Absurd AI turn lenght

[Romanov77]

Hi people, long time no see

Being sorely disappointed by H6, I completely forgot about the serie.

Now I would like to come back...to H5 precisely.

I got all the expansions too, but I quickly remembered why I quit the game.
Turns. Insane AI turns. Even in TotE, latest patch.

Has some workaround been discovered? Possibly without messing the AI in the process?

[Romanov77]

wow, 800+ views!

This really deserves a reply, come on!

[Yurian Stonebow]

Give people some time. The AI related problem you described is one of the most annoying "features" of the Heroes V AI. It's slow, tends to get stuck too often and has problems doing its analyzes of the strategic world map. All this contributes to the slow finishing of the turn of the AI players. I seem to recall that this problem was present in Heroes IV as well.

Sadly, there's really no workaround that I know of. TotE didn't bring in changes to this formula. The issue still hang on despite patch 3.1.
All in all, your best bet would be giving the Heroes V AI Mod by Quantomas a chance. The AI there is written by the Mod maker himself and it does introduce a number of positive changes in contrast to Nival's original AI for Heroes V. More information is available here:

http://www.bonddisc.com/ref/h5/ai.htm


Wbr,

Yurian

[Romanov77]

http://www.bonddisc.com/ref/h5/ai.htm


Wbr,

Yurian

That's pretty technical!

Is the project finished?

[Yurian Stonebow]

The author of the mod has said that he is now adding last touches to the final build. Meanwhile, you can download the latest version of his AI mod here: http://forum.eternal-essence.com/showthread.php?tid=15

And yes, the information provided at Quantomas' website is pretty technical stuff indeed. Which isn't surprising taking into account that the Heroes V AI mod is developed by a German computer expert who has lots of experience in providing different AI tools and models for taking the AI development for H5 into the next level. In fact Quantomas will be producing a full fledged AI of his own for use in games other than Heroes V as well.

In short: this AI MOD is the best Heroes V mod that I know of.
His main goal for this AI mod is to let the fans of the Heroes series to see the full capability of H5 with Q's AI and all the various bug fixes that will be combined into one last (unofficial) patch for Heroes V:TotE 3.2.

Wbr,

Yurian

[Kalah]

Obviously, we here at CH are hoping to host the AI mod once it's finished.

[Yurian Stonebow]

(Offtopic) I hope that you there at CH are still willing to host the Masters of Sighisoara II campaign when it's finished? I've been working with haste the past few days to ensure the release of the thing by the latest deadline I set to it: June 1st 2013 at 00:01 am. It's pretty much finished now and I still have more then 29 hours to go. Not a bad thing if you ask me.

Anyways, cheers for Quantomas for making the excellent mod of his to improve the quality of Heroes V by miles (or kilometres, heheheh)

-Yurian

[Romanov77]

Well, I will wait with anxiety the final release!

Will it be compatible with the campaigns?

[Kalah]

(Offtopic) I hope that you there at CH are still willing to host the Masters of Sighisoara II campaign when it's finished?

Of course - send me the maps, readmes and minimaps and I'll have it hosted in no time.

[mr.hackcrag]

I copied the beta version of the Essence files, but how do you know if the mod is applied? AI still seemed a little stupid to me...

[markkur]

I copied the beta version of the Essence files...AI still seemed a little stupid to me...

Not sure I follow, did you get the A.I. version "J"?
All other versions are various steps to this last release.

but how do you know if the mod is applied?

You'll see "new options for gameplay", the turn-bar will be very thin and at the bottom of your screen and also, A.I. turn-times will be faster on larger maps.

A reminder for all; Follow the "read-me" concerning file-placement and don't forget to create a new Desktop-game-shortcut linking to the A.I.'s exe-icon in the bin-folder.

[mr.hackcrag]

The two files I got from the site were titled:

"H5AI_31n_beta"

and

"H5AI_31" which is the "j" version you're talking about.

I only copied the beta version files to the directories listed in the pdf file. I see options like "Hall of Decision" so I assume everything went smoothly, but I was playing today and on two occasions the AI could have eliminated me and didn't. The way the mod describe the new AI sounded really impressive, but I'm not sure I'm seeing it during play.

[markkur]

but I was playing today and on two occasions the AI could have eliminated me and didn't

That's typical, the main problem with the current state of the A.I. is it's "almost" always too defensive. If Heroes are equal and rated "Challenging" than only once in a while will it attack. Other times, if you're quite weak, it will sometimes bypass you for a few turns for higher priorities.

I'm not sure if you're aware but the A.I. has not been finished and the long-time users are awaiting the final version that should include a great deal of improvements.

Q has had the RL issues that we all do and this work is an enormous project for one working alone for free. We all hope he can finish it soon; there are a lot of us anxiously awaiting the complete A.I.

Cheers

[mr.hackcrag]

Can the Hall of Decision option only be used on that one special map at the moment?

[markkur]

Sorry for the delay. That feature was not implemented. A long while back I spent weeks creating a hall but with little community help and Q's more important work we finally had to set the idea aside.

[mr.hackcrag]

I see. I've played a few maps with the patch and the AI does put up a nice challenge.

One thing I didn't like was when I entered the AI's town area with a threatening army, they did not try to haul up in their castle to defend themselves. The AI could have survived if I had to fight them in their castle, but they wander around even when their is not much to do on the adventure map. I set the "look ahead depth" option to heroic if it matters, but I'm not quite sure how this influences AI decisions.

I really like the additional game options! I like to play in a low resource environment so it was great to be able to play on heroic difficulty and set the AI resources equal to mine.

I look forward to the final version of the patch. H5 with the patch is shaping up to be the definitive HoMM game.

[mr.hackcrag]

This is about the Essence AI.

If I capture the AI's last castle and the AI thinks my army is stronger, it will not try fight me and the 7 day limit will run out eliminating the AI.

Sometimes the AI will try to capture a different castle away from my best hero , but usually the AI has a really strong army that could inflict massive casualties on me even if they lose, but they don't fight, the time expires, and they disappear.

I think if a human player was in a losing situation, they would at least attack with their best hero and cause carnage before being eliminated. They might even win the combat.

The combat AI is solid, but it still makes questionable moves like targeting a unit that is not as dangerous as another unit, errors in the way they move their troops, or choosing the best spell to use in a certain situation.

[markkur]

What you've described is what the final-release of the A.I. is supposed to address. A long while back, Quantomas said that "battle-mechanics" was an area he would also target. (he didn't address them before)

"J" is far from perfect but <imo> it's still a very good "defensive" A.I.

Learning to use the H5 Editor and learning the tendencies of the last A.I. has been quite the challenge. There are things that I would do automatically when I first started making maps that I avoid now. i.e. Many fans want town-portal but with this A.I.? its suits the defensive stance perfectly Lately, I've banned the spell and it's forced the A.I. to venture much more from home in mid-late-game.

Atm, probably the best result from "J" is that playing much larger maps becomes possible, when it was only a sad-wish before. So much so, that I would left H5 a long time ago without Q's effort. Tiny, battle maps are not my thing. I'd still make one at request but I prefer epic landscapes.

[mr.hackcrag]

One thing I've often noticed about the AI mod is that the AI will kill some neutrals, and then not pick up the treasures they were guarding. I've even seen it ignore things like Tomes of Dark Magic and the like.

[markkur]

What was explained once, was that there is a main hero that has lesser to do the minor. The "main" fights the battles and then the weanies follow to pick stuff up, etc.

If you play long enough, you'll see a lot of variations and that's due to a decision-tree that is flexible and will vary. As I understand, it all depends on the what & where of objects on the map. The flow-chart for that work has to be huge.

It is logical that sometimes when we see a enemy Hero move away and leave something behind, that it could be that another enemy is getting close to his town and then town-defense overrides all choices and becomes the most important, just like it would be for us. i.e. The Tome would not be worth much if we lost our town to get it.

We should also keep in mind that this is still in development. I'm sure many changes would surround a next generation of the A.I.