Dominions 2. AI. Suggestions, that how to fix it.

[Mortifer]

Mmmmmmmmmmm interesting idea. So you say that the devs should script various AI types, and let the AI decide that when to change it during the game?
This sounds like separating AI scripts! Sounds cool!

[licker]

Originally posted by Mortifer:
Mmmmmmmmmmm interesting idea. So you say that the devs should script various AI types, and let the AI decide that when to change it during the game?
This sounds like separating AI scripts! Sounds cool!

Heh, it does sound cool, but for all I know the AI already does this type of thing

If that's the case then it would be nice to learn what the inputs to the AIs decision making process are so that they can be tweeked to make it better respond to various situations.

I'm no programer or AIist though, I hope that those who know more about his type of thing will wiegh in with their comments and suggestions, but I do feel that the AI should have a strict frame of reference within which to work, that will keep it on track for whatever its goal is, and not lead to as many situations where it tries to do too many things.

[Mortifer]

Gotcha. If you ask me this is an awesome idea. Different AI behaviors [main scripts], all connected with a 'central' script. If the situation changes, the central script will change the main script when it will be needed.
IE.
Main Script 1: Conquering indies
Main Script 2: Research
Main Script 3: Forge Items
Main Script 4: Recruiting armies
Main Script 5: Strategical moves
etc.
etc.
All this commanded by a central script.

Seriously I love this idea, I wonder what is the devs opinion about this.

[ October 29, 2003, 17:24: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[licker]

Yeah, your way of looking at it is probably a little bit better than what I described. Each style will have all the sub-style included in it, but each sub-style will have a weight attached to it. Those weights are what will change based on the inputs.

There still needs to be an overriding goal though, victory through might, through magic, through dominion (blessings), ... then the weights for recruitment, research, artificing, ... are doled out. Further each area would have sub areas depending on the top style, so recruitment would have heavy, medium, light, research would have the different schools weighted (or just scripted for a particular spell or combo), artificing also by gem income and combos...

This still doesn't adress the strategic moves made, but it does give a better (maybe?) framework from which the AI can make those moves. Without the right resources and backup no amount of brialliance on the map will help the AI become competative with humans (unless you start giving it massive cheats...)

[ywl]

Some ways that I think will improve AI's skill:

1) As other people mentioned, get better units other than a large number of miserable militia or slingers. This will probably help a lot.

2) Use human pre-designed pretenders. AI use insensible pretenders. We can easily make a wide variety of pretenders, catered to the play style of AI.

3) Teach it how to use super-combatants. Among various human tricks, this one seems to be the easiest to teach AI. Put a few items on a big creature and send it out. This, combined with human-design pretenders might help AI use their pretenders more effectively.

4) Castle? I don't think AI build castles on important provinces.

5) Other tricks? For example, it's quite easy to tell human to aim for "Storm" & "Wrathful Sky" combo. How easy is it to teach AI to aim particular spells like these?

There are strategies that are simple but very effective. For example, a Jotun with a simple Wyrm and maximum scales, keep building Woodmens, Seithkona and aim for Evocation 7. Another example is to use a basic Prince of Death for Ulm, aim for "Boots of the Behomoth". Put the heavy Ulm armors and the "Boots" on the PoD and send him out.

Are there any ways to script such strategies for AIs? Or should we start designing a scripting language for Dom AIs ?

[DominionsFan]

WOW guys, these are cool ideas! I bet that IW will like them!

[Zerger]

Good suggestions...I wonder...how is the strategic AI works? Any devs can give us some infos?

[licker]

Originally posted by Zerger:
Good suggestions...I wonder...how is the strategic AI works? Any devs can give us some infos?

Yes it would be good to get some Dev feedback on this issue. Many of the suggestions made may in fact be impractical with the current implementation. I'm hopeful though that scripts do exist that are triggered by various inputs. In that case it should be easier to both modify the scripts (and add new ones) and tweek the inputs to get a better focused AI.

At the least I hope the AI is using some killer combos, if not I hope that ability can be scripted in for them

[MStavros]

Yeah some dev feedback would be nice.

One more thing: in my games the AI never built any forts! Is this normal? [I can see this from the graphs]

[-Storm-]

Originally posted by Pocus:
forgot something of importance:

Some of you wonder why the tac AI is so good, whereas the strat AI is average.

The main difference lie in a word 'cooperation'. Cooperating mechanisms in AI coding is one of the hardest thing to do well. It is even more difficult that learning behaviors.

A given leader/unit in the tac AI dont cooperate that much with the other. Sure, it evaluate that casting poison clouds everywhere if your army is not poison warded is detrimental, but a simple fitness function can tell him that. The tac Ai, for spell casting for example, browse all the spells at his disposal, and get a numerical appreciation on how the spell would be of interest.
With that in mind, with some serious tweaking and work, you can get a good AI for your mages.

The situation is completely different and much more complex for the strat AI. You cant simply tell him to start with biggest stack, seek the best objective for this army, then proceed to the next. I wont discuss further the issue, but believe me the devs made already a very good job with the dom AI.

so much for the 'why dont they do a strat AI as good as the tac AI'

That is true.
Anyways, the devs will figure out a way to improve the strategic AI, I am sure about that.