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Old January 5th, 2009, 10:31 PM
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Gandalf Parker Gandalf Parker is offline
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Default Curious about Dominions? how the AI thinks? which AI is best/worst?

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.

If I run
dom3 -Td --era 1 --allai --superhost --scoredump Early_AIs
(and lots of other switches) then I get an Early Era game called Early_AIs which has all of the era 1 nations in it as computer players. It will run until one of the AIs wins (or I kill it). Running such tests in many different settings (different sized maps, VP points, game settings) gives us an idea of which nations fail quickly every time and which ones tend to win too often.

The -T is text mode. I dont want gui screens, cant watch the game anyway altho this is one of the reasons why Im working on a watcher nation.

The -d is debug dump which creates the game log. People who have been curious about what the AI does (including your own commanders) can take a look at this. No we do NOT know what its telling us but some things you can figure out. The log is ONE turn and its huge. Much more info is available if I run it -dd or -ddddd but for these tests I dont need that. Feel free to do that to your computer if you want to.
Ive crashed my machines trying to get complete logs for a whole game.

--era 1 is of course which era. I have run the SingleAge mod this way. In fact, its why I creates the SingleAge mod. But thats just for fun. Other than occassionally testing the games maximums. the information isnt all that helpful to the devs.

--allai fill the era with all AIs

--superhost skips all countdowns and hosts, hosts, hosts. It also creates a superhost.txt which has information such as which nations AI was Standard (1), Defensive (2), or Aggressive (3). The scores are mentioned at turns 50, 100, 150, and 200.

--scoresdump creates the scores.html which I rename to another number in order to keep them all. Ignore the turn count after 250 because even though the game continues the counter stops. I think thats because the devs figured out long before I did that its insane to keep going. The game is usually fairly well decided by turn 250 such as getting down to Vanheim and Oceania so running it for another thousand turns to take the every single province is moot for our purposes.


Gandalf Parker
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-- DISCLAIMER:
This game is NOT suitable for students, interns, apprentices, or anyone else who is expected to pass tests on a regular basis. Do not think about strategies while operating heavy machinery. Before beginning this game make arrangements for someone to check on you daily. If you find that your game has continued for more than 36 hours straight then you should consult a physician immediately (Do NOT show him the game!)

Last edited by lch; January 13th, 2009 at 02:54 PM.. Reason: removing misleading "(Utility)" prefix
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