Question before buying!

[rdonj]

I'm going to be doing a few quotes here...

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Dom3 AI is a pretty good example. Its total randomness was a cheap answer to providing maximum replayability. It tries to avoid predictability and MAYBE provide some surprises altho usually it amounts to stupidity. Even with the total aggregate of every AI boost we have available to us, the best I can get is early and mid-game playability. Hoping for possibly a quick win since the AI can never handle a real late-game fight unless its GM'd. The depth of the game we love works against us in hoping for an AI to handle it.

I am pretty fond of the dom3 AI. It handles early game and midgame at least to a reasonable extent, even if it stands no chance in late game. So I actually agree with you there. The way the AI works is good for making it challenging early on... if only the AI knew how to use powerful units.

if armies of 20 cannons are killing you in AoE3 than you're doing something very wrong :P speaking of AoE3, the AI there is pretty good compared to other AIs. it's alright in medium difficulty(alright as in what medium should be) and starts to get a bit tough on hard, and pretty tough on very hard. still, it's the AI so there are obviously ways to exploit it and destroy him, such as using mass Hussars or whatever those sword armed light cavalries are called, to destroy cannon heavy armies with no pike protection. but still, compared to other games in general and specifically RTS games, Microsoft actually did something right in AoE3, something I can't say about most of their other programs.

No, I was killing them :P I just hated it because it was stupid. 20 cannons vs massed cavalry doesn't make for very fun gameplay. Also I prefer long games, so that sort of thing happens to me a lot :P. I do agree that AoE 3 had a pretty effective AI, I just wish that it could be effective without resorting to silliness like that. I'd like to see the AI make use of more different types of units and create real armies to attack you with.

the main problem is that Dominions is so complex and with such a variety of both units and spells, that no AI can actually handle it properly. even those super genius chess AIs won't do well in Dominions due to the sheer amount of options and variables upon which said options are evaluated on. in chess you have a lot less moves, and the success/failure of said move is a lot easier to calculate. in Dominions there are a ton more options, and the results said actions lead to(mainly on the strategic map but also during battles) are very hard if not outright impossible to predict.

with that being said, there are still a lot of things that *can* be improved with Dominions' AI, such as combat scripting(or well, lack of, hence automatic behavior), actually casting/dispelling globals, actually using rituals, site search, not stack a ton of useless PD, etc.

There's a really, really easy way to make the AI 100x more effective. Take options away from it. The problem is just that you'd have to have either a different mod for every nation you want to play, or you'd have to create a mod nation/nations for the sole purpose of having a challenge in SP. The AI will never be intelligent, so the best way around that for us is to remove potential idiocy.

I'm always surprised though when I hear people say that the AI doesn't cast spells/globals etc, because I've had them do that plenty of times with me. I've even had global slot battles with the AI before. I once had to fight an AI marignon army in SP that summoned summer lions and fire snakes, and spammed prison of fire at me. Sometimes the AI can be surprisingly effective.


The Conway - I know Amos has some pretty unbalanced mods out there... I'd say I've played about half of them! But if I wanted a truly effective AI, I'd go a bit more in the direction of warhammer chaos. A lot of Amos' nations have weak national units and... weird commanders, for one thing. One of the most important things to do is ensure that the AI has effective troops and commanders available to it. Kind of like the hellgate mod, but even more so

[Gandalf Parker]

@rdonj Im surprised that we are agreeing on all of this.

Ive often jumped into threads about nation mods when someone jumps on a new modder about their mod being "unbalanced". I try to offer the alternative of forget the balance, go for AI. Some have ignored balance suggestions but not many have openly pursued a mod for AI play.

There are many threads though where people have used the debug and comptrn switches to actually watch what the AI is doing. Yes it tends to surprise people how much thought the AI does actually put into each spell selection and recruiting action. Not enough of course, but its far from brainless. Knowing what it does, and why, can go far toward working WITH it to remove temptations to be stupid.

Just a few examples that have been given...
A) remove flak units from the nation, it doesnt use them very well
B) more resources at the capital
C) a Lore Master or such site at the capital helps the AI keep up with players who burn thru to a particular spell for endgame
D) the AI actually DOES recognize SC vs Rainbow pretenders. To the AI the PURPOSE of an SC is to go to war and participate in arenas. So dont give it SCs. In fact, the safest bet is to give it immobile gods
E) its been noted in other threads which magic the AI does/doesnt use well. Choose accordingly
F) the AI does use some spells well altho getting access to them tends to be undirected and random. National spells can go a long way toward improving this

Unfortunately... my own efforts at improving AI have tended to be more in server or map commands (my areas). Quite abit can be done in map and scenario functions but Id still like to see more mods saying they are based specifically on AI testing.

Also, Im rather random myself. My method of testing is hit-n-miss. I can stumble on surprising things but I wont ever come up with some of the detailed analysis that some people put into pinning down the exact formulas in the game. Id like to see some of their skills put toward the AI spell list, and AI recruitment.

[rdonj]

Gandalf - Yeah, it's rare for us to agree on much. The AI is one of the few points we can agree on. I've never felt the dominions AI was quite as bad as a lot of players make it out to be. It can challenge you for a while, especially if you don't exploit its weaknesses too much.

Other things that make an AI nation better - good PD. I played an SP game against the Dwarfs with Brettonia once... their tough PD made it *very* hard to raid safely thanks to all the crossbows, and if they have slayers in their armies they can kill some powerful things with just one lucky hit. So tough as nails PD should be on the list... as well as high-attack units that do plenty of damage.

I would go even a step further with the national summons, and do the same thing to their recruitable thugs/SCs. Then take away their magic so they can't cast spells uselessly (or give them plenty of reinvigoration so they can't knock themsleves out). Then reduce their price so the AI is more likely to hire them. Getting the AI to cast national summons could be hard... keeping them cheap is probably the best way to do it, but there's no way to force them to do what you want there as far as I can tell.

Recruitable high-research mages are a must, as Gandalf suggested. The AI doesn't do TOO bad at researching early on, but it tends to get pretty far behind by mid-game. The removal of chaff units, also a must.

Oh, and the vineshield effect actually is moddable