jureidinim

Hello, new here. Love the mod!

But question. With the latest version, I am receiving a virus warning with AVG Free after I download it.
The virus is...

Trojan Hourse DNSChanger.AA

Whats up with this? Is it a false positive?

Glad to see it isn't a virus - but i keep getting the message too. Even if AVG is disabled, it tells me that my hard drive is full or the file is in use (neither of which is true) so i can't download it. I'll have to check is AVG is truly disabled i guess. Anoying really - never had any issues with any of these downloads before.

I don't have the game. In fact, whether or not I'll get it hangs solely on the Skirmish -mode, and the state of its AI. The initial reports from the beta and earlier versions said the AI was about as weak as we had come to expect from Relic, (See jureidinim's post.), but apparently it got improved somewhat in later versions, including "There is Only War". I have heard simmilar stories from the Company of Heroes community, as well - later patches making the AI something you might actually want to play, apparently.

Just to update this:
The AI has been improved dramatically since it was first released. It's still has a lot of room to be better, but it's a vast improvement over the original.
Relic's support this time around for the game overall has been far better than DOW1 (espescially those dark days of soulstorm).
The entire gameplay itself has radically changed in the "There is only War" patch. It plays very differently to it's original outing.
Now that they have released the map editor and some SCAR docs they are getting more tools into the hands of the modders/fans more quickly than before - the game is still only months old, and so much has changed/improved.

Just to show how bad off we are with the current AI - from someone who apparently looked at the current AI setup for DOW2:

"-It doesn't use global abilities. My guess is these were not implemented in the version of the game the AI was made with.
-It uses unit abilities completely at random in combat.
-It does avoid targetted abilities, but it has no idea what those aiblities do, only that it should run away and it does so completely at random (literally a % chance modifier)
-It has no idea what units it can build and does so completely at random, usually sticking to the cheaper units or units in the current tier its upgraded to. It also continually tries to build engineering units now removed from the game.
-It builds upgrades and researches completely randomly.
-It caps points at random, although it does prefer vic points if losing and power points.
-It doesn't know what setup weapons are and simply attack moves with them if it has randomly built one.
-It does know how to build power generators and will prefer them more over time if not built.
-It still tries to send debug messages during an unneccesary think process (this is something coders will more likely understand).
-Lower difficulty AI has absurd pauses and delays built in. Off the top of my head I believe the easy AI does nothing except use a hero for 10 minutes... yes, 10 and delays all orders by 5 seconds. If you lose unintetionally to that maybe this is the wrong game for you
-Depending on the difficulty it does try to have a larger force when attacking and will retreat if overwhelmed although the logic behind this is basic at best. If being out microed, but still a larger force they will not retreat until aboslutely on the verge of death often dieing anyway."


Sad - really sad. No AI is perfect but I don't think this even qualifies as a valid attempt.

Thudo - you can't rest easy knowing that such horrible AI exists in the world!... heh heh...

But see what really needs to be changed to make the DoW2 Adv. AI better? Half the AI game logic for DoW1 AI was embedded in building and base logic. There is none of that in DoW2 so thats half the work load gone. Then yer left with a simplistic gameplay model. Sure we can change the fact the DoW2 AI likes to stupidly pump out vehicles in its later tiers but in the end there isn't much for us to do especially in light that this sequel is quite basic in its underlying delivery. Configurable Commanders = Warcraft3 w/o the base building and manual resource economy.

Well - you got me there

I'm not a great player so i probably couldn't break down the gameplay for AI coding.

At the very least, it would be nice if the AI could:
1) Know how to use ALL of it's units - and actually build them
2) Stop the repetitive vehicle spam (although if playing annihalate - that may be the only option to take out a base)
3) Do some counter builds based on what the enemy throws at it
4) Stay in fights a bit longer - it does have a tendendacy to retreat very early in fights. This would change depending on situation.
5) Know how/when to use different wargear and abilities. I can't recall seeing any special abilities triggered by AI (Orbital strike, Roks, Eldritch storm,terminators..etc).
6) Repair its vehicles
7) Recognize when it is playing take and hold victory and stop wasting time attacking the opponents base. Even a walker camping a VP is far more productive than trying to pound on a base in a take and hold scenario.
8) The nebulous numbers game of knowing when to capture req/power points, even decapping an opponents point to deprive him his resources.. etc.

Relic did state, after they looked at the Beta stats, that they were surprised at the amount of comp-stomp games that were played. They promised to look at the AI down the road.
This is Relic - they make great games, but looking at AI coding - i'm not sure how far "down the road" we would have to go to get this done by them.

Edit: 9) Some tweak to tyrannid AI to maximize their synapse link ability and others like tunnelling under a suppression unit.

The game is fun (and isn't that what all games should be at it's very basic level?). The SP is very engaging. MP seems to lean more to the 3V3 as more competitive players aren't too happy with the 1V1 offering.

But the game being different has attracted a new audience (with some older DOW1 crossover players like me.. heh heh).
This is a good thing for DOW1 as it is still a viable alternative gameplay experience to the 40K universe.

Bigger battles/base building - DOW1
Smaller tactical fights with multiple reconfigurable commanders - DOW2

I hope you guys would take a shot at the skirmish AI improvement in DOW2 - you all did a fantastic job with DOW1 and elevated that AI game to a whole new level.

However, if you don't like it, then i guess it would seem like painful work to do anything with it.

Hmm - didn't know about the potential ban threat on modified files. Guess it would be like navigating a minefield then to mod this game.