An AI question for a Dev

[georgevtucker]

My $.02:

I don't know anything about the programming end of the AIs. Having said that -- I think it would be a good idea to enable a set of likes/dislikes, or attack priorities, for the AI players.

For instance, Marignon should always attack Ermor in preference to any other neighbor. Abysia and Jotunheim would seem natural enemies, as well. Alliances between "enemy" nations would be disallowed.

To extend this thought further -- nations that have similar requirements, Abysia/Machaka and Caelum/Jotunheim, would be least likely to attack one another. If their scales are going in the same direction, they're working toward the same end. This kind of grudging friendship would both help and hinder the human player, and increase the depth and personality of the separate nations.

At the highest level of difficulty, all AI players would attack human players first, then neutral, and one another Last.

I'm thinking of old Master of Orion, where all the races had separate personalities unless you played on the highest difficulty, when they all became Aggressive Xenophobes/John Ashcrofts.

Having said all this -- thanks guys for the outstanding game.

[Gandalf Parker]

We are beginning to see the level of what we are asking. OK let me push this ahead.

Ulm has 2 Versions of each unit, one cheap and one more expensive with better armor rating. So for Ulm you would get into hi-cheap and hi-expensive. Obviously the entire formula for Ulm wont work for any other AI.

Ive heard in these conversations much mention of needing more heavy units. Personally I dont think the AI can buy enough hvy units as early in the game as people are talking about. More cheap units may be an advantage.

But even then, what about races like Pangaea? In Dom1 I almost never bought hvy units for Pangaea. Their advantage was not in them as an army. That may have changed with Dom2 but Im suspecting that if the wonderful balance is still in place that there is no way to develop a "better AI" that will work for all races because each race has very definate pros and cons.

Even if you do find a formula for one race it might work well for indep 2 but not for indep 6 and not for indep 9. Just one example of a game setting variable

I do like the thing about racial preferences though. I agree that having things like Marignon attacking Ermor on sight would make sense.

[ November 05, 2003, 22:09: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[licker]

See the other AI thread for how to modify the matricies more quickly and easilly. Its not a perfect description, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. You can have different operators for different levels of indie strength, differnt levels of richness, different whatever you think you need an opeator for.

That operator then gets applied over the others, its pretty simple and stratforward matrix algebra. The difficulty comes in chosing the right values for the operators, but that's no different than we already have I'd guess. In fact using the operators gives the user a lot more flexibility in tweeking the AI preferences as they see fit. Well thats a no brainer statement, since the user currently has no way to do this (yes yes script up a map, but we're talking about general AI now )

[HJ]

Racial preferences sound especially nice if there will be a possibility of selecting random AI opponents. I'm not complaining, it's just a thought.