For those who have tried XAI 2.20

[strife1013]

I like playing as the Templars so the game is pretty hard from the get go with Egypt buliding a million and one units to attack you with unlimited amounts of money. The money thing is kinda annoying, every faction I "talk" to under wealth it says limitless or unboundless or something like that which means everyone can build a million units, while I'm limited. Anyways.... what do you guys think for XAI 2.20 for AI? Pros and Cons would be nice, thinking of using it, not sure though.

[Stinkfloyd]

You can turn off the money scripts that assist if an AI faction goes bankrupt and the one that adds to their Kings Purse based on the difficulty level. You will get a much more balanced game. With XAI the non player factions tend to use their money more wisely and therefore have a huge monetary advantage.

[guck]

how do you turn off the scripts?

[BigJake]

1. Go to your imperial campaign folder and open the campaign_script.txt file.
2. press ctrl+F and type "MONEY SCRIPT".
3. delete everything under that heading until you get to the "FALL OF SETTLEMENTS" heading

if you want this done to the late campaign as well then go into the "custom" folder instead of the "imperial_campaign" folder.

[nickman777]

instead of turning off money script, try playing on hard or even medium, as the script generally decreases its money anyhow..

[Hounf of Culan]

If you really find yourself out financed by the AI, then there is a handy solution. Simply press the key to the left of your "number one key" and then type in "add_money 40000". Repeat as necessary until you feel sufficently wealthy. Think of it as a money script for the player.

[Chim]

Dude, that totally destroys the fun of the game..

[mailor]

Xeryx announced a hundred times, that money scripts will throw the game totally out of balance when using his AI. So when you use XAI, you'll have to get rid of the money scripts. BigJake showed a way how to do it.

[xeryx]

Actually what I said, was they can unbalance the game. It depends on the amount and circumstances for which they run. The goal of course is to get the game as balanced as possible, before these things are added. This, is why I remove them, for a baseline.
The XAI does of course use it's money better, but no matter what. The human can do things the AI can't.

Of course we will Never be able to achieve a total balance, I am just trying to get it as close as possible.

Now, that the campaign battles and AI are working as they should. It is time to try and manipulate the production for the AI. Maybe we might even be able to coax the AI into keeping more units in the cities.

I hope you do enjoy, it's at least worth a try!

[satthukaraoke]

The AI handles its finance fine in the beginning. But later in the game they will just go bankrupt. I'm playing with what is on the XAI's SS5.1 plug and play install so I don't know if the script is active or not.

[xeryx]

Actually the scripts are running on the PNP version, because that is a seperate file, that has not been changed. I leave that up to you. If it is going Bankrupt, it is probably producing too many troops with all that extra money. It's something that will take time to balance. That's why I am trying to make a better Settlement file, but ultimately it will probably take an all around balance approach. This would include units costs, free maintenance, and possibly even the use of money scripts.

[King Kong]

Well, I can't really believe that the money script could unbalance the XAI.
In my opinion, the AI must get some additional money, because of several reasons:
- They don't get missions to earn money
- They can never establish such a good economy as the human player
- I think they don't sack cities and exterminate populations as the human probably does
- Even with the best AI the AI needs some help to make a good challenge and I think that's what most people want

Also, I can hardly believe that the AI can go really bankrupt since they will get much money per script if their treasury is less than 0.
However, maybe I will tone down the scripts a bit, the better the XAI or other AIs become...

[Stinkfloyd]

The money scripts do unbalance the XAI. XAI produces a lot more troops than the player with the scripts on. With them off or lowered it is more balanced.

[xeryx]

Well, I can't really believe that the money script could unbalance the XAI.
In my opinion, the AI must get some additional money, because of several reasons:
- They don't get missions to earn money
- They can never establish such a good economy as the human player
- I think they don't sack cities and exterminate populations as the human probably does
- Even with the best AI the AI needs some help to make a good challenge and I think that's what most people want

Also, I can hardly believe that the AI can go really bankrupt since they will get much money per script if their treasury is less than 0.
However, maybe I will tone down the scripts a bit, the better the XAI or other AIs become...

KK, Yes, challenge is important and I don't believe any AI can compensate for all the "issues" the hard-code has. All we can do is get a good baseline in performance, hopefully as good as possible. This would include all components of what-ever mod, we are talking about. Once we have a solid Baseline or Core then we can improve the players challenge.

I don't mind these add-ons or scripts, as long as we have a respectable AI first. Because KK is correct, the player still receives many advantages the AI cannot get. Changing settlements is one, changing you capitol is another. So, we will have to give the AI some small advantages, but hopefully we can keep this to a minimum.

Everyday we keep learning new stuff, and at least we can do more with this engine than we could in Rome Total War?! The progress is there, it is just slow.

X

[satthukaraoke]

First: hum xeryx, are you saying I actually have the money script running? If yes then I kinda worry, since for what it's worth the AI does not even have enough money.

Second: here is I think why the AI run into problem in late game:

- As player we usually has two seperate phases, the attack and the defense phase. Example like in the beginning we only have enough to support one army, then we probably go on offense to grab one or two settlement, then we disperse the army and switch to defense and start building up our econ. Then after we can support a second stack of army we go on the offense again.

- The AI does not do this, one thing XAI does is it makes the AI very agressive on the order of TOTAL WAR. Now the AI can get away with this in the beginning since they don't have big army, settlement upgrade is also cheap as well as keep cost. But in late game, this will just blow their econ. Since they keep expanding and building more troop and end up having nothing left to build.


Here are a few thought I have, I'm not sure how feasible they are though since I don't know the work:

With the Money Script on:Change the AI behavior accordingly to the money they have. Example:

+ Don't build more troops if it has less than 15000.
+ Don't agressively go to war if its econ is not at least modest.

This solve a few things, mainly by shrinking the AI army down if it is out of proportion. If the AI has a lot of army more than it can support, then this will shrink down its army to a size it can reasonably support. This also force the AI to use some of its money to develop settlement instead of throwing everything it has into troop recruiting.



Without the Money Script: the idea of having no unkeep for the AI is actually a good idea. This can be counter balance with a suitable unit pools, this allow the AI to both develope their settlement since they don't have to worry about unkeep, at the same time a limited unit pool will make sure they can not have an army that will throw the player off balance.

[satthukaraoke]

Well, I can't really believe that the money script could unbalance the XAI.
In my opinion, the AI must get some additional money, because of several reasons:
- They don't get missions to earn money
- They can never establish such a good economy as the human player
[b]- I think they don't sack cities and exterminate populations as the human probably does[/b[
- Even with the best AI the AI needs some help to make a good challenge and I think that's what most people want

Well, I can confirm they do sack and exterminate. They just sack Nicosia like 1 minutes ago, I even got the message saying my beloved castle was sacked. And I do remember smoke coming out of the settlement sometime once the Ai captured it.

[xeryx]

There are two things that affect this, the level of difficulty. Also the Production AI's. When you say late game, how many turns are you talking? Otherwise there are only limited things we can do.

Basically, you are saying that the aggressive AI is going broke because of unit maintenance?

[satthukaraoke]

There are two things that affect this, the level of difficulty. Also the Production AI's. When you say late game, how many turns are you talking? Otherwise there are only limited things we can do.

Basically, you are saying that the aggressive AI is going broke because of unit maintenance?

Uhm ... I reported it in your other thread. It's at the end, maybe you overlooked it because you was focusing on the Pope?

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...133786&page=11

Like I said, at 180ish turns. The AI did well enough econ wise on the first 50 turns, but after that they will just bankrupt

[xeryx]

I was listening, I just haven't got that far yet. We have a couple of options we can do.

1) Increase free maintenance in the cities and Castles( of course this will only help garrisoned units, the question is. Can the AI take advantage of this? From past experience, no) But here we go modding another file. EDU
2) increase the money made overall, in the settlement file.
3) Do what Naimad has done in his mod, and decrease the maintenance cost of units in the EDU, maybe cut them in half?
4) lastly A script for the AI only. I have no experience at this.
5) If needed we can make the AI less aggressive and more peaceful, by increasing the occurrences of wanting peace.
6) evaluate the production AI's for each faction, to see what works the best.

Just so you know this is a ton of work, and testing, which I am willing to do. I will just need help.

[satthukaraoke]

If you need tester who can test long game then count me in, as you can see I play a lot. (I got to where I am pratically in one day). I'm done with college this week, so I have about 5 weeks of pure gaming after this.