AI - The Artificial Idiot

[Executor]

Does anyone know exactly how the battle mechanics work, how the AI determines which battlefield spells to choose? I was under the impression that the most powerful spells researched were used, but that theory fell in water just now.

I had a rather big battle as MA Ermor, which involved 16 communion slaves and at least that much communion masters.
After the initial scripting the AI chose to cast only banishment and paralyze for some reason( enemy army mainly consisted of unfrozens, archers and a few tarts), which inevitably led to me being slapped by a far lesser army.
Now, given that the communion gave each communion master theurg a S5D5 magic base, and that I had every spell researched, I come to wonder why the AI chose to, well throw the battle?

[iRFNA]

They were bribed by the enemy.

[Numahr]

A nice feature to add would be a "preferred spell" the mage would try to cast after scripting is over. Oh well.

[Rytek]

Lots of times the AI will go with something sub-optimal. Without going in to the whole making the ai better debate the best thing to do is to script the win before the AI takes over

Now, just from the description of the fight, Banish doesnt sound like a horrible spell. 16 slaves means your masters had +4 to holy level. Spamming level 6 and 7 banish doesnt sound like too terrible a spell to cast. Thats +2 penetration with 0 fatigue and a huge area. Paralyze would also seem to be a good spell to pick if targetting the Tarts.

Saying that, I think unfrozen are the best summons in the game and are often underestimated especially in a cold dominion. Good hits, superb MR, good damage(some even come with magic weapons) If your opponent had cast just an antimagic that boosts their MR to 20 and they are gonna walk thru even serious banishment spam.

Of course the better spell the ai could have switched to instead of banish is witherbones.

Depending on what type of troops you have as blockers you can rarely go wrong with stellar cascade spammed with 32+ mages.

[Calahan]

I have a fair idea how the casting AI operates (currently working on a mod dealing with this exact issue). But I'm not going to go into the details of the matter here. Since I don't want the (guaranteed) hassle from any of the *individuals in* the community, and who think they know better based on some random game they played six months ago while watching a fast-forwarded battle replay. (so you can thank them for the reason why I, and other experienced players, no longer share detailed knowledge very often)

But I will say that friendly fire is one of the most overriding issues with regards casting AI spell choice. As in short, a useful rule to remember is that if there's any chance at all of your troops being negatively affected by a spell, then nine times out of ten the casting AI just won't cast it (and it'll often override any such spell even if scripted). Although fatigue spells seem to operate under a different rule set.

And expecting the casting AI to cast Wither Bones as LA/MA Ermor = Epic Fail
(unless you somehow have no undead units on the battlefield yourself)

[Dimaz]

Especially under darkness with non-undead mages.

[Gandalf Parker]

The AI does extensive thinking, and any more would cause more complaints than now.

If you want to see the AI going thru the process then just turn on debug with a -dd switch to your game, and view the logs. Come up with some suggestions on how you would change what you see so that we can discuss it. The offer has been out there since before Dom3 was released but very few have actually bothered to look at it.

And if you want to check out how the computer player does vanilla scripting, or purchases troops, then use the (more recently released) --comptrn switch to be able to view turn files for AI players.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Come up with some suggestions on how you would change what you see so that we can discuss it. The offer has been out there since before Dom3 was released but very few have actually bothered to look at it.

One fairly simple one: When the script runs out add a couple of additional options:

Cast defensively and cast offensively.

The former would encourage the caster to buff himself or other friendlies, the latter would pretty much exclude buffs.

[Kref]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

The AI does extensive thinking, and any more would cause more complaints than now.
...

Gandalf, why do you think so? There is a large enough list of MP games on llamaserver. MP games have heavy drawbacks vs. SP games:
player can do no more then one turn per about 3 days, and even worse - he should do so; his waiting time for turn results - three days, much more even if AI would think much longer; player don't customize game as he wants in minutes but should come to agreement with others on forum (and others should also want a game somewhere of that type and in that time); player is not sure that the challenge of the game would randomly and dramatically decrease/decrease due to someone can make a chaotic (not intended to win) warfare or leave a game. And all that for a high chance of a good intellegence of opponents. I agree that turn time may be of importance for beginners, but veterans, especially with games on large maps, generally don't like (I am quite sure) that they make turn for a few hours, and AI makes stupid decisions, also in few minutes. Processor should work for me, not I for him.

[Executor]

Hm, interesting idea regarding FF Calahan. But that seems wrong from my point of view as I had undead (longdead) chaff and the enemy had unfrozens. Both susceptible to banishment, actually mine were quite more susceptible to it.
And yes, the battle was under darkness so shouldn't have the AI used higher precision spells?
I'm still rather confused.

I'm still happy to hear any ideas regarding how the AI works as to try and prevent future AI betrayals.

I wasn't hoping for wither bones, I didn't even expect undead troops, but I can think of a dozen spells other that could have brought me victory.

Gandalf, If I had any idea about a thing what you're suggesting I'd gladly do it, however I find myself in a complete lack of programing skills and I'd rather not get involved in things I don't understand.

Rytek, paralyze is a horrible spell if you only have chaff, and yes we know how much you love unfrozens and you're glad they won