Targeting efficiency

[Zerger]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Sorry folks, I got a copy of DOM2.exe from a betatester, ran a disassembler on it, and managed to recreate the logical class structure. The results look bad. I'll post the source code of the AI class here:

/*Dominions 2 AI code*/

Class Dom2AI{

//primary AI command
int suck(MonkeyBalls *MB){

//Remember to fill this in by patch 1.3

return 2;
}
}

Well, there you have it. I don't want to draw any premature conclusions, but the only Dominions 2 AI function seems to be... shorter than I had hoped. Oh well...

-Cherry

You should stop posting your uber BS. You are making no sense usually.

I have a question: What is this histeria about the Dominions 2. AI? We dont even played with the game!

[ October 14, 2003, 17:12: Message edited by: Zerger ]

[HJ]

We can say this or that about TW AI, but as far as the AIs go, it is good, maybe not at its brightest as the strategical one, but the tactical one is. Of course you can beat it, but you can fully control your own units there, so it's not really comparable to the game where you cannot do that. Even with tactical control, if you mod the game so that the strategical AI does not build droves of peasants, but rather some quality troops instead, it puts up a very decent challenge on hard and expert. Try autoresolving in MTW every time, and you'll see how you'll fare.

And why would you leave an undefended province when attacking anyway?

[Nerfix]

Zerger:
That is humor.
Now it has been proved that internet humor NEEDS the or smiley to be understood as humor or a joke. Sarcasm needs the [/sarcasm] tag to be understood as sarcasm.

Note:Even if this post has the and smileys and [/sarcasm] tag, this isn't humor, sarcasm, or a joke.

[ October 14, 2003, 17:39: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Wendigo]

Originally posted by HJ:
[QB]We can say this or that about TW AI, but as far as the AIs go, it is good, maybe not at its brightest as the strategical one, but the tactical one is.

I disagree, the AI will charge with its heavy cavalry towards your pikemen formation, while heavy punished by missile fire & while exposing its flank to your own heavy cavalry...that doesn't strike me as bright. More often than not the opposing commander will also be leading that Heavy cavalry unit instead of staying in the back.

Of course you can beat it, but you can fully control your own units there, so it's not really comparable to the game where you cannot do that.

I consider Dom's scripting powerful enough to not really miss the full control of other games, you basically replace battlefield maneuvering with mage power & special units. If any, with more variables to account for I consider Dom AI more difficult to program, with TW it's just a matter of 'do not fight X with Y in terrain Z' (and it doesn't even do that).

Try autoresolving in MTW every time, and you'll see how you'll fare.

But then, if you autoresolve you have no tactical AI at all.

And why would you leave an undefended province when attacking anyway?

Maybe you did not understand my (hypothetic) example: the turns are supposed to be simultaneous but they are not, when playing its turn in the strategic map in Shogun:TW the AI does so with the knowledge of the orders you just issued, so it has full knowledge of where your armies are moving.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the TW games & consider them revolutionary, but that was certainly not because of the AI, but because of the great atmosphear, the powerful tactical engine that allows for all those battlefield maneuvers with huge armies, the historical settings...

[ October 14, 2003, 17:59: Message edited by: Wendigo ]

[Taqwus]

Heh. Yeah, I've done a fair bit of coding, and wandered into the machine-learning material a bit. Haven't done much AI-ish stuff since TA'ing a course for it (heh; the students got one eccentric final that semester, as my odd sense of humor affected much of it...).
Strong AI doesn't exist yet. What one can get now is some degree of function-fitting; but that presumes you know the structure of your inputs and outputs. The much-hyped neural network, for instance, needs to be given a set of inputs, and needs to be told what output to learn. Genetic programming methods need a vocabulary of operators, plus inputs to operate on them. Pick an input set that doesn't work, or don't include the flexibility necessary to fit your output, and it'll fail; have too much, and perhaps your search will trend towards getting stuck in meaningless local minima. It's not a coincidence that many games prefer to have fixed scenarios with pre-written scripts for AIs that also get vastly superior starting configurations... and most games have far fewer tactical choices than Dominions.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
I disagree, the AI will charge with its heavy cavalry towards your pikemen formation, while heavy punished by missile fire & while exposing its flank to your own heavy cavalry...that doesn't strike me as bright. More often than not the opposing commander will also be leading that Heavy cavalry unit instead of staying in the back.

I said "as far as the AIs go", not when compared to Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Very few games have anything comparable to TW AI. The AI is exploitable, for sure, but it can perform really well. If you see another game with the AI that can perform flanking and combined arms attacks, let me know.

I consider Dom's scripting powerful enough to not really miss the full control of other games, you basically replace battlefield maneuvering with mage power & special units. If any, with more variables to account for I consider Dom AI more difficult to program, with TW it's just a matter of 'do not fight X with Y in terrain Z' (and it doesn't even do that).

And all the calculations are done in real time. (I'm not a RTS fan, I'm just saying why it isn't comparable). And what other variables might those be, btw? I mean, since there is no terrain, no formations, no charge bonuses, no accurate targeting? As I said, if given tactical control over the battles, then we would be able to somewhat compare the two. This way, it's like letting AI control your units in TW. I don't know about you, but I would be pulling my (remaining) hair out. And I do that in Dominions as well.

But then, if you autoresolve you have no tactical AI at all.

Just comparing the numbers, right? Nothing you can do about it? You just see the end result? True

Maybe you did not understand my (hypothetic) example: the turns are supposed to be simultaneous but they are not, when playing its turn in the strategic map in Shogun:TW the AI does so with the knowledge of the orders you just issued, so it has full knowledge of where your armies are moving.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the TW games & consider them revolutionary, but that was certainly not because of the AI, but because of the great atmosphear, the powerful tactical engine that allows for all those battlefield maneuvers with huge armies, the historical settings...

They are not supposed to be simultaneous, and they are not. You take this into acount when making moves that it's IGO-UGO (sort of), and not simultaneous.

I also liked them because of all those things, but I also find them to put up a decent challenge. More so than vast majority of other games. Since you're talking about Shogun, may I suggest trying out MTW if you can find it on sale (I guess it's really cheap now) if you haven't already? Although it lost a good deal of atmosphere that STW had, some other things are greatly improved nevertheless.

[Maelstorm]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Heh. Yeah, I've done a fair bit of coding, and wandered into the machine-learning material a bit. Haven't done much AI-ish stuff since TA'ing a course for it (heh; the students got one eccentric final that semester, as my odd sense of humor affected much of it...).
Strong AI doesn't exist yet. What one can get now is some degree of function-fitting; but that presumes you know the structure of your inputs and outputs. The much-hyped neural network, for instance, needs to be given a set of inputs, and needs to be told what output to learn. Genetic programming methods need a vocabulary of operators, plus inputs to operate on them. Pick an input set that doesn't work, or don't include the flexibility necessary to fit your output, and it'll fail; have too much, and perhaps your search will trend towards getting stuck in meaningless local minima. It's not a coincidence that many games prefer to have fixed scenarios with pre-written scripts for AIs that also get vastly superior starting configurations... and most games have far fewer tactical choices than Dominions.

You are a fool. You have no idea about scripting.

[Psitticine]

Maelstrom, that post is seriously over the line. This is not the place for personal attacks. Please keep things civil from here on out.

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Maelstorm:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taqwus:
Strong AI doesn't exist yet. What one can get now is some degree of function-fitting; but that presumes you know the structure of your inputs and outputs. The much-hyped neural network, for instance, needs to be given a set of inputs, and needs to be told what output to learn. Genetic programming methods need a vocabulary of operators, plus inputs to operate on them. Pick an input set that doesn't work, or don't include the flexibility necessary to fit your output, and it'll fail; have too much, and perhaps your search will trend towards getting stuck in meaningless local minima. It's not a coincidence that many games prefer to have fixed scenarios with pre-written scripts for AIs that also get vastly superior starting configurations... and most games have far fewer tactical choices than Dominions.

You are a fool. You have no idea about scripting.

---

He didn't say that much about scripting... In fact, because his Posts are much more imformative than yours, I think that he knows quite a bit more about scripting than you. I am not commenting on that 'Evolving AI' -stuff, mainly because I am not sure did I understand it. But if you meant THAT as a scripting he has no idea about, I quess that you are a total fool. I would like to say troll, but I'm afraid they would come to eat me if they heard me say so...

[ October 14, 2003, 21:52: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

[johan osterman]

The only acceptable way of calling another man fool is in the context of a Mr.T reference. For example: I pity the fool that thinks the dominions AI can be improved.