feature change proposal & the AI

[Pocus]

I would like to propose a major change for FFH, which would help the AI majorly: Have all units able to gain XP over time, as mages do. The reasoning is that the AI units are numerous but are not often promoted as they tend to die after a few combats (the AI is not conservative with his precious units, just see how heroes are moved alone). With this change, there would be a kind of roll-over, as many AI units sitting in its cities would upgrade over time and would then be of better use for the AI.

 

[Sarisin]

I would like to propose a major change for FFH, which would help the AI majorly: Have all units able to gain XP over time, as mages do. The reasoning is that the AI units are numerous but are not often promoted as they tend to die after a few combats (the AI is not conservative with his precious units, just see how heroes are moved alone). With this change, there would be a kind of roll-over, as many AI units sitting in its cities would upgrade over time and would then be of better use for the AI.

So, you're saying that a barb guarding a burrow or a goodie hut would gain XP? Same for the animal roaming around? Wow, the Elephants would be VERY hard to bring down then!

There's no doubt it would make a raging barb game very tough as often the barbs will range all the way across a huge map to get to their targeted civ before attacking. In this scheme, they would be pretty strong when they arrive.

I have seen some AI hero units like Basium and Hyborem sit around until they gain XP, but you are right that most venture out alone to be quickly killed.

Interesting idea!

 

[Nefelia]

The Elephants may be hard to bring down after a while, but the attempt would then be very much worth it.

Raging Barb games may actually change from a free XP setting to a true challenge. Of course, the automatic XP gain would have to be very slow.

 

[Thennorin]

This is an interesting idea... but can it be implemented? Going through all AI units every turn to check if they should have an xp point added seems to me it would slow down the time between turns.

Also, there's no xp gain rate that applies universally. General AI forces would benefit from a slow xp trickle but barbs would need a faster gain because they're more aggressive and don't survive very long. As for AI heroes... maybe they should just start with 100xp

Really what's needed is an AI rewrite so that it understands that FFH is about fewer, more powerful units. And that's coming in the last development phase.

 

[Pocus]

Yes ideally we would all like a deep blue AI ;-

What I mean is that I'm pragmatic here. Adding this slow xp increase to all units would help much the AI and can be done in a couple of hour. From my experience, it is not a good thing to push all AI dev to the end of the development cycle, even if you have strong reasons like 'not all features are there or some can be changed', because in the end you will not have the AI to the level you want. It is better to develop it in parallel with the rest, once you know a feature will stay. For example, whatever the final implementation of the spell logic in FFH shadow, and even if it changes from FFH fire, you know you have to write an algorithm where the AI know how to handle the spell which reverts a desert to a plain.

 

[The Tyrant]

Going through all AI units every turn to check if they should have an xp point added seems to me it would slow down the time between turns.

Very good point. One way around that might be that instead of checking each unit each turn, the game could grant across-the-board promotions depending on the game turn. On turn 10 grant a promotion to all AI units, on turn 30 grant a promotion to all AI units, etc.

Or, one could just play at a higher difficulty setting.

 

[Pocus]

This is not the same. I already play at a high difficulty setting (immortal), but it means that the AI has a lot of low-xp units and is generally able to complete 90% of the wonders, because of production advantage (and this is already frustrating enough on this particular aspect). What would be better is to have an AI with more quality into its units, and this is where the xp tricke kick in.

Iterating thru all units during a turn to increase XP is not something which should take time. The AI is anyway doing that when it plans orders, and believe me pathfinding (attempts or the final, choosen one) is what take 90%+ of the time in many games.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I too would definately like to see more free xp occasionally. How about units in cities with training yards, archery ranges, hippodromes, etc, grant a chance that their respective types of units gain free xp, perhaps instead of giving (either any or as much) free xp to units built there. These buildings seem to be for allowing units to practice more, which should still be useful to a soldier who has already finished basic training.

Perhaps the Altars should also work this way, so that they still give an advantage to disciple units but don't allow a newly built unit to instantly reach a high enough level to become a High Priest, then call several holy wars. I could see the religion specific temples (and maybe their other buildings and wonders) and mage guilds (and perhaps the towers of mastery, necromancy, elements, ect) slightly increasing xp gain as well.

The biggest problem with this is that the Barbarians, Doviello and Clan of embers don't have (or need) some of these buildings. Their barbarian trait leaders also lack the ability to use the barbs to farm xp without losing the traits one advantage. Perhaps these civs should have some other free xp mechanism. I see the barbaric units as rather quarrelsome amongst themselves. Would it be too much to let these civs attack their own units, but withdrawal from combat before either unit gets seriously hurt? Or perhaps they could get a possible 1 xp from the units around them, as if they had withdrawn from combat?

 

[Pocus]

very good idea. Because 90% of the AI units are garrisoning cities, so this would help more the AI than the player, while being realistic.

 

[Blakmane]

The problem with gifting free XP to AI civs is that it makes turtling- something they already have a tendency to do- even more lucrative for them. At the moment they all sit around in one city and fortify to high-heaven. By gifting free XP you'll just end up with huge huge stacks of almost unbeatable defense units who never attack or act aggressively, making any kind of conquest virtually impossible and the game boring.

A much better solution would be just to make them more likely to act aggressively with their units, mixed with only using hero/already high level units when they have a high chance of success (80% or above, say).

I think free xp would just be a temporary fix for AI problems rather than a solution. Better just to grin and bear it for now, until such time the AI can be addressed.

 

[Sureshot]

the AI acts somewhat intelligently with heroes now, it just needs to do the same with its high xp units

 

[Thennorin]

the AI acts somewhat intelligently with heroes now, it just needs to do the same with its high xp units

Precisely the point. Gifting extra xp or promotions to AI units won't change it to be more suited to FFH2's play style. Furthermore, there's no point at all in any official work going into AI enhancements at this stage when Kael & co have repeatedly made it clear that FFH2 is still to undergo major changes. It's only ~50% through the planned dev cycle... There's nothing worse than rushing or half-implementing a feature (AI) only to rework it later on because the functionality needs have changed (new features, or axed ones). Such a project strategy really blows out development time and frustrates all, in the end.

FFH2 development is blazingly fast and consistent compared to many community projects I've watched. Patience will pay off, and there's always the option of multiplayer.

 

[Antheanian]

How about units in cities with training yards, archery ranges, hippodromes, etc, grant a chance that their respective types of units gain free xp.

I really like this idea. It would be fun for the player, respect realism of FFH universe and really help the AI. The temples could do the same for the disciple units. I wonder what the development team thinks about this one...