What causes AI to make stupid decisions?

[GhosT-86]

Hi everyone,

On numerous occasions I have witnessed a complete stupidity by AI like for example in Ossgiliath when full pack sieging one of the parts with 3-4 units in, and instead of conquering it they decide to take off and leave, or the other example: Rohan quite often has 3 full stacks of units just if front of Isengard but never attacks it. Is there a way to make the AI more determined?

[Macilrille]

[c.ryo]

Hi everyone,

On numerous occasions I have witnessed a complete stupidity by AI like for example in Ossgiliath when full pack sieging one of the parts with 3-4 units in, and instead of conquering it they decide to take off and leave, or the other example: Rohan quite often has 3 full stacks of units just if front of Isengard but never attacks it. Is there a way to make the AI more determined?

Dont you think if there was a way, modders would not have fixed it by now? Why even ask....

[GhosT-86]

I think the question is misunderstood, it's not about modders doing good job, if AI Rohan has 3 full stacks in fron of Isengard it doesn't attack because only 1 army gets through to siege it, and AI sees the odds are not in favor of Rohan (Usually Isengard is guarded well and in AR numerous orcs > cavalry) so my question was in regards is there a way to make ally still attack if the disadvantage is not extremely big?

[Withwnar]

if AI Rohan has 3 full stacks in fron of Isengard it doesn't attack because only 1 army gets through to siege it, and AI sees the odds are not in favor of Rohan
... is there a way to make ally still attack if the disadvantage is not extremely big?

Here's a good tutorial on descr_campaign_ai_db.xml: http://rtw.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/f...ct&f=9,6718,,1

descr_campaign_db.xml has some relevant settings too but I don't know of any tutorials for it.

It is interesting but not easy. If you could tweak the AI so that they will fight unlikely-to-win battles then you might be getting lots of suicide battles all over the map, losing armies and family members left, right and center. Self preservation is not to be underestimated.

Total Diplomacy has a function that lets you tell an ally to invade a faction, i.e. attack its settlements. It says "think of nothing else except invading faction X, and invade NOW" but still the game interprets that as "...when I'm strong enough". I'm not certain of what "strong enough" means but I believe it is to do with overall faction strengths, not necessarily "am I strong enough to attack settlement X". So it might help to force Rohan to attack Isengard (the city) even if the odds of such a 1-on-1 battle is not in their favour, so long as Rohan sees itself as "strong enough" against the Isengard faction as a whole. Maybe.

[GhosT-86]

Here's a good tutorial on descr_campaign_ai_db.xml: http://rtw.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/f...ct&f=9,6718,,1

descr_campaign_db.xml has some relevant settings too but I don't know of any tutorials for it.

It is interesting but not easy. If you could tweak the AI so that they will fight unlikely-to-win battles then you might be getting lots of suicide battles all over the map, losing armies and family members left, right and center. Self preservation is not to be underestimated.

Total Diplomacy has a function that lets you tell an ally to invade a faction, i.e. attack its settlements. It says "think of nothing else except invading faction X, and invade NOW" but still the game interprets that as "...when I'm strong enough". I'm not certain of what "strong enough" means but I believe it is to do with overall faction strengths, not necessarily "am I strong enough to attack settlement X". So it might help to force Rohan to attack Isengard (the city) even if the odds of such a 1-on-1 battle is not in their favour, so long as Rohan sees itself as "strong enough" against the Isengard faction as a whole. Maybe.

Total deplomacy might be a useful tool actually when it comes to vassals. I always been annoyed by how little control you have over your vassal that it almost makes no sense to have them. You make a fraction your vassal when you are close to destroying it with 1-2 cities left, after becoming your vassal they sit in two cities with full stack in each city, bunkrupt because their economy is weak but need to feed two stacks and don't pay tribute, then they have a right to refuse attack a neighbour you are at war with and free to declare independence when ever they like.

I would prefer apart from total deplomacy to be able to claim 50% of vassal's forces under my command upon request, with option to give it back at my will

In regards to suicide battles: AI uses AR in battles so family members always survive. The only way the family member dies in AR if he defends the sieged city or trapped and can't escape

[Lortano]

SO you are questioning the AI of a game that's ancient by standards today, in a series where AI is never improved, and then asking if modders can mod a game engine (They can't) to make the Ai less stupid?

Just deal with it, AI is never smart.

[Adjudant-Major]

One day you will pay for what you have just said, Lortano, and I would not be in your place that day

[Redgrave]

I prefer calling it AS- "Artificial Stupidity" ! However, I will say that- considering their limitations- the modders of TATW have done a great job with the AI. I'm not sure how much is from vanilla and how much is from them, but I'm sure there's at least a bit of difference.

Back to your main point, if you want to try to code better AI, go ahead. Just don't be surprised when you discover that it's nigh-on impossible to do!

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

Total War has an AI?

[Macilrille]

In EB (running on RTW) we call it Artificial Idiot.

[Bladvak]

Or, you could call it Assume Idiocy.

[Macilrille]

Or, you could call it Assume Idiocy.

Ha ha ha dats even more fun.

[muller227]

They have done what they could with the AI, the battle script is much better it would seem to me, they flank better, pick better ground, and no longer run their archers way ahead of their infantry lines. The CAI well that is a different story altogether.

[ElvenKind]

The modders are not allowed to modify the hardcoded . exe file. If they were, maybe they would make the magic happen. This way, they can only try to script the AI.

[Deathcake]

AI just has ADD I think. It starts with a good goal (conquer city X), then gets part way through accomplishing it and then 'ohh shiny!' and goes to investigate
Is there a script that can implement virtual ritalin?

[muller227]

A couple years ago I ran across a conversation maybe it was between Lusted and Darth, anyway it was some of the early modders who worked scripts. They had evidently heard that kingdoms was a source of immense debate at CA. CA programmers know how to make CAI very smart, executives thought what they were proposing would make the game far to hard and no one would buy it. They made it actually dumber as a marketing ploy. Who can forget entire stacks of Egyptian Ballistae and Catapults when they have Royal Mamlukes at their disposal. or the demise of the defense Bonus for experience that made some ai militia a bloody to beat down. The original Med2 was harder than the Kingdoms version in some ways, actually most ways I found Kingdoms boring until great mods like SS and TATW came out. RC put defense skill back in around about way. Defense skill seems weighted to me or cannot figure out how 120 Quendi Sword beat 150 Gondor Infantry.

TATW (mos especially) faces a Tolkien nightmare that SS (ALL HUMAN)does not face (BALANCING ISSUES)

[alreadyded]

CA programmers know how to make CAI very smart, executives thought what they were proposing would make the game far to hard and no one would buy it. They made it actually dumber as a marketing ploy.

I find this very hard to believe. I myself have studied the AI files thoroughly and they are very complex and abstract. Making an AI is very difficult work due to the extreme amount of factors you have to not only create but also balance out. The AI in Medieval I TW was simple, and could be because the campaign map was a Risk board game map. In Rome TW they implemented tiles which allows much more choices and decision making by the AI to move around, or not move around, and attack. There are so many parameters to account for and adjust and test and account for and test and adjust and... you get the point. Anyway, Med II is the same game engine as RTW so they mostly just reused the AI from that (which took a great deal of time and money to create) and spent their time money making their old game engine (which costs more to make than anything else by far) look better and different which is very profitable. Also, they could have just added a few more difficulty options so why would they just trash all their hard work?


Edit: On a side note I made a "Enhanced Campaign AI" which is worth checking out. I am too lazy to provide a link since I don't have one on hand.

[muller227]

I find this very hard to believe. I myself have studied the AI files thoroughly and they are very complex and abstract. Making an AI is very difficult work due to the extreme amount of factors you have to not only create but also balance out. The AI in Medieval I TW was simple, and could be because the campaign map was a Risk board game map. In Rome TW they implemented tiles which allows much more choices and decision making by the AI to move around, or not move around, and attack. There are so many parameters to account for and adjust and test and account for and test and adjust and... you get the point. Anyway, Med II is the same game engine as RTW so they mostly just reused the AI from that (which took a great deal of time and money to create) and spent their time money making their old game engine (which costs more to make than anything else by far) look better and different which is very profitable. Also, they could have just added a few more difficulty options so why would they just trash all their hard work?


Edit: On a side note I made a "Enhanced Campaign AI" which is worth checking out. I am too lazy to provide a link since I don't have one on hand.

Those are good points I personally have little idea what goes into making a good ai. I do remember after getting Kingdoms being very disappointed with it, there was a mod I played back then by Lusted that revamped the EDU recruitment priorities among other things that fixed a lot of what I thought was wrong with Kingdoms at the time.

[ElvenKind]

On a side note I made a "Enhanced Campaign AI" which is worth checking out. I am too lazy to provide a link since I don't have one on hand.

You mean this one: Enhanced CAI