wish.

[Gandalf Parker]

Thats kindof unfair. The AI does have strategy. If you look at the logs it does quite abit of thinking. The biggest problem with it is that it only has one strategy which it uses for every nation being played in every manner. So I have always said that scripted AIs would be great. But it looks like we wont be getting it in Dominions.

[Sombre]

What does it matter what's in the logs? The real test of a single player AI is how it comes across to a human being - if it 'tricks' you into thinking its smart or beats you without you seeing that it's cheating, that's far more impressive than a log output which shows how much it 'thinks'.

From casual observation, the AI hasn't shown me anything beyond basic "move army into enemy province" behaviour. It could have taken a huge number of things into consideration in the process of behaving that way or it could have been a simple bit of code: the end result is the same. Beyond the basics it appears to build, move and generally do stuff pretty much at random.

People like to say "Oh but dom3 is so complex, the AI is amazing when you consider that". Tell me, what complexity is the strategic AI actually getting into in dom3? It builds and equips items seemingly at random. It researches at random. It recruits at random. It doesn't matter how much there is to do in dom3 if the AI either flat out doesn't do them, or does them at random.

Note I'm not complaining about the tactical or battlefield AI, because that's fine. It has problems, sure, but it doesn't come across as sack full of hammers dumb like the strategic AI.

[Gandalf Parker]

Then say that it sucks!
Its less insulting than saying that the AI has no strategies at all. At least "sucks" is an opinion. Not stating as a fact that no effort was made. OK the ****ing AI SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS. (against any player that has played more than a few dozen games against it or read the forum telling you how to beat it).
Next round?

[Sombre]

Don't act like I'm kicking your wife in the teeth.

If you need more than a few /dozen/ games practice or some recycled exploit from the forums to beat the AI, I can only conclude that you're the one who sucks :]

I beat the AI first game, on normal. I moved to impossible. Found it very easily beaten, not with exploits or bless rushes, but simply with PD and sensible use of troops, not throwing them piecemeal into a meat grinder. Now I stale for 4 turns or so at the start of a game and set the AIs scales etc up myself to avoid it going for misfortune turmoil death and some insane useless bless. I still have plenty of fun with SP, but the AI continues to suck some of the enjoyment out of it with its 'strategy'.

I should point out here that I'm not even any good at dom3 or any other strategy game like it.

[Gandalf Parker]

I agreed that it sucked.

I dont know of any AI that doesnt suck against some one who has played enough games to know the game.

But it does have features that can be worked with to improve it. Since we arent going to get extensive rewrites we might as well work with those or toss all of it.

[Hadrian_II]

The Dom AI is just throwing hordes of troops at you, so the only thing you have to do to win is to keep the attrition low for you by buying high PD and only high end troops who dont die in a battle.

I think it would be a major improvement for the AI, if she would remember that she attacked a province with 100 units before and that she was defeated so that she would take 200 units the next time. (Or even simpler, that the AI just attacks only every second turn, so the invading armies would be twice as strong)

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
But it does have features that can be worked with to improve it. Since we arent going to get extensive rewrites we might as well work with those or toss all of it.

True... the #startspell would greatly improve the AI, if it eventually gets fixed.

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
Thats kindof unfair. The AI does have strategy.

Actually the AI does NOT have strategy in most of the listings I mentioned. So let's review:
The current AI has no strategies for blesses = TRUE
The current AI has no strategies for supercombatants = TRUE
The current AI has no strategies for the death arena = TRUE
The current AI has no strategies for the trading = TRUE
The current AI has no strategies for diplomacy = TRUE
The current AI has no strategies for the food supply = TRUE

Gandalf Parker said:
If you look at the logs it does quite abit of thinking.

The only questionable AI thinking is just enough to keep it alive and growing. Its strategy in regards to expansion is the same as an amoeba. Its strategy in regards to research doesn't appear to have any organized plan, seems almost random and usually does poor in the graphs compared to humans. Its strategy in regards to map defense mainly consists of building forts and poorly invests in province defence. Its strategy in regards to gold income is also poor as it blindly purchases units from independent provinces.
Overall the AI is still good for two developers.

Gandalf Parker said:
The biggest problem with it is that it only has one strategy which it uses for every nation being played in every manner. So I have always said that scripted AIs would be great. But it looks like we wont be getting it in Dominions.

Yes a scriptable AI which randomly uses one of many AI personalities would have been best.

[Gandalf Parker]

The current AI has no strategies for blesses = TRUE
probably true
The current AI has no strategies for supercombatants = TRUE
wrong
The current AI has no strategies for the death arena = TRUE
wrong
The current AI has no strategies for the trading = TRUE]
true
The current AI has no strategies for diplomacy = TRUE
true
The current AI has no strategies for the food supply = TRUE
wrong

and wishing for a #startspell is a little bit more likely than wishing for scripted AI but its still not as good an effort as using the AI's abilities better.