AI Tweaks - Looking for some skirmish hints and tips for Red Alert

[PROPHET]

Hi All,

My friend and I like to play against the AI for red alert. As many have noted the AI has some problematic behaviours that cause it to either not be challenging, or very repetitive.

I decided to try making a custom map that gives the AI some advantages to try balancing out some of the problems. I gave them a pre-built tech centre, sub pen, ore silos and power plants. Even on a map with unlimited gold and huge amounts of gems, they still sell these buildings off 90%+ of the time.
* As a side note, they did build some advanced tank and infantry units before selling the tech centre, though no sub units unfortunately.

I know there are edits that can be made to the *.MPR file to tweak game variables, and from some other maps I have downloaded (as well as other forum suggestions) I can see some AI tweaks others have tried. I have looked at triggers and team type settings, and some of these sound promising but don't seem to help.

What I'm looking for is a way to stop the AI selling pre-built buildings, or forcing them to build them at some point in the build order. Any other interesting *.MPR tweaks to AI or in general people have made are also welcome.

I have read through some of the other threads that touch on this topic, but can't see any cases where people tried the approach of pre-building some building / units for the AI for a hosted game setting (only mission type settings, and then only info for TD rather than RA).

[xor]

The selling behavior of the AI can be changed by altering the Red Alert rules.ini file (you can find this file on the Red Alert archive website) and placing the altered file in the game's directory. By default, the AI sells buildings if its power level falls below 75% so maybe that's what is happening.

One thing I'm not sure about though, is if the remastered version of Red Alert will read the rules.ini file in multiplayer games.

[PROPHET]

Thanks for replying :-)

I took the above but tried a slightly different approach to mixed effects. I pre-built them a few normal and advanced power plants. I also tweaked the MPR file so the normal power plants generated 25000 energy, rather than 100 (and advanced 50000). First thing the PC does when the map loads is to sell them off, however in my test map after selling the power plants they don't sell the Tech Centre for quiet some time (if at all) which was unexpected.

I then tried setting the power plant power settings back to normal, and the PC did not sell them off. I think I have been hitting the issue you described (low power, sell sell sell) and the opposite side of it, too much power, sell sell sell.

I'm going to play a bit more and see if I can set the Tech Centre to 0 power cost (in the MPR file), and if I can change the max power setting to a higher value.

I will probably look at the rules.ini soon as well, as I have seen it referenced in a few other posts, but I suspect changes to it are only for single player missions, not multiple player vs AI.

[PROPHET]

Partial solutions found:

I added the following to the *.MPR file, that basically sets the power usage of the 2 difference tech centres to 1, as a result the AI very rarely sells them (in test maps they seem to sell when running out of room), and they do build more advanced units infantry and tanks.

[STEK]
Power=-1

[ATEK]
Power=-1


For anyone reading this post who has been playing with *.MPR files, the rules.ini file noted in earlier post contains most of the syntax that you can add to the *.MPR file to change how things work (power settings, unit speed, cost etc...).

Note: From my playing, if you increase the power output of the power plants, the AI has a little freak out and tends to sell them, build them, sell them... repeat. If anyone find a way around this feel free to add it to this post :-)

[Gummiel]

Originally posted by PROPHET:

Note: From my playing, if you increase the power output of the power plants, the AI has a little freak out and tends to sell them, build them, sell them... repeat. If anyone find a way around this feel free to add it to this post :-)

I suspect you might be increasing the power output of the plants too much, maybe causing an overflow, and thus have the AI end up with negative power. Purely speculation from my part, but that seems like something that could cause such a behaviour, try stick to increasing the output just 3-4 times of normal instead of giving it many thousands of power

[PROPHET]

Originally posted by Enso Gummiel:

Originally posted by PROPHET:

Note: From my playing, if you increase the power output of the power plants, the AI has a little freak out and tends to sell them, build them, sell them... repeat. If anyone find a way around this feel free to add it to this post :-)

I suspect you might be increasing the power output of the plants too much, maybe causing an overflow, and thus have the AI end up with negative power. Purely speculation from my part, but that seems like something that could cause such a behaviour, try stick to increasing the output just 3-4 times of normal instead of giving it many thousands of power

I agree that I am hitting some type of overflow trigger, pity I have yet to find a way to alter this trigger. Setting it to a few thousand was more to see if it would work, test my map behaviour without having to build things and to be amused at how high I can get my base power too :-)

I found setting the advanced PP from 200 to between 800 and 1200 caused similar problems though not every time, even 1 test with 400 caused the problem for some reason. However on a different map I have played 800 didn't cause any problems.

Rather than messing about with power plants further, I ended up tweaking some of the buildings with higher power costs. e.g. 3 or 4 Tesla Coils to 1 Advanced PP. I suspect this is too generous so I plan a few rounds with some friends and adjust accordingly. If anyone is curious I published the map as 'Inner AI Islands', it's little rough but has the above tweaks in the *.MPR file if anyone is looking for ideas.