[MOD] More Naval AI
- Thread starter Tholal
- Start date
There seems to be a
AI pathfinding issue with army stacks!
In a recent game (save attached), I've seen armies of several AI players which just run back and forth over 2 tiles (Clan, Svartalfar) and in circles (Elohim), without attacking anything.
I guess either they have a problem to find a way to their intended target, or they figure that they can't actually attack their target successfully.
In case of the Svartalfar army, which is severly damaged, it should simply stay put for some turns to heal. Although the concept of winning by attrition seemingly is still unknown to the AI, so it still cannot fully utilize its superior numbers ... .
However, if you load up the savegame, you'll find
- the Clans army next to the Amurite city of Udenarat in the north (1. falcon)
- the Svartalfar army next to the Elohim city of Slane (southeast)
- the Elohim army that just runs in circles in its home lands
What worked nicely, though, was the Svartalfar using (newly build?) horsemen to surprise me with a border raid, successfully killing a worker, raiding some ressource plots and scouting the area up to a Balseraph city I had taken some turns before.
Those 2 horsemen obviously moved as single units (the 2 raided, 1 then returned to their homelands, while the other continued scouting .. maximise damage, minimise risk of losses ... very impressive for an AI !), so it must be something with the army stacks themselves?!
AI pathfinding issue with army stacks!
In a recent game (save attached), I've seen armies of several AI players which just run back and forth over 2 tiles (Clan, Svartalfar) and in circles (Elohim), without attacking anything.
I guess either they have a problem to find a way to their intended target, or they figure that they can't actually attack their target successfully.
In case of the Svartalfar army, which is severly damaged, it should simply stay put for some turns to heal. Although the concept of winning by attrition seemingly is still unknown to the AI, so it still cannot fully utilize its superior numbers ... .
However, if you load up the savegame, you'll find
- the Clans army next to the Amurite city of Udenarat in the north (1. falcon)
- the Svartalfar army next to the Elohim city of Slane (southeast)
- the Elohim army that just runs in circles in its home lands
What worked nicely, though, was the Svartalfar using (newly build?) horsemen to surprise me with a border raid, successfully killing a worker, raiding some ressource plots and scouting the area up to a Balseraph city I had taken some turns before.
Those 2 horsemen obviously moved as single units (the 2 raided, 1 then returned to their homelands, while the other continued scouting .. maximise damage, minimise risk of losses ... very impressive for an AI !), so it must be something with the army stacks themselves?!
This is not uncommon behavior from the AI if they think that they can't attack a city successfully. Since that stack is kind of wired for city conquest it doesn't pillage actively that much. Horses will, though.
By the way, the Svartalfar, in that specific turn, are plotting mainly against Nubia, your city, actually.
This is sometimes a considerable issue.
Thanks for the save game. I took a quick look at it this morning.
Clan - stack isn't powerful enough to take Undenarat. It looks like they're waiting for more troops, but none seem to be headed that way
Svarts - their stack in Elohim lands is heavily wounded and so they are trying to heal up. I tested that stack attacking Slane and lost about half of it before the city was conquered. Good strategy to make that attack? Hard to say. Maybe they should have backed off to heal first?
Elohim - they are currently in Turtle mode, so they aren't going to be making any assaults. They did use their conquest stack to clear out some Svart horsemen in their lands, though I guess it would also make sense for them to head down to Slane to help with defense there and maybe take out a few wounded Svart units.
I do agree that the AI isn't especially great at using its troops properly. A lot of it is kind of complex (when is it a good idea to sacrifice most of a stack?) but I do see a couple of potential tweaks I can implement to try and improve things.
Thanks for the feedback!
I recently played a 2v2v2v2 team match with myself as Illians and my team mate as Doviello.
We got dogpiled by all the AIs (this on prince level - this Mod has BRUTAL AI I must say). Anyhow, I ended up having to babysit the Doviello cities with my own champions, because they lost 2 of their cities and were still using Conquest as their civic).
I have found that most AIs that end up trounced get locked in Conquest. This is good when you are on the offensive and want to hit hard, but is absolutely wrong on the defensive. The Doviello cities ended up stuck at size 4-6 for the majority of the game and would not grow. I ended up forcing them into Agrarian on the trading screen. But by then the damage was done.
I ended up retiring, the AI onslaught from 3 fronts was just too much for one civ to handle.
TL;DR Look at the code for Conquest civic. If on the defensive, seriously consider switching out to allow your cities to grow again.
Otherwise, this mod is awesome so far.
We got dogpiled by all the AIs (this on prince level - this Mod has BRUTAL AI I must say). Anyhow, I ended up having to babysit the Doviello cities with my own champions, because they lost 2 of their cities and were still using Conquest as their civic).
I have found that most AIs that end up trounced get locked in Conquest. This is good when you are on the offensive and want to hit hard, but is absolutely wrong on the defensive. The Doviello cities ended up stuck at size 4-6 for the majority of the game and would not grow. I ended up forcing them into Agrarian on the trading screen. But by then the damage was done.
I ended up retiring, the AI onslaught from 3 fronts was just too much for one civ to handle.
TL;DR Look at the code for Conquest civic. If on the defensive, seriously consider switching out to allow your cities to grow again.
Otherwise, this mod is awesome so far.
Today I played another team match off, myself as the Amurites and my team mate as the Grigori.
Once again I ended up babysitting their cities because of their poor defense. Admittedly, they were attacked on two fronts by the Clan and Hippus (nasty!). But I saw them building galleys?! while they still only had a few warriors and adepts defending their cities during full onslaught. Enemy had axeman and horseman.
Ships wont do you any good in a land war fought on two fronts. Yes, their were some enemy ships harrying the coast, but that is nothing more than a nuisance. Basically, the Grigori should've turtled right up and massed defenders in their primary troop production cities.
TL;DR Don't build ships in a land war!
Anyhow, keep up the good work! I may have to drop down another notch to noble difficulty (I normally play on Monarch). So really the AI is quite awesome already
Once again I ended up babysitting their cities because of their poor defense. Admittedly, they were attacked on two fronts by the Clan and Hippus (nasty!). But I saw them building galleys?! while they still only had a few warriors and adepts defending their cities during full onslaught. Enemy had axeman and horseman.
Ships wont do you any good in a land war fought on two fronts. Yes, their were some enemy ships harrying the coast, but that is nothing more than a nuisance. Basically, the Grigori should've turtled right up and massed defenders in their primary troop production cities.
TL;DR Don't build ships in a land war!
Anyhow, keep up the good work! I may have to drop down another notch to noble difficulty (I normally play on Monarch). So really the AI is quite awesome already
Excellent! One of my goals with this AI work is to force people to play at lower difficulties.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into ship production and the use of the Conquest civic.
Actually, the entire map can be made out of land and have only one tiny lake that inevitably we will see some useless boats. Maps with lots of lakes are some of my favorite maps, but I usually don't end up playing them because of this.
- By the way, if you want to team up with an AI you could actually consider playing at higher difficulties so that you will not have to babysit them so much
- By the way, if you want to team up with an AI you could actually consider playing at higher difficulties so that you will not have to babysit them so much
Broken Hawk
Emperor
You have achieved your goal. I'll be down to Settler pretty soon.
This mod is indeed excellent. Before I considered any map where sea-faring was necessary to be 'exploiting the AI weaknesses'. That's not a problem any more...Monarch is proving too difficult for me!
However I too have the problem that the opponent comes with a big stack not enough to take my city, and keeps doing the two-tile dance (going back and forth), while they could be out ruining my improvements and thus economy.
Another thing I ran into is the AI taking a city, and then leaving it exposed to go take another. This might work sometimes (it meant Basium the hero taking city after city each turn while I ran out of units to retake my own cities), but in a current game the Sandalphon finally managed to strike back at the dominating Doviello, and then they retook another city. I was thinking this was impressive during an Illian Stasis, but then I saw the first city they (re)took was undefended and about to be retaken by the Doviello.
One last thing: this is also the first game I've seen the Doviello amount to anything. I like to play on an Erebus Continent map with the recommended settings (though I put in all civs on a medium map), and usually I'm impressed if the Doviello settle more than their capital before late game (and even then they only place 2-3 settlements in spite of free space).
Also: sometimes it seems their tundra bonus isn't taken into account. I saw one of their cities stuck at pop 4 for the longest time in a previous game, though 2 food per tundra should've allowed them a bigger city. But like I said, my current game is the first one where they've amounted to anything (and the first one where Illians have cast their world-spells; they're also slow to expand usually).
edit: one last thing: Balseraphs casting Revelry during an Illian stasis
Savegames available upon request.
However I too have the problem that the opponent comes with a big stack not enough to take my city, and keeps doing the two-tile dance (going back and forth), while they could be out ruining my improvements and thus economy.
Another thing I ran into is the AI taking a city, and then leaving it exposed to go take another. This might work sometimes (it meant Basium the hero taking city after city each turn while I ran out of units to retake my own cities), but in a current game the Sandalphon finally managed to strike back at the dominating Doviello, and then they retook another city. I was thinking this was impressive during an Illian Stasis, but then I saw the first city they (re)took was undefended and about to be retaken by the Doviello.
One last thing: this is also the first game I've seen the Doviello amount to anything. I like to play on an Erebus Continent map with the recommended settings (though I put in all civs on a medium map), and usually I'm impressed if the Doviello settle more than their capital before late game (and even then they only place 2-3 settlements in spite of free space).
Also: sometimes it seems their tundra bonus isn't taken into account. I saw one of their cities stuck at pop 4 for the longest time in a previous game, though 2 food per tundra should've allowed them a bigger city. But like I said, my current game is the first one where they've amounted to anything (and the first one where Illians have cast their world-spells; they're also slow to expand usually).
edit: one last thing: Balseraphs casting Revelry during an Illian stasis
Savegames available upon request.
This is the problem I mentioned a few posts above. The favourite civic of Doviello is Conquest. So as soon as they get it they switch to it. But, the Doviello, being a warring civ, like to pump out units. This continuous pumping out of units, causes their cities to never grow since they rarely build buildings (thus always using up the food growth from Conquest).
As a result, if the Doviello get off to a good start they can hit hard with many units. But if they fail in the alpha strike phase, and the enemy starts taking cities, Conquest ensures a downwards cycle.
Enemy takes city -> need more units to defend current cities -> cities never grow.
Thusly, does Doviello rarely last beyond early mid game. A simple solution would be: if (enemy takes > 1 city) switch out of Conquest. Or perhaps: if (enemy power now > 1.2x ? Doviello power) switch out of Conquest. So Doviello will only use Conquest when they are attacking or are not too weak when defending.
You're thinking of the Illians who get +2 food on snow tiles. The Doviello don't get any yield bonuses.
edit: one last thing: Balseraphs casting Revelry during an Illian stasis
Good find. That should be easy enough to fix. Thanks for the feedback!
Aline
Cat
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2007
- Messages
- 465
I think stasis does freeze the golden age timer, so it doesent realy matter.
You are correct. Thanks for saving me a needless code change!
Really? Damn, I could've sworn I read somewhere they get +1 food on tundra. But that explains a lot about them never amounting to much: they always get placed near disadvantageous terrain (the military bonuses don't amount to much if their cities are always stuck at 4-6 pop).
If you play Erebus map script with full flavor on low difficulties, you'll probably never see the Doviello do much. They are very dependent on their start and early rushing, I feel. Try Pangaea, continents, etc.
In my last diety game against the AI, Charadon had seven cities by turn 100 and the tech lead despite the penalty. Seven early cities spamming Sons of Asena is not funny at all, let me tell you.
In my last diety game against the AI, Charadon had seven cities by turn 100 and the tech lead despite the penalty. Seven early cities spamming Sons of Asena is not funny at all, let me tell you.
clearbeard
King
Many of the FFH mod-mods give the Doviello the +1 tundra food you're thinking of, I believe. Even in the hands of a skilled human player, if the Doviello don't get off to a good start, they're largely hosed by the late-mid game. With the economy crash that often comes with their world spell, they are seldom more than an XP farm, unless you're unlucky enough to start next door to them.
Broken Hawk
Emperor
What is the BUG mod?
