AI idea

[bailey.5050]

I played this game back inthe 90's and now. I have watched countless games of AI vs Ai as well as played a few. I also understand the AI is hard to code. If anyone out there could improve the AI, I offer two potential ways to make it a better opponent:

1. Use airplanes to patrol from a city it owns straight out. I use four planes to go N,S,E,W to alert me of potential transports. I do this on cities that border the ocean. I will do this on inland cities only if the AI has a presence as well.

2. The classic AI builds carries but does not fully utilize them. To me, a carrier is an excellent exploration tool. Simply go near/to unexplored area and launch four planes in the cardinal directions while keeping the other four ready for defense (or to attack a transport). I never use these planes to attack as they are too valuable to lose, unless it's a last ditched effort.

The enhanced AI keeps a lot of units in its cities but a transport that moves 2 squares and then is right next to the enemy city will attack it and typically take it (I have 6 armies per transport). This negates all those units in the city.

Again, I do not know how to script the AI but hope someone who does will takes these ideas into account.

[gryphin.rampant]

My solutions were:
Give the AI 3 unit types:
1) Infanry for city capture
2) Fighters for exploration and attack
3) Transports
This way they don't waste build time on stuff they don't use correctly or that a human can easily tharwt.
---
Optional:
Give the AI cheaper lower, (2 or 3 IN), capacity transports. This way it does not waste trips.
Remove Carriers and Battleships from 'City Build'
Remove other high ticket items they only build as 'extras'

[gryphin.rampant]

Addendum
the first situation is if you wanted to script it yourself.
Removing high ticket irtems is if you just want to play against the game supplied AI. This also means you can't use those items.

[bailey.5050]

I think armor is a better value in the long run compared to infantry because it has two hitpoints. The game, to me, is about building units that can take damage and survive.

For the AI, have a "defense" city class file that:
1. Fighters to spot approaching units
2. Light artillery to bombard them.

A smart AI would place the artillery outside of the city so it has more turns to react in case the artillery does not destroy the approaching units.

I do know a moderate amount of PHP and built a corporate help desk site but never any game programming.

The expaning ai sees all the cities and bee lines its armies to capture them. It grows quick large. I am probably in the minority but I watch the AI play against itself in the various views and try to determine its flaws in hopes of making it better.

Are there example AI scripts? I am not looking to write an entire AI logic but to just add some planes on patrol might be worth a look.

[gryphin.rampant]

There are quite a few mods out there that include scripts and unit graphics.
I'm getting ready to upload my current mod which will include script for various 'monsters'.
Preface
You have landed on a planet and acquier 1 city.
As you expand you run into other life forms.
If you play straight then it is up to you to determine using logic blended with trial and error how to defeat them.. This makes it tougher.
My AI is desiged to have ;'build times' that reflect the uinits attributes.

Regarding unit types
It depends on the terrain, city density land mass vs ocean and more.
I play with lots of mountains. Infantry, artillery and transports with air cover are my friends. Still, it depeonds on starting position and types of AI.
Some of my AI eat infantry for breakfast.
Some evade it.

[gryphin.rampant]

Current Game
Right now I am tied up in a game verus an aquatic AI. It can only enger Sea and Shallow so by extension can only capture coastal ciies and does not have any air support or transport. It also means they only have one unit to build.
So far they have concoured 2 or 3 other AI types including 'Classic'.
Victory conditions is 50% of cities, (which is about 65).
I have 46. 6 of these once belowned to the AI so will i win or lose?
We shall see.

[gryphin.rampant]

After Action
When I me the ORt
My City Count: 36ish
OR City Count: 46ish
They maintained the lead until my transports finally arrived or were built I was able to expand in other areas the OR had not found. Adroit use of air power saw to it they never did. Still they manged to capture 10 more cites.
Strateigicaly I now focused on containing OR while moving fully loaded transports in to position.

Looking at the map after the game I could see the OR were sending 40+ units toward me. Given that I has used up my air power if I had set victory to 60% they may have won.

Still, in the end depending on terrain and starting position any one of my AIs could hae won.

I will try to get my mod uploaded this week and then a better documented one next week.

[backwardcadence]

1) I attempted to fix the aircraft patrol thing and, long story short, I made it worse. For transparency, I used the EnhancedAI. The issue is the AI ignores short on fuel notifications and they will just crash the planes. Also, I was trying to make it work with mods, not just the default planes, so it might be possible to just hard code the patrol ranges for the default ones only.

2) While you’re right about Carriers being good for exploration, The AI has real trouble with them. This includes auto-explore btw. There’s no built-in game mechanic that limits the number of planes that are allowed to explore a specific area, meaning if the AI (or human for that matter) sends out a loaded carrier to an unexplored area, your entire exploration force could B-Line to the carrier and max out its capacity, forcing crashes.

3) AI cheese spoiler incoming: If you watch AI vs. AI matches long enough, you will eventually learn that success vs. failure depends less on strategy, more on the distance between cities being odd vs. even because of the exact situation you mentioned. If a transport can end its turn just outside of a capital cities spotting range, it can end the game without any opposition next turn. For this reason, I don’t recommend playing with capital capture enabled in AI games.

[bailey.5050]

@backwardcadence ... instead of using aircraft to patrol, what about a ship sentried right outside a city and armor either sentried or patrolling just a few squares outside the city?

Also, the map generator has a big impact on the AI, too. If you are using the 4.0 version, it does not always include port cities on land masses. This greatly prevents the AI from expanding because it can not build a transport to get off the island. Also, one city squares in the sea cause the AI problems, too. The classic word builder seems to be, but I have no proof, of being the classic one that game with the 1990-era game that guaranteed at least one port city per land mass. Are there any script options to influence the world builder behavior?

[backwardcadence]

Originally posted by bailey.5050:

@backwardcadence ... instead of using aircraft to patrol, what about a ship sentried right outside a city and armor either sentried or patrolling just a few squares outside the city?

Yeah, these are good alternatives to using planes. The trick is, getting the AI to understand what you are trying to get them to do since it doesn’t really “sentry” units. You can issue some conflicting ROE’s that should do the trick. I haven’t tried this so no ide if it will work, but if you use the AI to engage any enemy it sees (i.e. “ME”) and then issue a evade (“EV”) any unit at a pre-determined range it should hover around that distance from your target, creating a patrol zone.

That said, I want to give credit where its due. The real master on how to do this might be gryphin.rampant. Many years back, I played against the amoeba’s on his monster mod and they seemed to patrol constantly around their cities. He might be able to show how he did it. 😊

[gryphin.rampant]

@bailey.5050 and @backwardcadence
I *think* the amoebas would stay in their city until you approached and then come out to protect it. Most likely they had a scanning range of '3' so you could not sneak up on them.
In the case of my pre-boarding ants if they could cross shallows to get to a land mass they would

• Capture all available cities.
  
• Continue building ANTs
  
• Emerge from the cities to face any threat.

I just fouind my old script for 'LYCHEN'. and think I can find the DB too.
Stand by.

[gryphin.rampant]

I'm chagrined to say I figured it out. I am pretty sure @backwardcadence are remembering my 'LYCHEN'.
Explanation:
What ever it was that the city produced did not have 'city capture' capacity.
The biggest clue that helped me solve it was:
"Aircraft will 'hug;" a gunit they can't attack."
It took a while but suddenly it hit me that was what the LYCHEN were doing.
Hugging a city they could not capture.

It does make for a anoying interruption to world conquest.