AI Questions

[Ubercat]

It seems like there may be many spells and actions which are pointless against AI players.

I've never noticed any rhyme or reason in the locations of AI armies. With a player, if he has 500 troops in a province, he probably has 500 troops the following turn as well. He may move them to a nearby land, he may split them up and send them in different directions. He may attack or be attacked. The troops and characters may be killed or otherwise affected by spells or events, but they're all accounted for.

With the AI it seems very different. He may have a huge army in a province one turn, the next turn it vanishes. Where did it go? I wonder, is there any real benefit to assassinating AI characters, Horror marking them, etc? Does a spell like Wrath of God serve any purpose in an SP game?

What's the consensus of the experienced players?

[quantum_mechani]

AI troops and commanders are accounted for, they just move often without any notable purpose. Spamming assassin spells on AI armies is actually a quite effective way to shut them down, they just don't know how to deal with it (in fact the AI is not really reactive in much of any way).

[NTJedi]

Ubercat said:
It seems like there may be many spells and actions which are pointless against AI players.
I've never noticed any rhyme or reason in the locations of AI armies.

The current AI has no strategies for blesses, supercombatants, expansion, research, defense, death_arena, diplomacy, trading, gold income and food supply. All reasons why a scriptable AI would allow the AI to become stronger as the community continues to improve different unique AI personalities. The AI probably shines its best on the battlefield knowing to place archers in the back, cavalry on the side with attack rear or hold and attack rear, and other attack commands/positions.

Ubercat said:
I wonder, is there any real benefit to assassinating AI characters, Horror marking them, etc? Does a spell like Wrath of God serve any purpose in an SP game?

Assassinating AI commanders/mages near or at the front line does help minimize the armies marching into your provinces.
Wrath of God is useful during any type of game... anyone on the receiving end quickly feels its pain even when far far away from its owners dominion. I usually avoid casting Wrath of God during SP games because it provides the human player too much of an advantage.

Ubercat said:
What's the consensus of the experienced players?

From my experience to get the best SP game experience map tweaking is needed and banning of specific spells. Adjusting the .map file so multiple AIs are allied, giving all AIs a growth_2 or higher starting setting to help prevent starvation, and sometimes giving the AIs SuperCombatants at the start of a game since they can't build any of their own and almost never summon the elemental royals.
Specific spells need to be banned as well since they provide too great of an advantage for human players. The spells I have banned for my SP games are Ghost Riders, Send Horror, Flames from the Sky, and Wish.

[Gandalf Parker]

Thats kindof unfair. The AI does have strategy. If you look at the logs it does quite abit of thinking. The biggest problem with it is that it only has one strategy which it uses for every nation being played in every manner. So I have always said that scripted AIs would be great. But it looks like we wont be getting it in Dominions.

[Sombre]

What does it matter what's in the logs? The real test of a single player AI is how it comes across to a human being - if it 'tricks' you into thinking its smart or beats you without you seeing that it's cheating, that's far more impressive than a log output which shows how much it 'thinks'.

From casual observation, the AI hasn't shown me anything beyond basic "move army into enemy province" behaviour. It could have taken a huge number of things into consideration in the process of behaving that way or it could have been a simple bit of code: the end result is the same. Beyond the basics it appears to build, move and generally do stuff pretty much at random.

People like to say "Oh but dom3 is so complex, the AI is amazing when you consider that". Tell me, what complexity is the strategic AI actually getting into in dom3? It builds and equips items seemingly at random. It researches at random. It recruits at random. It doesn't matter how much there is to do in dom3 if the AI either flat out doesn't do them, or does them at random.

Note I'm not complaining about the tactical or battlefield AI, because that's fine. It has problems, sure, but it doesn't come across as sack full of hammers dumb like the strategic AI.

[Gandalf Parker]

Then say that it sucks!
Its less insulting than saying that the AI has no strategies at all. At least "sucks" is an opinion. Not stating as a fact that no effort was made. OK the ****ing AI SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS. (against any player that has played more than a few dozen games against it or read the forum telling you how to beat it).
Next round?

[Sombre]

Don't act like I'm kicking your wife in the teeth.

If you need more than a few /dozen/ games practice or some recycled exploit from the forums to beat the AI, I can only conclude that you're the one who sucks :]

I beat the AI first game, on normal. I moved to impossible. Found it very easily beaten, not with exploits or bless rushes, but simply with PD and sensible use of troops, not throwing them piecemeal into a meat grinder. Now I stale for 4 turns or so at the start of a game and set the AIs scales etc up myself to avoid it going for misfortune turmoil death and some insane useless bless. I still have plenty of fun with SP, but the AI continues to suck some of the enjoyment out of it with its 'strategy'.

I should point out here that I'm not even any good at dom3 or any other strategy game like it.

[Gandalf Parker]

I agreed that it sucked.

I dont know of any AI that doesnt suck against some one who has played enough games to know the game.

But it does have features that can be worked with to improve it. Since we arent going to get extensive rewrites we might as well work with those or toss all of it.

[Hadrian_II]

The Dom AI is just throwing hordes of troops at you, so the only thing you have to do to win is to keep the attrition low for you by buying high PD and only high end troops who dont die in a battle.

I think it would be a major improvement for the AI, if she would remember that she attacked a province with 100 units before and that she was defeated so that she would take 200 units the next time. (Or even simpler, that the AI just attacks only every second turn, so the invading armies would be twice as strong)

[Wikd Thots]

heehee. Backed down again.
We do not have any more problem with G now that Somber is moderating him.