AI Questions

[Sombre]

AI Item strat: Give them bane venom charms. Last time I checked they randomly distributed them amongst their mages and other non stealthy commanders. I have seen them give random melee/ranged weapons to old frail mages, boots of strength to giant leaders - pretty sure I've even seen path booster items like skull staff on guys with no death magic. Don't know if that's because they just picked them up after the AI suicided its mages somewhere, but it's still stupid.

Regarding AI nations: The main people who have expressed interest in AI nations are Wikd and Gandalf. I haven't seen either of them do anything about it. Even if you could consider my criticism of the supposedly good AI 'complaining', the reason I haven't made lots of AI nations is that there isn't any fun playing against the kind of nation the AI would be good with - ie unlimited gems, unlimited gold, troops that don't need to eat, all troops having glamour etc. It would be like playing chess against an idiot and compensating by swapping all their pieces for queens. Zero fun. In order to be more interesting for SP, the AI needs not so much to be /harder/ (this is easy, just stale for 25 turns after starting the game) but /smarter/.

Btw, I made an AI mictlan after Gandalf started a thread talking about how the nations could be improved for AI. No-one had any interest in it.

If you want AI nations make them. From a technical standpoint it's easy.

[Gandalf Parker]

Frostmourne27 said:

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.

Well no one can argue that the AI isnt stupid. But as long as it has some actions, we might be able to work with it.

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.

Thats a good idea. Not for inside the game itself since I wouldnt expect it to get used by the devs unless they ask for it. But it would be a big help to the randomizer program. That does accept equipment lists so if some expert wanted to create a mage list, a commander list, an SC list, an assassin list, (a scout list?) then it would be helpful to people who are working up other game boosts for the SemiRand program to use. It wouldnt control the use of such items in the game but would help in designing starting units with abit of random to them which would still appear to be logically created.

Gandalf Parker

[Wikd Thots]

Sombre said:
AI Item strat: Give them bane venom charms. Last time I checked they randomly distributed them amongst their mages and other non stealthy commanders. I have seen them give random melee/ranged weapons to old frail mages, boots of strength to giant leaders - pretty sure I've even seen path booster items like skull staff on guys with no death magic. Don't know if that's because they just picked them up after the AI suicided its mages somewhere, but it's still stupid.

That is pretty stupid. I wonder how much it would affect the game to have a database of every unit in the game (3000?) and every item in the game (500?) and put just a plus or minus on each item? Of course it would not afect the MP games much but the SP games would suck. (isn't that what we are trying to fix?)

Regarding AI nations: The main people who have expressed interest in AI nations are Wikd and Gandalf. I haven't seen either of them do anything about it.

Actually, the things I listed came from G's threads on the subject. Seems like he has done the most to list the things that affect the AI games even though he drags most of it out of the experts. And you cannot ignore what his mods and maps have done for SP/AI gaming.

And I have done my part. Kicking the experts in the *** is my contribution to the cause. I am very good at it.

Even if you could consider my criticism of the supposedly good AI 'complaining', the reason I haven't made lots of AI nations is that there isn't any fun playing against the kind of nation the AI would be good with - ie unlimited gems, unlimited gold, troops that don't need to eat, all troops having glamour etc.

Aww crap! Complain that the AI uses none of it. Then say that it would be no fun to play against an AI that has tons of it. All this from someone who does not consider SP worth playing anyway. I am sure that someone can mod a nation someplace in the middle. Too powerful for a human player to play in a game with but perfect as a harder enemy in a game.

Btw, I made an AI mictlan after Gandalf started a thread talking about how the nations could be improved for AI. No-one had any interest in it.

Link?
Im good at lurking and searching. I just tried many combinatins and could not find it. Is it in your mod list?

If you want AI nations make them. From a technical standpoint it's easy.

Oh yeah (BS) it is one of the easiest things in the game. For anyone who is expert in Dom3 modding, and expert in the faults of the AI, and wants to be the one to put their name on it which seems to be the one thing we cannot get Gandolf to do.

[Valandil]

AI mictlan is real. That much I know.
Modding AI nations is, in fact, very easy. It looks like this:

#selectnation 11
#clearsites
#startsite "Throne of the World"
#startsite "Ultimate Gateway"
#startsite "Cathedral of the Spheres"
#startsite "Unholy Sepulcher"

#addreccom "Eater of Gods" (unit number)
#addrecunit "Hunter of Heros" (unit number)

etc...

[Gandalf Parker]

I would also like to see the AI Mictlan mod. I find a dozen or so mentions of it but I cant seem to find the mod.

However, one of the comments I did find doesnt make me too eager anymore.
"I made an AI Mictlan in some random thread but no-one seemed to have any interest in it - it just gave them unlimited bloodslaves basically, since the AI is miserable at blood nations."

Heehee. Sounds like the kindof response I would get if I tried to mod a nation.

But it might be worth looking at. Maybe someone will come up with something better.

[Gandalf Parker]

Valandil said:
AI mictlan is real. That much I know.
Modding AI nations is, in fact, very easy. It looks like this:

#selectnation 11
#clearsites
#startsite "Throne of the World"
#startsite "Ultimate Gateway"
#startsite "Cathedral of the Spheres"
#startsite "Unholy Sepulcher"

#addreccom "Eater of Gods" (unit number)
#addrecunit "Hunter of Heros" (unit number)

etc...

Heehee. Thats interesting. A bigger badder Pangaea loosing disasters onto the world.

Here is a quicky mod I posted a long time ago to spark some nation building.

#modname "fledgling nation"
#icon "../guihead.tga"
#selectnation 79
#era 1
#name "Home"
#epithet "fledgling nation"
#end

Its playable if you want a really extreme challenge.

[Wikd Thots]

ROTFL
I can see why Sombre was not in a hurry to find the AI Mictan mod. Thats a great example of how to whip off a mod that you do not really think should be used. Love the logo!

And after all that, hidden and all, it still got some fair downloads. Sombres crappiest and most hidden effort gets better downloads than any of G's

[Gandalf Parker]

Well as I have said before, my attention is on maps. There are plenty of commands there and much that has not yet been done with maps. I would like to see more downloadable scenario games. I spurred the modding early on but it seems pretty well covered even if it is one of the most complicated parts of the game. Im (against my better judgement) still the source for many of the server and map projects. Knowing those two sets of commands is plenty for me.

The few little mods that Ive created (and more that Ive half-created) are no where near the level of the stuff Ive seen. I will gladly make my modding requests to the modding experts

[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.

[Gandalf Parker]

Really?
It defines units by type such as doing "comtype Illusionist", and it does assign items by type when it does things like mercs.

And it definetly assigns "random" equipment around the map based on unit types. You can see it assigning the items by type.

I wonder why it wouldnt use the same files for the AI? Probably too limiting I guess. You would have to either define everything in some huge database. Random at least allows for surprises.

Does it put more items on its pretender? I got the impression that it was only the big pretenders. Kindof an effort toward doing some SC. Equipment goes on the big guys first.