AI Sight Bonus Mod

[Maximilian I]

Author: Grneyeddvl
Artwork: Maximilian I

Description:Since Fog of War cannot be disabled for the AI factions I wrote a new script to give them a little edge. This script gives new trait called AISightBonus, +5 LineOfSight, to every character controlled by the AI at the start of the game with the exception of slaves. The characters receive the bonus on the first turn, the player does not receive this bonus.

The script does not run if you play the following factions:
Mongols
Timurids
Slaves

Future version might feature trigger which gives the bonus to any agent the AI creates at any time in the game.



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Feedback From the Autor:

As for testing, I played as every faction and sent my spies around to make sure the AI was getting the bonus, they are. The AI also seems to move around a bit more but I only played for 15 turns or so. When I was playing as Egypt, the Byzantines had already made it to Antioch by the 5th turn and besieged it. Normally that one stays a slave city until the first crusade.

[Garnier]

I am using this trigger I made:

;------------------------------------------
Trigger aisightbonus1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition not FactionIsLocal

Affects AISightBonus +1 Chance 100

So at the end of every turn, all characters that don't belong to the player get it.

[GrnEyedDvl]

I was thinking of doing something like that as well in a future version, but first I wanted to combine the AISightBonus with something like the AI mod and see if it really needs the sight bonus after getting well established. I may end up redicung the chances of a character getting it depending on how well the faction is doing.

How is your game going using the sight bonus and do you have any other mods installed?

[Garnier]

I have LTC2.3, BBB 2.0, Garnier's LTC addon 1.3(wip) and many other changes of my own. I also made a trait for all AI generals that gives a ton of bonuses, just to make things harder. With my houserules and all my game-hardening modifications, I am probably going to lose my current (scottish) campaign.

oh and btw maximillian, autor should be spelled author

[Mike13531]

nice mod, but on certain good mods, AI are already hard enough, so i don't see the point of this

[GrnEyedDvl]

Well Mike I was just responding to people wanting FoW disabled for the AI when I made this, I assumed most of them were playing vanilla. It wasnt until after I finished it that I thought about combining it with other mods such as the Ultimate AI.

As for the AI being hard enough, not until we have true AI that can really react to a situation not just select from a set of scripted options. The way most games, including the Total War series, make the AI harder to beat is by giving them bonuses that the player cant have. Like this one.

[GrandViZ]

I'll definitely try this with Ultimate AI and give my feedback.

[hammi]

What a marvelous idea !

AI needs help to get the playing field even, and this is very nice way to give it as it doesn't feel like blatant cheat like the money scripts.

Hopefully we'll see this (or modification of it) in UAI 1.6

[Garnier]

I also made this trait, for all AI generals, so now they are a lot stronger, and harder to kill, both with assassins and in battle.

I don't think this would fit well with Ultimate "AI" though, cause its more like an Ultimate Cheat..

;------------------------------------------
Trait AIGeneralBonus
Characters all

Level General_Bonus
Description General_Bonus_desc
EffectsDescription General_Bonus_effects_desc
Threshold 1

Effect Command 2
Effect Piety 2
Effect LocalPopularity 2
Effect MovementPoints 4
Effect TroopMorale 5
Effect PersonalSecurity 2
Effect HitPoints 2
Effect Authority 1
Effect Fertility 4
Effect SiegeAttack 4
Effect SiegeEngineering 40


;------------------------------------------
Trigger aigeneralbonus1
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition not FactionIsLocal

Affects AIGeneralBonus 1 Chance 100

[Mike13531]

oh ya!! you know what, this might fix the "mongol guys confused" thing, usually mongolia army just randomly waste turns for 20 years.. line sight might help them i think
but try not to give AI spy and assassins substefuge in the process.. x_x

[Vorge]

If you marry a princess of yours to one of their generals do you get the site bonus?

[Garnier]

If you marry a princess of yours to one of their generals do you get the site bonus?

good point. I assume you do, as it is just a trait. But ah well, I do it so rarely I don't mind.

[GrnEyedDvl]

If you marry a princess of yours to one of their generals do you get the site bonus?

Yes you do, which is one reason I limited it to the starting characters as opposed to having every AI unit get them when created. I suppose I could create a trigger that removes the trait when a character comes under control by the local players faction. I will have to think about that one.

Regarding the Mongols I havent tested that but thats the reason I added it to both the Mongols and Timurids. I think you could also help them out by adding the horde_target attribute to regions in descr_regions, but I havent tried that either. I have been looking into that one for other reasons as well, such as letting the AI factions horde instead of die when you take their last city. On that one I think I know how to make it happen, but at the same time you dont want an endless game. Maybe set a counter so they only have that option once or twice or whatever..

The reason I didnt give it to the slave faction is because I want the AI factions to have an advantage over the slave faction so they spread out faster and get bigger empires.

I must say the response to this one was bigger than I thought it would be. Originally this was intended to be used on a vanilla game but now that people are talking about it I can see other possibilities. Keep throwing them out there.

[Garnier]

I'll just not marry other generals. It would make things easier.

[Mike13531]

no it really doesnt matter, i mean how many agents and generals are you going to bribe anyways... i mean, most of them, are not even worthy

[GrnEyedDvl]

GrandViz I was wondering if you had tested this with Ultimate AI yet?

[GrandViZ]

GrandViz I was wondering if you had tested this with Ultimate AI yet?

On schedule for this sunday. I'll give you feedback, promised!

[GrnEyedDvl]

Cool thanks.

[GrandViZ]

OK, I have added the AI sight bonus trait to the UAI campaign. In contrast to your version, I have not modified the campaign_script.txt, but included a trigger to the export_descr_character_traits.txt, that will give the bonus to every AI general (also those that are created later in the campaign).

;------------------------------------------
Trigger give_ai_sight_bonus
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition IsGeneral
and not FactionIsLocal
and not Trait AISightBonus > 0

Affects AISightBonus 1 Chance 100

IMO this is the better way to implement bonuses to the AI.

In my tests I could not verify for sure (it seemed to do), if the AI benefits from the additional sightline, but I think it is a great addition to the UAI. I will include it along with several other AI bonuses to the next release version.

Regards
GrandViZ

[GrnEyedDvl]

Cool. Giving it to all the generals is probably a pretty good way to go instead of all the characters, though the AI may still benefit from other characters having it early in the game, especially spies. Eventually there will be some other changes to this to remove the trait when a character comes under player control through marriages or stuff like that.

I would be interested to know how it goes in a long campaign.

Thanks GV.