AI in Heroes of Might and Magic 5 - Nival principles

[Humakt]

you wasted time researching how many pages your game manuals have?

yikes.

No, unless you consider a hobby waste of time. And instead of glancing at the last page I counted each page separately three times just to make sure I got it right.

And I've seen worse manuals than Heroes V for sure (that doesn't mean H5 is good one). It is strange that someone with 300 games haven't found crappier manual.

[DaemianLucifer]

I have.Accidentally(or not)it was another one of ubis glorious achievements,PoP.

[Alamar]

My guess is that the clear majority of sales of HoMM5 went to fans that wouldn't be considered to be "hardcore". Perhaps a majority might even be just casual game players .... I wouldn't be surprised if these casual game players DID want an AI that appeared to put up a struggle but then just lost gracefully in the end.

Thats what lower difficulties are for.Normal however should never aim at loosing,and harder should always aim for a win,no matter the means.

While I have no marketing data to back this up I'm sure that even casual fans would like to know that they played on "hard" difficulty and still won. It is human nature to want to win.

While I think this makes LOTS of short-term business sense the hardcore fan base is going to be alienated because they have to live with the "mess" of an AI that we currently have. If you lose your hardcore base eventually you won't have enough people creating a buzz about your game to make it worthwhile to develope any more sequels.

In a perfect world I'd of course love to see an AI developed by REAL experts [not hacks] that put up a decent fight. UBI would never allow that though for development cost & time reasons.

[IMHO] The best that we can hope for [from UBI/Nival] is for them to design HoMM6 in a modular manner so that it COULD be released to the HoMM community so we could get tons of people trying to improve it. Once it's improved sufficiently UBI/Nival may even be able to incorporate large portions of those changes into a patch so EVERYONE would be able to benefit from AI mods.

[Sir_Toejam]

And I've seen worse manuals than Heroes V for sure (that doesn't mean H5 is good one). It is strange that someone with 300 games haven't found crappier manual.

since you have decided to have fun keeping this going, do take a closer look at what i wrote.

[ThunderTitan]

While I have no marketing data to back this up I'm sure that even casual fans would like to know that they played on "hard" difficulty and still won. It is human nature to want to win.

Sure, because if there is no challenge it's so rewarding.

[Shauku]

While I have no marketing data to back this up I'm sure that even casual fans would like to know that they played on "hard" difficulty and still won. It is human nature to want to win.

Sure, because if there is no challenge it's so rewarding.

I'm sure you can delibaretely misunderstand the sentence worse than that TT.

[PhoenixReborn]

I have.Accidentally(or not)it was another one of ubis glorious achievements,PoP.

For Prince of Persia all I need to know is what buttons do what. The story is told in the game.

My best manuals ever are Homm II and the elder scrolls: Arena. In them the drawings really fueled imagination.

[fly away]

My implication is that the Heroes V AI is about the best we can afford.

Are you out of your mind? Even H3 AI was better. And that was long time ago.

[DaemianLucifer]

Actually,it wasnt better.As JJ said once,HIII was a bit simpler than HV.Even though it had more features that helped the player,the gameplay itself was simpler,thus the AI had no problem with it.The problem with HV AI is that it isnt any more advanced than HIII one,but gameplay is,thus it seems a lot dumber.

[MistWeaver]

My implication is that the Heroes V AI is about the best we can afford.

Are you out of your mind? Even H3 AI was better. And that was long time ago.

Actually AI of H1 and H2 was MUCH better as well. And it was .. more that 10 years ago from now.
May be someone going to say that the reason - is that 10 years ago Heroes had much simplier gameplay. But that is not true.
Yes Heroes gameplay scope was growing ... but just until H4.
H5 shows complete degradation. The gameplay scope is the same that H2 had with only diffrence that H5 has more rich and complex creatures and hero's skills&abilities system.
BUT, H2 was great in every possible way. Nice atmosphere, graphics, no bugs, optimized & WORKING multiplayer, good plot&campaign, huge-sized maps, low sys. req (even for that time) and as I said - good AI. And all that - 10 f*cking years ago. Good job nival!

[MistWeaver]

Actually,it wasnt better.As JJ said once,HIII was a bit simpler than HV.

Oh really? Can you point me why ?

[DaemianLucifer]

You just have to look at the skills AI buys and youll see the similarity.You never see the AI with feats,and thats because,like in HIII,it simply takes skills and advances them to expert.In combat,it berzerks its own units because berzerk increases the attack of the creature.Besides,look what HIII combat AI did:It always attacked the lowest tier first.Always.This one does the same,except its not the lowest tier but the one with the highest threat rating(ghosts,furries,paladins,etc).

[MistWeaver]

You just have to look at the skills AI buys and youll see the similarity.You never see the AI with feats,and thats because,like in HIII,it simply takes skills and advances them to expert.In combat,it berzerks its own units because berzerk increases the attack of the creature.Besides,look what HIII combat AI did:It always attacked the lowest tier first.Always.This one does the same,except its not the lowest tier but the one with the highest threat rating(ghosts,furries,paladins,etc).

Lets leave combat aside. H5 has not good, but sufficient combat AI. Like all Heroes games.

The main H5 AI problem is adventure part. Because its much more complex than battle. So tell my that diffrence between H5 and H3&2 that makes H5 adventure AI that much harder to develop.

[DaemianLucifer]

Only skills and town planing(levels make it a bit harder).But considering that AI has infinite money,it copes with town planing very well.With skills,however,it doesnt.

As for all of the AI running away from player when it should attack,its just poor prioritising.Same would happen with HIII AI if youd tell it to prioritize staying in town at the end of turn.It would simply sit there unless you came at half its alking range.Now Im not defending it,it is a bad decision,yes.What I am saying is that theres nothing wrong with the design of the AI,but with its valuables.Ok,theres nothing wrong with the design of the AI if it was used in a simpler game,like doomIII But seriously,if I knew where the values for the AI are stashed Id easily make it do some smarter things.For combat I know what it is(the threat of the creature),and I can mod it.For the adventure map,however,I have no idea where it draws those values from.

[asandir]

And I doubt Nival will tell you either

[MistWeaver]

Only skills and town planing(levels make it a bit harder).But considering that AI has infinite money,it copes with town planing very well.With skills,however,it doesnt.

1) Skills.
I can not agree. Almost all skills affects just battle. The main exclusion is logistics, but decision "take it or not" isnt harder than in H3. While others still has weak effect on adventure.

2)Town.
Firstly, as you said, infinite money removes the problem itself. Secondly town levels does not make building harder. Maybe even easier 'cause there is much narrower "choose from" list.

[DaemianLucifer]

I can not agree. Almost all skills affects just battle. The main exclusion is logistics, but decision "take it or not" isnt harder than in H3. While others still has weak effect on adventure.

The decision is harder because HIII had no prerequests to think about.Its a small change,yes,but apparently big one for the AI to swallow.

[MistWeaver]

I can not agree. Almost all skills affects just battle. The main exclusion is logistics, but decision "take it or not" isnt harder than in H3. While others still has weak effect on adventure.

The decision is harder because HIII had no prerequests to think about.Its a small change,yes,but apparently big one for the AI to swallow.

Logistics has no prerequisites.
But anyway, what we have in the upshot, in H3 adventure VS H5 adventure?
We have nearly same difficulty.

[DaemianLucifer]

Logistics has no prerequisites.

No,skills dont have prerequests,but feats do.Rarelly youll see an AI with a feat.

[King Imp]

Ah, this is just Nival's way of saying "we still can't figure out how to make the AI act accordingly after all this time, so we give up and now make excuses for our failed attempt."