Utility: Single Player Improvement

[Fantomen]

Well, basically it would require a program that could decipher .trn files properly, and then output a correct 2h file. Or in other words, mimic the game client This is only possible by either reverse enginering the game or in cooperation with illwinter. No idea what they would say, but it would be very nice.

Since they are okay with people ripping the graphics from CEO3 to make mods for dom3 and so on, they might have no problem with someone hacking the game to make a useful addon.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Well, basically it would require a program that could decipher .trn files properly, and then output a correct 2h file. Or in other words, mimic the game client

I don't get this. I understand you're proposing an external program to read in the .trn files, then have a think like an external human player and produce its own move. That's just some AI, shouldn't be too difficult. What I don't get is: how are you going to get the external program to actually click the buttons and drag the units to do its move and so produce the 2h file? That seems much harder....

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

I don't get this. I understand you're proposing an external program to read in the .trn files, then have a think like an external human player and produce its own move. That's just some AI, shouldn't be too difficult. What I don't get is: how are you going to get the external program to actually click the buttons and drag the units to do its move and so produce the 2h file? That seems much harder....

You are joking right? The external program just generates the .2h file.

[jimbojones1971]

First up, I've had a play with the program - it works very nicely, so thanks :-)

I'd really like to be able to easily include CBM in particular. The ability to include other mods would be a nice bonus, though. I will have a look and see if I can work out how to do this for myself in case you don't have time.

Originally Posted by JonBrave

I don't get this. I understand you're proposing an external program to read in the .trn files, then have a think like an external human player and produce its own move. That's just some AI, shouldn't be too difficult. What I don't get is: how are you going to get the external program to actually click the buttons and drag the units to do its move and so produce the 2h file? That seems much harder....

Basically, they are "externalising" the AI logic. The flow goes something like this:

1) Dom3 server generates .trn file
2) "Robot Artifical Intelligence (AI)" reads .trn file to understand the current situation
3) "Robot AI" decides on moves based on step 2) - hopefully in a cleverer, or at least different, fashion to what the internal Dom3 AI does
4) "Robot AI" generates .2h file containing its moves
5) File is submitted to the Dom3 server

At the moment, you as a player do steps 2) through 4) using the Dom3 client. But in the proposed solution, the Dom3 client never comes into play - the external "Robot AI" does all of that, without ever opening Dom3 - thus no need to touch buttons, move things etc.

This is being proposed as a way of allowing the current AI in Dom3 (which some people have an issue with) to be replaced, without having to modify the actual Dom3 code base.

I personally think that this is an excellent idea. It does of course depend on having a good understanding of the formats for both .trn and .2h files, but since it doesn't remove the need for Dom3 licences from a player's perspective I am cautiously optimistic that it would be OK with the devs (never having dealt with them in person).