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| Thread: Help Improving AI |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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silentbobus
Adventuring Hero
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posted July 03, 2006 07:55 PM |
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Here's a fun combat mistake, I've actually seen the computer use harmful touch on a stack of skeletons.
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dfortae
Known Hero
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posted July 03, 2006 08:38 PM |
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Haha! Yeah, I've seen it use harmful touch on a large group of master hunters.
The AI could use improvements, but so could a lot of games...
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Taofeld
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 03, 2006 09:45 PM |
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I have seen the computer's Emerald Dragons kill its own units on several different occasions.
I'm not sure I've ever seen the computer use Fire Trap.
Sometimes, you can win a fight with 1 gremlin standing if you have 100 air elementals on the other side of the battlefield distracting the AI. No human player would ever allow that to happen.
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browngm1
Hired Hero
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posted July 03, 2006 11:09 PM |
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i agree homm3 had a better AI system. I am disappointed and hope that later patches will beef up this AI. The problem is i think they keep putting a cripple on the human player ie. start will little money and reasources, instead of actually making an AI with better descision making capabilites. I think i speak for most when i say that i want a difficulty where everyone starts out equally but the AI will make better decsions.
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 04, 2006 04:34 AM |
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I have seen the AI often flee from battle when you play at easy, but when you play at hard he never does, exact opposite of what it was in heroes 3.
I have seen AI often use horned overseers explosion ability when there is nothing around it, especially if it is stuck in the sylvan moat.
Also often the when the AI is clearly winning, it just stands still with most of its troops and attacks like with only few. Like for example in one battle I had only skeleton archers left, and the AI just stood still with its black dragons and deep hydras (that were in range to get to melee with the skeletons) and only attacked with shadow matriarchs.
Also the AI sometimes have really weird target priorities, like in a siege combat, first thing he shot with his 450 or so skeleton archers was my ammo cart, but he never cared about my imbued ballista that was doing the most damage to his troops from everything I had.
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Vicheron
Known Hero
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posted July 04, 2006 05:01 AM |
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- The computer casts Frenzy on its own creatures.
- The computer just isn't very good with magic in general.
- The computer will take Sorcery without taking any magic skills.
- The computer isn't very good at preserving its low level creatures against neutrals. On hard and heroic mode, I would often see computer controlled heroes with something like 10 Emerald Dragons, 20 Ancient Treants, 20 Unicorns, 30 Master Hunters, 110 War Dancers (the computer always has a lot of War Dancers for some reason), and 50 Sprites.
- The computer uses Blood Furies to block shooters.
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Taofeld
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 04, 2006 07:46 AM |
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Quote:
I'm not sure I've ever seen the computer use Fire Trap.
Apparently it does cast Fire Trap (auto-combat used it).
A few more things:
-Mages hurt their own units with their line-attack. This seems to apply to any area-of-effect attack that can hurt your own creatures.
-I've seen horned demons explode, hurting ONLY their own units.
-This has been mentioned, but creature will not take into account retaliation, at all.
-The AI will sometimes wait in moats, taking lots of damage.
-The AI always will target units within attacking range if possible. For example, you can charge in with steel golems and indefinitely repair them.
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 04, 2006 02:22 PM |
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Yes I have noticed that last part too. Especially good against neutrals. Just move within full damage range with your vampires and those gremlins always shoot them and never your skeletons or ghosts.
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Iris
Responsible
Supreme Hero
of Typos
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posted July 04, 2006 07:26 PM |
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There was one battle in which a stack of 150+ Horned Overseers decided to explode itself (while surrounded by its own units and ONLY its own units) for no apparent reason.
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Plemenit
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 05, 2006 08:53 AM |
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AI is one of the crucial features in all strategy games, thus I'll analyse it point by point.
Adventure map AI:
1. AI must regularly (possibly every week!) supply his strongest hero with almost all available same-faction creatures and artifacts found by supporting heroes.
a) Creature accumulation:
This is very important becouse weak AI heroes don't pose a threat to human players. AI cannot outwit a human player by splitting his army among several heroes. This way he'll just make them vulnerable easy preys. Thus, the human won't have many casualties in battles against AI. The only hope for AI to prevail is by brute force and quantity! Imagine several AI super-heroes on the same map.. Eventually they'll weaken the human army and maybe one of the AI players will prevail.
b) Artifact accumulation:
The best artifacts have to be transported to the most powerful hero. A hero without good primary attributes is worthless in difficult battles.
2. AI often doesn't pick up artifacts, resources and doesn't claim mines even if he has killed the creatures guarding those places.
3. AI blocks his strong heroes in towns with heroes that have few low-level creatures when a threat is approaching his town. The problem is that often the blocked hero is stronger than the human hero but is unable to move and engage the human hero due to the hero in front. Maybe, AI doesn't realise that his weak hero is preventing the strong hero to exit the town.
4. AI should focus on gaining experience with his most powerful hero. He should use that hero for as many battles as possibles (neutral creatures etc.).
Combat AI:
1. Bad (fixed) priorities; AI attacks always the same creatures first- badly (not) factoring damage, retaliation, turns.. The highest priority targets should be units with high damage, low HP, high initiative (the number of creatures in enemy stacks must be taken into account also!).
2. Activated creature abilities used badly; e.g. Wraiths use harm touch even if they would deal much more damage with normal attacks. (I hope you're working on giving Wights & Wraiths some nice passive special abilities!).
3. AI is not agressive enough; especially when sieging a town. He'll use just his ranged troops.
4. Phantom forces; when a player casts this spell the AI should see if his hero is acting earlier than phantom images! If he does; he should attack the phantom forces with a spell (possibly an aoe to also damage other enemy creatures) and not waste attacks of his creatures on phantom forces!
5. AI (hero) often casts several dark spells even if normal attacks would be much more effective. This was the case when AI sieged my town- he could have beaten me if he instead of casting dark spells (vulnerability) finished my creatures with normal hero attacks.
6. AI shouldn't use blood furies to block archers.
7. Ancient treants plant themselves and do nothing..
(Also, they should move slowly like Titans! Running treants look silly.  ).
Remove AI cheats: (or just give us the option to turn cheats off!)
All written above is useless if AI cheats and gets practically everything for free.
Therefore, Nival, give us an option to TURN OFF ALL* AI CHEATS or include/remake a level at which: AI plays at its best, doesn't cheat and gets the same starting resources as the human player. (Of course, this is for multiplayer maps)
*ALL means:
- no luck/morale cheats
- no difference in behaviour against other AI players & against human players. AI should not behave less aggressively against other AI players!
- no gold/resource/experience cheats
- loses creatures against neutrals & in other battles like a human player would
- knows ONLY WHERE towns are (just like a human would know it when playing the map for the 2nd time) BUT doesn't see their garrisons etc., unless it explores those parts of the map
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- NO restrictions for AI (like maximum global number of all AI heroes and such)
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Xetal
Tavern Dweller
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posted July 05, 2006 10:47 AM |
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A few times I've noticed poor decisions:
1.) When computer is defending a castle from me, if they have blood furies, they'll often park them right in the doorway, keeping it open. It's pretty easy to focus them, and then the corpse keeps the door open.
2.) on the adventure map the AI doesn't consider what resources are vital to -you-. For example, if you're adademy they don't specifically target out gem mines and ore mines to deny you from getting them. This 'AI Mentality' seems to go beyond just this. They leave resources and stuff they don't need (go go cheating AI), but the AI doesn't consider that they're strengthening their enemies by leaving all this crap on the ground.
3.) AE effects. They're bad with them. They'll often hit their own units when they don't need to, or make bad decisions about when they should be using AE and when they should be using single target.
4.) Judgement with enemy spellcasters. I don't know why, but the AI seems to not factor in powerful spellcasting heroes into it all. A warlock that can empowered implosion you for 2200 is going to kick the AI to the curb, even if he has a slightly stronger army. Whats even worse is that after you do it once, the AI doesn't 'learn' from it... so if faced with the same situation again it'll make the same decision.
5.) Decision making with abilities. I've seen the computer do boneheaded things using the following abilities:
Archmage: a.) Righteous Might themselves/others when it's a much much better idea to attack or use a damage spell.
b.) Line attack hitting their own units when targeting one of mine.
Djinn (and sultan): Use it's random cast in a situation where it's powerful attack would be a much better choice.
Titan: the AI seems to have a wierd decision making process in 'ranged attack vs. call lightning', often resulting in using the lesser-damaging of the two.
Scout/Assassin: The AI doesn't seem to want to move-to-melee instead of shoot, even when there is no retaliation.
Blood Fury: I've seen the AI move (and not attack) with blood furies to block enemy archers.
dark/Grim Raider: I don't know that I've ever seen the AI position their dark raiders to make good use out of lizard bite. They also don't 'charge' around back of an enemy when they have the choice, giving up the charge bonus.
Shadow witch/matriarch: The AI prefers spellcasting in situations where attacking would be better. I've seen the AI cast 'slow' on a stack of mine with their shadow matriarchs when they could have just attacked and killed the stack. It shows the same behavior with all it's spells.
Shadow/black Dragon: The AI tends to not consider the second tile of attack, often hitting your unit on the first tile, and it's own on the second.
Peasant/conscript: The computer considers conscripts to be better than peasants, and doesn't seem to take the 'taxpayer' ability into consideration.
Squire: The AI doesn't seem to put 'shield allies' to good use. Nothing is more sad than the squire standing all by itself.
Imperial Griffin: Really bad about knowing when to attack and when to dive.
Inquisitor: No common sense with spellcasting.
Cavalier/Paladin: Same deal as the raiders, it doesn't make use of it's charge ability once it's in melee combat.
Archangels: The AI is just as happy to send their archangels into the thick of things, let them die, and (because they're dead), not be able to use the ressurect ability.
Horned Overseer: You may as well roll dice as to when it'll use it's explosion ability. It does it in the middle of it's own troops even sometimes.
Nightmare: I don't think the AI takes fright aura into consideration when making decisions with this unit.
Pit fiend/lord: Same bad decisions with spellcasting that you see with other casters. It also wants to drain it's mana before it makes a melee attack, which isn't best in every situation.
Lich/Archlich: Bad decision making with when to use spells, and what spells to use.
Wraith: Harm touch isn't the best choice when you're fighting 34 druids... the AI apparently doesn't agree with me on that.
Druid/Elder Druid: Same spellcasting issues. It seems to prefer spellcasting to not, even when that's not the best choice... and it often picks the wrong spells.
Unicorn/Silver Unicorn: I don't think I've ever seen the AI position it's unicorns to take advantage of the magic resistance aura.
Treant/Ancient Treant: The AI doesn't seem to use it's treants to entangle things in order to protect it's shooter/casters. It just uses the treant to do as much damage as it can, which often isn't it's best use.
Green/Emerald Dragon: Same as the other dragons, I don't think the AI considers the second tile.
There's creature-by-creature what I've seen. I'm sure you can find a few patterns in it of where the AI is weak. Good luck if you're seriously planning to re-do the AI, it could really use it.
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Klaital
Known Hero
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posted July 05, 2006 12:05 PM |
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I usually see AI use the charge bonuses of paladins and grim raiders quite well as well as the lizard bite, but yeah, it really needs some work with the spellcaster units, like I am mostly relieved to see those 70 archliches cast weakness on my guy instead of using their ranged attack.
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ZeroXcuses
Known Hero
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posted July 09, 2006 05:23 PM |
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The AI is horrible. I don't think it will ever resemble that of HIII (not like H4 was any better, leaving castles COMPLETELY vulnerable).
Here's another perspective:
http://elrath.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43
That board makes me conclude that the only reason why we have so few maps is because the AI has to be programmed for EVERY MAP, otherwise, it is a no-factor.
And yes, sending these half-baked heroes with weak armies to attack the human is NOT entertaining. I've found the game to be too easy, even when overwhelmed due to the decisions the in-battle AI makes.
We can always stick to Heroic, which does not improve the AI, but further handicaps the player with few resources. Not a good way to mask the AI if you ask me.
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zatoichi
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 20, 2006 01:05 PM |
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Quote:
in h3, AI was much smarter -_-
Hell yes.
This is after game has been patched with 1.3.
Again in 1.3 I noticed those selfdestructing AI demons blowing out their own troops.
AI will always fall for a trick where their 10 black dragons waste their attack on a 1 imp bait if nothing else is reachable by those 10 black dragons.
AI heros still don't take unguarded artifacts.
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 20, 2006 02:13 PM |
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Still now they pickup arties/resources and I've seen some smart moves.Now it uses training and maybe it's me but I've also seen good skill combos.Unfortunately it remains poor,splits its armies and rushes even though I have a better army only to lose.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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diablo-jr
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 20, 2006 03:37 PM |
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well there is alot of things the computer does that make no sence but just like some of the other's have posted is it a computer limited to programing.and to test it out during game play I saved before fighting a heroe that should have wiped the floor with me and he didn't all his armies targeted my ghost and I just started killing his army starting with the strongest to the weekest.this was during champaign 3 mission 3.and it seem that if you can kill there catapolt they won't move not even if theres a hole in the wall.so I go after the catapolt first then every thing else.I would like to just have a computer player with some sence or reason to what its doing.
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zatoichi
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 20, 2006 09:39 PM |
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Nival please, please, please fix AI. But not in a manner that is infinite money supply for AI players AND recruiting creatures out of blue sky AND giving free skills to AI heroes. This is BROKEN AI.
I am not whining because I loose to AI. I can not loose to AI. I have SAVE/LOAD interface, but I encourage myself not to use it. It's just that these flaws destroy strategic thinking AND game immersion AND credibility of game AND you as developers. Please hire additional testers and finish the game that can not be perfect till AI is fixed.
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Demortae
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 20, 2006 09:49 PM |
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Quote:
The enemy never seems to flee, it doesn't seem to matter whether I play on Heroic or Hard. I had a really tough time with computer today, but it would have been a lot harder if I had have to face his level 17 Lethos again.
Computer must flee when a high level hero is about to perish!
???The AI flees all the time for me, its actually quite annoying as sometimes they flee when they probably shouldn't.
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zatoichi
Adventuring Hero
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posted September 20, 2006 10:03 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
The enemy never seems to flee, it doesn't seem to matter whether I play on Heroic or Hard. I had a really tough time with computer today, but it would have been a lot harder if I had have to face his level 17 Lethos again.
Computer must flee when a high level hero is about to perish!
???The AI flees all the time for me, its actually quite annoying as sometimes they flee when they probably shouldn't.
1.3 patched. Played Subterranean Treasures map, hard difficulty, took Inferno and Deleb. AI heroes NEVER fled. Mind you I blitzed them, but still...
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted September 20, 2006 11:44 PM |
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Depends on the difficulty.On hard the AI didn't flee in 1.2 and does not flee now-no change there.
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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