Artificial stupidity

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
Actually, that's the point, they DON'T just do what they're ordered to do.

No, they do exactly what they are ordered to do, which is exactly as has been described to you. It doesn't necessarily match with what you think you ordered them to do, but that's a problem with your understanding of the logic used for decision making.

I did expect, however, an AI that with some basic, fairly simple logic checks like 'don't cast this spell if it's more likely to harm your own troops than the enemy' or 'don't move close to friendly troops when you have an area of damage effect following you around.' That seems pretty elementary.

If it's simple, then you'll be able to tell us all how to determine both cases. How does the AI know whether breath of winter is more likely to hurt your troops than the enemies?

Yep. It will do that even if not given that command.

No, it will only move forwards if there are no other possible spells to cast, or if you didn't give your commanders any orders at all. Stay behind troops is the default order.

Sounds right. And easily fixed, by anyone that has access to the code, one would think.

If it's easily fixed, then you'll be able to describe exactly what the proper behaviour would be in each possible game situation.

(A random R'lyeh hero, Traitor King? or something like that, L4 water mage with heroic quickness and the spell quickness as well. Definitely NOT ordered to attack or stay behind troops.

I already pointed out in my first post to this thread tat heroic quickness screws things up. Perhaps you should have realized that when somebody refers to heroic quickness, they are explaining that your units with heroic quickness fall under that category.

[Ballbarian]

I've mentioned this before, but a little check box next to researched spells in the spell list would solve most of these types of issues. If the check box is unchecked, then God has outlawed this spell (removed from castable spells list for this nation as far as the mage's ai is concerned) and any mage caught casting that spell will be stoned to death.

[Cainehill]

Ballbarian said:
I've mentioned this before, but a little check box next to researched spells in the spell list would solve most of these types of issues. If the check box is unchecked, then God has outlawed this spell (removed from castable spells list for this nation as far as the mage's ai is concerned) and any mage caught casting that spell will be stoned to death.

But of course, only _after_ the offending sage's BoW has killed all the expensive mages.

[Arker]

Graeme Dice said:

No, they do exactly what they are ordered to do, which is exactly as has been described to you. It doesn't necessarily match with what you think you ordered them to do, but that's a problem with your understanding of the logic used for decision making.

I don't see how you could say that with a straight face, knowing that there are several final orders that can be given, yet as discussed in this thread the AI always uses 'stay behind troops' even when it's not the order given?

If it's simple, then you'll be able to tell us all how to determine both cases. How does the AI know whether breath of winter is more likely to hurt your troops than the enemies?

Using an expert system approach, you'd have a few rules like these:

1. Is the enemy Jotunheim? If yes, forget BoW, it won't do you any good.

2. Are you Jotunheim? If no, it's very likely going to decimate your own lines. Don't cast.

That wouldn't be the most sophisticated set of rules, but it would still be much more sophisticated than what it does now. Depending on the amount of information the programmers want to make available to the AI, more sophisticated chains of tests could be devised of course, but even the crudity above would work.

An even simpler fix would be simply to take this out of the list of spells the AI will cast unbidden. This is the type of spell that, if you're going to cast it at all, you should probably be casting early in the battle and following with a command to engage in melee anyway. Which, I gather from another post, is actually what they're doing with Dom3.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
I don't see how you could say that with a straight face, knowing that there are several final orders that can be given, yet as discussed in this thread the AI always uses 'stay behind troops' even when it's not the order given?

I'm telling you that because you are wrong when you claim that the AI always uses stay behind troops. You are also wrong when you claim that the AI sometimes chooses to use stay behind troops when you haven't selected it. I'm also not sure why you continue to ignore the fact that the behavious has been completely explained to you. I suppose it's because you can't be bothered to realize that when somebody tells you that heroic quickness can cause buggy behaviour when stacked with spell quickness, and you have a unit that has both heroic quickness and spell quickness, that it's obviously something else that must be causing the strange behaviour and you should continue to claim that some other bug is causing the problem.

2. Are you Jotunheim? If no, it's very likely going to decimate your own lines. Don't cast.

So you propose that such a list be made for every single spell? Let's look at the other situations where it would be useful. Caelum, for example, or the undead Ermor themes, or miasma C'Tis.

[Arker]

Graeme Dice said:
I'm telling you that because you are wrong when you claim that the AI always uses stay behind troops. You are also wrong when you claim that the AI sometimes chooses to use stay behind troops when you haven't selected it.

Actually, that wasn't my claim. Several people, YOU INCLUDED, claimed that, and I concluded it fit what I was seeing and decided to believe you.

I'm also not sure why you continue to ignore the fact that the behavious has been completely explained to you. I suppose it's because you can't be bothered to realize that when somebody tells you that heroic quickness can cause buggy behaviour when stacked with spell quickness, and you have a unit that has both heroic quickness and spell quickness, that it's obviously something else that must be causing the strange behaviour and you should continue to claim that some other bug is causing the problem.

You know, I ignored your last crack about this for a reason. You're out of your freakin skull. Learn to read.

The poster that mentioned heroic quickness got a reply back from me saying that YES the particular character in the particular incidence I mentioned had heroic quickness, and I AGREED that explained that particular bit of strangeness I had reported. And you want to rant and rave for two posts now about me denying what I actually confirmed? You're just making yourself look like an idiot.

So you propose that such a list be made for every single spell? Let's look at the other situations where it would be useful. Caelum, for example, or the undead Ermor themes, or miasma C'Tis.

First, what other spells are causing problems? This is the only one that seems to give me much grief, although I imagine there are one or two others that would have the potential, I don't know what they are offhand. As I said already, if the programmers were motivated they could make some very sophisticated logic for this, but that's not necessary, a very simple fix (such as the one I understand has been implemented for Dom3) is also possible, so one shouldn't use the difficulty of implementing a very sophisticated fix as an excuse not to implement any fix at all. The simple one should still be a huge improvement.

I don't play Caelum that much, but it's my understanding that human players normally use lots of non-national troops, so it would probably be as big a problem for them as for anyone else. C'tis, again, I only played once, but I remember it being a *mixture* of troops, so again it's not safe to cast. Even Jotunheim, in 2 of 3 themes, is likely to have troops that are vulnerable to it, in fact.

Ashen Empire and Soul Gate could probably get away with it though. So sure, s/Jotunheim/"Jotunheim, AE, or SG" that's fine. Or even simpler, just don't cast the thing unbidden. A human player is going to script it when he wants it, casting it otherwise is almost never going to be any advantage, and very often will be a problem. And for AI players, the same thing really applies, they aren't smart enough to use it, it's far more likely to harm them than to help them.

[Gandalf Parker]

If the programmers were motivated? You might have meant that casually but Ive seen rants on that which grated me.
There is one programmer and he has kept up a steady stream of improvments.

Also he has said in the past that he would look at flowcharts if someone wanted to psuedo-code something. That doesnt seem uninterested.

[Arker]

One? I had the impression it was two, but I assume you're in a much better position to know than I.

Either way, the game is a monumental accomplishment, and if you read anything I've written as a slight to that work or those who did it, I've been misunderstood.

All I meant by that is that, while I'd be happy to write out pseudocode for a much more sophisticated chain of logic there, it seems pointless to do so. It's my impression it would require considerably more work than is realistically going to be put into it to actually implement (as it would require the AI to have access to a lot of information it apparently does not currently have access to, and probably logic it wasn't designed to cope with at all.) Particularly considering it's not really necessary, as the much simpler solution should have almost exactly the same effect.

[Gandalf Parker]

Arker said:
One? I had the impression it was two, but I assume you're in a much better position to know than I.

In a way there are. There are two developers. Johan is a programmer by trade and he makes it all work. Kristoffer teaches religion and mythology. He comes up with the nations, units, spells, equipment. He designs the stuff that Johan has to make work. They probably overlap abit.

Those are my own impressions of what Ive read and I sincerely hope Im not insulting either of them.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
Actually, that wasn't my claim. Several people, YOU INCLUDED, claimed that, and I concluded it fit what I was seeing and decided to believe you.

If you decided to believe us, then you wouldn't have just told me that you didn't believe us, and that there was still unexplained behaviour.

"I don't see how you could say that with a straight face, knowing that there are several final orders that can be given, yet as discussed in this thread the AI always uses 'stay behind troops' even when it's not the order given?"

You are simply wrong when you claim that the AI uses stay behind troops when not ordered to. If you think that's what the people who understand the game are telling you, then you need to go back and re-read their posts.

The poster that mentioned heroic quickness got a reply back from me saying that YES the particular character in the particular incidence I mentioned had heroic quickness, and I AGREED that explained that particular bit of strangeness I had reported. And you want to rant and rave for two posts now about me denying what I actually confirmed? You're just making yourself look like an idiot.

If you actually agreed that heroic quickness caused the AI glitch (which it obviously did), then you wouldn't have just told me that the AI randomly picks different orders from what you tell it to do. If you want to be believed, then perhaps you should provide a battle replay where a mage that doesn't have heroic quickness disobeys your final order.

First, what other spells are causing problems? This is the only one that seems to give me much grief, although I imagine there are one or two others that would have the potential, I don't know what they are offhand.

Then perhaps you need to play the game more so that you understand the various rules. A spell as common as blade wind can cause more damage to your troops than breath of winter.

C'tis, again, I only played once, but I remember it being a *mixture* of troops, so again it's not safe to cast.

It might be a mixture of troops, it might also be nothing but marhsmasters and undead. It's definetly safe to cast in the undead only case, which is by far the more common of the two.

Even Jotunheim, in 2 of 3 themes, is likely to have troops that are vulnerable to it, in fact.

Well, except for the fact that nobody would use those troops.