XAI 4.0 released!

[xeryx]

For those of you who are interested, I have put up the first installment of Campaign AI balancing, for you to ponder. DO not start modding yet, as the lesson is not complete. I will work on it more this week, as my RL permits.

It can be found at the top of the forum, stickied here

[MiiKLL]

Hello Anthoniusll...

To change/adjust the movement distances that can be traveled, look at the "descr_character.txt" file in the data folder. See below for an example of the area to look at...


starting_action_points 110 ; default value for all characters and pathfinding calculations
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
type named character
actions moving_normal, moving_quickmarch, garrison, assault, attack, besiege, entrench, ambush, diplomacy, bribe, exchange, building_fort, building_watchtower
wage_base 100
starting_action_points 100

I have highlighted the areas that need to be adjusted. As you scholl down through the file you will see that you can do this for each type of character...ie: family member, captain, spy...ect.

Hope this helpful....

[Achilla]

One small note concerning movement points for land characters - usually it's not feasible to go beyond 160/180 movement range for armies/agents per turn. The AI will often bump own armies and agents into obstacles (e.g. neutral settlements/armies), and this often results in getting stuck there, still with movement points, until next turn (what happens mainly because the visibility range of unit from starting point doesn't cover in it's radius the avaible movement range, as the AI stack doesn't take into account what it's seeing as it's moving, until it bumps into something ... it seems not to avoid what it doesn't directly see either, even if it's a city which has been discovered before). Player can easily avoid that by not over-arching his movement orders. Overall map pathfinding has a lot to do with this as well, and there will be regions more prone to this than the others.

Another issue associated with too wide movement range for land characters is being able to steam-roll the enemy with artillery-equipped armies, completely disrupting the 'defend in depth' concept, recreating WW2 Blitzkrieg. This in itself would be fun if AI was equally good at it, however it's always one step behind the player, mainly when it comes to long-term invasion planning. Wider movement ranges aren't bad, but to the point - to the point where it's not easily abusable and still feels natural given the scope of the map.

Also note that higher-level roads bumping into mid-late game drastically increase the movement speed of characters on the land, and you need to have that in mind while changing movement ranges. Slightly-too-long travel in the early game is completely normal, from the gameplay point of view. This could be neatly reduced however, by limiting paved/highway roads to commerce/military/culture centers of their age, and leaving mud roads for everyone else, in turn allowing for slightly less-restrictive movement ranges for the units since the early game.

See how it goes with 150-160 range for armies and 170-180 for agents first, as going beyond that is likely to cause 'unintended' features, which you wouldn't like in your mod. As far as numerous improvements go, we still have to be reasonable and take AI capacity into mind, especially as far as the hardcoded basic decision patterns go. From the opposite perspective, too small ranges (like, <120) over wide map with loosely scattered settlements and hard-to-travel terrain create indecisive AI, which poorly expands and defends.

For that reason, middle range of values is best, however it needs to be tested with AI in mind and pathfinding in mind. By plugging in basic XCAI (without adjusting all of the values, which need balancing later) and creating a bunch of self-controlled AI hotseat games, you should see the pathfinding bottlenecks of the current map, as well as overall performance under most current movement ranges for land units. You will have to launch at least few 100+ turn campaigns, under different settings, to have a rough idea of what needs changing and in what direction.

The alternatives to boost just the AI are AI-only movement traits, which aren't that exceptionally bad or 'unfair' as they seem at first, a far as regular playing goes. However, they (in my opinion) aren't needed in a balanced campaign design.

[AnthoniusII]

Thank you guys for your answers...
I will follow your advises!

[Vaz]

Achilla, perhaps the sight range can be countered with a hidden trait AI Sight Range boost of +10 to counter act that effect? I had always thought that the AI could see the entire map to counter act the obvious advantages the human player has (adaption over script), but if this is not the case, maybe it's worth adding that to my AI's hidden traits - or maybe scaling it to the Command so we've not got strikes lead by a captain? +1 Sight, +5 Movement points?

In my particular mod, there's no advancement of settlements at all, so you start off with what you got, other than increasing the build tree of certain settlements to a certain level - so while you can get 3 Levels of Roads, you can only benefit in certain areas.

[Achilla]

That's perfectly possible, however better vision isn't of much help when the general can move a wide distance, and for some reason isn't stopping before a possible obstacle. AI in general uses a ton of spies as well, but for some reason it still gets stuck at cities, armies and forest ambushes. I think this would need some testing, to measure the improvement.

[Achilla]

Achilla, perhaps the sight range can be countered with a hidden trait AI Sight Range boost of +10 to counter act that effect? I had always thought that the AI could see the entire map to counter act the obvious advantages the human player has (adaption over script), but if this is not the case, maybe it's worth adding that to my AI's hidden traits - or maybe scaling it to the Command so we've not got strikes lead by a captain? +1 Sight, +5 Movement points?

In my particular mod, there's no advancement of settlements at all, so you start off with what you got, other than increasing the build tree of certain settlements to a certain level - so while you can get 3 Levels of Roads, you can only benefit in certain areas.

Small update on the topic. It seems Taiji made a little research over his DLV submod, and claims that campaign script revealing the map for the AI before it moves it's armies helps the AI a great deal in more intelligent pathfinding (what is perfectly possible). You might want to PM him and share your experiences here.

[algorath]

is this implementable to stainless steel?

[xeryx]

No, it is not in a major SS or LOTW they have their own AI. but there are instructions if you want to implement it for your personal use.

[Userpro]

What u mean exactly with "... that campaign script revealing the map for the AI before it move ..."?

[Achilla]

Innovative approach to improving AI faction's campaign pathfinding and planning potential (making them cheat the FoW by script)

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=219603

[neha123]

How to exactly use this mod can some one please explain me as i am a newbie in this game....the mod part...Plus does this work with the Chivalry 2 - Sicilian Vespers mod????????

[algorath]

im gonna give it a try for SS 6.2 RR/RC, i´d really love to see some naval invasions and stuff like that
I guess its not savegame compatible?
Is my current campaign dead when copy the files or can i maybe restore the originals and continue it later on?

@neha,
just click on xeryx signature,or click http://www.mediafire.com/Xeryx,
then go to the folder v4.0 and download those 4 files in it,
open the rar and overrite the files in your mod,
dont forget to backup the originals

[Vaz]

In theory, I suppose you could continue with it, but the installation instructions for best use (i.e ensuring that the AI isn't taken from cache) tell you to delete map.rwm, which means your campaign could not be continued.

[Achilla]

In theory, I suppose you could continue with it, but the installation instructions for best use (i.e ensuring that the AI isn't taken from cache) tell you to delete map.rwm, which means your campaign could not be continued.

You can still continue a campaign and delete map.rwm a dozen times in the process, however some settings are plugged in directly to the campaign save file, and thus won't take effect unless you start a new campaign. The cache problem is mostly persistent in field battles.

@ algorath

Be sure to customize the files first, according to the instructions (advanced stuff documentation isn't complete yet). In the case of campaign AI, 'just plugging it there' is a bad idea.

[algorath]

map.rwm...right would´ve forgot about that anyways
Maybe backing it up aswell would do the trick

[xeryx]

You can restore your campaign, as long as you backup your original files. I would put them all in the same .rar and label it accordingly. Then, if you remove the Xai, delete the map.rwm files as well so you clear the cache.

Naval Invasion:
In our's and Soul Firez's mod. We changed all the water to shallow, and all the ships to heavy. This improved the naval invasions drastically, Wow we just created a process..Permission will be needed for official use.

I finished the CAI diplomacy Balance section. I also gave a credit to Taiji for being the first one to figure out how to disable the diplomacy counter.

[AnthoniusII]

Naval Invasion:
In our's and Soul Firez's mod. We changed all the water to shallow, and all the ships to heavy. This improved the naval invasions drastically, Wow we just created a process..Permission will be needed for official use.

Official request of use

The "Great Conflicts 872-1071" mod officialy asks for permision of use
of XAI IV and its develoments that will be added to the point that TGC'
mod will be in that fase of development.


AnthoniusII
TGC mod 1st member.

[xeryx]

Thank you, can you PM it to me..I have a folder of permissions.

I look forward to it!!

[AnthoniusII]

Thank you, can you PM it to me..I have a folder of permissions.

I look forward to it!!

Me too! Espesialy for permisions the have been granded to CBUR and TGC.

But we seak not only to use XAI but in technical assistance by the XAI team
in order the finall "product" will fit perfectly.
We have very limited expirience in such matters!