XAI 4.0 released!

[Achilla]

thanks for a quick reply xeryx,
well i always delete the temp files each time i install a new mod ( here is the generated map.rmw) but still i found soul fire's submod - which is as u said very near to your final AI version - a bit blunt, i might do some feedbacks for the AI here:

1.CAI: diplomacy doesnt work well, too easy to get allies when i am a power house like hre, teutonic, venice but as for england-which is also a very powerful faction i can hardly get any except for norway. Moreover the global faction standing is sth i found need to be reworked as sometimes far far away nations declared war on me ( 1 time i played england and at war with france, ireland and wales, allied with norway and then in turn 20 or so some polish, moorish even hungarian fleets came and blocked my docks? i dont think my rep is so low that all gang bang me coz i always played defensively the 1st 20 turns to give the AI time to build a decent armies, no blazing attacks, i also tried milan out and it happened again when portugal and spain atked my island castle)
Other from that the CAI for papal state also too aggressive towards milan, played as hre and milan got swept out by the pope by turn 30-40, the pope ruled over florence, milan, genoa while i was also excommed for atking denmark and france.
No ally work or any co-invasion so far, both for my AI allies or enemies ( well i played england and allied with norway, when i atked edinburgh my ally got 3 full stacks at inversen and it didnt move an inch to atk aberdeen or edinburgh)
When i played Teutonic i could kill off more than half of the whole army of Lithuanian by sending a half stack to a border bridge and keep luring the BAI to send stack after stack into a bloodbath ( it can move around and atk my cities which are guarded by only 4 units, not?)

2.BAI the AI got higher morale and often went for my generals but still i found it not good enough - AI general charged suicidally into my spearmen, armies stuck at gates when routing or in sieges, inefficient use of siege equipment ( when AI got some rams, ladders, siege towers together with catapults or trebuchets it broke 1 or 2 holes on the wall with catapults then charged all the enemies into em)
Reinforcement control is really what makes me depressed, especially in siege battles ( AI reinforcement often stands still in siege battles when it doesnt have any siege equips or got stucked when deployed in a mountainous terrain)

In general the AI in soul fire's mod did improve compared to the last one i played ( some months ago, in KGCM ver 3.9 or sth), but only in some special cases for ireland, norway, denmark, france, KoJ ( can be more as i havent tried all the areas) but for wales why does it atked castle town when being threatened by england? i could take my chance when wales was warring with norway and take cardiff+carnevaron in the 1st 10 turns. Or for milan it took barcelona when being atked by me-hre and papal? While my city bologna is guarded by merely 10 units of militia?
As for the BAI its formation is better, infantry and missile units not seperated too much, cavalry makes good use of charging and focuses more on killing my generals but not enough imo - even though i lost some great battles i still found the AI could do better than that ( i could win many heroic victories with armies full of militias versus full stacks of knights by killing its general - which i think must be impossible)

Finally, i got some questions regarding the AI:
1.Does the system specs affect the AI in game? As the more scripts for the AI the system must handle more work and a so-so PC like mine ( 2gb ram, chip single core 2.2, graphic card 512 ) can reduce the result?
2.Each time reloading the BAI behaves differently as it recalculates the situation but which time is better? i tested out and some cases the 1st time it besieged my cities and captured it, 2nd time it withdrew all the enemies, 3rd time it moved out and came back besieging the city again in the same turn.
3.Does the game settings ( unit size, graphic quality) affect the AI? In custom battles i found playing with huge size more challenging than normal size even though the same battle config ( not because more men to kill but the BAI controlled better, especially the "spared units" guarding the missiles and artilleries )

Your points:

1. Diplomacy is pretty much a lot about factions standing section, and there are things to get addressed in the typical CAI stuff as well, I believe. What's important is that you realise it is work in progress, but between releases some deadline needs to be made ; means, not all things make it up for the release or get tested properly. And naturally there are also the limits of the game itself, when it comes to improving it in various fields. One thing for sure, in 4.0 CAI you will see a lot of improvement already, even without tweaks to iron out the more glaring problems (we are focused on the BAI mainly for now). In my campaign as the Byzantines on VH/VH I ended up fighting 5 foes, 3 of them actively (Magyars, Venice, Turks), and I was quickly losing ground, especially on west, most notably the settlement which I recently captured or re-captured. So to say, two AI adversaries had the power to push me back to Constantinople and even go for Greece (because they focused their military might mainly on me), while I enjoyed a pretty stagnant war in the east without any crushing victories on the either side. At some point the campaign was so exhausting and frustrating that I've decided to quit it.

2. The AI morale relation is about the same on VH as the human, more often than not it doesn't matter. The 3.4 release, 3.8 (in Soul Firez mod) and even upcoming 4.0 have their flaws in sieges, there are many things to address, but overall a lot of progress has been made. The reinforcements getting stuck on the map has nothing to do with the AI but with the terrain generation for battle maps in the mod. Perhaps try this out - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...43#post2985643

Suicidal general ... what needs to be understood is that the AI views their generals as viable units to use in actual battle by the definition, and that's something we can't change. What we can influence is make the AI more cautious with their use, but certainly we can't forbid them to enter direct contact with the enemy or completely change the way they function.

Campaign stuff - some of the stuff is CAI parameters, rest is hardcoded stupidity. We can't tell the AI 'hey, take this town! or 'hey, don't attack here!', that would be scripted behaviour. We can play with parameters and influence the AI in positive or negative way under certain circumstances, but what the AI does is up to the AI itself - to not make further confusion - we can't mod the 'AI' itself. We can change it's parameters, but the most basic game mechanics and decision-making are simply coded by hard to the engine. What appears stupid from the AI part is more often than not flaw in the game engine itself. Naturally, this doesn't mean we can't make the AI opponents quite clever in actual gameplay ; but that has more to do with optimizing odds of certain decisions to happen, if anything else.

Now your questions:

1. I pretty much doubt that, because total war games are in general designed for wide range of computers, and as to say, it wouldn't be logical to assume in general that some code would be prevented from execution based on the hardware alone, especially in a product such a computer game, which success depends on compatibility with user's machines. If anything, it would hog up the game and cause crash to desktop, on a badly optimized game.

2. You confuse BAI with CAI. CAI is responsible for behaviour on campaign map, BAI is responsible for behaviour on battle map. Sadly, the two are completely independent from each other.

Like already said, the CAI behaviour can, and will be random. It's both for good and bad. The basic design is simply reinforcing chances for happening of better decisions depending on given circumstances, but it is very far from addressing stuff in a case-by-case fashion (refer to hardcoded parts of the engine).

When you play your turns, then on the whole you will see an improvement, but if you keep reloading the same save over and over again just to make AI more exposed, then instead of giving XAI a harder go, you simply abuse the game engine - something beyond our reach. Try to look from wider perspective on things, when you formulate your feedback. We don't design a new game here, we change really few things which are free to change by the modders, with limited knowledge of the game itself. Most of the improvements come from experience and testing, future improvement is based on proper feedback of our fans as well.

3. More intense graphic options = higher CPU load. Answer in point 1 ; in short - no.

As for the unit size and other stuff ...

Yes, it affects the performance of both you and the AI, in a way. If a 2-square-metre sandbox is designed for 4 kids to play in it, and suddenly you have 10 kids in there, then some conflict will arise sooner or later. A bit crude example, but it explains the idea.

Battlefields are quite small, especially settlements (during sieges), so expect varying performance depending on unit size during different battles. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

What's important is that a lot of other things affect it's performance, like stats of units, projectiles or even settlement fortifications and walls, let alone movement modifiers file.

A crude example is cavalry moving faster than normal (through the EDU) ; it will make AI ineffective in withdrawing it's skirmishers, because it will still behave assuming their speed is standard. Next example is sword infantry unit capable of chopping down cavalry just as easy or even better than spearmen - the AI is told to favour charging heavy and light infantry over various spearmen units to reduce it's casualties and maximise charge damage ; if the mod's balance doesn't follow some basic rules of engagement and common sense supported by our AI then naturally the AI performance will be bad, to say the least.

[xeryx]

thanks for a quick reply xeryx,
well i always delete the temp files each time i install a new mod ( here is the generated map.rmw) but still i found soul fire's submod - which is as u said very near to your final AI version - a bit blunt, i might do some feedbacks for the AI here:

1.CAI: diplomacy doesnt work well, too easy to get allies when i am a power house like hre, teutonic, venice but as for england-which is also a very powerful faction i can hardly get any except for norway. Moreover the global faction standing is sth i found need to be reworked as sometimes far far away nations declared war on me ( 1 time i played england and at war with france, ireland and wales, allied with norway and then in turn 20 or so some polish, moorish even hungarian fleets came and blocked my docks? i dont think my rep is so low that all gang bang me coz i always played defensively the 1st 20 turns to give the AI time to build a decent armies, no blazing attacks, i also tried milan out and it happened again when portugal and spain atked my island castle)
Other from that the CAI for papal state also too aggressive towards milan, played as hre and milan got swept out by the pope by turn 30-40, the pope ruled over florence, milan, genoa while i was also excommed for atking denmark and france.
No ally work or any co-invasion so far, both for my AI allies or enemies ( well i played england and allied with norway, when i atked edinburgh my ally got 3 full stacks at inversen and it didnt move an inch to atk aberdeen or edinburgh)
When i played Teutonic i could kill off more than half of the whole army of Lithuanian by sending a half stack to a border bridge and keep luring the BAI to send stack after stack into a bloodbath ( it can move around and atk my cities which are guarded by only 4 units, not?)

Let me address some of your issues.
1) diplomacy file for humans and AI are different. I also think the one we are using is too easy in some things for the human. Don't worry I will get to that.

2) We want the pope to be free to attack. We were tired of them not being able to do anything. They don't get too out of control, and they may need some balancing. That will come after the BAI is done.

3) Your Teutonic issue is a pure exploit by you Don't do it. At least they were attacking your superior units.

4) Also remember, MOD balance always plays an issue..and some things will fall under that too.

5) The XCAI files cannot tell the game exe (upper ai) what targets to attack. IE. I cannot tell it to attack a certain city, or particular stack. We can only guide it to when it should attack when certain conditions exist. Even then it can still, choose not to..because of other factors.

6) Yes sometimes far away lands will declare war on you. And yes they will blockade your ports. That is designed that way. Having that way has more benefits, than you might be seeing. It has a couple of drawbacks too.. But overall I like the system and it took a long time to get everything working as good as it does.

7) the differences between factions starting relations and long term relations can be modified per mod. To create biases between nations. This is beyond, what the CAI does for relations.

8) which version are you playing the Aggressive CAI or the more defensive CAI? Soul Posted 2 versions. Also make sure you tell him about that. he will be in charge of working on the AI as he sees fit for his mod.

2.BAI the AI got higher morale and often went for my generals but still i found it not good enough - AI general charged suicidally into my spearmen, armies stuck at gates when routing or in sieges, inefficient use of siege equipment ( when AI got some rams, ladders, siege towers together with catapults or trebuchets it broke 1 or 2 holes on the wall with catapults then charged all the enemies into em)
Reinforcement control is really what makes me depressed, especially in siege battles ( AI reinforcement often stands still in siege battles when it doesnt have any siege equips or got stucked when deployed in a mountainous terrain)

NO, AI reinforcements DO not stand still, you have to have the Control options on. For attack, defense, or missile only attacks. If you are using the other, then there may still be issues with the game. I haven't tested, it without that for a long time. We always play with the Human Assist/Control on! Try it that way and see if it works better.

In general the AI in soul fire's mod did improve compared to the last one i played ( some months ago, in KGCM ver 3.9 or sth), but only in some special cases for ireland, norway, denmark, france, KoJ ( can be more as i havent tried all the areas) but for wales why does it atked castle town when being threatened by england? i could take my chance when wales was warring with norway and take cardiff+carnevaron in the 1st 10 turns. Or for milan it took barcelona when being atked by me-hre and papal? While my city bologna is guarded by merely 10 units of militia?
As for the BAI its formation is better, infantry and missile units not seperated too much, cavalry makes good use of charging and focuses more on killing my generals but not enough imo - even though i lost some great battles i still found the AI could do better than that ( i could win many heroic victories with armies full of militias versus full stacks of knights by killing its general - which i think must be impossible)

Thanks for that info! We have been improving some things, that is beyond the version he has as well, in the BAI.

Again I will look at the CAI, Just remember we cannot tell it what it should take. You also have to consider political considerations as well, we have greatly expanded them. The AI will take those under consideration too. There is also the Factor of Aggressiveness in the versions he released. I know you are expecting a lot to make your game perfect, but it will never be that. Look at the improvements made..give us lots more feedback. We will keep working to make it better.

Finally, i got some questions regarding the AI:
1.Does the system specs affect the AI in game? As the more scripts for the AI the system must handle more work and a so-so PC like mine ( 2gb ram, chip single core 2.2, graphic card 512 ) can reduce the result?
2.Each time reloading the BAI behaves differently as it recalculates the situation but which time is better? i tested out and some cases the 1st time it besieged my cities and captured it, 2nd time it withdrew all the enemies, 3rd time it moved out and came back besieging the city again in the same turn.
3.Does the game settings ( unit size, graphic quality) affect the AI? In custom battles i found playing with huge size more challenging than normal size even though the same battle config ( not because more men to kill but the BAI controlled better, especially the "spared units" guarding the missiles and artilleries )

1) as far as I know, system specs should only affect the speed at which it can do it's processes. Kingdoms, is not multi-core.
2) Yes, sometime there are behaviors like that. Again, that specific of target control, we do not have.
3) The Size of units, does not affect the AI. Pathfinding however gets to be more problematic, with large and huge units in sieges.

I hope that helps, and Thanks Achilla!

[g4m3m4st3r]

thank you for a clear explanation, xeryx and Achilla
i got the ideas now.
so the XAI now in soul fire's submod is 3.8, is not the final 4.0 but very close to it.
well, i really hope that you guys can release the final version soon and let your fans have a taste of what you guys have achieved ( wish i can feel the bitter of losing ) )
keep on waiting for it for the moment then.

[xeryx]

thank you for a clear explanation, xeryx and Achilla
i got the ideas now.
so the XAI now in soul fire's submod is 3.8, is not the final 4.0 but very close to it.
well, i really hope that you guys can release the final version soon and let your fans have a taste of what you guys have achieved ( wish i can feel the bitter of losing ) )
keep on waiting for it for the moment then.

Thanks for your patience, we are doing the best we can, and you will like 4.0 XBAI better. We are still testing and improving BAI, and it's taking longer than we wanted, but we have more people on board now, so that should speed things up.

They do get a taste, since 3.4~ they get 3.8 in Soul Firez's mod.

We are open to criticism! nobody ever really wants to hear it, but we have to have it to improve our work. We were happy to explain how things worked for you. Hopefully it will clear up questions, that others may have as well.

Every single member of this team is a gamer first, we bear no loyalties to anyone or anything other than improving this game, our team, and our fans! We want to enjoy it as much as you! We do our job and test as best as we can. We are here to have fun modding as well. We have taken a hard line on the "pot stirring" on the forums. In the end, we want everyone to get their money's worth! and have some dang fun!! LOL

[Soul Firez]

As listed in my thread the Ai being used in my submod is not 4.0 but yes a very close to it, it has much of the work that has gone into 4.0 and will be updated as they release the finished work

In regards to how you percieve a problem with wales attacking castle town, i am not sure what you see as the problem there they are on bad terms but not direct war with england at the start , they wont directly attack england to start with and why because they cant win england has more troops on there front line to wales than wales does.

So how do they become more powerfull they take more land and build more troops closest and easiest target for wales is you guessed it castle town so to build there kingdom they take it. once they have more troops and or england has moved men away to fight elsewhere you will see wales go after england . TO go after england early without having increased there strength would be well an extremely dumb move by the AI , to do it later when they are stronger and likely england has more enemies increasing there chance of success is well a much smarter move to do

A human playing england is always going to be able to easily deal with wales as it is small very small but watch how your standing globally drops (oh thats right you have already seen it as you cant get alliances with england LOL).

Which brings me to diplomacy as hre you can get alliances etc hmm i wonder why maybe its because there a huge faction with only one direct enemy milan and there enemy is hated by most the catholic world lol so the prospect of allianing to hre is in many factions interests this will change as you play and your decisions either drop or raise your global and faction standings which are key in diplomacy .

England by contrast is at war with ireland and on bad terms with france wales scotland (and most likely wars with them soon enough ) so a faction looking to align with england would make enemies of say france hmm as a small catholic nation do you wish to upset france?? i wouldnt so as england you can get alliances but they will cost you a fortune in gold or lands to get due to there diplomatic postion at the start of this time frame.

[xeryx]

Thanks Soul Firez!

Guys I will be out of town this week, my time will be limited..but the crew has things under control.

[g4m3m4st3r]

Hey guys, please tell me when you can release the final version?
I know you must have a lot of pressure and stuffs to complete ( i am also a perfectionist and always want to do the best) but i am dying here waiting to play against your newest AI.
Ah, and happy new year to all chineses / vietnameses out there, have a successful Tiger Year guys!
(1h count down now ) )

[xeryx]

We are still working on it.

[yobi_uk]

We are still working on it.

Folks, take it from me. Just wait patiently for it to come out. Your noggin' will just fry and go insane waiting for it to come out.

All good things come to those who wait, as they say and this is no means an exception. We are all eager for it to arrive and the answers to your questions of the due date....you'll see it when you see it.

Now let the team get on with it....

[xeryx]

I will give you an update, though. I have made some more changes to open battles. You guys are gonna really enjoy the changes. It's pretty dang cool watching the AI do some real tactics! Defense has been completely revamped. You can still win, but it is gonna be harder.

Note: we are not claiming that it will be the toughest AI ever, but it will be challenging, and it is definitely a big step forward. Although anything beyond a 1.3 ratio in favor of the AI will be tough to beat in most situations. Taking into account training and equipment being equal of course.

The AI is really getting to a decent point here. Although, I do not feel it has reached it's full potential yet. We are going to keep pushing it, finding ways for the force to bend it our way. I will get my money's worth out of this game..even if I teeter on the brink of insanity!

We will not go the way of CA and do scripted battles, for the AI. That is how we were all duped in the first place (remember the awesome battle videos!!). Scripted battles are fine for a scripted campaign that is trying to tell a story, however that is not our purpose here. Once you have played them the future fun factor is very limited. They also have their place for scenarios too.

[Achilla]

Here is a preview of a field battle, heavy western roster of Jerusalem full of good armour versus the more flexible and mobile roster of the Islam opponent.

Rosters:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

note: unit stats are different from vanilla. I have brought western armies more back in line and done other stuff to enhance the AI performance overall (as per bigger image, wider perspective). Egypt troops are inferior in armour (especially archers) and not so amazing in melee, but they have their advantages in other areas, such as horse archers. Ignore the unit costs, they don't reflect the relative unit strength. Both armies are about balanced. The mod used is KGCM version 4.2, with our personal tweaks.

Overview of the situation:

- the player is defending, with his troops in loose formation in order to reduce the casualties from the enemy fire
- the player has the height advantage and is basically 'sitting on his ass', peppering the approaching enemy, keeping his less numerous heavy cavalry for emergency or interception duties

Player fortified, enemy advancing

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The AI send in their archers to draw my fire, absorb some arrows and then shoot back. At the same time, their horse archers are peppering from the flanks. The unfortunate Nubians taste the greek fire, too. At this point I had a small advantage of the casualty ratio.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Since the AI send their archers too far from main line (something to improve upon, but nothing is perfect I guess), so I decided to use my heavy cavalry and charge them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Shortly after that, my heavy cavalry routed before I was able to withdraw them. That's also part of our unit balance, as well as general guideline to have the cavalry morale on-par with melee footmen of the same tier or slightly lower. After all, spears did a bloody job, as well as pinning them down quickly.

The AI reacted pretty fast, it withdrew it's archers, it used their heavy cavalry few times to charge my own archers and crossbowmen as well as advanced with their infantry line till the final clash. I have ordered spearmen to engage incoming charging cavalry, but too late. This resulted in casualties much higher than I wanted, and possibly cost me a battle as well.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

At this moment, casualties were about the same. The AI did some mistakes, but so it capitalised on my mistakes as well. Felt pretty much like chess with timed moves, I had barely the time to realise what's going on, make a decision and then be forced to focus on completely different aspect of battle.

Their melee infantry and heavy cavalry started deadly flanking dance, while their missile troops were still fooling around and shooting at me, changing their positions depending on where their own infantry troops were, to maximise effectiveness of fire.

Tip: Watch the minimap for the placement of the troop blocks, to realise how they were encircling me.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Wider perspective - early stage flanking dance:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the ensuing chaos, I didn't even notice when THIS happened.

Yeah, THIS.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mass rout, which ensued later, was pretty much an end of the battle. Still, before that happened ...

More flanking!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Horse archers positioning themselves intelligently, to shoot exactly where I was vulnerable and not engaged, in order to avoid friendly fire as well.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And before the said rout ensued ... the enemy general running around my army, just to strike me from the back!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The AI responsiveness overall, as well as very efficient infantry and cavalry flanking, pretty much leaved no room for simply deploying the troops on higher ground as sole guarantee of beating the enemy. They climbed up the hill, brought the fight to me, fought it on my terms and beat me.

Well, the sad story could have only one kind of an ending. The sad ending.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On this day, it was not the soldiers which failed the general. It was not the enemy, which, after all, didn't employ malfunctioning or inefficient tactics, but has shown some talent on the field of battle. It was the general itself, which has failed his soldiers and amused his enemy.

Conclusion

Our AI isn't perfect. It may do some stupid stuff, just like a human does. Perhaps even more often, because it's incapable of abstract thinking (just like any AI). You will win your battles. You might even win them often, but ... the way you play, will change. The times of simply sitting there and watching the AI incapable of bringing the fight to you, not dealing any serious casualties have pretty much ended. You will win your battles, but you will have to show soundness of mind and passion for the fight. Disregarding your enemy and playing like a peasant girl will ensue a sad defeat. Plus, there are other surprises awaiting you ... should you disregard your enemy, like I did. Give your best and expect AI's best, give your worst and expect defeat.

[xeryx]

Very well said Achilla, Thanks for taking the time to show the public, your screen shots. I have not had time.

[aus-rotten]

some crazy stuff here!
amazing work guys.

I´m still playing PDER 1.0 (and I´m praying for 2.0 every day!).
My main problem is: I don´t have any clue of modding and prefer the "all inclusive" solutions.
So one simple question: will this AI be included in any mod, so I just can install it together with the mod (or a XAI installer, without searching for any special files, just "clickandgo").

Will you support PDER 2.0 (if it will be ever finished...)

[soulson]

Will there be new/updated integration instructions for the new release? All of this sounds cool and all but its basically for only 1 mod..

[yobi_uk]

Will there be new/updated integration instructions for the new release? All of this sounds cool and all but its basically for only 1 mod..

NB: Please read: Looking for a good writer, for instructions.

[xeryx]

Actually soulson this is for any mod you want it in. That is the whole point of xai! To improve the core of any mod that wants to usev it.

[soulson]

Sounds great. I just started to mess around with settings in the ai_db file and all I can say is wow. Alot of work goes into this for sure.

[UndoX]

Hi everyone, i've been lurking on this forum for a while now and after playing Stainless Steel i wanted to experience a better AI
And this seems to be the best AI mod out there, so I was wondering what i would need to download to use this mod. I'm hesitating between Darth Ages & Kingdoms Grand Campaing Mod. Wich one should i get the to have the best experience with XBAi & XCAI ?
I am sorry to bother you with these questions because i know u are very busy, but I am very grateful for the work you guys have done!

thanks everyone

[yobi_uk]

Hi everyone, i've been lurking on this forum for a while now and after playing Stainless Steel i wanted to experience a better AI
And this seems to be the best AI mod out there, so I was wondering what i would need to download to use this mod. I'm hesitating between Darth Ages & Kingdoms Grand Campaing Mod. Wich one should i get the to have the best experience with XBAi & XCAI ?
I am sorry to bother you with these questions because i know u are very busy, but I am very grateful for the work you guys have done!

thanks everyone

I'll PM you Xeryx's tips to me back then... I make it sound such a long time a go...

[Tyre]

xeryx, I'm still playing retrofit (well a heavily modified version of it). Would it be possible or too time consuming for you to do a generic style release geared towards a more vanilla map and factions? Something like an xai template that modders could use to integrate into their own mods, and with the vanilla style nature it would be easier to see where to balance things.