AI Questions

[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.

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
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

You'll need to elaborate with details of evidence. Otherwise you're just spitting out a fish story as I can easily provide details as why my statements are true. As for its death arena strategy... it selects one of its largest sized units which does more damage as it will blindly send its large sized pretenders to a stupid death.
Just because the AI is able to participate with the death arena does NOT make it a strategy!

Gandalf Parker said:
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.

I would definitely want scripted AI over the #startspell.


[/quote]

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Good grief. Listen to _yourself_, people.

The way Jedi and Gandalf are arguing will clearly go nowhere. Step back, think it over, and approach it again with a plan, or step away from the keyboard.

[Gandalf Parker]

NTJedi said:
You'll need to elaborate with details of evidence. Otherwise you're just spitting out a fish story as I can easily provide details as why my statements are true. As for its death arena strategy... it selects one of its largest sized units which does more damage as it will blindly send its large sized pretenders to a stupid death.
Just because the AI is able to participate with the death arena does NOT make it a strategy!

The AI does create equipment and give it to its commanders. Maybe you could come up with something better (Ive asked for it many times and havent seen it but Im sure someone could). At the moment it appears fairly random, but it is there.

And the AI obviously takes food supply in consideration when it builds armies and sends them out. Ive rarely seen it starve its armies unless its been forced back into it.

Your evidence is that the single-minded AI strategy is easily beaten by human players. Not that it doesnt exist. You are complaining that a 10-line strategy should be a hundred-line strategy.

I would definitely want scripted AI over the #startspell.

[/quote]
You didnt get my point. The #startspell MIGHT be something we MIGHT see fixed. The AI is awfully unlikely. Sing the song over and over if you want but I will look to fixable areas. There are ways to improve the AI that do not involve waiting on the devs, and I have laid them out often enough.

[Sombre]

I've never seen the AI consider supplies. It marches huge armies through multiple wasteland provinces as a matter of routine.

The evidence for this is pretty clear if you play on a large map. Look over the troops in the AI horde that just arrived at your borders. If there are low supply provinces between the AI forts and your border, they will usually be starving and diseased.

In regard to equipment, saying 'the AI is there' is pointless. If you had one AI set to build and assign items totally at random and one AI using the current system, could anyone tell the difference? I doubt it. The only way to judge an AI is the impression it gives human players. It doesn't matter if it thinks about it or does it at random if no-one can tell the difference.

[Archonsod]

Sombre said:
In regard to equipment, saying 'the AI is there' is pointless. If you had one AI set to build and assign items totally at random and one AI using the current system, could anyone tell the difference?

I've never seen the AI give a useless item to a commander, nearly all of them provide a benefit in some way.

[Nikolai]

Who play with the AI? All players I know use AI to feel a new race. Even for testing stuff, it's better to play both sides as human. AI sucks? Play players!

Evan before we were told about this board, we were playing each other, not AI. If you compstomp to feel good, bad AI is good. If you want to feel better, stomp humans.

I would have developers fix exploits like Vengeance of Dead, battlefield spells after dead/retreat and bugs like undead bless failure and dominion effect loss in early turns. AI? I for one don't mind.

[Frostmourne27]

Archonsod said:

I've never seen the AI give a useless item to a commander, nearly all of them provide a benefit in some way.

AKAIK, there are no 'useless' items. Although you have point, I think Sombre is right. Half of the time, the Ai does stupid things, like equiping non-assassins with skull talismans, or mages with black plate. The other half of the time, they make decent choices, but I've never seen the Ai equip something that looked like an Sc or Thug because of its equipment.

It seems to me that this might actually be easy to remedy. Couldn't we just devise a couple of hundred item 'sets' that the computer would try to follow. E.g. large commanders look up item profiles from a list that includes sets like firebrand, charcoal shield, ring of regen, amulet of resiliance and dragon scale mail.

Of course, that assumes the computer could reach lvl 6 in con, which is often doubtful in short games, so we'de need lots of different lists for different circumstances. But I doubt the community would be unable to come up with a few. It wouldn't be that different from something like the SemiRandomizer, would it?

[NTJedi]

Archonsod said:
I've never seen the AI give a useless item to a commander, nearly all of them provide a benefit in some way.

The AI has no methods of identifying what items to give to its commanders/mages. I've seen normal commanders equipped with two shields and a fever fetish. I've seen non-stealthy mages equipped with assassin hearts. I've seen high encumberance armor placed on small mages. And as previously mentioned path booster items on mages/commanders with no matching magic path. Honestly it is so painful I would seriously disable specific items for AI opponents if it was possible.
The only 'thinking' I've seen done by the AI is how it does seem to place more importance for equipping items onto its pretenders which sometimes causes more damage to itself.