SavageAI Beta - New Campaign AI

[caralampio]

Thanks for the feedback. I am working on the rebel issue now and by the time 0.9b comes out they should be significantly improved.

Are you playing with Gracul's RC version of Stainless Steel (6.2) or the "vanilla" version (6.0 or 6.1)?

The AI in general should not be that passive. What version of my files do you have? (When did you download it, or what's the modified date on the file?) I will admit that most of my testing has been in Late Campaign, when there are fewer rebels. Older versions of my AI (though not the most recent files) had a strong preference for invading rebels that wasn't limited only to the first 10-15 turns, so it's possible that on Early Campaign factions are just focusing solely on rebels for too long. This issue has been resolved in the most recent files.

Thanks for your feedback. I will look into the issues you mentioned. Please keep me posted on any further developments.

I'm using the latest RR which includes Gracul's 6.2 rc4and your latest AI. The AI are agrresive enough to take rebels, there are practically none left. However, same-religion factions are all very friendly to each other, even though few of them are allied.

Maybe it has to do with me being very reliable? But I always am.

[TheSavage]

Lusted talking about ETW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7OU3...heavy-cavalry/

[Marin.Subasic]

good

[ricebowl]

To: Santiago de Pola

Thanx for pointing that out, I think I got it mix-up with XBAI(should compare XBAI to Freedom instead). So considering such situation, I think I am offed toppic.

[messenger42]

8 turns into the game VH/VH playing as France, Spain,HRE,England all attacked me. Allied with Scotland....will report more as game progress

[TheSavage]

8 turns into the game VH/VH playing as France, Spain,HRE,England all attacked me. Allied with Scotland....will report more as game progress

Thanks for the feedback.

What version of SS and what mods are you playing? Are you playing Early or Late Campaign? Sounds like the AI is being aggressive, which is good. If you see it being TOO aggressive though (attacking you when it's absolutely stupid to do so, like you're at peace with lots of allies and its at war on all sides), please let me know the details so I can resolve this issue. The whole purpose of my AI is that on hard and especially on Very Hard, the AI should be as aggressive as it can without being stupid.

[messenger42]

Thanks for the feedback.

What version of SS and what mods are you playing? Are you playing Early or Late Campaign? Sounds like the AI is being aggressive, which is good. If you see it being TOO aggressive though (attacking you when it's absolutely stupid to do so, like you're at peace with lots of allies and its at war on all sides), please let me know the details so I can resolve this issue. The whole purpose of my AI is that on hard and especially on Very Hard, the AI should be as aggressive as it can without being stupid.

So far playing SS with latest RC/RR (feb-20) late campaign. Now Arragon attacked me, look like Genoa which took Merseile are roaming my southern border, it's still early in the game many of my town and castle didn't have enough troop inside probably that was the reason, plus I'm playing VH/VH
the turn progress slow because of constant battle.

[Turbo]

I'm past turn 50 and no wars have evolved between scotland, ireland, and england. France and England have had 2 short wars. But otherwise things seem quietly peaceful.

Another bizarre twist is the allying of Muslim and Catholic countries. The Turks have alliances with England and Kwarezm has an alliance with Poland.

[TheSavage]

I'm past turn 50 and no wars have evolved between scotland, ireland, and england. France and England have had 2 short wars. But otherwise things seem quietly peaceful.

Another bizarre twist is the allying of Muslim and Catholic countries. The Turks have alliances with England and Kwarezm has an alliance with Poland.

Thanks for letting me know Turbo. You playing Early Campaign? What difficulty.

I think some of the "too much peace" problems has a lot to do with faction relationships at the beginning of the game. I'm going to take a look at this.

As for the alliances, I've tried to make it very very unlikely but not impossible for Muslim-Catholic factions to have alliances. But it seems like this are also needs more work.

[TheSavage]

I think I figured out why the AI seemed so passive on the Early Campaign. If you take off the fog-of-war at the start of the Early Campaign, you'll notice that a large portion of the map is rebels. Most factions directly border 5-10 rebel regions, and many factions don't even have any non-rebel neighbors. Since the AI is set to heavily prioritize invasions of rebel regions, it will generally try to take over all nearby rebels before starting a war with a non-rebel neighbour. Taking the majority of the rebel regions can take 25+ turns without Real Recruitment, and with the restrictions of RR then it could take as long as 50 turns. So it makes sense that there aren't going to be many wars starting in the first couple dozen turns of the Early Era Campaign. When you start on the Late Era Campaign, 95% of rebel regions are generally snapped up in the first 10-15 turns and there are many more wars started in the first 25 turns.

I am thinking of ways to increase action in the first 50 turns of the Early Campaign without diminishing expansion into rebel territories, since it's easy to think that the AI isn't doing anything when you're on turn 25 and you haven't heard reports of many wars. It only makes sense once you look at the full map and see that just about every faction is still attacking rebel settlements.

Anyway, just uploaded v0.81, which included a few tweaks to Papal behavior, behavior vs. rebels, and defensive behavior.

[ricebowl]

40 turns now, just Vassaled Aragon as England, still campaigning in Denmark/Norway(interrupted by Pope's threaten to excomm me), curiously to say, the Pope didn't say a word as I beaten the crap out of the Aragonese(and they also had very high repu with the Pope):hmmm:.

And just put in your new AI 8.1, reloading the map.rwm, see if there will be any difference...

[TheSavage]

I just modified the priorities for attacking rebels in 0.82b so the AI will have less incentive to go after rebels after the first 15 turns or so. (They will still attack rebels if they have no other good targets, though.) Hopefully this will strike the right balance between AI expansion and AI vs. AI action in the Early Campaign.

[caralampio]

I think I figured out why the AI seemed so passive on the Early Campaign. If you take off the fog-of-war at the start of the Early Campaign, you'll notice that a large portion of the map is rebels. Most factions directly border 5-10 rebel regions, and many factions don't even have any non-rebel neighbors. Since the AI is set to heavily prioritize invasions of rebel regions, it will generally try to take over all nearby rebels before starting a war with a non-rebel neighbour. Taking the majority of the rebel regions can take 25+ turns without Real Recruitment, and with the restrictions of RR then it could take as long as 50 turns. So it makes sense that there aren't going to be many wars starting in the first couple dozen turns of the Early Era Campaign. When you start on the Late Era Campaign, 95% of rebel regions are generally snapped up in the first 10-15 turns and there are many more wars started in the first 25 turns.

I am thinking of ways to increase action in the first 50 turns of the Early Campaign without diminishing expansion into rebel territories, since it's easy to think that the AI isn't doing anything when you're on turn 25 and you haven't heard reports of many wars. It only makes sense once you look at the full map and see that just about every faction is still attacking rebel settlements.

Anyway, just uploaded v0.81, which included a few tweaks to Papal behavior, behavior vs. rebels, and defensive behavior.

I think, if we know that things will normalize after the AI is done taking rebel settlements, there's no problem with the first 50-60 turns being peaceful. It can even be welcome. What was worrisome was that this behavior could be permanent.

[ricebowl]

ok, new updates on my English campaign, now another 40 or so turns past(Yr 1285 with 2TPY), campaign went very chellenging and fun, especially paired together with BGRIV(war concil/seal), relationship has been improved to immacurate, got 3 Muslim faction allies--Moors, Turks and Gwarizmian(although they are not gonna exist long). Alliances in game been predictable and reasonable, and... anything is possible. for example, I allied Moor, Vassaled Aragonese, and told Aragonese to attack Spanish, so I can break ally with Spanish and join force with Moors together and attack Leon. And also I am on Crusade against Fatimid(Jerusalem as always), which been fighting with Turks for sometimes now, till now Fatimid got no allies, but as Mongol in game already moved as far as Edessa, I saw alot of interaction of deplomats between them(Mongol/Fatimid), think they may ally together to counter English/Crusader and the Turks.

so far so good~

[TheSavage]

I think, if we know that things will normalize after the AI is done taking rebel settlements, there's no problem with the first 50-60 turns being peaceful. It can even be welcome. What was worrisome was that this behavior could be permanent.

The early-game rebel issue is the only distinction between Early and Late campaign, and I've tested it pretty extensively on Late Era and it is definitely not passive. From this and the feedback of others I can say that by turn 30-50 the Early Era should start playing like the Late Era at turn 15, which is to say that there will be plenty of wars.

[Turbo]

Thanks for letting me know Turbo. You playing Early Campaign? What difficulty.

I think some of the "too much peace" problems has a lot to do with faction relationships at the beginning of the game. I'm going to take a look at this.

As for the alliances, I've tried to make it very very unlikely but not impossible for Muslim-Catholic factions to have alliances. But it seems like this are also needs more work.

Playing on VH and early campaign.

Usually by turn 25 a lot of border rebel settlements are taken and the tensions begin. I saved the game every 10 turns and let the AI play through it. There was less religious tension than normal except in the Iberian peninsula where the Moors were dominating everyone (first time I've seen that). On the other hand I didn't see the Cumans expanding like they normally do.

[TheSavage]

Playing on VH and early campaign.

Usually by turn 25 a lot of border rebel settlements are taken and the tensions begin. I saved the game every 10 turns and let the AI play through it. There was less religious tension than normal except in the Iberian peninsula where the Moors were dominating everyone (first time I've seen that). On the other hand I didn't see the Cumans expanding like they normally do.

Yes in some games I've played the Moors have done very well too... perhaps need to make the bond tighter between the Iberian Catholics? On the other hand, I've also seen a few games where Sicily took over large portions of Central North Africa from rebels, the Moors were trapped from both sides, and they were wiped out quickly. Seems like regardless of whether they do very well or do horribly, they get there quickly. I guess I am more concerned about them getting wiped out too fast. If they expand quickly and conquer half of Iberia (which could have happened if a few turns of history had been different), I'm confident that they will eventually be beaten back in most games. Whereas if they get wiped out too quick than the Iberians and Sicily are going to become too powerful too fast.

Good to know that you're seeing tensions by turn 25... I have done the majority of testing on Late Campaign (where things were certainly not peaceful on harder difficulties), and these reports of no wars on the Early Campaign were starting to worry me.

[wolfslayer]

A good way to test campaign ai generally is to start a new campaign as the first faction on the list.

Then before doing anything on the strat map open the console ~ and type in control yourfaction <-- whatever your faction is.

This puts all factions under ai control and lets the campaign autorun by itself; you can also start in windowed mode if you want to do other stuff. Save the game every so often when you get a chance just in case there is a crash somewhere along the way. The turns usually go pretty fast in AI mode.

Then assume control of different factions whenever you wish to see how they are doing with alliances, economy and family tree, etc. Ex: control kwarezm then control kwarezm again to give it back to the AI control.
This will probably remove the vs. human parts of the ai temporarily but give you a good idea how the campaign ai performs overall.

[Loose Cannon]

Thanks for trying to improve the AI, TheSavage. I d/l this mornings' beta and tried it. It certainly made 6.2 even more interesting. I've done most of the beta testing on 6.2 (after Gracul) and I've played the late HRE campaign through 20 turns about 50 times trying different strategies. On hard/very hard the HRE starts off excommunicated and at war with Papal States and you get the "offends the nobility" trait on turn 1. Creates a huge dogpile by turn 14 and total warmongering appears to be the only way out.

Now what did your AI do differently? On turn 2 I went to seige Florence and found the Papal States already there. On turn 5 they moved their army outside of Bologna and then seiged it on turn 6. ON turn 8 they attacked and cost me 60% of my full stack and my faction heir. I won that battle but was instantly re-seiged by their second army. The Pope's army has never done that-he always has Genoa, Venice, France, Poland, Denmark, and Hungary fight his battles.
It was nice to be offered trade rights again. The offers were Generous from my side but when I asked for a little extra cash, also(500 florins always worked before), I was instantly rejected.

Only alliance was Poland & Hungary, usually more thru 8 turns
Norway beat Denmark to Skara and the other close rebel province.

I'll report more in a few days.

[TheSavage]

Now what did your AI do differently? On turn 2 I went to seige Florence and found the Papal States already there. On turn 5 they moved their army outside of Bologna and then seiged it on turn 6. ON turn 8 they attacked and cost me 60% of my full stack and my faction heir. I won that battle but was instantly re-seiged by their second army. The Pope's army has never done that-he always has Genoa, Venice, France, Poland, Denmark, and Hungary fight his battles.
It was nice to be offered trade rights again. The offers were Generous from my side but when I asked for a little extra cash, also(500 florins always worked before), I was instantly rejected.

Only alliance was Poland & Hungary, usually more thru 8 turns
Norway beat Denmark to Skara and the other close rebel province.

I'll report more in a few days.

Thanks for the feedback Loose Cannon. Seems like you're very experienced with Gracul's mods so it's awesome to have your comments.

My goal with the Pope was to make him mostly passive toward Catholic factions, with a few exceptions:
1) When they are excommunicated
2) When they are not excommunicated but have truly horrible relations, leading to an "excommunication by Papal attack"
I also wanted to Pope to limit his conquests to the Italian Peninsula (so I made it so that he is discouraged from launching naval invasions). But all that said, once the Pope has decided that he wants to go to war, the Papal States will behave like any other faction in terms of how they invade.

As for trade rights, to me if relations are at least decent than it doesn't make sense for the AI to not want trade rights, since it benefits both factions. But I also think it's an exploit to get 5000 dn from every faction for trade rights. (If the diplomacy and AI was more advanced and moddable then I could do more with trade rights, but it's not so I can't.)

As for alliances, this has been a headache for me. If the AI encourages alliances then eventually some factions end up having 8 allies, and the alliances are constantly crumbling because the AI is always invading factions that are allied to its own allies. What's worse is that alliances become less meaningful because it's impossible to back up your allies. If the AI is allied with 6 other factions, and those 6 other factions each go to war with a different faction, then what does the AI do? If it backs up its allies then it will be stretched too thin in too many wars. But if it limits itself to just a few wars then it will leave most of its allies to fight alone. So too many allies is bad.

Ideally, it would be possible to limit the number of alliances each faction has. But unfortunately there's no way to check on the number of allies from within the AI file. So you can't tell the AI to not ally if it already has 3 allies.

The only solution is to limit alliances and make most factions not want them by default. This is a balance, because obviously you want the AI to make some alliances. But in general if you want them to end up with a reasonable number of allies after 50 or 100 turns, then you have to force them to make the alliances selectively, so after only 10 or 20 turns many factions still won't have allies. Basically, right now, I have the AI wanting to ally and actively seeking it out under two different scenarios:
1) they have excellent relations with the other faction
2) If they are at war with two neighbors (not counting rebels), then they will try to ally with a third neighbor.

I'd like to do a lot more with alliances but there are basically no 3rd-party references in the M2TW AI so it is very difficult to specify certain strategic situations.