AI Questions

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
The AI does create equipment and give it to its commanders.

Just because the AI is able to place equipment onto commanders does not make it a supercombatant strategy. It's the same as being able to eat and being able to eat healthy... both are very different.

Gandalf Parker said:
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.

Something better won't be seen unless Illwinter hires an extra developer or two which focuses purely on artificial intelligence OR if AI scripting becomes available.

Gandalf Parker said:
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.

I agree with Sombre and frequently see the AI starving its troops. Perhaps you don't examine units on the battlefield as closely as Sombre and I. It builds armies and will march 500+ unit armies straight into a small wasteland or swamp province. These armies are usually all traveling different directions which is why we'll see one province with 500+ units and the next turn it splits different ways.

Gandalf Parker said:
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.

As I wrote earlier just because the AI is able to participate in the death match arena does NOT make it a strategized participation in the death match arena. Doing something and doing something with a strategy are two different things.

Gandalf Parker said:
There are ways to improve the AI that do not involve waiting on the devs, and I have laid them out often enough.

The veterans with 1000+ posts in the Dominions forums are all aware of the ways for improving the challenge from AI opponents. We all know what might be fixed and what will not be fixed.

[Wikd Thots]

Pttthhh!
The veterans still have not made us a decent AI nation. They whine over and over about the same things. They wait for the devs to completely rewrite the game. You all sound like corner fanatics praying for the second coming.

If the things that the AI does and does not do is so plain to the veterans then why don't they fix it? I hate to say it but the only tips on improving the AI that I can use is crap that I have seen in posts by gandolf and ballbarian and others like them.

[Evil Dave]

Wikd Thots said:
If the things that the AI does and does not do is so plain to the veterans then why don't they fix it? I hate to say it but the only tips on improving the AI that I can use is crap that I have seen in posts by gandolf and ballbarian and others like them.

Other than making better pretenders for the AI, there isn't much players can do for it. The AI doesn't understand how to build an SC or play a coherent strategy. We would need for the Devs to make changes in the game, either getting better AI or giving us tools by which we can control or hint to the AI what it should be doing.

It may (and let me emphasize *may*) be possible to gain some control over the AI by hacking the .2h files, but if it is possible it's not just a few days work.