For example, à-la Command & Conquer: Generals, where you had profiles (or "commanders") such as turtle (focusing on defenses), tech (focusing on tech'ing before attacking), offensive/rusher (barely tech'ing in exchange of early harassments)... and so on. I'm still unsure if it'd actually bring a good game-play element but I was just wondering if it'd be at all possible with the way coding currently works with the DoW engine. If I am not mistaken the A.I mod already does a similar job on its own when the game starts, right? I mean I think that when you start up a game there is already some sort of a tactical decision taken right at the beginning in terms of how this or that A.I faction will play through the whole match. For example right now (again, if I'm not mistaken) you'd start a 1 Vs 1 (pure example), and your A.I opponent, for this round, will focus on early rushing. But if you fail and restart that same match, then it might focus on tech'ing this time around and will attack later. Is that so?
If that is the case then the point of having profiles, I guess, would be to "force" the A.I to play as the player wants them to, rather than having a random factor of not knowing what you're going to be up against. I guess that the randomization itself does bring a good game-play element (unpredictability), because you need to adapt to what you're seeing. But I thought that, maybe, if the player would be given the actual power/choice to decide which type of A.I he wants to play with or against might be of an advantage especially for the beginners who try this mod. The current control panel provides some choices already but I thought that a given profile with a clear A.I play style might be a welcome addition (note, I'm saying addition indeed, I'm not saying that we have to "remove" the current status of how the A.I plays). It's just a matter of making the mod perhaps more versatile, more adapted to the general mass rather than the "already good enough" players around.
The reason why I'm bringing this is because I played the mod on-line with a friend the other day, and we played together (allied with A.Is, also against A.Is) and against each others (both of us having A.I allies again). We played on all the difficulty settings for a test, and after a while he told me that the randomization of the A.I (or so it seems there is one, I'm still not 100% certain about it even though I've been testing it often) made it "unfair" for him. I tried to explain him that you A.I gurus couldn't make everyone happy and that you guys had to make decisions. The A.I is a little unpredictable, yes, but then I myself think that it should stay like that. However, with that said, I thought that I would bring this to your attention just in case that it might be a possibility and that you guys could perhaps later study the "request" by one of your fans (he thinks the A.I is tough but he also thinks it's the best out there for DoW, it's a fun A.I, but a tough one, basically, is what he says). So giving the actual choice to the novice players to "known" what they're going to be up against might help them a little, rather than just telling the A.I to wait 'x' minutes before attacking.
Note that, as I said (and I'll repeat myself here), I myself don't really believe that A.I Profiles need to be featured at all in your Mod guys. I have a different view on the subject than my friend has, but because he's a friend and that I respect his opinion I thought I'd just drop by and show you guys his "request" (he did asked me to tell you guys about it).
That's it
