Perking up the AI

hEad · #1 February 16th, 2009, 11:08 AM

After playing a few SP games, I've come to the conclusion and so probably have all of you, that the AI struggles to fit the pieces of the game together. It may be possible to help it out in the bless deparment by giving some of their commanders Holy 3 enabling them to cast divine blessing.

It is not uncommon for an AI to have atrocious scales but a major investment in magic. I know the AI recruits sacred but it never seems to plan for the bless trigger. Some nations don't have H3 access apart from the prophet and it is unlikely the AI would priorities sacred to be with the prophet.

So, would it be possible to mod the nations to have H3 commanders? What sort of difference would you think it'll make to the AI's use of bless? Should all their commanders be H3? (this might overkill summons though.) Could you move divine blessing over to another magic path? maybe all level 3 magics? this would keep the balance regarding holy assaults on the dead...

Just musing on this, just a change for the AI.

Gandalf Parker · #2 February 16th, 2009, 11:35 AM

I think you have a good idea there.

There have been some extensive conversations in the past about what the AI does and doesnt do well. I have always wanted to see versions of the nations, or even completely new nations, which are to make use of the AIs abilities and work around its faults.

It seems to me ( altho Im a minimal modder) that it would be easier in some ways. The longest and most complicated discussions in a modded nations thread involves balancing it for multiplay.

Points to consider:
The AI loves to put gods to sleep. Much more so than human players do. There are some interesting tactics around that.

The AI is stupid in the early use of its god. It does well with immobile gods, and gods which are SC but almost impossible to give magic to. It does terrible trying to rainbow an SC god, or SC a rainbow chassis. Limiting it to immobiles with cheap magic, or brutes with expensive magic seems to help

Certain nations seem to choose scales which can kill them. However most nations have empty magic-site slots. Granting some specific magic sites can help alleviate the damage. Such as sites which grant cold, or heat, or food, or resources. You could even invent a site if there isnt one already that fills the bill

Gandalf Parker

hEad · #3 February 16th, 2009, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Certain nations seem to choose scales which can kill them. However most nations have empty magic-site slots. Granting some specific magic sites can help alleviate the damage. Such as sites which grant cold, or heat, or food, or resources. You could even invent a site if there isnt one already that fills the bill

Gandalf Parker

The AI just cant get it together to manage the variables... We know Neifleheim needs cold - why not give them the extra points bonus in say cheaper pretenders ( if you cant directly give one AI more points to spend than others) and penalise them like everyone else if they pick heat3 for example?

It seems there are too many things that need consideration, but we know that an effective bless is a big bump in power; if a small change could fix this aspect, then we are a little further in front.

Again, stipulating SP only changes.

Just reading up on how to mod things. I'm inherently lazy and enjoy playing other peoples work. But Dom3 is different - I seem to care more about it.

llamabeast · #4 February 16th, 2009, 01:23 PM

So, I know it's possible to set AI gods using map commands. Ballbarian's SemiRandom program will put AI gods on the map, choosing from a library of human-made gods suitable for particular races. So using that would be a huge improvement.

As for blessing, one excellent solution would be to put #onebattlespell "Divine Blessing" on all the AI's commanders. That makes them cast it before the battle starts, without needing any magic skill to do so. The only trouble is that there'd be no nice way of making a mod that was very reusable but didn't affect the player's commanders. If people were happy with the player's commanders also auto-casting divine blessing (creating a fair solution in which blessing simply didn't need to be cast any more), I could put together a mod to do that in literally a couple of minutes.

llamabeast · #5 February 16th, 2009, 01:26 PM

Actually it would be marvellous if someone actually applied SemiRandom to a couple of maps and uploaded them as SP scenarios. I believe it's a little tricky to get the hang of (although someone wrote a tutorial last week so it's eminently doable now), but I think that finished maps would get a lot of use.

I would have a go but my server and my mod projects get priority at the moment (after my... thesis!!!).

hEad · #6 February 17th, 2009, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llamabeast

So, I know it's possible to set AI gods using map commands. Ballbarian's SemiRandom program will put AI gods on the map, choosing from a library of human-made gods suitable for particular races. So using that would be a huge improvement.

As for blessing, one excellent solution would be to put #onebattlespell "Divine Blessing" on all the AI's commanders. That makes them cast it before the battle starts, without needing any magic skill to do so. The only trouble is that there'd be no nice way of making a mod that was very reusable but didn't affect the player's commanders. If people were happy with the player's commanders also auto-casting divine blessing (creating a fair solution in which blessing simply didn't need to be cast any more), I could put together a mod to do that in literally a couple of minutes.

I'm digging around now trying to see how this all works with out much success, maybe i'm looking at it all wrong..

Is there not a master list of all units where by one could add divine blessing to a select group of commanders and leave the rest alone? or does it as you describe above become a global of sorts and effect every one?

If i want to play Marverni in SP for example, could all the other nations have commanders with divine bless except for my own? If not how would this be achieved? would i have to create a completely new set of nations with this change included?

And mate, your sig is on the money - this will be my second unit completed with an average mark. This game invades my brain - i can't think about unit content and potential buffs at the same time

llamabeast · #7 February 17th, 2009, 05:25 AM

Sorry if I was confusing hEad. Yeah, you could make a mod that affected everyone but Marverni. It might just be a bit faffy.

What I was going to do was generate a mod which added #onebattlespell Divine Blessing to every unit in the game. Being as it only has effect on commanders, that would have the desired effect. You could then go through and remove those lines which affected Marverni commanders, and it would be job done. The only trouble is that you'd have to make a different variant for every nation you wanted to play in SP.

hEad · #8 February 17th, 2009, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Sorry if I was confusing hEad. Yeah, you could make a mod that affected everyone but Marverni. It might just be a bit faffy.

What I was going to do was generate a mod which added #onebattlespell Divine Blessing to every unit in the game. Being as it only has effect on commanders, that would have the desired effect. You could then go through and remove those lines which affected Marverni commanders, and it would be job done. The only trouble is that you'd have to make a different variant for every nation you wanted to play in SP.

Well, if you got the ball rolling and made the initial mod, i would go through and do the tedious admin work for all nations - if you would give me an idea of what to do!

I think it would make a hell of a difference to AI competitivess – hordes of blessed troops lurking around!

VedalkenBear · #9 February 17th, 2009, 08:49 AM

llama: Have we established whether or not non-commander units actually cast #onebattlespell? If so, then the replays would be extremely long if every unit in the game cast Divine Blessing.

I am very interested in this idea, but realize this shifts balance, especially for offensive blesses. Since #onebattlespell effects go off before the _defender's_ first turn, sacred units on the attacker's side have the benefit of their bless before the defender can attack them. This can shift the tactical advantage of combat to the attacker.

Consider Sohei with an Air Bless. This mod would greatly increase this particular use of them.

The blesses that are primarily improved by this would be any Air bless, Earth-9 bless, any Astral bless, pre-9 Nature bless, and Blood-9 bless. In a few situations, a Nature-9 bless would actually be worse under this mod.

Also, if you do this, could you add Apostacy to all nations? This would give nations with good sacred troops an even greater advantage over nations with poor sacred troops, and thus Apostacy might be a good way to counterbalance this.

hEad · #10 February 18th, 2009, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VedalkenBear

I am very interested in this idea, but realize this shifts balance, especially for offensive blesses. Since #onebattlespell effects go off before the _defender's_ first turn, sacred units on the attacker's side have the benefit of their bless before the defender can attack them. This can shift the tactical advantage of combat to the attacker.

Perhaps, but then, this is a natural advantage that any player would leverage in MP - Divine Bless is always a turn 1 cast.

Has anyone with a bit of modding nounce tried this yet?