So I'm fascinated; how did Darth crack the AI??

**Cadmium77** · July 05, 2005, 09:39 PM

I thought all the AI battlefield controls were beyond the reach of the modders. So what has Darth, or rather the Darth team (?) done to break into the AI so that they can rescue RTW from it's wretched battlefield performance in it's vanilla form? Did you guys crack some coded files? Have you contsructed an API for dealing with the AI?

Telll us! Tell us! Oh, tell us!!!

**Maximus I** · July 05, 2005, 09:54 PM

i think it's one man.but he just edited the desc files ( really don't know which ).

**Bruticus the Steadfast** · July 05, 2005, 10:19 PM

No one has been able to "Crack" the Hardcodes yes. He just changed the text files to make the AI "think" a bit better I suppose.

There is plenty of stuff here on it. Look around.

**mike^_^** · July 05, 2005, 10:20 PM

it really is amazing what one person with some motivation and innovation can do, eh?

I just love his battle system

**Caius Britannicus** · May 29, 2006, 05:32 PM

Originally Posted by Bruticus the Steadfast

No one has been able to "Crack" the Hardcodes

Its been done, at least thats what I have heared through the grape vine. Of course no one has publicly advertised it in this community.

**hellas1** · May 29, 2006, 08:37 PM

Hey all,

I gotta say, Lord Vader's mod is the most AI savvy mod that I've played yet.

It's Lord Vader's AI 1st, then a tie between SPQR and Vladdio daddio's mods.

I mean if you WANT a challenge, you'll REALLY get it with Lord Vader's mod.

I have great experience getting beat down! HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa

Seriously though, it's tough AI.

S.L.H.1

BTW, Lord Vader, if you read this, why not implement Vlad's BI mod? IMO, it'll prob. be the best.

**Bruticus the Steadfast** · July 05, 2005, 10:27 PM

I still have YET to try it. Sorry Darth, but eventually lol.

**Darkragnar** · July 06, 2005, 05:44 AM

well i just dl'ed it today and im gonna give my self a shot at playing it.

**zemaniak** · July 06, 2005, 08:50 AM

Love the AI, benn playing my first campaign since 6 months... but I dunno why, but player movement is screwy now inside towns, and A LOT worse in large cities with stone walls... I can't move units well or they don't respond well on walls, and moving inside the city

**madd069** · July 06, 2005, 10:01 AM

To me that always happened in vanilla. Its seemed when i told units to get off the wall, the went for the farthest tower.

**zemaniak** · July 06, 2005, 01:22 PM

funny, I didn't experience it as bad as it is now

**Sebastiaan** · July 07, 2005, 04:46 AM

He didn't crack the AI, he only modified the formation_ai file in suck a way the generals become harder to kill (less suicide attacks) and position forces more effectively. This file can simply be edited by everone with a basic text editor, so no hard code is modified.

**jw1089** · May 29, 2006, 05:26 PM

wouuld it be possible to chang the hardline code so that preformance wouldnt deteriorate at a certain amount of men? i them mention that on wikipedia website( the encyclopedia thing) they said CA never released the source code, but that if they did, or someone got into the code, the game engine could be edited so that MANY more units could be on screen without performane degredation.

**Lusted** · May 29, 2006, 05:29 PM

Well thats a bit impossible. For every unit on the field, some processor and ram power needs to be used, so performance will always degrade if you have huge armies, unless you have an uber computer.

**Marly** · May 30, 2006, 05:07 AM

Its been done, at least thats what I have heared through the grape vine. Of course no one has publicly advertised it in this community.

Isnt cracking the hardcode illegal? Thats what i heard anyway..

**Lusted** · May 30, 2006, 05:09 AM

Yes it is illegal, hence why it cannot be publically advertised, or even released. If it was released at TWC, it would disappear in about 5 seconds considering that it is illegal, and we don't want to **** Ca off.

**Ahlerich** · May 30, 2006, 08:33 AM

what about these movement paths in cities..can that be fixed??
i dont know how its in vanilla so i cant tell if its worse in DM or not. i just wonder is it possible to add more movementpaths in cities or is that hardcoded..because that is sometimes anoying. especially in a hard mod where you cant afford half your army going for a walk.
the most annoying thing is when you want to defend your village core and move a unit say from the west side to the north side to reinforce a battleline. instead of going there directly the units will walk to the center and then to the north.. gee i dont have time for that when my main battleline is taken appart by the enemy.

ok this is not a complaint and sure not a DM attack. i just wonder if there are ways to improve it or if we just have to live with it.

**DARTH VADER** · May 30, 2006, 12:43 PM

Generally what you witness in DarthMod is a trully large list of modifications.
Indeed the heavy modding of formation_ai.txt file is one of the most vital and can be used to other mods (As I do adaptations if possible)
It is a file that can exhaust the creativity of a person who can find some hours to modify it since I have done so many things to revolution the formation AI engine that I really feel akward when I see that the designers have not done even the 10% of what was needed to make the game better with this file.
(The most revolutionary were:
1)Specification of formations for each faction style
2)Closed set of full role formations for each faction Ai
3)Really new force AI behaviour commands...etc)

CA was bored to create smthg in this file and just produced some childish random formations....just like they did not care if the game would not sell if it got crap....

But there are also many other things that make DarthMod battle feel different and realistically difficult:
-mass settings
-careful unit balance
-careful campaign balance etc.etc.etc

All these affect the AI.

Just imagine a clever person forced to work every day in an undesirable environment...will he make a difference....no!
If we give to him what he wants...he will prevail!