[Obsolete AI Testing] Updated Pathfinding, Campaign AI and Battle AI

[z3n]

YesYes I quite dislike descr strat there's a rule about the father being 16 years older than child and same with the mother if you didn't know, which complicates it a bit


BTW came up with a promising idea allypup, but it may have other effects. How close were you to the city and also what was the garrison?

Reason I ask it seems like they were trying to lift a perceived siege. But if its really an attack for no reason (and its not that you didn't confuse the CAI) then I'll try and implement my idea.

[Seleukos_I.]

The file isn't save game compatible unfortunately. But it's descr_campaign_db (not the ai) db. Then look for <age_of_manhood uint = "12"/> and change to 16.

Thanks. It's not a big problem anyway.

As in they don't have traits, and thus the game doesn't know what to do with them?

It seems my notion that they are treated as women is incorrect, the characters simply use the picture of the not-of-age-girls most of the time when viewing them in the family tree. Although it sometimes changes randomly.
Apart from that they don't seem to exist at all in the game since they are also never offered for marriage.
But as mentioned above that really is just a minor bug.

[malato]

silly question:
if AI gets too smart, wouldn't world be ruled by arke selukeia??

[z3n]

Yeah that is true so I tried to make factions (who were historically at war with them) invade their areas top keep them occupied. For the next version I'm going to try to make it less likely they get alliances and maybe slightly more likely they get vassals, still discussing where we want to go with the team.

[malato]

oh let's maimer Seleucids!!!!1!


not sure this is the right place to ask, but
i was playing with as bosphor, after i took some cities sauromaties declared war to me.. after some struggle another people took their last city:now they've conquered Olbia, i've managed to siege it, but when i get the town pc seems t get stuck: hourglass keeps rotating for morethan five minutes before i get too much pissed.. any clue what's going on?

[z3n]

try clicking when the hourglass is spinning after 3-5 seconds maybe thats what solved it for me now that I recall. I didnt realize at the time there was any actual problem (thought it was just my computer). I think in other mods it would just crash at that point since it's a well known bug after sieges that sometimes theres inexplicable crashes to do with the speed of the calculations done by the CPU/exe.

[malato]

alas it's no use...

oh well i guess i won't feel the lack of roaring sauromaties at the gates

[z3n]

after testing and tweaks it looks like eb2 will get improved animation matching and soldier recognition which was partly unused by ca probably in preparation for empire tw. Mass is also affected making what happens on flanks important. Also battle lines more solid.

We're all still busy with things and if you guys haven't checked eb2s twitter feed yet I suggest you do so, some nice visuals. There's more in the works

[Dago Red]

I had to bail on this between Pillars of Eternity and these new revelations not being compatible with the most complete version of the mod (inextricable from bogias collection). When things calm down and there's less work involved getting an operational, conflict free version running, I'll be extremely happy.

One thing i forgot to mention previously regarding AI behavior, in case no one else has: the issue of large factions not defending key cities can easily be overcome by a garrison script, rather than having parameters that dictate minimum amounts of units necessary for keeping the peace (i think 3 units were mentioned). That's a lot of money, having to maintain at least 3 units in every city if you're a huge faction, without plentiful town militia type low cost units (there are few, if any, for most factions). The garrison script works wonders in Broken Crescent, ensuring you will encounter at least a half stack upon sacking cities like Constantinople or Baghdad.

You can also hand pick the units so that there are a pair of Varangian guards in Constantinople, elite Ghulams and siege infantry with naptha bombs in Baghdad, a selection of Templars, Hospitallars, and secular Outremer knights and men-at-arms in Jerusalem, etc, etc. Historically accurate elite units present in the garrisons, versus the possibility of encountering 3 slingers, makes all the difference.

[z3n]

Well there's a reason it's called official testing not EBII 2.1 or something similar, and yeah we're exploring possibilities with the campaign script and since bogia himself is on the team in the first place the submod will have some of those things in the main release.

I'm exploring the possibilities/inner workings of mtw2's xml files at the moment, and really I'd make it compatible if I had the time but I simply don't between real life and my own interests in helping the mod progress past the original eb release which the submod was for.

[QuintusSertorius]

New, updated EDU available in my thread.

A possible counterpoint to the smarter, more aggressive AI here is the removal of a recruitment pool boost the Hellenistic factions get in the export_descr_buildings.txt of 2.01. One of the things the team is experimenting with right now is removing this boost, alongside toning down the money script. I'd be interested in seeing what people's experiences of a campaign are, when the AI has less troops to draw upon (ie the same amount as the human player does).

If people want to try it with z3n's CAI changes, download this: Attachment 324616. As usual, this is not savegame compatible. It won't conflict with anything in z3n's pack, though it's probably not compatible with b0Gia's submod.

[Sint]

garrison script

I'm not really a fan of the garrison script espcially if it is only for the AI ,at least if it as massive as in Roma Surrectum.That just results in defeating your enemy in the field becoming pointless.
From my experinece smaller or medium sized garrsion stacks for everyone just result in them either being worthless or they result in the player not having to worry about his defense ,since the Ai just can't win a siege anymore .

that's a lot of money, having to maintain at least 3 units in every city if you're a huge faction,

Well it should cost a lot do pacify and protect a large empire shouldn't it?Just think about the romans do you think they wanted to pay for the Limes Germanicus? Or the chinese dynasties with their ,albeit in practice mostly useless, walls.

[Dago Red]

I'm not really a fan of the garrison script espcially if it is only for the AI ,at least if it as massive as in Roma Surrectum.That just results in defeating your enemy in the field becoming pointless.

Never played Roma Surrectum, but it works well in BC. If the AI could garrison its capitol and other key cities we wouldn't have this issue, but it largely can't (barring city-state factions which have 4 stacks defending their one city). The script is only for certain cities so defeating a major army in a pitched battle is still the most important factor. It just ensures that when you get to the walls of "insert important city," someone's actually there. And moreover a historically believable garrison of the developers choosing -- say some Sacred Band in Carthage versus just 3 Libyan skirmishers.

Well it should cost a lot do pacify and protect a large empire shouldn't it?Just think about the romans do you think they wanted to pay for the Limes Germanicus? Or the chinese dynasties with their ,albeit in practice mostly useless, walls.

Agreed, but as it is now the player economy is impossible to maintain. Adding garrison minimums across the board would make that harder -- some tiny settlements simply don't need much of a garrison -- while I don't forsee this doing anything positive for the AI. 3 units won't make any difference when you move to sack Pella, and you'll have either a tedious siege to get rid of 3 units at no risk, or a lame auto-resolve that robs the player of the dramatic climax to taking an enemy capitol. But a garrison script which raises a Heteroi, Hypaspitai, Peltastai Makedones, some phalangatai and a few psiloi/levy representing armed citizens will make it more of a battle to remember, and add the possibility that you will lose if your siege is not properly provisioned.

[Bernardius]

Great things are going on here! Hail to the Masters of Modding!!!

[Thuycidides]

This update breaks the KH reforms. The congress won't build no matter how many turns you wait.

[z3n]

Hmm, I didn't touch the campaign script yet so I doubt it's anything to do with me. Probably just something that needs to be looked into

[Thuycidides]

It happened before when I used these files, so I did a clean install of 2.01, and it's the same result. Reform and congress works fine without the files.

[z3n]

Well I checked for you and yes KH politics reform is still in the campaign script, so it's probably nothing to do with me

[Seleukos_I.]

It happened before when I used these files, so I did a clean install of 2.01, and it's the same result. Reform and congress works fine without the files.

On a probably unrelated note, colonization does not work for me anymore as Seleukids. While I was playing a regular campaign, no colonists were available even 30 turns after I took Pergamon.
So I launched a new campaign, took Pergamon on the second turn, clicked for the next turn and suddenly I had unlimited colonists to my disposal. I could theoretically (with the help of add_money and process_cq) upgrade/install colonies in all my cities.
After re-installing EB (and re-downloading as well) I did the same as above with the same result. That was with a clean install of EB II without any changes made. I'm wondering if my M2 is somehow corrupted or if I'm simply the first one to stumble onto this problem.

[madmatg]

Anyone else having an issue with M, "auto merge"? On the campaign screen sometimes if I hit M after a big battle some of my units will just disappear. I don't remember that happening before I installed the updates here.