AI Grand Challenge

[ButSam]

Calling all programmers! Have you ever wished you could play on Noble and have the same challenge as on Monarch, but on equal par (minus the AI benefits)? Now is your chance to "fix" the AI as best as you can, taking away bonuses to the AI and yet offering as much of a challenge as is possible. (And if you can't, then no more whining about AI bonuses -- they make the game still challenging for those who can win on Noble.)

Any takers? Any major successes so far?

 

[Doomed_UK]

Try editing the HandicapInfo XML file - you could, say, tweak the monarch values back to the noble value for particular features that to desire (i.e. tech rate).

 

[Seven05]

Honestly, from what I've seen in the SDK there is very little of the AI that relies on the difficulty level outside of those insane bonuses. I had begun some research & planning for making the AI play smarter in TAM at higher levels rather than getting a bunch of cheap bonuses but I don't really have the time to continue.

Some very basic features would be really simple to impliment though. For example modifications to the unit build preferences to make it more random at lower difficulty and more planned at higher difficulty. There are also some trivial functions to determine the level of danger in a region, those could also be easily modified by difficulty level.

The biggest problem is that without some substantial code re-writing you end up just making the lower level AI dumber rather than making the higher level AI smarter.

 

[Impaler[WrG]]

The AI currently "thinks" the same on all levels, only the Bonuses give it an advantage (aka make up for its stupidity) at high levels.

The goal should be to incresse the AI's inteligence at all levels so the Bonuses can be toned down. The GeneticAI project is the best shot at doing this right now, a total or near total re-write of the AI would be required to make even more dramatic improvments.