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Thread: HOMM3 AI question -- does it cheat in a minor way? | This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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markmasters
Famous Hero
Dragon of justice
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posted October 04, 2013 04:02 PM |
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I don't think there is a direct way to see your allies rescources but i do know however that if you desperatly need something and the computer has plenty he will always give you what you need (and 9 of the 10 times he gives something he asks gold in return )
The computer won't give your wood back if he does need it, but if he does not need and you do, he will give back the amount he thinks it can miss
I am sure there is someone who can explain better then me, apologies .
1 more thing, it seems to happen the computer overestimates himself sometimes too, when he attacks a magic garassion (which is heavily guarded)he doesnt notice he can't cast spells till he is in the battle i guess, sometimes he loses battles this way
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idontcare
Known Hero
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posted October 06, 2013 11:41 PM |
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i think its perfectly ok that the ai knows the map/the stats of our hero+troops, since it couldnt reallyplay otherwise, and its beatable on 200% so i think it could even be better and the human brain has still an edge or at least a cinflip^^
it should just be fixed that the ai can townportal on cursed ground then im happy
also it could make more heroes imo, its running the most time with like 4-5 never sawn him with 8, but 8 is really great, also it could chain, but maybe then it would be unbeatable
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crashpc
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 07, 2013 06:29 PM |
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idontcare:
Definitely agree. Once it could/would do things like chaining, making one superhero/supertown, also town portal, 3x dimmension door + fly in one day, use dragons with armageddon spell, I think we would be all dead :-)
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crashpc
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 14, 2013 11:33 PM |
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Just downloaded one version of HOMAM3 in my native language, and itīs weird. I played Warlords! map and few others, where Iīm used to go for my oponent in first week by acquiring creatures from new buildings and few heroes to one - master/monster one.
Today, I failed. Oponent had twice as big army as I did. Donīt understand what happened. Some AI tweaks? Tried to load it from oponents place, but not good result also. Later, I had nice hero and army army with about of 26 Power skill. Time for magic... Went into battle, and let computer to play instead of me. What happened was really weird: It went with arch-angels right in middle of oponents creatures crew, which totally surrounded my arch-angel. Then it sent chain lighting spell, and it killed those oponents creatures while arch-angels didnīt get hit from chain lighting. WTF...
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CrazyIvan
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 20, 2013 03:16 AM |
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idontcare said: i think its perfectly ok that the ai knows the map/the stats of our hero+troops, since it couldnt reallyplay otherwise, and its beatable on 200% so i think it could even be better and the human brain has still an edge or at least a cinflip^^
it should just be fixed that the ai can townportal on cursed ground then im happy
also it could make more heroes imo, its running the most time with like 4-5 never sawn him with 8, but 8 is really great, also it could chain, but maybe then it would be unbeatable
Yeah, it's annoying even if you play with ally. Sometimes it buys lots of heroes but more often just 3-5, even big maps. Not sure what triggers them buying new heroes but it isn't money. Maybe AI behaviour: explorer buys more heroes, never tested it. There's a trick to give them heroes though, but ally hero needs to be in his town first.
Oh and the AI was originally unbeatable, so they actually tuned it down and made it "dumber"
On topic; I'm playing a with Necro ally right now, and she started with Septienna, and bought a might hero so Septienna turned scout/transport. I was watching her walk around with just 1 Zombie when she suddenly attacked lots of Marksmen! And she won! I was like, uhm... wtf? At first I thought it was a glitch, so I reloaded, but she did it again. Then I realized she has Death Ripple speciality but, she only has 2 Spell Power... A few days later she attacked a stack of Hobgoblins and after that Goblins, and she keeps getting skeletons But her mana is gone now so.
But I don't understand. I mean lots of Marksmen?! with just 1 Zombie?! Does this prove AI knows exact quantity in stacks? Or is this indeed some "cheat"
Marksmen = 10 HP
Lots = 20-49
Death Ripple = Power(2) x 5 + 10 = 20 damage
Call me crazy but this is not right
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idontcare
Known Hero
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posted October 20, 2013 09:09 AM |
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cheat imo, cuz marksmen are fater then zombie^^
was probably a warrior ai XD
the AI doesnt recognize the power of spells i guess, and i dont think it remember artefacts
i had on my fav map luckboxed wizards well out of a warriors tomb, then had to only beat 4 hydras(it said 1-4 hydras...) to get power of the dragonfather(is a random relic on that map), and had then a 500 icebolt, then rushed to the enemy, found a town totally ungarded, but with full built dwellings, on day6 hecould have just bought some angels (1 week probably)
then got a nice creatureboost, gone further, ai came back with 20-49 pikemen(never saw the guy attacking with it XD)
and then the other enemy keept attacking me with strongholdcreeps, while i had collected deathripplespell i casted just that XD
so the ai is strange, yes it correctly estimates my armystrange vs his, but it doesnt reckon with spells or stats(had like 20 in everything due to potdf)
another game AI had flying, but there was no fly available in the towns(was a long game, and i checked every town for portal), so either he had angelwings from merchant or just cheated o_O
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CrazyIvan
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 22, 2013 12:49 AM |
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hmm... Found something else today playing heroes 3.
At day 1 week 3, AI ally Aislinn was in her town with army that had 4 vamps in it. 8 vamps were sitting in town. At day 2 she attacked lots of gnoll marauders. After the battle she had 13 vamps?! I mean, what?!
although this maybe a known thing, I can't remember seeing this before
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted January 23, 2014 12:00 PM |
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Gravdragon said: No, it doesnt know where the grail is from the beginning, but can dig it up after finding just one obelisk.
no, i remeber playing a medium map with the A.I, it found some obelisks, not all of them, but i did dig before they do, and i'm 100% sure the found obelisks, they even arrived on the island where the grail was but they didn't dig. i don't know if it was a bug, i don't play maps where you have to find a grail often.
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Sandman
Known Hero
Fearsome Warrior
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posted January 23, 2014 05:41 PM |
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Herry said:
Gravdragon said: No, it doesnt know where the grail is from the beginning, but can dig it up after finding just one obelisk.
no, i remeber playing a medium map with the A.I, it found some obelisks, not all of them, but i did dig before they do, and i'm 100% sure the found obelisks, they even arrived on the island where the grail was but they didn't dig. i don't know if it was a bug, i don't play maps where you have to find a grail often.
Dude he posted that 12 years ago - don't think he will answer u lol
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted January 23, 2014 06:38 PM |
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Sandman said:
Herry said:
Gravdragon said: No, it doesnt know where the grail is from the beginning, but can dig it up after finding just one obelisk.
no, i remeber playing a medium map with the A.I, it found some obelisks, not all of them, but i did dig before they do, and i'm 100% sure the found obelisks, they even arrived on the island where the grail was but they didn't dig. i don't know if it was a bug, i don't play maps where you have to find a grail often.
Dude he posted that 12 years ago - don't think he will answer u lol
You don't know Herry, do you?
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted January 23, 2014 06:52 PM |
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Herry can make people answer after 12 years? Quickly someone find some old posts by Pandora and we'll resurrect the blue lady!!
Also SG, aren't you bullying him a little?
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Living time backwards
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted January 23, 2014 06:54 PM |
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Then we could try with Jesus, if it works.
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monere
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
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posted January 23, 2014 07:27 PM |
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Salamandre said: Then we could try with Jesus, if it works.
Jesus? What level is he? What are his stats? Never heard of him... Is he neutral monster or??
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 23, 2014 07:34 PM |
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monere
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
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posted January 23, 2014 08:30 PM |
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mvassilev said: He's a WoG creature.
^_^ It actually makes sense
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Herry
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
100% Devil
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posted February 03, 2014 05:52 PM |
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Edited by Herry at 07:43, 07 Feb 2014.
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marvelousMe said:
I've seen AI heroes appear in a monolith and then go away (without even stepping off of the monolith to go back in) on their turns. It always annoyed me that my heroes couldn't opt to turn back like theirs did.
go to the monolith(two way one), press space, magic right? not even wasted movment. oh wait, the other guy posted it 12 years ago, never mind but i did NEVER know that this thread was 13-12 YEARS OLD!
also i don't know why, i don't like games depending on tactics and controlling your guy miles away with your vision in the sky, BUT I PLAY HOMM 3! out of the box right?
also i've been wondering about if the A.I cheats when... FIGHTING NEUTRAL MONSTERS. yup right, both his troops and the neutral monsters are controlled by him. wouldn't he do some cheating out there?
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted February 07, 2014 03:02 PM |
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I've seen the AI lose most of his army to lots of level 7's so many times that I doubt there's anything unfair going on. The ought thing is that since HoMM3 is turn based, it's easy for the AI to calculate the outcome of a battle (it's an identical process of the AI commencing in a battle). I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even have any option, but only a "straight line" algorithm, whereby I'll say the AI is unfairly.. WEAK, because it doesn't take advantage of its abilities.
I mean it wouldn't be so bad, if then they'd given the AI some kind of leaning mechanism, so it'd be able to estimate how well it'd do against a certain foe based on previous encounters and the pre-evaluation before test 1, to get a post-evalution which matches reality better and better the more scenarios the AI sees.
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Living time backwards
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Yesugey
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 07, 2014 03:21 PM |
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Well the problem is, creating an AI with limited information just like the player is harder than AI with full access to all data. So in most of the games, the AI doesnt have a fog of war.
During my years I wasted with Heroes 3, I can definitely say it sees the inside of pandora's boxes, etc. These can be counted as "cheating".
But I never observed a battle that AI won by cheating on the battlefield. No double-retaliations, no weirdly extra morale bonus. (Well, except because of my terrible luck myself, ofcourse. Most of the time, neutral +1 morale creatures hits more than my +4 morale armies.)
Beside these, I saw several times that the AI attacked neutral creatures with reasonable forces and lost, because things go bad somehow.
Since I've experienced many AI's of other games which has many dirty tricks and extra gold, I am ok with these few details. As everyone mentioned, it somehow balances the terrible logic of AI.
I like to add small observation to the pool of useful information in the topic too: The AI doent add the tower attacks when attacking a castle. Because of that, it may attack with a hero with so few units which can beat the one of two units inside, but drop dead by tower fire. Also, if you have so tiny army with fast creature with your hero, the AI attacks you because it doesnt add the spell condition. You can win with lightning bolt, implosion etc.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted February 07, 2014 03:35 PM |
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Yesugey said: Well the problem is, creating an AI with limited information just like the player is harder than AI with full access to all data. So in most of the games, the AI doesnt have a fog of war.
I don't see how. When programming the AI, you make some decision making functions. The input of these functions is up to you to decide.
I remember when I made a pokemon battle simulation, I didn't let the AI decide it moves based on what moves the opponents had. What I did was to assume worst case scenario and then as the battle progressed the AI would list used moves, so it had a better idea of what to expect. It did make for an overly careful opponent and I wanted to add a leaning mechanism, so the AI would estimate the worst case scenario from previous cases and other pokemons on the team, expecting roles on the team, but I never got that far.
E.g. in the case of Fog of War, in stead of inputting the world map as the source of where items are, define a personal_map, which consists of what the AI can see here and now, stores it and loads all what has been stored so far.
Then one can go a step further and add stuff like expected resources at a given fogged location (e.g. day 1, priority may be to flag a wood mine as Rampart, wood & ore mines are expected to be close, but is not on the map yet, hence explore may have higher priority than to collect some crystals which will be needed for the dragon dwelling later on), allowed distance to walk away from the road, etc. to evaluate if it's worthwhile to go for a given item, or to continue exploring.
Quote: (Well, except because of my terrible luck myself, ofcourse. Most of the time, neutral +1 morale creatures hits more than my +4 morale armies.)
I think there was a thread about this somewhere. Something along the lines of a limited amount of moral bonuses, and the AI's units gets checked first, plus not a very random random output generator, means that the AI does get more morale. If I should guess, the random number generator probably starts off from the same seed every time, or something like that, creating predictable patterns.
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Living time backwards
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Yesugey
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 07, 2014 04:00 PM |
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OhforfSake said:
E.g. in the case of Fog of War, in stead of inputting the world map as the source of where items are, define a personal_map, which consists of what the AI can see here and now, stores it and loads all what has been stored so far.
That sounds easy when planning, but as a software programmer myself, I think it is much more harder job to do. As an assumption, if it makes new calculation after every movement point, the AI probably will change its decision and might wander around like crazy, specially in a game like Homm3, a chess with hundreds of pieces and 128x128 board. (We humans are mostly may decide "well I go there later") Coding an AI is so so hard, even the turn-based ones, like your pokemon project. (That's why even million dollar games has terrible AI even today.)
OhforfSake said:
Something along the lines of a limited amount of moral bonuses, and the AI's units gets checked first, plus not a very random random output generator, means that the AI does get more morale.
Well I can't object that, but I must know that is it causes by the programming logic itself, or by malicious behaviour of programmers, in purpose of giving advantage to AI.
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