Inconceivable AI cheating

[MistWeaver]

Multiplayer map. No scripts. Normal difficulty.
On different phases of the game try to watch AI cash & funding from turn to turn (use the thiefs guild). You will see that often AI receives plus 10000 gold to its total income !!!

Other day, Fabrice said that

The AI has been done and tuned with the help of Steve Fawkner, and the result is quite good

The way I see quite good is for example H3 AI. If you would give it at least 5000 gp a day- that would make map nearly imposible to win in most cases.
While H5 AI even with 10k - sucks.

[ThunderTitan]

It also seems to require no mana to cast Phantom Forces. Though that might be in the campaign only.

And i did notice that it never seems to have any problems with hireing creatures.

[MistWeaver]

And i did notice that it never seems to have any problems with hireing creatures.

Heh .. and why it should ? With 10000 a day

[Corelanis]

Just take it as a sign that it hates you and is willing to cheat to kill you, then beat the crap outa it. Besides if what some people say about the AI has merit it needs the help.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Mapmakers have always had to give the AI a boost for it to do well so I'm not suprised the the computer players get a bonus in the campaign maps. In one of Fabrice's posts he says that the computer plays better in scenario maps than in the campaign because of the limitations placed on it in the campaign maps (so certain scenarios are played out.)

I will be interested in seeing what kind of bonuses are necessary in non-campaign maps.

GOW

[theGryphon]

That's right. Fabrice said, and we repeated many times that the campaign and SP maps are highly scripted (and thus cramped) for good reason: to make the story intact. Still, I also do wonder the AI in MP maps where it's not.
A patch is arriving soon and hopefully it will remedy some trivial AI glitches.

[Joskevermeulen]

I did not buy heroes V at this moment but i am concerned and wonder if other people want to check mistweavers claims concerning the A.I.!

If the A.I. is even cheating with extra bonusses of +/- 10000 gold on normal difficulty their must be something programmers had to compensate with this bonusses.

This is by the way done in many games where programming the A.I. is just too timeconsuming / too complex too program from a certain difficulty level.

Example in Civilization you have 5+ difficulty grades and if i remember correctly the second grade "PRINCE" gives you and the A.I. the same chanses and is quite challenging! All the next difficulties give extra bonusses.

but if their are only 2 difficulties like in heroes V and they both have many extra bonusses and the A.I. still doesn't provide a challenge on normal difficulty (on a non-scripted map) I am beginning to think somethings quite wrong.

What we need to do is subject the non-scripted maps to some further tests. But without a mapeditor or a savegameeditor this would be quite difficult.

My hopefully unjust fear is that they really only focussed on the real A.I. / non-scripted maps in the very end once the (3d) gamingengine was finished and all the creatures and buildings where finished and all the scripted campaigns where maybe already composed.

Now they are beiing pushed to publish the game for the $ by the publishers / stakeholders and the most important challenging factors to give the game ENDLESS REPLAYABILITY and a thriving community that are a descent A.I. and many different non-scripted maps are poorly written / very little in number because they were only touched in the very last underated development cycle.

Please prove me wrong! And if it could with own factual data from your non-scripted map adventures!

[Continuity]

There three difficulty levels in Heroes V, and there will be four when the patch comes out. (Easy), Normal, Hard and Heroic.

[Anthriel]

If you want to play against a good AI, play Galactic Civilizations II. Most other developers don't care about AI anymore. I firmly believe Heroes III did better than V, though IV was arguably worse (probably didn't cheat as much though).

[Linky]

If you want to play against a good AI, play Galactic Civilizations II.

Yeah, that AI is shit hard. Though I would rather have a worse AI and multiplayer support in that game. GalCiv2 in multiplayer would be so sweet.

[Ethric]

GalCiv II AI does seem to be fairly bright, yes

The way I see it, you should have several difficulties where, ideally the middle one (medium, normal, etc) would have the AI play it's best without any advantages. Middle difficulty should give a new player an ok run for his money, whilst an experienced player would most likely have little dificulty winning. Then higher difficulties would introduce cheating AI to up the challenge artificially.

Or actually, the ideal would be an AI that used the advantage of being a computer, that is being able to compute more, faster and furter than any human. But that is to much work for most gamecompanies.

But one way or the other, if the AI needs to cheat massively at medium settings to be competetive something isn't right.

[DaemianLucifer]

If you want to play against a good AI, play Galactic Civilizations II. Most other developers don't care about AI anymore.

Unfortunately,this is true.Althought,the civ AI is very smart as well.Hmm...Theres a pattern here.So if we want to have a smart AI in heroes,lets call them civilizations of might and magic

[Wildbear]

Then higher difficulties would introduce cheating AI to up the challenge artificially.

Or actually, the ideal would be an AI that used the advantage of being a computer, that is being able to compute more, faster and furter than any human. But that is to much work for most gamecompanies.

But one way or the other, if the AI needs to cheat massively at medium settings to be competetive something isn't right.

That's what many mapmakers had to do to make the AI on H4 maps competitive. A correctly developped AI should not require such thing.

There's a strategy at war which is called "siege", which consists in a blockade of supplies while surrounding a town.

It is used when the attacker would win on an open battlefield, but would lose most or all of his army would fall before the walls.

In Heroes this usually meant you had to take all mines first, then block the entrance of the enemy fortress until your reinforcements arrive and the enemy hasn't enough resources to buy its weekly creature production. In H4 this also helped blocking reinforcement coming by caravans. If on a map (or a whole game) the AI still receives "magically" some resources when you took its mines, you can't make a siege.

I think a good strategy game should not make such strategies inefficient.

[Ethric]

That's what many mapmakers had to do to make the AI on H4 maps competitive. A correctly developped AI should not require such thing.

I'd say it's worse if the AI gets these resources directly, as opposed to in H4 where you had to feed it to them on a per-map basis. At least then you had control over it, and knew pretty much what was going on.

Note that I did not say H4 have better AI, just that however the AI is, it shouldn't get free resources except if the mapmaker deems it necessary for some reason in some circumstances, and maybe on hard difficulties (where it is also stated that it gets this advantage).

[Gaidal Cain]

Of course, we can' t be 100% sure that it isn't the Nival mapmakers that are spoonfeeding the AI with resources- unless someone has some way to check it on a map were the AI won't need resources...

[DaemianLucifer]

Of course, we can' t be 100% sure that it isn't the Nival mapmakers that are spoonfeeding the AI with resources- unless someone has some way to check it on a map were the AI won't need resources...

Without the editor,this will be very hard.Cant someone just ask them if theyve put some resource boosts on the maps or are those boosts always present.

[MistWeaver]

Without the editor,this will be very hard.Cant someone just ask them if theyve put some resource boosts on the maps or are those boosts always present.

I repeat - its not the map, its no script, this feature is hardcoded to AI.

I did not buy heroes V at this moment but i am concerned and wonder if other people want to check mistweavers claims concerning the A.I.!

This can be easily tested in demo, becouse its loging isnt turned off.
(/bin/system.log)

Take custom map, delete its scripts and write following:


function writegold()
print("new day entry --------- ");
local resbonus1 = GetPlayerResource( 1, GOLD);
local resbonus2 = GetPlayerResource( 2, GOLD);
print("1:");
print(resbonus1);
print("2:");
print(resbonus2);
end


Trigger( NEW_DAY_TRIGGER, "writegold",nil );


And you will see it all by yourself in bin/system.log After week or two AI often gets + 10000

[Joskevermeulen]

I see this topic is getting drowned to the second page of the forum and that page doesn't get many visitors at all.

But my big question still is , if it is true that the A.I. gets these bonusses?
And if someone that already bought the game got a challenging adventure A.I. without it needing a massive bonus / resourceboost / troopboost? on any kind of difficulty setting. Any theories are welcome.

[DaemianLucifer]

But my big question still is , if it is true that the A.I. gets these bonusses?
And if someone that already bought the game got a challenging adventure A.I. without it needing a massive bonus / resourceboost / troopboost? on any kind of difficulty setting. Any theories are welcome.

I didnt test it extensively,but it seems that the AI does receive huge bonuses.

[ThunderTitan]

Well in the 3rd Necro campaign after I took his castles and he took one back (that was turned into a Necropolis) the Thieves guild showed that he had 512000+ gold and over 350 resources (I had all the mines for some time). And he also had all his creatures bought when I took his towns.