Final Newbie Question (or compilation of questions!)

happygeek · #1 June 24th, 2009, 10:01 AM

Hello everyone, and thank you for helping me out so far! This is a very nice game and what seems to be a very nice community too!

Here is where I will put my final question, which is a bit longish. And because I actually have one new one, I will try not to post new threads, but keep everything here (which will make it harder for other people to find stuff they want using "search",w hich I have found very helpful in my lurking so far!).

- AI: I am strange, but I like SP games where I dont have to worry about the clock, where I dont have to worry about disappointing fellow players by being sub-optimal, etc. So of course I would like to have a challenging AI. Obviously, the AI here can never be good, and I do not expect it to be so, because there are simply too many things to do, no AI can evaluate all that. But I think it could be better at at least some things, and I was wondering if you had any ideas if these things could be done perhaps in a mod or a patch?
The AI prefers to buy and summon lots of really weak stuff instead of fewer more powerful units. Why? Can't it buy or summon something nice?
The AI does sometimes spend money on temples, but it often leaves these unprotected and goes off to odd provinces in its nation's interior (for no reason, it seems -- I scout!!) -- it seems to have no priorities on where to attack or defend.
The AI either builds no forts or spams them, sometimes in every province it has -- but then it misses out on its administration bonuses, right? Doesnt it make sense to have at least some distance between forts?
The AI often has huge armies, but still sends out very small ones led by its prophet, which then gets killed easily. Can "protect the prophet" somehow be scripted?

- Rout: Do I understand rout correctly that it makes sense to have bigger squads instead of lots of smaller squads?

- Finding Stuff: Even after only a couple of dozen turns, I have huge armies going. Sometimes, I will have two-dozen commanders in one provience, going different places too. Many of these commanders look alike. Sometimes, I often want to make sure Commander 1 is protected, and Commander 2 casts certain spells (because he has certain stuff), and one commander is leading the funky troops, but another only has bodyguards, etc. -- but when I hit "t", I have to scroll down so long to find the commander, that I often forget who is which. I have not been able to find a way to access a commanders battle orders from the "Examine Commander" (right clicking on him in a provence) screen -- is there a way? Could that be added into a patch? In that screen, the one where you get the details on a commander, the one where you can hit "r" to rename (good idea! Even if sadly all my commanders have boring names now, like "Astral 3" and "Fire Gem Bob"), if you could hit "t" there and access his battle orders and see if that was the guy who was leading what kind of troops again? That would be SO HELPFUL!!!!

Well thank you very much and best to everyone

Humakty · #2 June 24th, 2009, 10:08 AM

Well, when the AI spams forts it increases its income, so it's positive. And it always spam forts, apart when it's dead broke poor.(usually due to death 3 scales)

The bigger a squad, the better, but even AI's do attack rear sometimes, so guard your flanks !

It doesn't really matter were a temple is, temple checks are 'transfered' when a region is fully converted.

Wrana · #3 June 24th, 2009, 10:14 AM

AI are good enough with huge conventional armies not requiring finesse. Think LA Ermor (though I don't like LA). Setting such nations as opponents coud be more challenging... Also, fewer AI players per map seem more dangerous as they gain momentum before you meet them, not grind each other to impotency. I prefer Impossible/Random setting, but Agressive AIs may be more dangerous. There is also a possibility to edit maps so that opponents get, say, particular Pretenders.
Rout: Yes.
Finding: I don't know a way. Renaming is helpful, and joining commanders into groups also, but... Another thing useful in this regard is to save mages' scripts - also not a panacea, of course.

Rysith · #4 June 24th, 2009, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrana

AI are good enough with huge conventional armies not requiring finesse. Think LA Ermor (though I don't like LA). Setting such nations as opponents coud be more challenging... Also, fewer AI players per map seem more dangerous as they gain momentum before you meet them, not grind each other to impotency. I prefer Impossible/Random setting, but Agressive AIs may be more dangerous. There is also a possibility to edit maps so that opponents get, say, particular Pretenders.

I've wondered about this, but never actually looked into it: Is the AI and its decision-making modable at all? (aside from the hacks that prevent it from buying hundreds of militia by making them cost 800 gold each). Would it be possible to build an AI that "understood" gearing, thugs, scale selection, and so on, given a dedicated enough modder, or is the AI logic not available for us to change?

thejeff · #5 June 24th, 2009, 10:32 AM

Check out the Better Independents mod.

There are a couple of versions, but the intent is to keep the AI from building the worst troops, by making them cost-prohibitive.

It does seem to work.

There is no real modding access to the AI decision making. It's been suggested before, but would probably involve a fairly serious rewrite so it's not likely.

Endoperez · #6 June 24th, 2009, 10:32 AM

There are no AI rewriting tools available.

Sombre · #7 June 25th, 2009, 08:08 AM

I would say contrary to what many people will tell you, the AI can't manage large armies of ordinary troops either. I've had 1v1 games with the AI where it's had tens of thousands of troops, with no shortage of leaders, all milling around in massive armies deep in its territory, yet it still only attacks with drips and drabs of maybe 10% of its total force. When you attack you'll run into these troops eventually, but it can't really use them to mount offense.

That said, the AI is functional given that dom3 is a MP game primarily.

happygeek · #8 June 25th, 2009, 08:28 AM

Thank you!
One more question, and some follow-up questions, thanks in advance.

AI: This better AI mod, where can I find it? I would be happy to install it if people think it is koscher.

Have the developers / producers indicated any updates to AI in (future) patches, e.g. protect the prophet, etc.?

Another thing I noticed is that the AI often has really odd pretender designs (bad synergy, weird bless choices, counterproductive scales, odd semi-rainbow imprisoned immobiles, etc...) -- Wrana said you can "edit the map" to get the AI to use good pretenders; I don't understand that. Can anyone help me, or is that for advanced people only?

Stuff: Could a button which lets you see/edit a commander's battle orders (the "t" screen for a commander) when you have that commander "open" be added into a patch?

New Question!:

- Area of Effect (Range): The manual states in a number of places the area of effect that certain things like Fear etc. have as a range in squares. Example: P. 57, "The base area of effect (Fear +0) is 6 squares.", or "so a Standard +8 raises the morale of units by 1 withing an 8-square area of effect". I'm confused. Intuitively, I would have thought that an "area of effect of X squares" means just that: that whatever effect lands in X squares, 6 or 8 or whatever as the case may be. Let's call this Interpretation 1. But another interpretation, let's call it Interpretation 2, which would actually make much more sense to me but I am unsure of the English, would be to treat the "X squares" as a radius, e.g. if you have Fear +0 your fear effect radiates out 6 squares in each direction. Because if it wouldnt be Interpretation 2, how do you count the squares? I mean: All adjacent squares to any unit would be 9, so which 6 would Fear +0 affect if Interpretation 1 is correct?
So in short: Interpretation 1, 2, or something else?

THank you so much.

Illuminated One · #9 June 25th, 2009, 08:48 AM

Well, as I understand it the AI creates its gods randomly.
One simple solution without mapmaking is to start the game with all players human and design the gods yourself. Then set all nations that you want to be controlled by AI to AI.
There's also a "semirandom" program by ballbarian which helps, can't say for sure what it does though, never used it myself.

About the area: I'm quite sure it's not the radius, but indeed 6 squares means six squares. Where these are exactly is random except for the one square that was targeted (and the fact that the squares have to be next to each other) - hence bless for example often misses larger groups of sacreds despite 100 precision.

Agema · #10 June 25th, 2009, 09:42 AM

There's range, and area of effect.

Range is how far something can happen - 25 squares is 25 squares from the source.

Area of Effect is slightly different, I think it means that it affects a certain number of squares within a certain area of the centre of effect. So for instance a spell or effect with AoE 6 will hit 6 squares, but precisely what squares are hit may vary - it could be six of a block of nine (the central square and randomly 5 of the 8 surrounding the central one). But someone else might be able to explain better.