AI Demandobot status report 11th of Feb

from Elemental Forums

Since it's difficult to notice activity on the Demandobot thread edits, here's a summary of what is deemed important right now.

Most problematic issues

  • AI won't equip new items. If they hire champions, they will never have better equipment than what they start with.
  • AI does not take stat upgrades at level-up

In a game which is about the sovereign, it's a bit off-putting that the enemy sovereigns don't know how to equip gear or develop otherwise. Verga is supposed to be a tough guy in battle for instance, but that's only true in the very beginning of the game. After that, running around in a loincloth isn't such a bright idea anymore.

:cylon:

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

:cylon:  

Woot!

 

Let the Sovereign buffage begin!

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I think you're doing an extremely good job at this Vallu. I would suggest that you simply post the changes to the thread at the end of the thread, however. Keeps it all in one place, easy to follow.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

You know what they say: the squeaky demandobot wheel gets the oil.

:cylon:  

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

A tee a tee a tee (that's the tin man crying from the OZ - ?Nipsey Russel, classic)

 

Good info my friend - keep it coming

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks!

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

It's not just the sovereigns, it's also their recruited heroes as well. By mid game, most of the AI's that are increasing in power rankings have thousands of gildar, but their sovereign and heroes have only their starting equipment.

And I suspect the non-stat level up applies to the heroes as well. Additionally, I don't think I've ever saw a recruited hero from the AI that used spells (thus no Imbue hero) or have any Enchantments cast upon them (same goes for the Sovereigns).

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Here's one more thing, by the way. On higher difficulties, all enemy units get their health multiplied by the difficulty. For example, on ridiculous this is +200% (or 3 times more health than normal). It looks like this:

<AIHPRatio>3.00</AIHPRatio>

This does not apply to the sovereign, leaving that guy the weakest, softest target in any one engagement. Now, in the XML for the difficulty there is a line that says

<AISovereignHPRatios>5.0</AISovereignHPRatios>

and I believe this is intended to be a similar health multiplier, only aimed at the enemy sovereign. However, I have never in all my games seen this applied correctly.

 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Brad - turn 7 of a new 1.19b game and I got the popup that Umber was destroyed by monsters & ruffians. Sovereigns, spouses, and champions need some serious love.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting nitey47, reply 7


And I suspect the non-stat level up applies to the heroes as well.

End of nitey47's quote

That is correct.

@Vallu751 - Thanks for continuing to shine a spotlight on the stat thing.  Fixing that really will go a long way to making this a better game.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I just played a few games and from my experiences AIs do equip their heroes somewhat. With sovereigns and spouses they tended to save up all their money for mid game weapons and completely bypass early game weapons. I just played a game where Yithril jumped straight to a battleaxe for their sovereign and equipped their spouse with a longbow. The bow actually hurt because my armor was only leather..... I didn't see them equip champions though. They also didn't equip any of their heroes with any armor whatsoever. Maybe they were saving up for heavy plate or something......

 

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Dsraider, reply 11
I just played a few games and form my experiences AIs do equip their heroes somewhat. With sovereigns and spouses they tended to save up all their money for mid game weapons and completely bypass early game weapons. I just played a game where Yithril jumped straight to a battleaxe for their sovereign and equipped their spouse with a longbow. The bow actually hurt because my armor was only leather..... I didn't see them equip champions though. They also didn't equip any of their heroes with any armor whatsoever. Maybe they were saving up for heavy plate or something......
End of Dsraider's quote

See here for a 1.19a gear analysis: https://forums.elementalgame.com/404914

Note the available gildar and tech levels. I also noted they equipped battleaxes when their tech level didn't permit it. I may do a similar analysis for 1.19b to validate if anything has changed.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

If nothing else, just code up something to auto-equip all AI units with the latest armor/weapons the moment they learn the tech. Then later you can fix it so they actually have to pay for them and "think" about it, if it's even worth bothering with. In my last game the Resoln could have taken me if only their Heros/Champions would have had updated armor and weapons. Instead they threw their troops away attacking my city. I never noticed the lack of stat increases, that's pretty game-breaking right there.

I have noticed, at least in 1.11, that they do equip aromor pieces seemingly at random, and I only saw a complete set on a sov towards the very end of one game. Maybe equipment just isn't getting a high enough priority, but with all the gildar you earn mid game you'd think they'd be getting around to it by then even if it was on the bottom of the list.

Hope 1.19d fixes all the OOM and CTD errors I see posted about. I really want to patch it to get the new changes now but don't want to deal with that stuff. =P

By the way, grats to SD. I've purchased two PC games in the past few years, Sins and a couple days ago Elemental. In fact, I've only bought three console games (and one was used for $10), so SD is at 2 for 5 for me overall. Pretty damn good.