Curious about Dominions? how the AI thinks? which AI is best/worst?

Gandalf Parker · #1 January 5th, 2009, 10:31 PM

Someone has already publicly mentioned the unlisted switches of --allai (create game with all AIs) and --superhost (host the game over and over really really fast) so Johan has given permission for me to display some of my test data from the beta group. Not the cumulative data (yet) but the tests as they run which some might find interesting. Only one test of each era stays visible online, then its zipped up and the data is overwritten by the next test.

www.Dom3Minions.com/~mmdom3/AI_tests/
Its not ALL scoreboards. At the bottom is other things.

If I run
dom3 -Td --era 1 --allai --superhost --scoredump Early_AIs
(and lots of other switches) then I get an Early Era game called Early_AIs which has all of the era 1 nations in it as computer players. It will run until one of the AIs wins (or I kill it). Running such tests in many different settings (different sized maps, VP points, game settings) gives us an idea of which nations fail quickly every time and which ones tend to win too often.

The -T is text mode. I dont want gui screens, cant watch the game anyway altho this is one of the reasons why Im working on a watcher nation.

The -d is debug dump which creates the game log. People who have been curious about what the AI does (including your own commanders) can take a look at this. No we do NOT know what its telling us but some things you can figure out. The log is ONE turn and its huge. Much more info is available if I run it -dd or -ddddd but for these tests I dont need that. Feel free to do that to your computer if you want to.

Ive crashed my machines trying to get complete logs for a whole game.

--era 1 is of course which era. I have run the SingleAge mod this way. In fact, its why I creates the SingleAge mod. But thats just for fun. Other than occassionally testing the games maximums. the information isnt all that helpful to the devs.

--allai fill the era with all AIs

--superhost skips all countdowns and hosts, hosts, hosts. It also creates a superhost.txt which has information such as which nations AI was Standard (1), Defensive (2), or Aggressive (3). The scores are mentioned at turns 50, 100, 150, and 200.

--scoresdump creates the scores.html which I rename to another number in order to keep them all. Ignore the turn count after 250 because even though the game continues the counter stops. I think thats because the devs figured out long before I did that its insane to keep going. The game is usually fairly well decided by turn 250 such as getting down to Vanheim and Oceania so running it for another thousand turns to take the every single province is moot for our purposes.

Gandalf Parker

Gandalf Parker · #2 January 5th, 2009, 10:32 PM

When I use a command called html2text I can convert the scores.html to something like this..
**** Dominions 3 Scores, Early_AIs turn 12 ****
*** Provinces ***

|Nation |Provinces|
|Arcoscephale |4 |
|Ermor |10 |
|Ulm |4 |
|Marverni |7 |
|Sauromatia |4 |
|T'ien Ch'i |5 |
|Mictlan |7 |
|Abysia |7 |
|Caelum |10 |
|C'tis |8 |
|Pangaea |5 |
|Agartha |6 |
|Tir na n'Og |10 |
|Fomoria |13 |
|Vanheim |5 |
|Helheim |13 |
|Niefelheim |5 |
|Kailasa |6 |
|Yomi |6 |
|Hinnom |10 |

Im messing around with gathering all the score data into one file and generating a scoreboard from it like is inside the game. Maybe an animated one (gif frames?). Not that Johan needs it but I thought it would be interesting for the rest of us.

Eventually a Watcher.dm would allow me to watch everything in a game from inside the game. That would be really fun. However, there is apparently no way to accomplish that without affecting the outcome of the game (even hidden units affect how the AI acts) so such a game would not be of any use to the developers.

MaxWilson · #3 January 5th, 2009, 10:42 PM

I wish for a Watcher.dm too.

I like the fact that Dom3 is a game of limited information, but at the same time it would be easier to tolerate long hosting times if I knew I would be getting more out of it than mysterious battles seen only by the AI. I want to be able to watch every battle that happens anywhere.

Actually, now that I think of it... maybe there's a way to mod Astral Projection so that it works over the whole map as a global. I'll probably never look into it but I do wonder.

-Max

Gandalf Parker · #4 January 5th, 2009, 10:44 PM

If you are interested in what can be gleaned from the debug log (and made use of for interesting games) some points were made in post #19 of this thread...
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35083

Gandalf Parker · #5 January 5th, 2009, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

I wish for a Watcher.dm too.

There is a thread on a Watcher Nation in the mods forum. We have gotten quite a ways.

What I have so far is useful. It can last the game and can check out much of whats going on. But I would like to figure out how to get an "Eyes of God" that doesnt take a global slot.

lch · #6 January 6th, 2009, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

The -d is debug dump which creates the game log. People who have been curious about what the AI does (including your own commanders) can take a look at this. No we do NOT know what its telling us but some things you can figure out. The log is ONE turn and its huge. Much more info is available if I run it -dd or -ddddd but for these tests I dont need that. Feel free to do that to your computer if you want to.

The game uses only three debug log levels: 0, 1 and 2. It makes no difference if you use -dd or -ddd or -dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd. The only difference is in using -d or -dd or no debug switch at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Ive crashed my machines trying to get complete logs for a whole game.

That shouldn't happen. I create full debug logs for all the games that I am hosting and keep them, and none have ever crashed because of debug logs. The logging itself shouldn't hamper hosting in any way, just slowing it down a little.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Im messing around with gathering all the score data into one file and generating a scoreboard from it like is inside the game. Maybe an animated one (gif frames?). Not that Johan needs it but I thought it would be interesting for the rest of us.

Look at my sig, I already came up with something that creates charts for the current turn and later to generate graphs for the whole progression of the game, too (see the second page of the thread for the link to the whole-game graphs). Examples can be viewed from my directory on your server, too, so you should have access to all the files that are needed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

What I have so far is useful. It can last the game and can check out much of whats going on. But I would like to figure out how to get an "Eyes of God" that doesnt take a global slot.

As I wrote in a reply in that thread, the best you can achieve without dissecting the turn files that are being generated to get the same as the Eyes of God is something that has Scrying on the whole map. There is no arcane hidden way in the game to make it easier than that.

Some months ago, I've started something that should display the province ownership on a map. I've gotten to the point where people need a GUI to divide the map into polygons, because the borders that you get just by computational geometry aren't always that consistent with those borders that have been drawn on the map. One of the test images that I generated last is at http://dom3.servegame.com/test.svg -- you need a SVG-capable browser or browser plugin to open this, like Mozilla or Opera should be. I got sidetracked and put my time into other projects lately, but if there is honest interest in something like this, which should enable after-game replays like Civilization has them, too, I could pick it up again later or somebody could continue with what I have got so far.

vfb · #7 January 8th, 2009, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lch

Some months ago, I've started something that should display the province ownership on a map. I've gotten to the point where people need a GUI to divide the map into polygons, because the borders that you get just by computational geometry aren't always that consistent with those borders that have been drawn on the map. One of the test images that I generated last is at http://dom3.servegame.com/test.svg -- you need a SVG-capable browser or browser plugin to open this, like Mozilla or Opera should be. I got sidetracked and put my time into other projects lately, but if there is honest interest in something like this, which should enable after-game replays like Civilization has them, too, I could pick it up again later or somebody could continue with what I have got so far.

I think this would be amazingly cool! I always enjoyed watching that replay in Civ, and was sad when they dropped it.

It would be extremely cool if there was one animation for province ownership, and another for dominion spread. But I'd be super-happy even with just a province ownership replay.

Gandalf Parker · #8 January 9th, 2009, 05:21 PM

Another Early_AI test complete. The time-stamp on those scores rolled. The first one is actually 1440. (Ive fixed that for future runs)

Hinnom the winner with Oceania holding out till second place again. Yomi was first out followed closely by Kailasa. Wow since Yomi was the winner on the last one. I should check if it was the same AI (defense, standard, agressive) both times

It occurred to me that it would be helpful if someone wanted to provide data for mp to go with this. Rather than impressions and opinions maybe someone administratively skilled could break down the winners list from the sticky in the mp forum? Just totals for each nation. It wouldnt provide the 1st out info but it would provide winner stats

Gandalf Parker · #9 January 9th, 2009, 06:39 PM

Every time I scan a game log I see something new.
Ive often seen it say that a commander was given equipment but Ive never before noticed
"Com 650 returning Water Bracelet"

I wonder what the AI thinking is which causes that. As much as people say that it hands out equipment stupidly I didnt think there was anything that would cause it to redistribute eq.

JimMorrison · #10 January 9th, 2009, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Every time I scan a game log I see something new.
Ive often seen it say that a commander was given equipment but Ive never before noticed
"Com 650 returning Water Bracelet"

I wonder what the AI thinking is which causes that. As much as people say that it hands out equipment stupidly I didnt think there was anything that would cause it to redistribute eq.

That is just amazing to me. I mean, I've seen AI commanders with boosters for paths they didn't have, or going out into combat with SDR, or research boosters - so it's rather shocking to think that the AI actually in some cases makes the judgement call to replace things to the lab.