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[thudo]

Dawn Of Skirmish *DARK CRUSADE EXPANSION ONLY* V2.3 RELEASE and Acknowledgements (April 30, 2007)

Main Download Link (Fast!)
Secondary Link

Meet the Cast:
==============

Thudo (Thudmeizer)..>> Team Lead/Coder/Gfx/Bonafied Cheerleader
ArkhanTheBlack......>> Lead Coder/Scripter
LarkinVB............>> Lead Coder/Scripter/Beta Tester
Corsix..............>> Coder
Inquisitor..........>> Beta Tester
Zenoth..............>> Beta Tester
Malkor..............>> Beta Tester
Troubadour..........>> Beta Tester
ThetaOrion..........>> Beta Tester
FinalDeath..........>> Beta Tester
QuietDeath..........>> Beta Tester
JBird...............>> Beta Tester
Slash...............>> Beta Tester


Introduction
============

Prepare for a more enhanced Dawn Of War - Dark Crusade skirmish experience!

This project started after the release of Dawn Of War with the intent to bring to the global DoW community a more intense and satisfying AI opponent on the field of war. We hope you will agree that has been achieved with the understanding more is to be done in the future. Our work continues to evolve and in the coming months will make current efforts pale in comparison. However, you have to start somewhere and hot damn what a jumpstart!

Its been a slice from start to, well, continuing! We're so looking forward to enhancing the AI even further in the coming months!


A Personal Thanks
=================

At this time I would like to personally thank all the participating members of the team:

ArkhanTheBlack, LarkinVB, Excedrin, and Corsix, as well as our beta testers: Inquisitor, Malkor, Zenoth, FinalDeath, Troubadour, Slash, JBird, and QuietDeath (all who keep our work "in-perspective" and "on-track" with our ultimate goals of achieving the most competitive DoW AI opponent we can create!).

Its through your dedication, patience, and technical expertise that allowed the work to commence and prosper. Without you fellers, there'd be a pittence of work compared to the greatness this project has become. We've come a long way and do sincerely hope to continue our expert correspondance into the future of the product.

CutterShane (Original idea and implementation of the Heroes mod)

Alex Gnome (Original idea and implementation of the Camera mod)


Disclaimer
==========

This is to acknowledge that we take no personal responsibility for any hardware damage or data corruption brought forth by the use or installation of this DoW modification. As used, this modification works "as is" and has been thoroughly tested and should not cause any major problems. In the event, however, that something serious does occur, it is up to the user(s) of their computer(s) to make appropriate backups before any attempt is made to install the following DoW modification. Use at your own risk.


Whats In The Package?
====================

o Main Installation Package containing the Enhanced DoW AI scripts (contains ONLY those .ai files that our team altered)
o Dawn Of Skirmish DC V2.3 dowai.txt (what your reading)
o Doc folder containing information how to add your own faction to the AI project.


Installation
============

Piece of Cake! Run the executable and it will extract to where your <installed Dawn Of War folder> is.

Once installed, run the newly placed shortcut on your desktop "DOW Skirmish AI V2.3" or from StartMenu/Programs/"Dawn Of War Skirmish AI Mod". You will know if the modification is running when on the top-left section of the Dawn Of War Main Menu it will display: Dawn Of Skirmish V2.3.

To uninstall this modification, go back to StartMenu/Programs/"DOW Skirmish AI Mod" and choose "Remove Dawn Of Skirmish AI Mod" to remove the modification from Dawn Of War.

**NOTE**

This version of the AI mod will only work with the Dark Crusade Expansion.


What's new in Dawn of Skirmish DC AI 2.3?
=========================================

o Various balancing adjustments to DC patch 1.2
o IG bunkering and transport code now work without 'AI SCAR support' (Thanks to Relic for adding the AI functions!)
o AI SCAR support replaced by AI Donations (Don't activate if you experience lag or sync errors)
o Save game reload bug fixed (No more fatal AI errors after reloading)
o Fixed some Heroes bugs which allowed cheating or resulted in SCAR errors after a save game reload
o Improved AI vs stealth troops
o Additional AI improvements (like always)
o Added extended camera zoom modes to allow to zoom out with the mouse wheel (Optional installation feature)


Extended camera zoom modes
==========================
Optional installation feature which adds two files camera_high.lua and camera_low.lua to the Dowai_mod\Data folder.
If you dislike them you can deselect them during installation or just delete them if you already installed them.
The default view is almost the same like vanilla therefore you shouldn't notice much difference until you start
to zoom in or out. Thanks to Alex Gnome for the original discovery of the camera settings.


AI Highspeed Setting
====================
Option set in the game mode panel at the setup of a game.

People who experience heavy lag and sync problems in multiplayer should try this option.
Some AI calculations are simplified or skipped to increase performance.
But beware, the AI could be slightly weaker because of that.


Heroes Special
==============
Option set in the game mode panel at the setup of a game.
Activates the Heroes Special mod which is a rework of CutterShanes exceptional Heroes mod, that specializes
only on the unit experience system. Have a look at the Heroes Special readme file for further information.
There's also a Heroes Special modding document which describes the inclusion and modification of Heroes Special
for other mods.


AI Donation System
==================
Option set in the game mode panel at the setup of a game.

- All races donate requisition if they own more than 800

- All races demand requisition if they own less than 200

- All races donate power if they own more than 600 (Necrons: more than 1100)

- All races demand power if they own less than 200 (Necrons: less than 400)


AI Config Panel
===============

There are several options you can change for each difficulty level to adjust the AI behaviour to you liking.

1.) Dancing
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dancing is the ability to run away with ranged units if they are attacked in melee.
There are three possible settings:
a) Off => Dancing is not used at all
b) Standard => The AI is restricted to only dance with one unit at a time
c) Godlike => The AI will dance with several units at a time if necessary

2.) Attack Delay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This forces the AI to wait with an attack until a specif time has passed.
You can adjust this time in two minute steps from 0 to 20 minutes.

3.) Tech Speed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With an increased teching speed, the AI will spend its resources more on teching than on building troops.
With a decreased teching speed, the AI will spend its resources more on building troops than on teching.

4.) Teching Handicap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A handicap will slow down the teching of an AI. It will also hoard more ressources
instead of spending it immediately for units or buildings.
You can give allies an handicap or opponents. If you give allies a handicap, all
AI's allied with a human player are affected. If you give opponents a handicap, all
AI's not allied with a human player are affected. You can use this behaviour for
example to weaken AI opponents if you don't feel good enough to face them at full
strength. Or you want the exact opposite, a real challenge, and weaken your own
allies, so you have to do more yourselve.

5.) Allow alternative strategies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All AI's have 4 different strategies:

- A solid allround strategy
- A special ranged strategy
- A special melee strategy
- A vehicle fast tech strategy

If alternative strategies are activated, the AIs will choose one of those strategies at the start by
random, though the chances of each strategy are influenced by opponent and map size. If deactivated,
the AI will always choose the solid allround strategy.

6.) Early Harassing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This allows commanders and combat troops to make an attack at an extremly early state to
avoid opposing scout capturing strategic points. If successfull, this can severly cripple
the opponents ressource income and decide the game at a very early state. On the other side,
harassing can also lead to a quick sacrifice of troops, which gives the opponent an advantage.
Harassing is only possible in the first 4 minutes.

7.) Multiple Troop Production Buildings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The AI normally builds more troop production buildings if it has excess ressources. This allows
often an outproducing of the opponenr who can't replace its losses fast enough.
Bear in mind that the AI might still build more troop production because of other reasons. IG for
example need to build them to increase their squad and support caps. In this case those buildings
are normally only built a bit later. This can also hurt the balance between the races since some
of them are affected more and others less of it.

8.) Allow Relic units
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If deactivated, the AI won't build any Relic units like the Baneblade from the Imperial Guard or the Chaos
Bloodthirster.


Script Changes (from the original game to what we have today)
==============
Available upon request.


Comments?
=========
Visit us at our home base: http://forums.revora...p?showforum=478
You can also drop by the official Relicforums here: http://forums.relicnews.com/

Cheers DoWers and prepare for massive attack! :eek: :eek:

[danuker]

Woot!

Yaya, time to get rid of the stock AI and give 1.2 a real spin!

[ThetaOrion]

Thank you.

[kreative]

AI seems to have problems with Low Resource Rate enabled.
Played on Hard on several maps and playing Battle Marshes as I write this.
The AI seems to do ok at start, but then it just comes to a stall. I will upload the Battle Marshes skirmish when I'm done.

[mdcertainty]

Yeah, can´t wait to start a battle with AI mod 2.3

Thank you

Thudo (Thudmeizer)..>> Team Lead/Coder/Gfx/Bonafied Cheerleader
ArkhanTheBlack......>> Lead Coder/Scripter
LarkinVB............>> Lead Coder/Scripter/Beta Tester
Corsix..............>> Coder
Inquisitor..........>> Beta Tester
Zenoth..............>> Beta Tester
Malkor..............>> Beta Tester
Troubadour..........>> Beta Tester
ThetaOrion..........>> Beta Tester
FinalDeath..........>> Beta Tester
QuietDeath..........>> Beta Tester
JBird...............>> Beta Tester
Slash...............>> Beta Tester

Greetings

[thudo]

AI seems to have problems with Low Resource Rate enabled.
Played on Hard on several maps and playing Battle Marshes as I write this.
The AI seems to do ok at start, but then it just comes to a stall. I will upload the Battle Marshes skirmish when I'm done.

This isn't an AI bug - thats expected. I found drastically flounder if I have very low resources come in. The AI is essentially waiting for income to do anything as it builds its army.

[kreative]

Yes you are correct, going to try Harder instead since it will boost the AI eco another 20%. I like the low resource rate battles better you see.

[lololajoie]

wouhou !

you're great !

[Zemial]

Thx, a awesome mod

...but i get errors after several minutes of playing. I've used the 2.3 Ai mod together with the Annihilation 1.6 mod and the game crashed constantly (usually between the 7 and 20 minute).


Thats what the errorlog says:




DarkCrusade.exe caused an Access Violation in module WXPMod.dll at 001b:0f2495f0.
Error occurred at 5/3/2007 14:31:02.
DarkCrusade.exe, run by Zemial.
Microsoft Windows XP?.
1 processor(s), type 586.
1024 MBytes physical memory.
Read from location 00000000 caused an access violation.

MiniDump saved to file 'G:\Programme\THQ\Dawn of War - Dark Crusade\5-3-2007_14_31_02_MiniDump.dmp'

Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=001b EIP=0f2495f0 EFLGS=00210202
EBX=00000002 SS=0023 ESP=00b5f948 EBP=00b5fb3c
ECX=00000000 DS=0023 ESI=00000000 FS=003b
EDX=00000000 ES=0023 EDI=1000c150 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 01 8b 00 c3 cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc

Call Stack:
0x0F2495F0: GetDllVersion (G:\Programme\THQ\Dawn of War - Dark Crusade\WXPMod.dll)
0x10015AC3: luaopen_base (G:\Programme\THQ\Dawn of War - Dark Crusade\LuaConfig.dll)

Stack dump:
Exception encountered during stack dump.





Its just the first part of course.
Is there a way to upload the whole file?

[thudo]

Answer: We don't support the Annihiliation Mod.

If you want the Advanced AI v2.3 to work with it ask the mod team there to integrate our project with theirs. We have dox included to build your own AI. The Annihiliation Mod team can build the AI themselves if they wish.

[Dragi]

If you play a skirmish game, in my case 1vs1 (SM vs NC), and you save it - all hero points are gone when you load it again. My armee was totally legendary and now it basic.

It's in the final version too. :(

[thudo]

@Dragi.. What is NC? Necrons?
As for the HEROES saved unit XPs not being retained after reloading - I believe we're looking at a Relic bug more than a Cuttershane one. Arkhan could better comment.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

If you play a skirmish game, in my case 1vs1 (SM vs NC), and you save it - all hero points are gone when you load it again.

Sorry, but I fear you have to live with that problem. SCAR data isn't saved by the Relic engine, therefore all stored XP and rank information is lost after a reload.

[Misantti]

Played last night couple of games with my friends and it was a lot of fun. AI gives tough challenge but not impossible so it's fun to play against it. No sync errors, just the ordinary lag which is due to Relics crappy netcode.

Thanks for the mod. We like it and a lot.

[LarkinVB]

Not sure wether the AI donation is still working ? Had a battle with orks hording power (1500+) but their necron allies stayed low. I tried to watch wether they received sudden power income from orks but it never happened.

[thudo]

Hmmm.. now that you mentioned that. I haven't seen AI donating resources to other allies. I initially thought they did but now that you noticed.. hmmm..

[ThetaOrion]

And, now the wish list and the bug fix list for 2.4 starts coming together.

It takes a few days. And, it's going to take me a few weeks (or months) to figure out if there is anything AI that I want fixed or changed in 2.3 for 2.4.

I have been very pleased so far.

The 2.3 AI enemy moved out and retook territory much better on a tight map of mine than I remember the former AI Mod doing.

There are indeed a couple of balance issues, and I have been discussing some of that with Aralez for the future UC Mod. He has real life issues right now, but in a couple of weeks, wouldn't be surprised to see a UC Rebalance Mod for the 2.3 AI Mod.

[ThetaOrion]

Thud buddy!

I finally got a chance to do IG vs Necrons on the 8P Naked Symmetry perfectly balanced map.

I know that map, so it is a good test, as I know how the 2.2 UC Mod/AI Mod IG and DoWXP 3.6 IG did on that map.

With 2.3 AI Mod, I moved out like I always do, and I used all of my favorite IG tactics that always got me the win with 2.2 AI mod and DoWXP 3.6. I controlled the center, attached Commissars, had guardsmen on overwatch, did LP2, and a couple of turrets and had Hellhound spewing fire and Chimera and upgraded turrets and bunkering and even took the fight into Necron territory and started capturing their listening posts -- all of that, and I still lost and lost big to the march of death. Once the Necrons got together and came marching, there was nothing I could do to stop them. Even the Tau came over and tried to help, and they were of some help, as they could at least fight the Necrons. But, soon I had nothing. My base was soon gone, whereas everything else was still on the map and functional.

I would have done better and lasted longer if I would have built my base inside the Tau base, as there wasn't anything at all IG that could stand against the Necron Warriors. It was over rather quickly.

You were right, 2.3 AI Mod IG are not like the previous batch of IG that had some rebalance applied to them. And, I still can't see how Relic could ever expect to balance this thing properly for skirmish mode with the broken DC AI that they keep putting out.

Anyway, I do see the need for some rebalance work where the 2.3 AI Mod IG are concerned. And, in a few weeks when Aralez gets done with what he has going on, I think we have pretty much agreed that the IG is where he will start first when it comes to the UC Rebalance Mod. Rebalance is really the only way to go to get it to the way I like it, especially for the 1.2 IG. At least now we have a real AI, so that the broken plain vanilla DC AI isn't feeding into the illusion of imbalance as well while playing skirmish mode.

[thudo]

FYI to all..

I know Larkin mentioned after 2.30 was launched that AI Donations doesn't seem to be functioning. Indeed it does not seem that way so I've asked Arkhan to take a look. I've been trying to get it working apart from using Larkin's old Donation code but its still not working using the newer code. Also, the Control Panel has problems with keeping the settings for toggling Relic Units when enabling AI Donations. Some things need to just be looked at.

Otherwise.. AI is rocking all around... its been an absolutely smash hit!!

[mdcertainty]

Otherwise.. AI is rocking all around... its been an absolutely smash hit!!

Oh yessss, thats true . I had nine battles 2 vs 2 (hard). Ai buddy with chaos, myself chaos against 2 tau armies.


Man that were sharp fights, i was able to win only 5 of them . Tau´s are tough. I´m just wondering why
my chaos ai teammate puts out some rhinos and don´t use them, exept the tau for target practice .

Anyway AI 2.3 is awesome.