181 replies to this topic

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

In my battles, the GDI only ever produces those APCs, (Again, without troops inside), as their only vehicle, except for one or two tanks, (rarely). At one point, it produced that huge, two-legged artillery thing-um-a-jig, but it just failed to do anything meaningful before it was too late. The only infantry ever produced was Grenadiers, hardly any Rifle Squads or Missile Squads, except for at the very start of the game. If you ask me, GDI's build list seems screwy... Are you playing with 1.02 as well? If not, install it and try then. Maybe the patch is the problem.

Edited by Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th, 31 March 2007 - 03:08 AM.

[thudo]

Yes its v1.02 and I just tried a 2vs1 with the GDI AI as Hard-Rusher. I was Nod and the enemy was a Scrin Hard-Balanced. The result? Our team won this time as the GDI ally held off the assault quite well although at times the Scrin were really bothering my end. What might have helped alot is this time I avoided the closeby Tiberium field and let my GDI AI ally have it exclusively. I took the one closer to the Scrin enemy and that helped. After that it was an Avatar spam fest on my part with a Nuke up the butt here and there Oh I'm saucy!

So yeaahh the GDI AI needs more vehicles out there methinks. It really needs a mix. Still.. have to see the GDI as enemy AI.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

You should try doing what I did. Leave the fight purely between the GDI and Nod without interfering. On "Hard-Balanced" for both sides. Anyways, yeah, playing against them seems like a pretty thorough idea to try out too.

Did GDI ever build any vehicles other than APCs in your experience?

Anyways, I'm off to bed now. Just a few parting words. Thudo, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, fucking thank you. It's people like you who gives me renewed faith in people; at least the gamer-kind. I'm fairly confident you don't quite realise exactly how damn indepted a large amount of gamers like myself are to you and your peers. Again; thank you for caring enough to check it out.

Edited by Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th, 31 March 2007 - 03:27 AM.

[thudo]

If I let the Allied AI fight it out with the other enemy AI while I sit there then my ally regardless of faction side will likely lose. Why? Because the 3player map I'm on has the single enemy player (StartPoint#3) with Blue Tiberium near him thus he gets the extra income. I need to play on a map with balanced regular green Tiberium.

I even noticed that the Scrin AI ally I had would get likely get worn down by an enemy Nod player if I didn't help out.

However, last game as mentioned I was able to hold the Scrin enemy off and even build, <gasp> a superweapon before the Scrin did. The GDI Ally was able also to hold off the enemy since I gave him exclusive access to the Tiberium field to his immediate left. This likely helped majorly.

In fact, I didn't help my GDI Ally out much and as I was building 5+ Avatars he was heading up with Mammoths and lots of air power so.. He also built his superweapon a little late but at least it came out.

So right now, the reason the enemy AI is able to kick our arses is kuzz it has so much Blue Triberium around while both of us share one field close by and the other ones are in the center of the map (highly vulnerable to the enemy above).

If I find a 3player map with all green tiberium around and no blue tiberium THEN you have a case.

Btw.. thanks for the complements! As you noticed with my sig and designation, I am the AI teamlead for the amazing Dawn of Skirmish. More to come..

I REALLY want to find out how to have all AI battles. Been tinkering with the code but nothing yet. Doesn't want to work as it should. :(

[Hostile]

Give it 60-90 days my friend, for some others to find out some things. Coming soon.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

You didn't try a 4-player map, then? You have to do that. I'll do it right away and post my results.

*EDIT*

Okay. let's see what the GDI AI does in your typical match...

Firstly it produces two Rifle Squads, posting them in the nearby building(s), even if said building(s) are way too far off to actually be of any help.

From then on, it will erect the obvious buildings, and it will produce the following units incessantly: Predator Tanks, APCs, (empty ), and Grenadiers, with the occational Missile Squads. Once it's got an Airfield up and running, it'll be pumping out Orcas.

That's it. That's the only units it'll be building throughout the whole damn match. If I had never played as the GDI myself, I'd think those were the only units the GDI -faction had in the game. On one occation, they built a Juggernaut way late in the game, but it just stood there and got blasted by smithereens by the Nod whose AI, unlike GDI's, does not play as though it had a pineapple up its ass.

I've been playing all day, and I've yet to see GDI produce any Rifle Squads - which is retarded - save for the beginning of the game and maybe one or two squads at the end; no Sniper Teams, Commandos or Zone Troopers. Hey, why build the most awesome, badass infantry units of the entire fucking game when you can just endlessly pump out Grenadiers? Fuck!

On the vehicle front, I've had it producing the odd Pitbull, but for the overwhelming majority of the game it simply produces APCs who are pretty useless against anything but the lightest of armour, and since the AI never fills them with infantry, they betray their main function and are reduced to being just machineguns on wheels that are good versus infantry but that's it.

When it's not spamming largely ineffective APCs, it's relying on Predator Tanks - the only somewhat sane choice it ever makes. If you ever wanted to see the AI bring up Pitbulls and/or Mammoth Tanks, you're out of luck. So... yeah. Lovely. Thudo! We need you over here, man! Matches consisting solely of fighting empty APCs, Grenadiers and/or Predator Tanks, without a single Rifle Squad - supposedly the backbone of the GDI forces, - Sniper Teams, awesome Zone Troopers and Commandos, Mammoth Tanks, Pitbulls and so on, and getting themselves swarmed in the process. Aargh!

Edited by Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th, 31 March 2007 - 06:37 PM.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

Uhhhh... Thudo? Guys? Anyone?

[Athena]

Keep timezones in mind, as well as the fact not everyone is around the forums all the time. It's still morning where he's from.

[thudo]

Give us time guys.. RL and homelife BS factor in. If I could create a test map just to see how the AI's operate that would help but EA hasn't released a WorldBuilder for C&C3 yet.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

This is all freaking frustrating, that's all... Is this only happening to me?

Edited by Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th, 31 March 2007 - 10:19 PM.

[thudo]

D00d man relax.. I will have to reproduce it on other maps with similar conditions. On that 2vs1 map it kinda makes sense since the Scrin enemy AI above has blue tiberium to fuel his war machine.

Can you please suggest a good map for me to test on? SHould it be alliances with a GDI AI or have the GDI AI by himself? Hard-Balanced is fine?

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

Any 4-player map will do, but I'd recommend Backwater Brawl for easy reference. Ally yourself with GDI at "Hard/Balanced", and manually choose starting locations. Put your ally and your collective enemy (Nod, Hard/Balanced for easy reference), directly in front of each other. Choose your own starting position in a secluded corner. Don't build anything, just look at what the GDI player is doing, the two AIs fighting one another without interruption from you. Nothing more to it. I'd be surprised if the GDI behaviour deviates too much from what I've listed up above. Thanks!

[thudo]

err wait... you can't have 2 enemy allied AIs beating up on one AI player? Thats suicide. It has to work communally d00d. The 2 enemy Ais will own the GDI AI ally easily no matter with mass scorp rushes and such in a few minutes. You need to test on a level playing field.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

Why should there be four players in the first place? You can play with only three players on a 4-player map, you know... Yourself, your allied AI and one enemy. Place yourself in a secluded corner and let the two AIs fight it out amongst themselves.

Edited by Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th, 31 March 2007 - 11:04 PM.

[thudo]

Oh yes.. true.

Ok will test.

[Adolphus Perrywinkle the 13th]

Godspeed, my brave fellow. Godspeed.

[thudo]

Okie tested on that map as you suggested.

Played as GDI + GDI vs NOD and then another game Nod + Nod vs GDI. All AIs were Hard-Balanced.

The result?

First game with us as GDI were as you expected - the GDI player was kinda meh. I know what the problem is and why its broken:

GDI Hard-Balanced Builds a CRANE first then Power then Refinery. This is wrong. When the Nod AI was my ally he went much quicker BUT he still was meh. His troop production was garbage even though I protected his base with a massive "defensive farm" with 2 Obelisks reinforced each with 2 Bean Tanks on each Obelisk. The Nod AI ally had chances to build a big force but did not. Oh he built a Superweapon but I built mine waaayyy in advanced + 5 Avatars.

Remember, this is just with one Nod enemy AI on the side of my GDI AI ally so hence the enemy AI never attacked me at all. Kinda odd since I had nothing protecting my base. All base defenses were on his end just to see what would happen. Was kinda shocked the Nod AI Hard-Balanced still didn't attack aggressively as I thought he would.

So my recommendations are:
o Ask EA why Allied AIs seem, well, subdued in comparison to the enemy all-AI team?
o Allied AIs linked with humans never build engs to capture Tiberium Spikes at game start. Enemy AI does!
o Ensure all Power Generators are built AWAY FROM THE ENEMY as leaving them close to the front is REALLY silly.
o When AI expands his base or moves outward to other fields, ensure BASE DEFENSES go with em! Too many times I see an expansion and no base defenses! Very easy to attack.
o For Nod AI, ALWAYS BUILD Stealth Gens! Can't say enough here. Wanna way to totally screw yer opponents' intelligent gathering? Build those things to totally force him to search your base for hidden traps!
o Always build a SuperWeapon as fast as possible. This will piss off your enemies and force their hand to make sometimes irrational decisions to your advantage.

For now.. USE Hard-Rusher and others when a human is team-linked to an AI player. AI-Balanced seems weak and semi-broken. HARD-RUSHER for your AI ally works quiet well.

More testing/observations to come.

[mrchris]

I have seen my allies build engies to capture stuff on the field as well as seeing expansions with some base defenses before.

I could agree on the point that the AI should place important buildings in the rear more often as well as sending unloaded APCs over.

[thudo]

Yep...

Btw, by far the hardest of the AI personalities is now STEAMROLLER. My GDI AI ally was set to that and he absolutely owned the Nod. I just sat back @ my side and did zero. He mass-solider and zone trooped the bastard! WOW!

Nod AI still was good but could not stop such an onslaught of troops.

So to add to my recommendations:

o AI MUST ALWAYS build Tech Centers, Gens, and Superweapons BEHIND the base! Always. I saw too many times a tech center and even <gasp> Superweapon sitting on the outskirts and even half way between my base! Ouch!!!
o GDI AI should load specific troop types into APCs to use em to fire out of. APC + Rocket Solider = effective tank killer. Mixing them up with Snipers, Grenadiers, etc would be excellent!
o AI must scan region first before sending engineers to obviously threatened areas. If an area the engineer is sent to capture is clearly not safe, he should move back to main base and wait til threat clears. Threat should include enemy garrisoned buildings as well!
o AI should research upgrades from tech centers based on when that unit which would use it is built. ie. GDI builds Mammoth tank, thus, Railgun upgrade is priority.
o AI should always build base defenses along the parameter of his base and NOT inside it. Too many times I see anti-tank emplacements sitting in the center of his base. They should be bias towards the enemy on the periphery of his base!
o Nod AI should try to have Avatar upgrade its weapons using other Nod units by sacrifing them. Hope this is possible.


One thing I give credit to EA - AI smartly sells certain buildings which is excellent! However, one game the AI sold its Advanced Tech Center which was dumb as nails. Ugh!

[thudo]

Please add your thoughts to this ever-growing list! I will continue to update!

C&C3 Skirmish AI Comments and Suggestions List
==============================================

Section A
Below are offerings based on an ALLIED AI (HARD level but varying personality) on a Human team:

1] Does not preform as aggressive as on a non-human allied team - this needs to be addressed.
2] Balanced and Rusher seem to be the weakest of them all and need more aggressive tweaks added - teching seems decent but map dominance is questionable.
3] Turtle and Guerilla personalities are slightly better but fail to produce enough units early on and still do not tech up fast enough.
4] Steamroller, by far, is clearly superior to all personalities, as it masses troops like there is no tomorrow and generally wins all the time. Teching is slower.

Section B
Overall suggestions based on AI allied with a human (may differ based on AI acting without a human alliance):

1] All Power, Tech Centers, and Superweapons should always be build away from the enemy and best kept at the back of the base OR bias away from the enemy.
2] Base defenses should always be built along the parameter of his base and NOT too far inside it. Too many times I have seen, for example, anti-tank emplacements sitting in the center of his base. They should be bias towards the enemy on the periphery of his base!
3] When new expansions are created, base defenses should be built on them also bias towards the enemy.
4] Based on personality, AI should always try to build a Superweapon quickly! Turtler personality would be obvious choice. Other personalities should also try to build Superweapon quickly.
5] Give priority to sending engineers out to capture spikes or other useful buildings on the map! However, if the attempt fails, AI must scan region first before sending additional engineers to the obviously threatened areas. If an area the engineer is sent to capture is clearly not safe, he should move back to main base and wait til threat clears. Threat should include enemy garrisoned buildings as well!
6] Should research upgrades from Tech Centers based on when that unit which would use it is built. ie. GDI builds Mammoth tank, thus, Railgun upgrade is priority to be built.
7] Should not sell important buildings like Tech Centers! These are critical to keeping the AI alive and competitive.
8] Hero unit should be seen more often and use its ability as it should

Section C
Specific faction suggestions:

1] GDI AI Hard-Balanced personality is broken: it builds a Crane at game start and should be avoided. It should use the Nod Balanced personality as a template.
2] GDI AI - should load specific troop types into APCs to use em to fire out of. APC + Rocket Solider = effective tank killer. Mixing them up with Snipers, Grenadiers, etc would be excellent!
3] Nod AI - should always build Stealth Generators around his base. Same with expansions.
4] Nod AI - Avatar should try to upgrade itself with next available nearby Nod vehicle and do this randomly, if possible.

Section D
General Skirmish AI questions:

1] How to have all AI battles? Is there a way for Player1 (Human player) to be used by the AI exclusively?
2] Where in the big files are the AI xml scripts to allow us to mod the AI?