Most important and relatively easy thing that can be done to improve all facets of AI

from Elemental Forums

Improve the AI's ability to tell what sucks ass and what does not. This will have the following benefits:

  • The strategic AI will not build units that suck ass.
  • The strategic AI will not repeated ram its suck ass units into your stack of doom because it thinks it's the bomb and you suck.
  • The diplomatic AI will not go to war with you immediately because it thinks its suck ass units are better than yours.
  • The tactical AI will make better choices about what unit to target
  • The auto-combat AI might be usable once again.
    • I mention this because I think the AI just compares what it thinks is more powerful and then puts some randomization into the result. This is because my army of 3 tank units and 3 mage units lost to a single enemy champion. When I reloaded the mages killed him in 1 round.
14,355 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree in spirit but in terms of implementation what you are saying is not much different from suggesting that Stardock should improve the AI by improving the AI. Getting AI to make intelligent choices about what is best is a large part of writing an AI in the first place!

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

One of the biggest pet peeves I still have about the AI is the fact that it still does things players just wouldn't do, ever.

1) It sends out lone heroes into enemy territory. It just shouldn't do that. Only in peaceful times when you're levelling your hero he might be on his own. Otherwise always accompanied by troops.

2) It makes too many unit only stacks and no stacks of doom. Players only make a few stacks and try to make them as strong as possible. The AI should really invest more time in that and not scatter its units so much.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I would still be interested if it is possible to crowdsource AI unit building. I do not know if and how the AI does units, but first designing a unit, and then giving it an AI interface like "Build in low crystal high metal conditions, build if enemies have high defence and low dodge" but be pretty cool.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I feel like the war declarations have improved in 0.85. Where as before most factions would figuratively skip being Hostile and just declare war, in my recent games only the war hungry (like Yithril) and neighboring factions have been declaring war.

CoreUnits.xml needs some serious attention. A lot of the poorly designed units are in that file. This won't solve the problem entirely becasue the AI can design units outside of that file, but it'll go a long way. If SD doesn't fix the file, then I'll be irritated enough to mod it myself.

The tactical AI seems based on distance, for the most part. Whatever is closest to the AI unit has priority. For ranged units, I don't think this is the case. It also seems like once the AI targets a unit, it targets it until its dead. It doesn't update. This lack of reevaluating the situation seems to be everywhere in the AI.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I have experience only with FE, but there is really basic error: AI tries to use magic (i.e.: flame dart) on enemy units which are magicproof (Immune to magic).

Does it exist in LH?

 

   

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting SnakeField, reply 5

I have experience only with FE, but there is really basic error: AI tries to use magic (i.e.: flame dart) on enemy units which are magicproof (Immune to magic).

Does it exist in LH?

 

   

 

Yeah, the AI has targeted my ophidians with damage spells today.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SnakeField, reply 5
CoreUnits.xml needs some serious attention. A lot of the poorly designed units are in that file. This won't solve the problem entirely becasue the AI can design units outside of that file

My understanding is that the AI can not design any units outside that file... what do you mean by this?

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Mistwraithe, reply 1

I agree in spirit but in terms of implementation what you are saying is not much different from suggesting that Stardock should improve the AI by improving the AI. Getting AI to make intelligent choices about what is best is a large part of writing an AI in the first place!

Incorrect. No matter how it is implemented, the AI is an entire system, and the strength of a unit is a single evaluation function.

I obviously don't know what the algorithm is for evaluating a unit, but it is horrible, and improving it would probably be one of the best AI based ROIs left. 

For instance, whatever is causing air shrills to be rated high needs to be changed.

 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting abob101, reply 7


Quoting SnakeField, reply 5CoreUnits.xml needs some serious attention. A lot of the poorly designed units are in that file. This won't solve the problem entirely becasue the AI can design units outside of that file

My understanding is that the AI can not design any units outside that file... what do you mean by this?

I spent the other day cleaning up Altar in CoreUnits and reduced the available pre-designed units to about 10. When play testing these changes the AI was fielding units that I had not designed. I searched for these unit's names in CoreUnits but they didn't show up. I did not touch the generic units, so perhaps these units are being designed out of that profile and being named using a random generator. If this is not the case, the AI is designing units internally. 

The problem is, unless custom factions have a full set of pre designed units, they need access to these generic designs (if it is the case that the AI does not design units internally).