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

Gandalf Parker · #1 November 14th, 2003, 02:47 AM

OK Mort, Lets pin down castle tactics. Im just rambling out loud here...........

So you would have the AI maintain (a scout? priest? small army?) which moves seperate from his larger expansion army. When it finds a province that has (I forget what the formula players say whether its high resource or high gold). The province needs to have no bordering neighbors that are not owned by the AI (avoiding front line positions) and no bordering neighbor that already has a castle. That sounds good.

And by preference it should have 2 bordering provinces which are water or mountain? Im not sure how code would go about recognizing a chokepoint. Two water neighbors which dont also border on each other? It might be able to see that. The impenetrable mountain walls like on the Eye map Im not so sure about. That would be "a province which should be a neighbor but doesnt have a #neighbor statement" which is what really makes them impenetrable mountains. That extra-thick borderline is just for visiblity.

But even if it cant specifically recognize chokes (I dont know if it can or not) that might not be too bad . Mountain areas are supposed to represent a difficult terrain for movement in Dom2. And if the 2 water neighbors happen to be next to each other thats not so bad since I often discover a need for some coastline defense.

Hmmm but the formula so far would want me to own those 2 water provinces. And what about the water nations? Hmmmmm I think this formula is getting "smarter" than its worth.

Gandalf Parker · #2 November 13th, 2003, 03:05 PM

How about something simpler that would be "usually good enough". Such as, for every X number of provinces (5?)you own you should have a castle. Find a province with no castle, no neighboring castle, and no neighbor owned by another player, then build there. Maybe it should also have a minimum number of neighbors. 3? 4? 5?

And what about the cost? Should it be "do this before all recruiting"? I think that has worked for me (in fact Ive come to realize that I play rather like an AI). Doing it that way would tend to automatically provide some controlling limits since the AI would rarely (should rarely if other formulas are done right) be able to afford a castle at the beginning of a turn without saving up for one.

So the AI sees that it has 10 provinces and only 1 castle. If it finds a spot where a province has at least 4 neighbors with no castles, and none of them owned by another player, and IF it has enough money, then it builds a castle there. Oh yeah, and increase the defence (I always do that where I have a castle)

OH wait a minute. That would be better if it came first. In a province it feels is going to be a castle, it should raise defence to (21?) first and then build a castle. Hm that could get expensive.

OK stop me. I think too much in the mornings.

DominionsFan · #3 November 13th, 2003, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
How about something simpler that would be "usually good enough". Such as, for every X number of provinces (5?)you own you should have a castle. Find a province with no castle, no neighboring castle, and no neighbor owned by another player, then build there. Maybe it should also have a minimum number of neighbors. 3? 4? 5?

And what about the cost? Should it be "do this before all recruiting"? I think that has worked for me (in fact Ive come to realize that I play rather like an AI). Doing it that way would tend to automatically provide some controlling limits since the AI would rarely (should rarely if other formulas are done right) be able to afford a castle at the beginning of a turn without saving up for one.

So the AI sees that it has 10 provinces and only 1 castle. If it finds a spot where a province has at least 4 neighbors with no castles, and none of them owned by another player, and IF it has enough money, then it builds a castle there. Oh yeah, and increase the defence (I always do that where I have a castle)

OH wait a minute. That would be better if it came first. In a province it feels is going to be a castle, it should raise defence to (21?) first and then build a castle. Hm that could get expensive.

OK stop me. I think too much in the mornings.

The AI should build 1 castle in every fourth province.

licker · #4 November 13th, 2003, 06:52 PM

1 per 4? Why? Should there be a distinction between land and water provinces? Should the number of forts be dependant on the number of players in the game? The size of the map? The cost of the fort?

Its far too easy to just say 'build 1 per X'. Of course doing that may be better than what there currently is, but I'd hope that the analysis of this question would try to incorperate more variables that are easily determined by the AI.

It shouldn't be that hard to find choke points anyway, in fact the simplest way to do it is for the map maker to designate certain provinces as choke points and let the AI work with that information. However, I doubt that is currently supported in the game

[ November 13, 2003, 18:57: Message edited by: licker ]

#5 November 13th, 2003, 08:43 PM

You could have the AI build a fort if there is a X amount of resources present or if those resources are not present within a 6 Province line then put it in one with most resources that is not adjacent to an enemy.

Also the behavior of an army to build a castle, are they going to take their main force and have them sit there while it's building or just place a small token force (with maybe some Provencials) and have the army more strategically placed.

MStavros · #6 November 13th, 2003, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by licker:
1 per 4? Why? Should there be a distinction between land and water provinces? Should the number of forts be dependant on the number of players in the game? The size of the map? The cost of the fort?

Its far too easy to just say 'build 1 per X'. Of course doing that may be better than what there currently is, but I'd hope that the analysis of this question would try to incorperate more variables that are easily determined by the AI.

It shouldn't be that hard to find choke points anyway, in fact the simplest way to do it is for the map maker to designate certain provinces as choke points and let the AI work with that information. However, I doubt that is currently supported in the game

Yes it is lot more complicated, haha.
However, the size of the map really matters?
Right now the AI won't build a fort almost ever.
We should post a nice detailed list that when should the AI build forts.

#7 November 14th, 2003, 12:00 AM

Maybe we should tell them when we build Fortresses of what type and why.

Then they could code the behavior of the AI to that.

I'm sure the MP guru's who play pure efficency vs themic could come up with some pure formula/reasons to it.

Like, how often in MP do you build a fort turn 10 or below?

Never?

How often in MP do you build a castle between turn 11-15? If so, why and where?

Questions like that.