Sentient Machines - [Game on] - Page 6

Burnsaber · #51 June 8th, 2009, 04:50 PM

All right, I went in ahead and declared the Random Map: Corruption as the map for this game.

I added a downalod link for it in the first post.

What is this border mountain thing anyway? Haven't really played too many games on random maps.

atul · #52 June 8th, 2009, 04:56 PM

Basically there are terrains for "Border Mountain" and "Mountain" with their own effects and castle types. IIRC dom3 random map generator generates only border mountains and not real mountains. But might've mistaken, this is mostly hearsay.

Burnsaber · #53 June 8th, 2009, 11:59 PM

Yeah, I just took a look. All mountain provinces one the map are actually border mountains. If people perceive this as a problem, I could just edit the .map file to make them real mountains and upload that version to llamaserver.

Calahan · #54 June 10th, 2009, 05:44 PM

Hello Everyone

I have started going through the process of getting you all those AI created monster Pretenders, but I might have hit a problem, which I've PM-ed Burnsaber about.

Basically, the problem seems to be that the AI doesn't always use up all the extra design points it gets at impossible level. Sometimes it uses them all, sometimes just a few, and sometimes none at all. And I feel this is leading to some real imbalance in the designs I am getting. I don't mind the weird and wonderful Gods it is creating, but I do mind if one awake Pretender has had 300 more design points pumped into it than another awake Pretender. I've double checked all the settings, and everything is as it should be.

So while I wait for Burnsaber to get back to me, does anyone have any insight into how the AI designs it's Pretenders, and in particular, does it always use up all the design points? It's not hard to see that AI Pretender designs are pretty random, but knowing that they would never NOT use all the design points would be helpful right now

As soon as this is sorted, I can get your choices out to you. Current timeframe is sometime tomorrow with any luck

Dragar · #55 June 10th, 2009, 09:41 PM

Is it obvious how many points have been spent, or do you have to work it out each time?

If the former, presumably you could make it spit out gods until you had 2 with full points spent? If not have to find another way, would take ages to calculate for each one

Calahan · #56 June 11th, 2009, 03:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragar

Is it obvious how many points have been spent, or do you have to work it out each time?

If the former, presumably you could make it spit out gods until you had 2 with full points spent? If not have to find another way, would take ages to calculate for each one

Sometimes it is very obvious that hardly any point have been spent. One classic one I had was for MA Jotun, where the AI came up with...

Dorment Skratti
Dominion 4
Turmoil 2
Sloth 2
Cold 2
Death 1
Luck 2
Drain 1
and wait for it, the awesome magic paths of
Fire 4 Nature 2 Blood 4
Using just normal design options that leaves 492 unused points!!! Nice one Mr.Computer

Any brave takers for this one?

If the Pretenders are awake, it is easy to check the points spent by re-creating that Pretender in it's Imprisoned form (which acts as the Impossible design point bonus). Here they have varied from a good 2 design points remaining, to the not so good 100+ points remaining.

As I said, I have no idea if this is just how the AI works, or if the problem is something else. One of the solutions I have suggested to Burnsaber is that I just keep creating Pretenders until every nation has at least 2 that have used up all the design points (or at least within 40 ie. A free scale). I have been doing the latter while waiting to hear from Burnsaber, think I'm over 50% of the required number of Pretenders at the moment.

One final thing, it is 250 extra design points the AI gets on impossible level isn't it?

Burnsaber · #57 June 11th, 2009, 07:50 AM

Actually, it did that "weak pretender" thing to me too, but only in once in a single test (out 3 or 4).

I guess it's just some weird AI behaviour.

If you have the time, it would be super if you could generate pretenders until you get two "uber" ones for each.

With uber, I don't specifically mean that there is a lot of points spent in to it. If it has strange paths & lots of power in them, it's probably somewhat fine. As long as all pretender are with 100 point range in cost, it's fine.

This game is kinda skewed on balance form the start. If someone gets seriously lucky with their pretender, we'll handle it the dom3 way. Gangbanging the lucky bastard, I mean

Calahan · #58 June 11th, 2009, 08:54 AM

Good to know it's just the AI doing stupid stuff as normal.

I will get onto generating the rest of the Pretenders first chance I get, which might be tonight, or failing that tomorrow afternoon.

Alpine Joe · #59 June 11th, 2009, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calahan

I will get onto generating the rest of the Pretenders first chance I get

I hope this doesn't mean you are keeping that crappy Jotunheim pretender as one of my choices

Calahan · #60 June 11th, 2009, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alpine Joe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calahan

I will get onto generating the rest of the Pretenders first chance I get

I hope this doesn't mean you are keeping that crappy Jotunheim pretender as one of my choices

Don't worry that one, and any other obvious candidates, will be firmly discarded to the scrap heap.

Oddly, some nations were proving harder to get good designs for than others, as some nations were coming up with good design (comparatively) after good design. Maybe there's a connection here to how they perform in SP games?