13 replies to this topic

[Zenoth]

Hey guys, it's been a while huh ? Well of course you A.I Gurus are waiting for Soulstorm, I presume, and I am waiting to go back at my testing hobby. But that's another subject. I thought I'd put back some activity on this forum due to a video I recently made from one of my numerous skirmishes. So for one game I decided to record the whole thing, and at first I did not intend to edit it at all to fit it on YouTube, I wanted to keep it for me and use it as a reference to use for my own performance "analysis".

After a while though I thought "hey, why not compress some more and put it on YouTube for the sake of fun and editing a video (adding music and creating a very small presentation, something I never did with my videos). However I don't have a YouTube account on my own, so I asked one of my friend for his permission to use his account and post my videos (and comment them to, using his identity of course). The actual skirmish is nothing special at all. It's just maybe a way to advertise your guys' A.I, I thought. And, well, you guys could also tell me how much I suck (but I won !) The game's settings were: Hard, no resources sharing, heroes on, resources rate high, on a custom map (that's showing how nice your A.I can adapt to curved and elevated terrain), me as SM, allied with Eldars, Tau and IG, against two Orks and two CSM's.

The video is better viewed full-screen in my opinion, it shows up more pixelated, but in windowed mode you can barely notice the details. By the way guys, if you have questions concerning the music, let me know at which moment it plays and I'll tell you what's playing, if you're wondering about it. So here are the links, there are three parts:

1)
2)
3)

My personal thanks to Lyrand for being able to use his account for this (he won't read this but it's for the sake of giving credits where due).

Edited by Zenoth, 26 December 2007 - 08:11 AM.

[thudo]

Thank u Zenoth.. I will be inspecting that!

Btw, v2.60 is coming REAL soon. v2.70 will be for SoulStorm.

[Zenoth]

Version 2.6 ? Interesting, I wasn't aware about a new version, what are the changes ?

[thudo]

Some minor ones -- mostly end-game gathering of forces, ensuring AI Donations is forced off when multiplayer is ON, and a fix so the AI always builds the Restored Monolith Squad for the Necrons.

[Zenoth]

Some minor ones -- mostly end-game gathering of forces, ensuring AI Donations is forced off when multiplayer is ON, and a fix so the AI always builds the Restored Monolith Squad for the Necrons.

Nice I never even noticed that the Necrons wouldn't always build the RMS, that's great then.

And I can hardly wait for Soulstorm (Sisters of Battle for the win !).

[thudo]

Oh we'll be ready for SS AI quite early believe me.

[Zenoth]

Have you guys any idea about new A.I functionality in Soulstorm ? Any messages received by the developers ? Any changes in terms of how much you guys can change the A.I in SS when compared to DC (for example, limitations of the possible modifications due to hard-coded functions) ?

[thudo]

All I know is they are reluctant to make changes to the game code because they tell me if they make even the most minor of changes they find it just breaks things down the road. If they tried to revamp ThreatOnPath() gawds knows what could break? They told me to wait til after SS comes out. I tried months ago to get something from SS but they froze the code last Sept so even if I asked it was long since too late.

One thing I'll never understand is why they never export the functions like the Squiggoth's Rampage or Tau Drone's Burrow abilities? They are stupidly hardcoded extension abilities. Bahhhhhhh!

[Zenoth]

I see.

Well, I'm sure you guys will pull off something great with Soulstorm's A.I despite the limitations. See where DC is today ? It can't be equaled. And who knows ... maybe they are reluctant to make the changes you guys need because, simply put, they are jealous of your work.

[thudo]

Well we all know what can happen when they change hardcode - it can easily break things "down the line". Its NOT an exact science since programming engines DO NOT self-resolve/heal themselves down the logic tree. You'll need an AI Processor (aka. Skynet) for that which can see major/minor issues down the pipeline and auto-correct em like Word correcting your grammar in a long sentence. We can dream..

[mdcertainty]

Always cool to read some information, thanks Thudo .

[Zenoth]

I'd like to come back on this thread. Yesterday I played a little on-line, which I very rarely do, and I lost three matches out of four. The three matches I lost were all 3 Vs 3's, and the one I won was a 2 Vs 2 (all annihilation modes). So I'd appreciate it if I could receive your guys' comments on my play style from the videos I uploaded. I was playing as the Space Marines in all four matches.

I must have made mistakes, I know I did. And even though it was against the A.I I know that I still play with about the same tactics and strategies on-line. If I made obvious mistakes I'd like to be told by any of you who might be playing against humans more regularly than myself. What suggestions would you give me, what should I do in similar circumstances (team-based matches). If any of you here can take the time to watch all parts and perhaps briefly suggest something it'd be much appreciated. I'm always willing to improve my play style and, simply put, become a better player.

Thanks.

[thudo]

@Zenoth - I'm surprised you are having issues since you've been beta testing our Advanced DoW AI for a year+.

[Zenoth]

@Zenoth - I'm surprised you are having issues since you've been beta testing our Advanced DoW AI for a year+.

And testing automatically means that I should be a master? I wish it'd work like that!

I don't play much since quite a long time, only occasionally, so I lost most of my virtual dexterity and speed of action. I sure was better back then during the testing days. I still win 9 out of 10 games I play against the Hard A.I, but against humans no amount of A.I testing will ever do justice...