Curious about Dominions? how the AI thinks? which AI is best/worst?

[MaxWilson]

I just have to say that --comptrn is indeed awesomely fun. I've always suspected, and now I know, that the AIs run out of money and stagnate because of troop upkeep for their massive armies; and now I know that they usually only research one school of magic up to very high levels before investing at all in other schools. Extremely interesting stuff.

-Max

[Illuminated One]

Lol.
I've seen the very opposite.
AI researching to half of that school and then swiching,. Which is the worst thing to do.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

Lol.
I've seen the very opposite.
AI researching to half of that school and then swiching,. Which is the worst thing to do.

I've seen them abandon the school partly through, say at level six, and I've even seen them abandon a research level partly through--but because of the increasing cost of extra levels, charging straight through to level nine in a school isn't necessarily a good thing anyway. You'd like your mages to have *some* basic capability at both Evoc and Alt, for instance, and some ritual capability in Conj and Constr.

I am not using --superhost but I was able to see the AI type anyway, I think by clicking on the pretender name on the main game screen or something.

-Max

[Gandalf Parker]

Are you using --superhost with it? That creates a superstats file which will tell you which type of AI is being used. 1=standard, 2=defensive, 3=aggressive. That might affect the research (I dont remember). There are also other randoms involved. It would also affect how often the armies march out.

I do remember some discussions about it. But it was hard to come up with an agreement. Its like everything else about the AI. If its generic then ok. But if it breaks down too much into IF's (if this nation, if early game, if losing provinces) then it could not be easily worked into this version of the game.

In general, we wanted it to have a purpose. But not so specific that it could be guessed and counted on by the players. Its easiest to make things random, and then tighten the randoms abit.

[Gandalf Parker]

I can see the usual AI setting (which for --allai is always "normal") but not the AI type as far as I know. The only place Ive ever seen that was in the superstats file which drove me NUTS for not ever being able to mention it in all of the ai discussions we have had here.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually Id prefer that AI scripts fall entirely into player territory like MODs rather than adjustments to the vanilla. Id love to see versions of AI for playing styles. Defense, offense, turtling, starcraft horde style, stealth, checkerboard, diplomatic, ally, flanker.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Someone has already publicly mentioned the unlisted switches of --allai (create game with all AIs) and --superhost (host the game over and over really really fast) so Johan has given permission for me to display some of my test data from the beta group. Not the cumulative data (yet) but the tests as they run which some might find interesting. Only one test of each era stays visible online, then its zipped up and the data is overwritten by the next test.

www.Dom3Minions.com/~mmdom3/AI_tests/
Its not ALL scoreboards. At the bottom is other things.

Is there a summary location which gathers the total winnings of all games?
I can see the most common winner after viewing 20+ results, but I'd like to better know who came in second place, third place and fourth place.

Also I recommend doing testing on maps without water and with only land nations since it's well known the vast majority of land nations have almost no skill for attacking water provinces. Is this type of testing planned in the future?

[Gandalf Parker]

Right now I want to gather new data for all vanilla settings. I havent done that for a long time and there are many new nations, and changes to nations, which should be taken into account.

The best place to get an idea of the 1,2,3 placings would be to look at the superstats file. At turn 200 many of the earlier tests were canceled and were considered to have given generally acceptable data without going all the way to end-game. Of course it wasnt an absolute answer but it was close enough. The second to last score file (set the directory view to go by times) should show 1 and 2 place.

I am keeping and building up the data. But for now I dont have permission to reveal everything.

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Are you using --superhost with it? That creates a superstats file which will tell you which type of AI is being used. 1=standard, 2=defensive, 3=aggressive. That might affect the research (I dont remember). There are also other randoms involved. It would also affect how often the armies march out.

No, and I didn't do any extensive testing, I just watched the first 20 turns of one AI manually. And probably I had difficulty at normal so that's maybe not saying very much about the highest difficulty levels.

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

I've seen them abandon the school partly through, say at level six, and I've even seen them abandon a research level partly through--but because of the increasing cost of extra levels, charging straight through to level nine in a school isn't necessarily a good thing anyway. You'd like your mages to have *some* basic capability at both Evoc and Alt, for instance, and some ritual capability in Conj and Constr.

Yep, the abandoning halfway before the next level is reached was the problem though (sorry, that was what I meant not going to level 6 and switching).

[Gandalf Parker]

I dont remember, and would probably have to test, but Im not sure that the AI switches at "levels". Most of its actions are rechecked on turns.

So if research is done that way also then sometimes it might research to level 6 by turn 50 when it decides to reselect, and sometimes not. (50 was a guess, I dont remember the critical turn numbers)