Skynet AI

[z3n]

That problem is probably fixed now, thanks to Jadli's eagle eyes. I'll post an update eventually when I find time.

[Jadli]

Just curious, how soon will that be? Going to release an updated version of my mod in a few days, so would be cool to include it (in case you cant, could you perhaps just PM which parts do you plan to change, so I can try to modify it myself in the meantime?)

[Piterx93]

Well, I mean this one (in your original file it says 1)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

<decision_entry>
            <!--
            *invade immediate vs our allies enemy if we only have >=2 enemy
            -->
                <min_entry    trusted_ally_enemy = "true"/>
                <max_entry    num_enemies = "2"/>
                <faction_attitude at_war = "true" can_force_invade = "true" invade = "invade_immediate"/>
            </decision_entry>

It seems sense to me I should increase it when every facton has two enemies (slaves + kind of a different kind of slaves), right? Otherwise the AI would never invade their allies enemies?


Also, if I would need to make a new ai_label for some factions, (in case i would need to enforce that faction to always be at war with other faction, or to never ally to a faction, etc), its fine if I just make a copy of yours "default" ai_label and just add the "diplomacy" decision entries, right? Your AI would still work fine?

What a nonsense. When the AI ​​does not border a province belonging to the slaves, it does not count them as an enemy.

[bitterhowl]

Sad but seems that num_enemies is broken, it makes wrong numbers in ltgd_log. So I don't use it in my AI anymore.

I got good progress with it. I was wrong when I thought that AtWar stance is most important. But now I can say that most important is Neutral one, because AI spends most of it's time in Neutral stance. And prepears invasion, gather forces in Neutral. If you did everything fine in Neutral period then AtWar will became a blitzkrieg.

[Jadli]

Hm, alright

BTW how would you guys go about making an AI faction to completely ignore other faction? Is it better with true or false continue?

<decision_entry>                <min_entry    target_faction="papal_states" />
                <max_entry    target_faction="papal_states" />
        <faction_attitude  defense="defend_minimal" continue="false"/>
     </decision_entry>

<decision_entry>                <min_entry    target_faction="papal_states"/>
                <max_entry    target_faction="papal_states"/>
                <faction_attitude invade = "invade_none" continue="false"/>
      </decision_entry>

While the AI faction completely ignores the papal_states, it still keeps significantly stronger garisons around them (the papal_states have "dungeon" forts all over the map), so how to go about making sure that doesnt happen?

[bitterhowl]

Just remove whole line "faction_attitude" as it done in vanilla code. CA comment says it set default behavior "do nothing and ignore".

[Jadli]

oooh gonna try that

[Jadli]

Hm, seems it has a similar effect as stuff I had been trying before...

[bitterhowl]

So try continue=false in combination with invade_none and defend_minimal.

[Jadli]

Well, thats what I was trying originally ...

<decision_entry>                <min_entry    target_faction="papal_states" />
                <max_entry    target_faction="papal_states" />
        <faction_attitude  defense="defend_minimal" continue="false"/>
     </decision_entry>

<decision_entry>                <min_entry    target_faction="papal_states"/>
                <max_entry    target_faction="papal_states"/>
                <faction_attitude invade = "invade_none" continue="false"/>
      </decision_entry>

Or you meant to write it in different way?

Doesnt it possibly also matter if there is only min_entry or max_entry? I saw some decisions written like that...

[z3n]

Just curious, how soon will that be? Going to release an updated version of my mod in a few days, so would be cool to include it (in case you cant, could you perhaps just PM which parts do you plan to change, so I can try to modify it myself in the meantime?)

I'm not sure when, but I still plan on doing so. Made some progress which got erased accidentally one day. (didn't save it fully and left as a temp file which was then deleted sadly)

If you're waiting I suggest only waiting a week at most, I'll probably take significantly longer.

[bitterhowl]

Try to add negative invade_priority.

Thanks for information that default settings are not working.

[Jadli]

I'm not sure when, but I still plan on doing so. Made some progress which got erased accidentally one day. (didn't save it fully and left as a temp file which was then deleted sadly)

If you're waiting I suggest only waiting a week at most, I'll probably take significantly longer.

yay

Try to add negative invade_priority.

Thanks for information that default settings are not working.

Well, Im not sure if its not working in the way you mean. I believe it works pretty much the same like the previous decisions I showed (with continue = false). Without neither of these, the AI ignores them less I believe.

I tried invade_priority before, as well as defend priority (which the notes says that it dont work anyway), similar results. Invade decisions dont seem to be the problem (though I might be wrong) because the AI doesnt care about the faction in any diplomatic/invasive way (the dungeon faction is freezed), it never tried to attack them, it just seems to be concerned about amount of other units in the region I would say. (for the record, I also tested with unfreezed dungeon faction, it seemed pretty much the same).

Well, I still have my backup plan where I put the dungeons on tiles from some neutral inaccessible region, which seemed to have fixed this when I tried it before (before I tried to alter AI settings).

Though I will still do testing with this, it seems to me that different combinations of the decisions give slightly different behavior, so perhaps there is some magic formula that gets it done.

[bitterhowl]

I forgot to suggest at_war="false".

Also - your forts are in papal_faction regions only or in other factions regions too?

[Jadli]

They were in other regions, papal_states (dungeon faction) had no regions at all.

However, I had enough of testing already, so I took the approach with giving a tile "under" each fort to an inaccessible region at the edge of map controlled by player (so he can receive missions, because if it is not in his region, he wouldnt), and works great. I knew it would have worked before, but wanted to avoid having to give player a useless region....

Thanks for help!

[Dominick]

I've been playing a Denmark campaign in Retrofit Mod with Grand Units Add-on Mod coupled with your AI through the last year and a half, so I'd like to report a couple of things for future development.

Generally I'm quite impressed and happy with your campaign AI, however these are the things that I believe could be improved:
- Papacy AI is aggressive when following your installation instructions so it should be noted somewhere under which type it's advised to put it's campaign AI.
- AI attacks badly defended settlements and is ready for peace often before even losing a battle (maybe there are some factors I am not aware of why the AI acts in such a manner), and in many cases is ready to give up many of it's own settlements to just gain peace. This should be balanced.
- AI army enters Jihad and it doesn't attack the Jihad target when it arrives there, it just stands around the target. The same might be true for crusades, but I am not completely sure as I've captured the crusade target myself.

Keep up the good work, Skynet AI has the best CAI I had encountered thus far.

Hi Zen,

Have the problems with the crusades and jihads and the AI surrendering regions too easily mentioned in this post maybe been covered in the updated version? I've talked to other people playing mods using Skynet AI and they seem to come across the same problems.

Another problem that I've come across was a war always starting over again artificially with a faction (Venice), after one of my allies declared war on it (Papal States). Even though we both kept having ceasefires with Venice, the war would always renew for some reason. Would you know why this is happening? It's the same Denmark campaign in Retrofit mod with your AI.

All the best,
Dominik

[z3n]

Hello

To be honest, I only tested EBII and DaC with my AI. I never built the AI around jihad or crusades, I'm not sure why that would happen yet. Maybe something to do with the way invasions are used.

AI surrendering regions is something I could try to take into account but the main thing for me was making sure it wanted peace during reasonable circumstances or situations (too many enemies at once etc). Balancing that is rather tricky, a better way is to change descr_diplomacy. It sounds to me like your mod is imbalanced with respect to your descr_diplomacy (the cost being far too low for settlements), rather than anything to do with the AI directly.

Changing the AI directly would be much more work than simply balancing descr_diplomacy.

Another problem that I've come across was a war always starting over again artificially with a faction (Venice), after one of my allies declared war on it (Papal States). Even though we both kept having ceasefires with Venice, the war would always renew for some reason. Would you know why this is happening? It's the same Denmark campaign in Retrofit mod with your AI.

As for this, I'm not aware of any triggers that would cause this within the AI. Are you saying that the AI is attacking a settlement of theirs? Maybe check the campaign script and make sure there's nothing causing that?

[Dominick]

Hello

To be honest, I only tested EBII and DaC with my AI. I never built the AI around jihad or crusades, I'm not sure why that would happen yet. Maybe something to do with the way invasions are used.

AI surrendering regions is something I could try to take into account but the main thing for me was making sure it wanted peace during reasonable circumstances or situations (too many enemies at once etc). Balancing that is rather tricky, a better way is to change descr_diplomacy. It sounds to me like your mod is imbalanced with respect to your descr_diplomacy (the cost being far too low for settlements), rather than anything to do with the AI directly.

Changing the AI directly would be much more work than simply balancing descr_diplomacy.



As for this, I'm not aware of any triggers that would cause this within the AI. Are you saying that the AI is attacking a settlement of theirs? Maybe check the campaign script and make sure there's nothing causing that?

For the crusades/jihads, I suppose the AI enters the crusades because it can and no other more important reason (tell me if I'm wrong), and then it sometimes makes peace with the faction, even though they're on a crusade for a target owned by that faction, thinking to itself why are they at war, considering they don't match their usual invasion priorities. Another case, when the AI is close to the target, the AI could be thinking that the crusade target is too well defended, and thus not worthy of besieging, so they just stand around the settlement. Doesn't DaC have invasions (crusades) as a feature for Followers of Melkor?

For surrendering regions, maybe it is descr_diplomacy, I wouldn't know. Could you guide me to the line(s) in the code you have in mind?

I don't think the allied AI is attacking anything of the enemy, didn't seem so when I checked. The game also throws me into war with the enemy AI at start of turn, even though no one is attacking anybody. I actually thought this was a feature of Skynet with the files it also changes, to throw allies that have very good relations into war with it's allies' enemies, as France, which I had a marriage alliance with, also used to join my wars when I was allied to them.

[z3n]

Doesn't DaC have invasions (crusades) as a feature for Followers of Melkor?

Possibly, things may have changed within the past years. At the time everything seemed to work.

I can tell you that crusade / jihad / horde / papacy / vassals etc. etc. are all relatively broken in their own ways when it comes to the AI. The only thing that is "somewhat" working is the normal AI. If you're not interested in roleplaying purposes of these features and would rather have a functional AI, then I suggest not using those features at all. They're basically broken.

Could you guide me to the line(s) in the code you have in mind?

These are the descr_diplomacy lines of code

<item name="offer_cede_region">
<cost modifier="3.5"/>
<faction_standing modifier="0.25"/>
<global_standing modifier="0.5"/>
</item>

<item name="demand_cede_region">
<cost modifier="4.5"/>
<faction_standing modifier="0.5"/>
<global_standing modifier="0.5"/>
</item>

I actually thought this was a feature of Skynet with the files it also changes, to throw allies that have very good relations into war with it's allies' enemies, as France, which I had a marriage alliance with, also used to join my wars when I was allied to them.

To an extent yes, it will attack the enemies of its allies. But it will attack the settlements, I don't think any "declaration of war" will happen (that seems scripted). The AI will just attack the settlement directly.

[bitterhowl]

I actually thought this was a feature of Skynet with the files it also changes, to throw allies that have very good relations into war with it's allies' enemies, as France, which I had a marriage alliance with, also used to join my wars when I was allied to them.

Well, maybe my idea of difference between non-neighbouring factions may help here.