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v1.65b4 ready for your considerations


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#1 thudo

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 06:33 AM

Available to coders and the testers.. its now UP and tested.

Coders.. please use this build for any future changes.

Arkhan did not provide a list of changes but from what I saw they were massive! EASY and STANDARD skills are tweaked (EASY moreso).

Looking forward to your battle reports! ^_^

Once more, MEGA THANKS to Arkhan and Larkin for their involvement and work in this build. WoW! ;)

Edited by thudo, 23 January 2006 - 06:33 AM.

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#2 Zenoth

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 10:54 AM

Ok, this small report isn't my final one that's for sure, and, according to what I just experienced, I might well do more than one. Thought this may just be jumping onto conclusions too fast. Well, I do hope so.

After I saw the new version was up for testing, I told myself "hey, why not try it right now in a map I like to play just for fun, and if there's something obvious let's report it".

On the Hard difficulty setting (I wanted to test Easy and Normal later), I played in Black Fortress. The number of players, eight, team-play (Eldar, Space Marines and two IGs for the "Allied", then two Orks & two Chaos as the bad guys). At the beginning of the game, I focused on the work of my allies, barely working in my own base. I didn't even want to finish the game. Not to win, nor to loose.

Everything seemed fine for some time.

Then, eventually, and soon enough, the Eldar died. Sadly ... I didn't support them. I gave them some Requisition, but too little too late. But that's not the point anyway ...

I'll try to make this short ... even though I'd take me a whole hour to write down all the things I noticed in that game.

With the previous Beta and public releases, I never had the same issues in Black Fortress. So I want to point out that what I'll describe here is the very first time I see that happening. Any maps considered.

On the "front line", the two IG factions, and me behing them.

At some point, all the enemy A.Is and even my allied A.Is refused to move on to the enemies location. They stood in the same areas ... sometimes moving back and forth within a specific radius.

The thing is ... as soon as they encountered each others (allied and enemies), the battle ensued, no problems there. They used appropriate tactics (even though I think I haven't seen jet-packs infantry actually jump, but I'll have to look at the replay again to be sure about that one), and of course tried to survive, or win. Usual stuff.

But, basically, nothing was going on at some point. Pure silence, both allied armies waiting for an enemy that surely did the same on their side.

I myself had to provoke the enemies to "attract" them. But as soon as my units died, and the fog of war kicked in again, no news of the enemies. Nothing happened.

Then ... at rare moments, some groups of enemy units eventually ventured in and around the IG bases, passing by them, only to go back-track the whole way up to their base or awaiting corresponding armies.

And ... near the end of the game, one of the Chaos faction suddenly decided to attack my main base, out of the blue. I never saw them coming. I barely had the time to react to the surprise attack. And to no surprise, my allied did not help me, nor did they actually saw the attacking groups themselves, so they stayed in their base doing nothing. Thankfully ... I did foresee such a scenario, and I had a secondary base, from which I resumed my valiant but useless military strategies.

Technically I was playing alone. Simply said.

There's also one moment I want to share in words here. I wanted to try a simple (yet efficient) group of artillery, seven of them, slowly advancing towards the ... the heretics. Only to eventually encounter what ? Nothing else than a superb Bloodthirster. Guess what he did ? No he did not actually expose his demonic rage upon my vehicles, he actually stood in the middle of them, probably wondering what the hell he was doing there. But since that big guy was in shock, he didn't move, nor even tried to use his wide wings and use the skies to get out of the humiliating situation.

Trying to stay serious.

Something's wrong somewhere guys. Probably only for Black Fortress, probably only for Hard setting, or .... something "trigered" a bug or malfunction, I'm still not sure. I'll have to test further.

One thing I do know and am sure about. Is that it was indeed Beta 4.

I saved the replay, it's a bit more than 4 MB un-compressed, and 1.2 MB compressed.

I will post it if you guys want to see that for yourself, but technically speaking, the end result was clear. I couldn't finish the game alone against two Orks and two Chaos, so I decided to end it suddenly, after a long, very long test. Pretty much all you see in that replay, especially near the end, is nothing but strange A.I behavior.

Well, I'll end this post with this.

I'll do more tests of course, 1 Vs 1's, 2 Vs 2's, free for all's, and so on.

Edited by Zenoth, 23 January 2006 - 06:51 PM.


#3 ThetaOrion

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 11:51 AM

I was routinely losing with 3IG vs 5Chaos on the Castle Assault Map with BETA 3 at the HARD setting. I as IG and my 2IG AI allies inside were eventually getting overrun.

But, the IG in DoS BETA 4 are better than the IG in BETA 3, or at least I think so.

Tonight, I went into the Castle Assault Map as 3IG vs 5Chaos AI Enemies, and FIVE HOURS later, I hadn't been overrun, and I hadn't gotten any IG troops out of the castle either.

Instead of getting over-run by the 5 Chaos Enemy AI, I held the castle. They couldn't get in, and I couldn't get out, a PURE STALEMATE, and a bit of a frustration after FIVE HOURS of playing. I just quit. It could have gone on forever.

Anyway, if it would have been BETA 3, I would have gotten over-run within an hour, but this was BETA-FOUR, and I could have held the castle indefinitely maybe for 72 hours and maybe for a week. I just couldn't get out of the castle to finish the game and neither could my IG allies. And, the Chaos AI couldn't get into the castle either to finish the game. It was a stalemate.

Stalemate isn't really good news, but the good news is that I played for FIVE hours straight and the BETA FOUR never crashed to desktop. I got the feeling that the code is STABLE for Beta Four where the IG and Chaos are concerned. ;)

The only odd BETA FOUR thing was that I never saw a single BloodThirster. Maybe if the AI would have produced 5 BloodThirsters, the Chaos AI could have broken the Stalemate and gotten into the castle, or maybe I would have gotten a long enough break in the Chaos Spam of troops and tanks to have gotten something out.

You have to get out of the castle if you ever expect to win the Castle Assault Map, and tonight I could never get out. Endless Stalemate!! That's a bit better than being over-run in an hour like what was happening to me with 1.65 BETA 3.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 23 January 2006 - 11:52 AM.


#4 ThetaOrion

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 12:38 PM

Looking at part of the Replay, the Chaos Raptors didn't fly, and none of the Chaos did any deep-striking. Saw one set of Obliterators, and then it was all tanks and Possessed Chaos Marines. None of those deep striking hell daemon dogs either. And, I never saw Blood Thirsters.

It's usually deep striking Obliterators that get the castle over-run on me, but I didn't see any of that -- not that I don't mind having the Chaos a little weaker.

I was actually really pleased with how well the IG in BETA 4 did against the Chaos Tanks. Usually, the IG just melt away under the heat.

#5 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 01:32 PM

Some comments about beta 4:

Zenoth:
To be honest I expected such weirdos. I had to make some fundamental changes to reach a real improvement and the problem with such heavy changes always is, that you have to rebalance stuff. My test games were not enough to discover all problems, therefore I'm happy about all reports about strange behaviours.
The so called allied support in beta 3 was actually a bug where the AI thought that the allied base belongs to him and tried to defend it. That's okay if you really need help, but I had a test game, where the AI sent his chaos lord because the allied base was attacked by ONE scout squad. Therefore I restricted allied support to emergency situations. But obviously I've gone a bit too far. 'Support when ally is dead' isn't the result I wanted. The good news is that this is proably easy to fix.

The bored bloodthirster and back and forth move is much more critical.

ThetaOrion:
Well, at least the IG improvement is noticeable.The fact that no BT was spawned is also a thing I have to figure out. I've an idea...but I'm not sure.


In general the AI's should be a bit more carefull, since I increased their threat detection range about possible attack points. We'll see if this results in too passive behaviour.

It might take a few days until I'm actually able to fix some of these issues. I'm straight in the middle of restructuring the code to separate the race specific AI files from the core AI files. I want that finished until I continue with the other stuff. But well, until then I've hopefully a lot of feedback. ;)

#6 Quietdeath

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 02:28 PM

a) Map Name: 4p_MountainTrail
b) # of Players: 4
c) FFA or Alliance: Alliance
d) Factions Played Against: SM(white)+SM(red) vs SM(yellow)+Orcs
e) Who Won: Team 1
f) Replay: Download here!
g) Comments:

1. Builders should be more risky:
Posted Image
As you can see on the picture the builder ran away because of the threat, but the building is near completition and he has enough hp to finish it - he died afterwards. So builders while building should only run away if the threat is too big.

2. Jump code is really perfect!:
Posted Image
Here the red SM attacked him with FC and jumped in with assault marines (coming from a LP where they attacked beforehand) and the yellow SM also jumped in to defend ;)

3. Troops are too incautious with turrets:
I often see troops who are running through the range of a turret, especially scout troops get killed by that -> It would be better if they avoid turrets.

4. I liked the new behaviour of the assault troops (Orc and SM - think with chaos it is the same). Usually in the older Betas they jumped in and ... died, but now they realized they had no chance and ran away *thumbs up*!

5. (7th minute) What are they doing there? (this lp is not near to the SMs base):
Posted Image

6. I dislike that "back-and-forth" behaviour: troops attack; after getting a bit damage they realize that they are too weak, so they go back - 30sec later they do the same again...

Edited by Quietdeath, 23 January 2006 - 02:57 PM.


#7 thudo

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 03:04 PM

At least noone seems to be complaining about how STANDARD has slightly changed. ;) EASY is now.. well.. easy which is good for newcomers.

And to answer questions:

1) AI deepstrikes including Chaos. Horrors and Oblits were everywhere. Not sure but you need to try another map as a test kuzz I tried multiple games and they were everywhere!
2) No BT.. Hmm.. I wonder if this something to do with the fact the bloodthirster_research is NOT in the buildprogram? Arkhan? Chaos is unique for this. We could spawn the research many times like we do for addons. I might just test this. Remember, NOT ALL GAMES SPAWN ubers..
3) Stalemate games.. whats wrong with em? If you can't break the AI with your forces then thats a good thing. If, however, the AI isn't taking advantage of your weakness and yer near defeat then YES that needs to be looked at.

Thanks everyone for the feedback and thanks QD for those screenshots!
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#8 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 03:56 PM

Actually, I'm 90 % sure that I know the deepstriking problem. It's exactly the same for Oblits than for BTs. If they attack, they are only allowed to spawn/deepstrike in the area of the target location of the original attack. In a map like castle assault, this target location is probably inside and not easily reached. The previous code could manage this because it moved the attack target temporary to enemies that cross the path of the attack force.
I removed this because I didn't want the attack force to be distracted from their target location. Stupidly, I've forgotten to see the consequences for deepstrikers on maps with hard to reach target points. I fear those 5 Chaos AI's had 5 BT's researched + lots of Oblits in their demon pits, but were not able to spawn them.

Well, at least it's an easy fix...

#9 Zenoth

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 07:00 PM

All right.

I've added the replay in my first post.

I'm writing from job right now (at least I could access my PC from there, good thing).

Strange to see that the jump code did work in Quietdeath's test game, while it didn't seem to in mine, or in ThetaOrion's.

Stalemate games ... I'd have nothing against them if they were temporarily stalemate. But it was a "na na na ! I'm waiting for you ! and since you're not coming, then I won't go either ! na na na !" game, for at least two hours. Up until I decided to quit, since it was simply boring.

And please, Arkhan / Larkin / Thudo, take a look at the Bloodthirster and the embarrassing situation I was talking about, if you do get the replay. You'll see for yourself.

And yes indeed, the "back and forth" behavior, that, also, seems critical. It did look like the A.I didn't know what to do, or where to go. But as soon as they saw enemies, then everything usual ensued (a battle).

Something else I forgot to mention, was that both IG factions built a stronghold in my starting location. So I guess that's good news.

I'll do a few more tests before posting my main report that should cover all of the strange / buggy behavior I could notice. If not, I'll make more than one. I'll try a 1 Vs 1 when coming back from job. I'll take a look at the jump code again, too.

Edited by Zenoth, 23 January 2006 - 07:02 PM.


#10 Quietdeath

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 08:36 PM

Something else I forgot to mention, was that both IG factions built a stronghold in my starting location. So I guess that's good news.

Yes, my teammate also build a HQ at my starting location - does it always do that or only under threat?

#11 ThetaOrion

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 10:03 PM

ThetaOrion:
Well, at least the IG improvement is noticeable.The fact that no BT was spawned is also a thing I have to figure out. I've an idea...but I'm not sure.


Yes, I noticed a difference.

I went in a second time as 3IG vs 5Chaos on the Castle Assault Map with Beta 4. Once again, it was an endless stalemate. As long as my IG are in heavy cover and the Chaos are in the negative cover before the gate, I hold forever. They can't get in, and I can't get out. However, at one point, I ran half my troops and tanks outside, and then rebuilt them. Once I was outside, then I was immediately overrun on the inside.

I mention all of this, because I did see a single BloodThirster inside once I was outside. Somebody made a BloodThirster and sent it in, now that I didn't have anything on the inside to fight it.

I also figured out why the Chaos were only fielding Defilers, Commanders, Possessed Chaos, and Chaos Predators. The Imperial Guard doesn't have a single thing that can stand up to Chaos Tanks and Possessed Chaos, unless the IG are in Heavy Cover and the Chaos are in negative cover.

Once I got half my troops outside, they were easily overrun by Defilers and Possessed Chaos, even my BaneBlade, and then I was simultaneously overrun on the inside too.

Anyway, I came to believe that even though the Chaos will field Obliterators and BloodThirsters, they don't do so unless I come out of heavy cover and put my soldiers and tanks into jeopardy. And, they probably never produce any of those Pink Hell Hound Horror Daemons things either for the same reason. The Chaos AI only produces what the IG can't touch. And the Chaos AI only mixes things up with BloodThirsters and Obliterators when I come out of heavy cover and try to counterattack with the IG.

This time, it was two hours of stalemate, until I came out of heavy cover and went outside. Once outside, my IG troops weren't able to put a dent into a single Chaos base, and soon the Chaos came after me outside after getting done overrunning one of my IG allies inside.

The whole thing probably is as it should be. The Chaos aren't afraid of the IG, so the Chaos never stops coming, so I can never get a builder outside of the castle despite dozens of attempts, and the Chaos are still probably the strongest faction in Dawn of War even in Beta 4.

It's just amazing that the IG can hold out as long as they do -- the IG can hold out forever as long as they are in heavy cover and the enemy is not. And, as usual against 3IG, the 5Chaos AI never really retreat.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 23 January 2006 - 10:30 PM.


#12 ThetaOrion

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 10:06 PM

The only unexplained thing was that in Beta 4, the Chaos Raptors didn't fly into the castle, but the Raptors all flew into the Castle in Beta 3. Maybe it's just the IG Grenades keeping one of the the Raptors on it's can or butt preventing the Raptor Jump?

That's the only change that I really couldn't explain away.

#13 ThetaOrion

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 10:21 PM

The last time I played the Black Fortress, version 1.50, I took a base, and then the AI took it back, and it went that way for hours. I kind of think a back and forth is normal on the Black Fortress. I thought it was going to be a stalemate, and the AI never really attacked my bases, only that central castle thing. That was a long time ago, though, 1.50 of the AI Skirmish Mod.

--

Now, stalemate on the Castle Assault Map is really easy to break, by teleporting or deepstriking something of yours outside the castle. But, playing as 3IG, you can't fly or teleport or deep strike anything outside, and thus you can have a permanent stalemate unless you get overrun. It's an inherent weakness with the IG. I took the challenge issued by Aralez and NFIH, and gave it a try, 3IG vs 5Chaos, but after 7 plus hours of stalemate or losing, I'm not going to play as the IG again on the Castle Assault Map. I need to be able to fly or teleport so that I can get something out of the castle. After 7+ hours against 5 Chaos, I never once got a single TechPriest outside the castle, despite dozens of attempts. I did finally see a single BloodThirster after 7 hours of play on the Castle Assault Map with Beta 4. But, none of those pink Horror Demons.

--

And, it's time for another map.

#14 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 23 January 2006 - 10:41 PM

BTW, the jump troops problematic is the same as the deepstriking problem. They are too only allowed to jump in range of the target position. If it's not in range...well, bad luck! Never though that such a little change can have such drastic consequences...

#15 ThetaOrion

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Posted 24 January 2006 - 12:22 AM

Okay, Thud keeps asking about his STANDARD setting.

Well, what better test of a STANDARD setting than a scenario that I can't win at the HARD setting.

I went in again with 3IG vs 5Chaos on the Castle Assault Map with the STANDARD setting of the 1.65 Beta 4.

I was able to hold the castle, and I was able to get a builder outside, and my AI ally eventually went outside, and after an hour and a half or so, we won.

It felt wonderfully like a STANDARD setting, to be honest. It was a challenging but winnable game.

My only complaint was that the Chaos AI enemies didn't build any BloodThirsters, and my IG AI allies didn't seem to build any BaneBlades. And I'm not sure that the IG Allies built any of the Advanced Leman Russ tanks, but I would have to look at the replay to make sure that such was the case.

This was the first time with the 1.65 Betas that I have been able to win one of my unwinnable HARD scenarios at the STANDARD setting. This STANDARD setting didn't feel like a slower producing HARD setting.

I liked it, despite the fact that I know that the rest of the community was against a softer STANDARD setting.

#16 ThetaOrion

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Posted 24 January 2006 - 07:38 AM

Okay, I looked at the replay of my win with the STANDARD setting on the Castle Assault Map with 3IG vs 5Chaos.

The IG Computer AI Ally #2 built Leman Russ Battle Tanks, a few of them, and seemed to keep building them once it started.

Computer AI Ally #1 built no Leman Russ Battle Tanks and only built Basilisks and HellHounds and Sentinels for the whole game. Interesting. One faction got the advanced tanks, and another faction didn't.

I reported not seeing any BaneBlades from my AI allies nor any BloodThirsters from the Chaos AI enemies, and looking at the game verified that to be the case. That's about the only disappointment with the STANDARD setting. I didn't see any avatars from the AI.

My AI Allies did build a Mars Pattern Command, but maybe they didn't leave enough in reserve to build a BaneBlade? Either the AI allies can't build a BaneBlade, or they aren't leaving enough in reserve to do so. And, 2 out of 5 of the Chaos each built a single Daemon Pit, which might explain why I'm not seeing any BloodThirsters from the Chaos. There's only 2 Daemon Pits on the map where there should be five. And, the Second Daemon Pit was created over halfway through the game.

I did see many of those Pink Horror Squads or Chaos Horror Hounds on the STANDARD setting, whereas, I don't remember seeing any at the HARD setting.


--
||
--


Thud Wrote:
As mentioned on the forum: STANDARD will NOT build Ubers.


As I mentioned on the forum here, I didn't know what an uber was, but now I think I know. No BaneBlades, BloodThirsters, Avatars, LandRaiders, or Squiggies in the STANDARD setting.

That's the thing that I would change or would like changed in the 1.65 Beta 4 STANDARD setting. I would like the AI allies and AI enemies to be able to build their avatars or uber units. I want them to be all they can be and build all that they can build. Other than that, I really liked the new STANDARD setting.

The Chaos AI enemies didn't build a second Stronghold either, but that's probably fine for the STANDARD setting. Still, I wouldn't mind if the AI was allowed to be all that it can be at the STANDARD setting.

--
||
--

Finally, at the HARD setting with the IG, I tried firing off EarthShaker rounds, and though it said that there was an EarthShaker launched by the little power bar going dark on the Basilisk control panel, there was absolutely no visible sign that the Earth Shaker was launched or did any damage, even though the place I was attacking was not in the Fog of War and I could see it clearly.

The EarthShaker did no damage and gave no sign of damage to the enemy whatsoever -- just heard the sound of it launching, and that was it. Duds.

It's like the IG EarthShaker is broken again. It doesn't do anything except to slow up or disable the Basilisk.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 24 January 2006 - 07:47 AM.


#17 ThetaOrion

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Posted 24 January 2006 - 08:05 AM

I don't know whether there is supposed to be any visible explosive effect from the EarthShaker round, because this was the first time that I could actually see where I was launching it. But in the past, the amount of life seemed to go down whenever the Stronghold was hit by one, while watching replays, and this time around I didn't seem to see any decrease in the life of the enemy when launching the EarthShaker. Is it supposed to have a visible explosive component?

The Basilisk EarthShaker just never seemed to work right and didn't seem to do anything, and then it seemed to do some damage with 1.41 Plain Vanilla, and now I'm wondering if it has been broken again in 1.65 Beta 4. Something for others to look at.

--
||
--

Further discussion of my 3IG vs 5Chaos Challenge:

http://forums.relicn...1&postcount=158

It contains a discussion of some of the things I really liked about Beta 4 and also some of the quirks I found. I'll just link to it instead of duplicating it here.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 24 January 2006 - 08:06 AM.


#18 Zenoth

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Posted 24 January 2006 - 09:40 AM

Ok, I've just played a game in the Standard / Normal difficulty setting.

It was a 1 Vs 1, me (Space Marines) against a Chaos faction.

The map was Doom Spiral, a 4 players map (but I disabled the two other A.Is, so it was a 1 Vs 1).

I won, but I believe I did so quite easily. A bit too easily actually. I might have played a bit too hard, or too fast. I'm not sure if Standard is "dedicated" for new players (I would presume that'd be the role of the Easy setting), but I felt I perhaps did too much in a short amount of time.

I didn't start that game to seek for a specific issue, but more to actually find new ones, if any.

Well I might have found something, which is perhaps not even a bug, but instead maybe something that was intended (Arkhan / Larkin will have to confirm), and results in what I'd describe as "less efficiency".

I technically doomed the Chaos faction within the first 15 minutes of the game, but the game itself had a duration of 31 minutes. That's because I wanted to let themselves re-build a new base after they were near defeated. So, I surround their starting location with some distance away from their Stronghold, to give them some freedom without being killed by my troops too early of course.

From that point, I focused on getting my researches done, and in a calm atmosphere, slowly progress towards having a decent army. I did that while I told myself "well they are surely re-building something by now, I'll give them some time".

Up to the moment when I decided to send cloaked Scouts in their base to see if any progress was done.

Well, nothing happened.

By watching the replay, and by selecting the Chaos faction to observe them, I noticed that they trained worker units, when they were surrounded.

Their only remaining Listening Post, their single Plasma Generator, and their Stronghold were all damaged.

Those workers started by repairing the LP completely. That's all right.

Then they went for the Stronghold, and repaired it to some extent. And in the middle of the repairing process, they changed structure and went for the Plasma Generator, which they also completely repaired.

When they were done with the PG, then went again for the Stronghold ... but that's where I noticed something that bugged me. They repaired only half of it, then remained idle, moving back and forth within a very short radius between the PG and the LP. All that as I said while the Stronghold was in obvious need of repairs.

Not only that, but something else as well. Is that those workers, even with more than enough resources, and no enemies in immediate range, did not re-build any critical structures. They didn't even built a second PG.

Well ... other than that, nothing quite obvious.

Other than the last thing which was the difficulty setting itself.

It was either me ... simply too fast in my actions, or the very way the Standard difficulty is now being handled that made it so the game was way too easy. At least it was in my book. I might have played too much 1 Vs 1's in Hard lately.

I include the replay if you guys want to take a look. I believe it's worth it, just for the Chaos workers behavior.

Edited by Zenoth, 24 January 2006 - 09:40 AM.


#19 thudo

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Posted 24 January 2006 - 03:08 PM

1] I'll re-instate the Ubers units for STANDARD on the next build. No problem there.

2] STANDARD skill will force the AI to tech a little slower due to the "Techbreak = 2" flag being set to "2". Its only slightly slower. STANDARD also has 2 buildprograms available to it whereas HARD+ has 4.

3] Repair code is a work-in-progress. Hell.. both Larkin and Arkhan theoretically should have never been able to get it to work but they did. Even Relic never instituted such scripting. So Repair Building code continues to mature.

4] IG Earthshaker Round - ask Relic about that one. :p

Now.. my comments on the current build..

a) AI not as aggressive and doesn't like using attack-move as much as I remember. I've seen whole legions just walk by the enemy getting hit in the crossfire rather than engaging head on.

b) AI still has the bad distinction of letting its base get demolished as its main forces are elsewhere conquering the map - Arkhan: can we always give the utmost priority for the AI to defend its main base even if the AI is ransacking the map? I know this would temporarily stop the AI from finishing the job being interrupted having to go back and save its HQ. Maybe a setting that if its HQ itself was under direct distress that the entire AI force would then be forced to go back to destroy the invaders?!

c) AI allies still too relunctant to help fellow players out. Arkhan: under the "Support ally settings" what values are best for the ultimate assistance by the AI? Chaos is 6/4 while Eldar is 10/4 ? Does that mean Eldar is, by and large, less likely to help out?

Keep up the good feedback everyone!

Edited by thudo, 24 January 2006 - 03:10 PM.

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#20 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 24 January 2006 - 04:32 PM

a) AI not as aggressive and doesn't like using attack-move as much as I remember. I've seen whole legions just walk by the enemy getting hit in the crossfire rather than engaging head on.

I know! Beta 4 is the first build I really made some major changes in the movement behaviour. I'm therefore still in a bit of a learning and experimenting phase in this coding part. I'll finetune this behaviour in the next builds...


b) AI still has the bad distinction of letting its base get demolished as its main forces are elsewhere conquering the map - Arkhan: can we always give the utmost priority for the AI to defend its main base even if the AI is ransacking the map? I know this would temporarily stop the AI from finishing the job being interrupted having to go back and save its HQ. Maybe a setting that if its HQ itself was under direct distress that the entire AI force would then be forced to go back to destroy the invaders?!

It has code for that, but I think the reason that it's often not as reliable as it should is the threat measure range if 35. I think big bases need a higher threat measure range like 50 for example. We'll see...


c) AI allies still too relunctant to help fellow players out. Arkhan: under the "Support ally settings" what values are best for the ultimate assistance by the AI? Chaos is 6/4 while Eldar is 10/4 ? Does that mean Eldar is, by and large, less likely to help out?

Eldar are better supporters, but I think the reason for the lousy support is the min army condition I use for those checks. I think it's too low for mid/end game battles. The AI's first notice the critical situation of their ally when it's already too late.


I'm still busy at restructuring the code, therefore those changes are delayed a bit. Last night, I had a major breakthrough, where the AI worked for the first time with separated race and core AI code. I'll tell you the details by e-mail as soon as I'm sure it's working. Prepare for one thing Thud: To be sure that the core AI code is clean we need a race mod different from the ones contained in WA. I personally think steel legion would be the best candidate for that. But you've a better insight on their progress. What do you think? They'd profit a lot from it, since their mod gets compatible with our upcoming skirmish AI 1.7 revision.



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