16 replies to this topic

[thudo]

Dawn Of Skirmish *DARK CRUSADE EXPANSION + v1.2 PATCH ONLY* V2.5 RELEASE and Acknowledgements (Aug 15, 2007)

Main Download Link (Fast!)


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/Assistance with camera mod
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, Malkor, Zenoth, ThetaOrion, FinalDeath, Troubadour, Slash, JBird, QuietDeath and (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 V2.5 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 V2.5" 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 V2.5.

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 + v1.2 PATCH.


What's new in Dawn of Skirmish DC AI 2.5?
=========================================

o Improved AI speed (less lag)
o AI Highspeed option is now more than twice as fast as before to please people with low end computers (much less lag)
o Some more race optimizations
o Attack and defense behaviour improved
o Some bug fixes
o Heroes Special is now activated in campaign mode


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 DoW Community and prepare for some serious ownage!

[troubadour]

@Thud
Do you know if the IDH patch released yesterday includes the new AI mod ?

Again many thanks to the dev team and to the beta testers who did a part of my job (i was on holiday last month far away from any computer)

[thudo]

Yes except for the last minute Bigger Generator tweak. I've had zero issues with our AI developments and mods unless something VERY custom comes up but thats extremely rare.

[mdcertainty]

Excellent guys sounds as sweet as always. A great thank you for all who made 2.5 possible.

[darkczar]

Very nice. Enjoying this quite a bit, thanks.

I do need to mention that we seem to have found a bug. When using this AI in multiplayer, if we have AI donations turned on, then we get 6 to 10 minutes into a game and it dies with a sync error kicking one of the two real players off. While this does not make sense that the AI donations should have anything to do with a real player getting a sync error, it happens every time here. We turn off AI donations and hit no problems. We play with the path on, with just real players (thus no AI so no AI donations) but with AI donations flag turned on, and still no problem.

BUT if we play with AI Donations turn on in skimish mode instead of multiplayer, then no problems.

I could be wrong.
-darkczar

[thudo]

We know but we do not know how to correct it. Its kinda complicated.

[Klementh]

Congrats!!

Keep up the good work. Here is a replay that -I belive- will inspire you to improve the AI further.

http://www.zshare.ne...331733029fc200/

[RobertW7928]

yes congrats!

theres a little problem that seems hampering the IG/Eldar bunkering they don't seem to debunker's, not sure if it because of dawn of kingdoms mod, but they DON'T come out until its destroyed any fixes?

Edited by RobertW7928, 29 August 2007 - 07:56 AM.

[thudo]

## COMMUNITY ATTENTION ##

We need players who have tested the latest v2.50 Advanced AI in online/mp games with 'AI Donations' enabled and it worked right through without synch errors. You must have had the AI in an alliance with either a human or AI for a specific duration of game time (so donations would occur).

PLEASE contact us asap if your experiences with 'AI Donations' were a successful one with the above conditions satisfied. We are attempting to troubleshoot reports of 'AI Donations' de-synching the online/mp game.

Your assistence would be invaluable!

[CacoDude]

I've recently tried this mod and I must admit that I always though Dark Crusade's AI needed lots of improvment.

I didn't have time to test with all the armies but the imperial guard seem very stupid in close quarter combat.(maps like hellstorm canyon) In the insane difficulty level they were extremely easy to beat, even easier then before.

At first it looked very promising but each time their units were slightly hit they retreated, their command squad nearly reached my ranged squads but suddenly pulled back. I think they ran in order to occupy buildings but I can't tell. Anyway they didn't even fight.(the heavy weapons teams always deployed and immedietly afterward, even before they managed to shoot, packed and left)

Even when I gave them lots of time and space they didn't use it. They just seem to keep on building infantry commands. After 10 minutes they had lots of generators, 3 infantry commands, a cople of turrets, tactical command and a tier 2 base. They didn't have a single squad, and only began construction of a mechinized command when I attacked.

They should accumulate more units then building and try to reach tanks as quickly as possible. The guard is a very defensive race, it should try to defend it's position and reach the infantry upgrades and tanks, not attack at the begining of the game.

[thudo]

Err.. that sounds like corrupt AI, d00d. Play the same enemy faction on a different official map on HARD skill? Same result? Think not.

Scripting is NOT an exact science - we optimize one part of it but another might break but you must play the AI in different scenarios. When yer saying about waiting 10mins is absurd -- that totally sounds like a bad map startpoint. This happens.

[CacoDude]

Actually I found out it sometimes happens to me with that race on every map I tried, skrimish or sp. About the bad mappoint- wouldn't that affect all races, I played in that map against others and it seemed fine and tough.

They seem to retreat to the buildings after they are hit, no matter where on the map they are.

However sometimes they don't always stop advancing, they sometimes do build tanks and a mass troops. Maybe it's because those random strategies:

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

By the way, when you wrote the selected strategy is influenced on opponent did you mean influenced by your race or by the computer's race?

As for the other race's AI, I must admit you did an amazing job. Each one of them is alot smarter, the orks are finally a decent match, before hence they were the weakest race of all. Good work.

Edited by CacoDude, 05 November 2007 - 03:47 PM.

[thudo]

I think IG is also VERY inheritently weak. In fact, THEY ARE THE WORST of all 7 DC factions. Tau and Necrons are the most powerful and SM/CSM/Orks round up the center. Eldar are closer to IG but slightly better.

But yes the random strategies can cause what you experienced.

[CacoDude]

Ooo...fast reply.

Well from now on I'll learn not to play against imperial guard.

I think you should not enable the guard to Harass the enemy, even when that option is enabled, they are a very defensive army, taking the offensive only weakens them at early stages of the game.
I always thought all the armies in Dark Crusade are well balanced(except tau) and I think that with proper AI each one could be as tough as the next.

[thudo]

Hmm.. we've had our testers tell us the IG Harassment is good. I mean, how can you not like being rushed with 3xGuardsmen + 1xCS.. I find if you are not ready for it (some players) its quite frustrating. Still.. I know what you mean.. The Imperium are known for being a defensive billion+ army. Perhaps in Soulstorm (uncoming 3rd expansion) we will revisit this.

[CacoDude]

Yeah, you are probebly right.

By the way, how will the enemy react in the first 4 minutes if I turn this behavior? Maybe it's just best for me to turn it off, as I usally like 2v2 maps best.
In such small map sending small raiding parties like that is just sending troops to their fate, I'm not sure it adds much to the AI in such maps. In big maps it seems to work perfectly.

Edit:

Nope, it's better with harassment, oh well, it was fun anyway.

Edited by CacoDude, 05 November 2007 - 10:11 PM.

[thudo]

If you play with our Control Panel that comes with our mod it will work based on what you set it. Its not perfect but no other AI for any PC RTS games hs such a feature.