AI vs. Kir-Talax Episode 2

from JoeUser Forums

AI is now set to “Challenging”.

Challenging is a difficulty level that I’m trying to create where the AI doesn’t cheat but instead soaks up a bit more CPU.  The goal is to have something that in a 1 on 1 game will consistently provide a challenge.

In a game with several players set to challenging, winning becomes something that involves serious skill since the AI will make it a point to work together.

I’ve been working on a number of game mechanic tools that let players work together in more tangible ways.  When we worked on Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy, we (Stardock and Ironclad) came up with the concept of treaties. I wish GalCiv had had this tool (hell, I wish WOM had it). FE has a number of treat options that will allow players to help friends and diss foes.

But for today’s tests, the goals are to see how well it plays ONE vs. ONE. 

These aren’t fair fights. I’ve gotten emails from people who are concerned that the game will be  “too hard”.  Challenging isn’t the default setting and there are lower levels of difficulty that provide new players a reasonable challenge without getting creamed (i.e. different algorithms get used).

In the XML, there’s a new AI feature called AIintelligence that at Normal is set to 1 and at easier levels is less than 1. I use this number to determine what functions get used. Up to 1.5, the AI plays “fair”.  After 1.5, I’ve written functions that let the AI do things that are less fair (like getting better start up conditions, better treasure, etc.).

For you old time 4X players, you can probably imagine all the kinds of things we can do with the AI here that aren’t normally doable in a typical strategy game.   Poor Jon Shafer, his Civ V AI stuff didn’t have magic available. We do.

Anyway, let’s start with game 47…

Game 47: Challenging AI

A few caveats:

(1) A lot of new art assets aren’t in my build. That’s why there’s so much brown.  So no “blasted lands”

(2) There’s only 1 tactical arena map. I see the same tactical battle over…and over…and over…please kill me.

(3) I don’t play fair. I am playing to kill the AI efficiently, not to “play” the game.

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My starting position.

Exploring the wilds

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AI stupidly sits by while I attack his city.

Victory in 60 turns.

Score: 21

Not a good showing.

Sovereign should have ducked into town. Why didn’t he?

Coding coding coding…

Game 48:

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My start is pretty decent.

 

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The AI is on a peninsula and has no problem sending forces home before me to reinforce. He’s bottled up.

..Fixed a bug with the way the AI determines what item it should equip…

This fix actually just made a huge HUGE difference to the way the AI champions and the AI sovereign function.

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Relias proceeds to kick my ass.

Badly.

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Now this is pretty ballsy, the AI has calculated that Relias can take us all out by himself. I don’t see how this is possible.

Relias tries to take us all on.

A bad move. I need to look at the calculations here as to why he’s running around on his own like that.

I try to attack him outside the city a bit later and the story is different.

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Now, noticing the AI has a good lead here and should be sending more units after me.

Looking at a bug. 

It’s often difficult for me to tell whether a Unit is a Unit or whether a Unit is really an army. There are functions that tell this but because of all the performance optimization, there are some glitches in this area that I’m having to fix to make sure I have “live” data and not cached data.  You don’t want units to be recalculating their stats very often as it adds up very fast.

Ok fixed.

oh.

Hmm.

It worked.

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Oh f..ck.

Defeat in 63 turns.

 

Ok. enough for tonight.

23,326 views 22 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

(1) A lot of new art assets aren’t in my build. That’s why there’s so much brown. So no “blasted lands”

Ahhh, that explains that. I was gonna say that FE terrain is kinda repetitive.  Just grass, purple grass, dirt, trees, and rivers.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

In a game with several players set to challenging, winning becomes something that involves serious skill since the AI will make it a point to work together.

That bit worries me a little.  In other 4x games, it irritates me that the AI players band together against the human instead of seeking their own best interest.  I'd rather have challenging AI be smarter, 2nd choice is bonus to hit points, gold, etc, etc.  

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 2
In a game with several players set to challenging, winning becomes something that involves serious skill since the AI will make it a point to work together.

That bit worries me a little.  In other 4x games, it irritates me that the AI players band together against the human instead of seeking their own best interest.  I'd rather have challenging AI be smarter, 2nd choice is bonus to hit points, gold, etc, etc.  

he didn't necesarily say they would band up against the player, just band together making it difficult for the player to take them without an ally or two 'him'self (another way of reading it?)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Frogboys statement doesn't mean necessarily mean that the AIs always team up against humans, just that they will actually form alliances with other players and work together against any player  who threatens them as a team. Thus having the highest faction power doesn't guarantee victory.

In WoM you could just amass an army and take out each AI one at a time. Now they might be smart enough to realize that in order to defeat one warmonger they should band together or even form blocs or alliances beforehand. So conquest won't be as easy and the player might actually have to plan ahead and form his own bloc.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

 

"Oh f..ck.

Defeat in 63 turns." - Had me rollin

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for that. :)

That was very interesting and it's nice to see that the AI is putting up a good fight.

Also, the graphics still look really cool even if they are streamlined for testing purposes. ^^

 

Oh and...

 

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

 

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes in case it Frogboy actually meant that the AI will gang up on the player and leave each other at relative peace, I really wish there's an option to turn this off and let the AI player play independently and actually try to win the game themselves. Otherwise the illusion of a single-player "multiplayer" game is gone.

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, I hope it just means that the AI will just rate getting involved in alliances as higher when there's a clearly more powerful player, not that the AI's will get chummy with each other and exclude the player from the get-go.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Sir_Linque, reply 7
Yes in case it Frogboy actually meant that the AI will gang up on the player and leave each other at relative peace, I really wish there's an option to turn this off and let the AI player play independently and actually try to win the game themselves. Otherwise the illusion of a single-player "multiplayer" game is gone.

 

 

Agreed. I hated Civ III for that. The AI would always band together and dog pile you if you got too powerful. It made the game unfun for me.

 

I think there are ways for factions in E:WOM to have a team victory though (If I am not mistaken) so I think the AI will be more willing to ally with you in order to increase it's chances of winning.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

If you get too powerful then I hope the AI will indeed team up with you. But I also want the AI to team up with me if some other AI is getting too powerful.

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Good stuff, defeat #1!

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi Frogboy! I appreciate the regular updates for Elemental, but how about Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion? I know that it's under Ironclad, but would it be possible to have a little update once in a while?

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd like to have an 'allied victory' toggle, & wouldn't mind if there was someway for a faction with a higher power rating to still respect me if we've had good dealings in the past, just because your powerfull doesn't mean you don't care about those that have helped you out of some hard times

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Re ganging up:

It's the same thing we had in GalCiv.  If a player is going on a rampage, the other players will notice and either suck up to you if they think that'll work (join you) or try to get strength in numbers to resist you.  Same thing happens if it were someone else.  It's not like Civ or whatever where everyone just hates whoever is winning.

If you're playing a FFA game and one guy is knocking everyone else down one by one, whatcha gonna do? You're going to try to get everyone else to go after him.

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Love the HD video!

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

Whilst ganging up on a powerful enemy (human player) through diplomacy and force of arms is a good strategy to keep the game challenging, and I would hope this is a normal mechanic of the AI, I do hope its intelligently approached so its not annoyingly frustrating to the human player.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Just want to say, thank you Brad for giving us small tidbits of information. Also please make the FE AI the best you ever made! (Okey, maybe that's asking to much.) You never made me give up hope on Elemental! :D

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

You already have the masses rattling their cages in fear, Frogboy.  That must mean you're doing something right!

I say, give me the best you've got!

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

I do love these AI development diaries. Very much looking forward to testing the game later this month :)

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

I wonder who these people are who send e-mails about the game looking to be "too hard"....It's like they haven't played War of Magic or GalCiv II and seen the difficulty lvls!    Some people....:rolleyes:

 

So....your first defeat at the hands of your creation....a milestone reached (and great pride I assume)?

If not anything else, then atleast you can walk around the office and tell them about "computers taking over" and "A.I showing signs of selflearning" and such things :cylon:   (MAN! Where are the Terminator smileyes when you need'em??)

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Hi Brad, have you had a chance for a rematch yet?

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 14
Re ganging up:

It's the same thing we had in GalCiv.  If a player is going on a rampage, the other players will notice and either suck up to you if they think that'll work (join you) or try to get strength in numbers to resist you.  Same thing happens if it were someone else.  It's not like Civ or whatever where everyone just hates whoever is winning.

If you're playing a FFA game and one guy is knocking everyone else down one by one, whatcha gonna do? You're going to try to get everyone else to go after him.

I'm glad to hear the AI doesn't just gang up on the human player like alot of games AI's. I've always hated that. I'm glad you are bringing this over from GalCiv2. One of my best memories from GalCiv2 is the AI's forming a coalition against me after I nabbed one too many galactic resource. The ensuing war left me weakened, but I ended up coming out on top. As a result a few of the AI swapped sides and teamed up with me and our two alliances continued to battle it out for the rest of the game. This made the game fun, and even the later period that in traditional games would be the "mop-up" phase was still challenging, but not annoyingly so. This also helps create the feeling of a believable narrative playing out. To compare to a fantasy setting, take lord of the rings. Most of the races didn't really like each other, but they teamed up to resist the threat that sauron imposed.