110 replies to this topic

[ThetaOrion]

Thudo:

When you get time and cool off, please go to this thread:

http://forums.revora...showtopic=26945

and make an official list of the Official Maps you want us to be playing so that everyone, including Excedrin and LarkinVB can see clearly listed what maps you want us playing.

I will move your list of Official Acceptable Maps up into the first message of the thread, or you can feel free to do so.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 11 February 2006 - 10:20 PM.

[thudo]

I'll have to examine why its IG only. That doesn't make any sense.

Theta: there is no official list - just use the default maps that come with the game but the best ones are 2p_FallenCity, 2p_BloodRiver, 4p_MountainTrail (my fav), and others but the best rule of thumb is:

If you see an anomaly on ONE map try to reproduce it on another. Never try one map.. try a bunch and look for similiar results. Then we'll go from there!

[Zenoth]

I'll have to examine why its IG only. That doesn't make any sense.

And it's actually what I thought as well.

Take a look a the replay, and you'll see by yourself.

[ThetaOrion]

I played Mountain Trails with my typically unwinnable scenario, HARD setting Beta 8, 2vs2.

I as Chaos with Ork AI allies, vs enemies IG AI in 3 and SM AI in position 4.

Thudo now knows that the Orks have a building problem with their HQ. The Ork AI allies tried to help, but were clearly behind all the way.

The SM came down and turned right into my base, as they usually do.

Together, the Orks and I were wiping out the IG base while the Space Marines were wiping out my Chaos base. Right on schedule.

But this time, I was building my second base up there in Position 3 north of the IG start position, the place on the map where the position 4 enemy AI refuses to go. The Space Marines will never go there, the northern most listening post in position three, and the IG start position around the edges of the map. That's the way it has always been. I started over building a second base, while the Space Marines wiped out the Orks real easy like.

Then the odds were even again, except I had to rebuild my base and power generators in the place where the Space Marines AI enemies have never gone, where I was safe in their old AI IG ally's space, while the Space Marines claimed the whole map for themselves.

Then I would build tanks and troops and take them all into SM territory going after buildings. I went through two BloodThirsters while the LandRaider reigned supreme on the map. But, I had my safe spot where I could build and not be touched, in the old IG base.

I finally finished off all the IG buildings. The Space Marines kept building Strongholds as I destroyed them, and always had a couple of Strongholds in the mix. I tried building in my old base, position one, but all of that was immediately destroyed. I tried recapturing there in position 1 as well, but lost it all or couldn't hold it.

An hour and a half into it, I had wiped out half the Space Marine Base, but they kept rebuilding, and the game was going eternal. I could have won if I had stayed with it a couple of more hours, rebuilding and doing the rush into their base every now and then and trying to retake the map. They would never come to finish me off, since I now resided in their AI ally's former base.

I was safe, and they were nearly impossible to kill.

Kind of an interesting stalemate.

--

Summary:
1) Beta 8 Orks felt weak as expected.
2) The IG were easy to kill.
3) The SM AI won't come after you on the Mountain Trails map if you build your second base in the former position of their AI ally.
4) The Space Marines rule. I'm really pleased with that SM enemy AI. Everything back to normal.
5) The Space Marines patrolled the map vigourously, particularly my starting position, and they came back to defend their base. Nice stuff. They just don't attack if you build in their AI ally's former base, and that is the way the Mountain Trails Map has always been.
6) The Ork AI allies won't touch the Space Marine base. They go for the IG instead.

The typical stuff.

Nobody would want to watch the replay -- too long. It basically played out like the Beta 7 replay of the same scenario that I submitted and nobody looked at. Better use of your time is to watch replays of these cage matches and take notes, in my opinion.

But, one thing I did like a lot. The IG AI enemy built a second Command Center and a Machine Shop in Space Marine Territory. That's the first time that I have ever seen them build a second Machine Shop in allied territory. Nice.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 12 February 2006 - 05:03 AM.

[Zenoth]

Theta, have you experienced what I did during my test I just reported in Mountain Trail ?

I.e - Imperial Guards (or another faction perhaps) gathering their whole army to the west Critical Location after trying to take control of it for a second time ?

If not, then we might have one of those "non-constant" issue, happening once in a while, but that when it does happen is extremely obvious and directly affects the results of the game.

[thudo]

Okie now I have something to report..

Malkor.. when I tried to run your .rec file I get an OutOfSynch error when it starts up - and I know why.

As coders/scripters we ALWAYS run our DoW/WA games with the -dev switch on startup. That way we can easily run other hidden functions to easily test the AI more efficiently.

I cannot gawd damn believe the -dev switch is a possible problem with AI coding resulting in major problems.

Why the hell do I get different results?

Using the -dev switch:

I played the EXACT game you did: SM in SP1 (me on Team1), IG ally in SP3 (Team1), Chaos in SP2(Team2) and Ork in SP4 (Team2). I played on HARD **BUT** no fast resources (you shouldn't as testers need to do that anyway as we're testing the AI for how it handles a standard resource flow with humans).

Result? No matter what I tried I was wiped out by the Chaos guys once the first Defiler showed up. Then it was curtains. My IG enemy was doely attacked by Orks and once I was gone was overwhelmed.

I saw none of the enemies (or my IG ally) hiding @ stratpoints or criticals. However, that game above I played I had one unfinished SM HQ hidden somewhere near an LP but the Chaos/Ork AIs would not go to it. Chaos huttled near to its own LP (not too far from the unfinished HQ) and the Orks stayed around a Relic point near its base.

So some homework..

Testers.. thrill me if you will.. Run your War40k shortcut on your desktop with the -dev switch after the exe so it looks like:

W40kWA.exe -dev

Then play as usual. Anything happen differently?

Edited by thudo, 12 February 2006 - 05:40 AM.

[ThetaOrion]

Well, I need to change my mode of testing and follow Zenoth's example -- I need to work in time to actually watch my replays instead of just playing the game.

My problem is that I have so little time, and I'm committed to beta-testing maps for a friend. The game can last an hour or two or three on some of these largest maps I'm betatesting, which takes a great deal of time, and I usually go off of memory instead of busting open more time to watch the replay. And, while beta-testing maps, you spend all your time telling the person what you don't like and what you want changed. The stuff you like is never mentioned. Habit.

The same problem with this last Beta 8 game on Mountain Trails -- approaching 2 hours of real time and an hour of gameclock time at the SLOW setting -- it was a stalemate, and nobody even me is going to want to watch the replay. It's boring, when you have to rebuild your base and cap out again and go in multiple rushed waves over and over again to win. I didn't bother to save the replay.

Now, to your question regarding Beta 8, Zenoth. While I and the Orks were wiping out the IG base, the IG were away someplace else, most likely hiding in the Space Marine's base. Just a guess here. But, they came back one at a time in a trickle after their buildings in their start position were gone. This time around I never saw Ogryn or Kasyrkin or anything useful from the IG. It's like they didn't build any troops besides the Guardsmen, and it's like they drove all of their tanks into Space Marine Territory to defend the Space Marines, who didn't need defending. Maybe the IG were pooled up someplace. I don't know. But the Map was covered with Space Marine roaches everywhere. It's like the Space Marines in Beta 7 and Beta 8 outproduce the IG and the Orks two to one. Don't know if that helps or not.

I have a really nice Beta 7 replay where I played as 2 Eldar vs 2 Chaos and cleaned them off in half an hour. Recently, I get all my wins on Mountain Trails as the Eldar. Maybe I'm just a really good Eldar player, but in Beta 7 I think my Eldar AI ally could have taken the map by themselves. But, the nice thing about the Beta 7 was that the Chaos no longer felt like the clearly dominant faction with their Chaos Spam, which they tend to be in Plain Vanilla.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 12 February 2006 - 06:18 AM.

[Zenoth]

Testers.. thrill me if you will.. Run your War40k shortcut on your desktop with the -dev switch after the exe so it looks like:

W40kWA.exe -dev

Then play as usual. Anything happen differently?

Okay ...

Now that was quite interesting.

Short answer to "Anything different ?": Hell yeah

I noticed a different A.I (from Ally and Enemies alike) behavior. The A.I with the -dev switch seems, how can I say, more or less efficient.

It looks like it responds accordingly and commits less "mistakes", such as the gathering issue I reported. I did not saw that in the new test I just did. However, it looks like the "new behavior" I see now is that it wasn't as aggressive as it is usually without the -dev switch. Especially from the enemies.

I played with the exact same settings except for Resources Rate, which I turned back to Standard.

I won the game, and my Imperial Guard ally wiped out BOTH the Orks and the Chaos base by itself. On my side, I was able to keep complete control over my immediate area around the starting location, including the Relic. I was even able to push back Chaos forces into their territory, and the Chaos were never able to actually reach my main base. And that's not all, what surprised me the most is that I was able to take control of one of the Listening Post in their territory, along with the Critical Location that's located on the East side of the map. Usually I could never, ever take control of any of those two locations more than a few second, to perhaps a minute, without the -dev switch, or in other words, under the "regular" build, which is why I come to the conclusion that it's "more of less efficient".

Looks like there's less issues, but they play quite differently, indeed. Much differently in fact. But they are less aggressive. Well ... at least they were in that map, under those settings.

Man ... now I feel weird.

How should we test now. With, or without the -dev switch ? I guess without ? Since the majority of the community won't even know about the fact that the A.I plays differently with such a subtle change.

That needs to be investigated further that's for sure.

Here's my replay ...

Edited by Zenoth, 12 February 2006 - 06:33 AM.

[ThetaOrion]

My IG enemy was doely attacked by Orks and once I was gone was overwhelmed.

That's your IG ally, right?

--

So some homework..

Testers.. thrill me if you will.. Run your War40k shortcut on your desktop with the -dev switch after the exe so it looks like:

W40kWA.exe -dev

Then play as usual. Anything happen differently?

I removed the ai mod from the WXP, and I put it in Dowai_mod folder, so that I could run Plain Vanilla or run from the Betas from the 1.6 Dawn of Skirmish icon.

Can I put the -dev switch or command line parameter into the Dawn Of Skirmish Icon and get it to work?

Wouldn't that be just the gas if the AI acts completely differently with the -dev switch active?

Or wouldn't it be wierd if we are getting different results because we are running out of different folders or off of different icons?

--

SECOND MESSAGE:

Short answer to "Anything different ?": Hell yeah

Crap!! If Thudo and Zenoth are right about the -dev thing, then no wonders Thudo hates us and Arkhan wants to pull his hair out -- were not even playing the same game.

I guess it says something about a human player in the mix and about having human players betatest the Final beta. And, here I was starting to think that humans and ordinary non-developers weren't even needed anymore.

I'm tired and have to go do something else. But, tomorrow or the day thereafter. And, I wanted to watch some replays.

Edited by ThetaOrion, 12 February 2006 - 06:43 AM.

[Zenoth]

Upon watching the replay a second time ... I retract my words about the new behavior being "less aggressive". It's actually not the opposite though, but it's ok. I was too focused on my main base and my own troops to really see how aggressive they actually were.

But something shocked me even more ...

Look at a picture I just took from the replay ...



Nothing less than a Chimera rush !

I think the last time I actually saw that myself was ... well, can't even say for sure. It's been a long time.

Thudo, do you think the -dev swtich somehow indicates to the A.I that there is no human players in the game, and actually react accordingly to the scripts ?!

Such a scenario would freak me out.

All that time we wouldn't even have tested the good way ... ? Hugh ... I'm getting a headhache right now.

Only one question comes to my mind ... how in the great heck should we have known about that ?

Edited by Zenoth, 12 February 2006 - 06:56 AM.

[thudo]

Wow... thats an interesting revelation eh? Ugh... How the f**ing hell does -dev make the AI better? Is it kuzz it uses more available functions that are NOT present in developer mode?

Btw.. I ALWAYS put my \AI folder under \<installed DoW folder>\wxp\data

That way the game ALWAYS uses it no matter what (since when running Winter Assault it will look if any new data exists in the \wxp\data folder then uses it rather than the regular AI.

So now I need Larkin, Arkhan, Excedrin to see whats up with "no dev" verses "with dev".. Doesn't make any sense.

Btw.. Malkor.. You must be smoking downers if you think the AI is "less aggressive" with -dev. I soo got my clocked cleaned by the Chaos AI it was tragic. He had a Defiler anally-r*ping me so fast I thought I was in prison! Okay.. bad joke.. Seriously.. the AI was frick'n uncompromising! This was 4p_MountainTrail as stated in the previous scenario (IG was my ally).

Anyway.. off to bed..

Update to Malkor - before going to bed.. Yep.. I've always seen rushes with the AI.. err you haven't? You mean to tell me you haven't see massing by our AI yet? That pic you sent doesn't surprise me.. it does you? If so.. f*ck me: whats going on?

And yes I have no clue why -dev vs no -dev means a darn but I do hope now we can move forward and finally figure this out. Hmmm.. I wonder if its due to the new Repository design Arkhan so incredibly built? Surely not. Its worth investigating however.

Okie.. now I'm off to la la land.. I feel better now that the testers are experiencing what we're experiencing. Gawd... Need closure on this as things are moving along..

Edited by thudo, 12 February 2006 - 06:55 AM.

[Zenoth]

Btw.. Malkor.. You must be smoking downers if you think the AI is "less aggressive" with -dev..

Erm ... Thudo, that was me, not Malkor. You sure you didn't get any ... say ... mind-altering substances ?

But seriously though, see my second reply just above your post, I retracted my words about that after watching the replay again.

Edited by Zenoth, 12 February 2006 - 06:56 AM.

[thudo]

Yess sorry.. Coke and Rum will do that to the best of us.

Read my updated reply above..

I really REALLY need to get to... <ThUnK!> <snoooreesss>

[Zenoth]

No probs mate. G'night.

We shall all speak about this new troubling fact tomorrow (erm, we're already tomorrow).

[Excedrin]

Just played a SM vs SM game vs 1.65b8.. it's good. I really enjoyed it.

Regarding the way it plays SM, against insane, I found that if I don't kill it early, it nukes me with fast vehicles. It seems like if it gets a good economy going, it's very dangerous and brings out vehicles and the doom trio.

I'll play some more mirror matches, but here's the SM mirror when I won:
http://dow.lerp.com/...0211.231252.rec

Here's Ork vs Ork insane, my strat was based on rush followed by turreting it's point, because it's pretty much the only strat I found to beat it. I think it makes too many stormboyz, but that's because unitstats.ai has a high rating for them. I think they should be rated a little lower, shootas are probably better most of the time. Note that it pointlessly loses bigmek at one point...
http://dow.lerp.com/...0212.001723.rec

Edited by Excedrin, 12 February 2006 - 08:23 AM.

[ThetaOrion]

It gives me a really strange feeling to think that -dev makes the game play differently than leaving the switch off.

It makes me feel as if we betatesters have been doing nothing but spinning our wheels and going nowhere for months. I can only imagine how it makes those who have been around here for years feel.

I got it running around in circles in my head too. I got to try to go back to that movie I was watching and try to take my mind off it.

But, I have to set this machine to processing something, or I wouldn't be here now writing again.

[Zenoth]

Well ... I have just done two other tests ...

I'm speechless.

The A.I is definitely much better with the -dev switch. It sounds so weird to me.

If only we would have been told to try that way earlier ... all the reports, suggestions and issues we found and gave ... based on now less-than-relevant facts.

Oh well, I'm getting over it right now, or I wouldn't stop talking about this for a year.

From now on I'll test with the -dev switch, unless asked not to, by the coders.

And upon the next final release, it will be very important to inform the public to play DoS A.I with the change in their .exe/shortcut parameters.

Now it's my turn to go to bed and forget about this ... mess.

Edited by Zenoth, 12 February 2006 - 09:22 AM.

[ThetaOrion]

Well, this isn't right.

The developers walking down one path and the rest of us walking down another.

It almost makes you sick to the stomach to think about the full implication of it all.

To have to play with the -dev switch in order for the thing to play correctly.

The whole world walking and talking together in complete denial and mistrust and misunderstanding.

It makes you wonder what Relic was thinking or if they are even aware.

I mean think about it, the Tau Mod, Depth of Heresy, Dawn of Skirmish -- the developers all thinking that their AI is brilliant and the rest of us playing these mods thinking that the whole industry is in a state of continous decline.

Everyone comes away from the experience feeling betrayed -- the developers, the betatesters, and even the game players. Imagine all the wasted time and miscommunication and hurt feelings.

How is Thudo going to break the news to Relic?

Edited by ThetaOrion, 12 February 2006 - 10:32 AM.

[LarkinVB]

I never recognized any difference in AI games with or without -dev.
This does not mean there is none.

[Finaldeath]

Nor me, Larkin, I am surprised and shocked you'll suggest using -dev to non-mod-creators though.

Using it breaks online compatitibility, and also allows cheating online, along with the fact it will for some people slow down the game and generate massive amount of /Logfile files.

Not a good idea, you guys, if there is an improvement with -dev, need to figure out what it is. I personally doubt it, but perhaps some AI functions only work in developer mode.