Ai Cheating

secrecite · Post by **secrecite** » 12 Sep 2006, 18:59

Apologies if this is in the wrong area, but is there a way to stop AIs cheating? I mean, if you can't write a clever AI, cheating is not a substitute for good AI writing, yes?

Please let me know how to turn cheating off as I prefer to pit my wits against a learning program without it resorting to cheating.

Thanks!

Post by **jcnossen** » 12 Sep 2006, 19:58

Just use AAI, it doesn't cheat and it's the only AI that learns.

tow_dragon · Post by **tow_dragon** » 12 Sep 2006, 20:00

TSI doesn't cheat, too.

pheldens · Post by **pheldens** » 12 Sep 2006, 20:00

AAI is the only that works properly in XTA SVN too.

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 12 Sep 2006, 21:48

NTAI learns as well, although it's limited to finding out which units are good and which ones are bad (which may be a bad idea since in a balanced mod all units should be equally efficient so omitting one might mean that it lacks the counter for a specific type ofattack).

NEWSBOT3 · Post by **NEWSBOT3** » 12 Sep 2006, 21:54

note that it takes AAI (in my experience) about 20+ games to learn what units are good etc.

hrmph · Post by **hrmph** » 12 Sep 2006, 22:32

jcnossen wrote:Just use AAI, it doesn't cheat and it's the only AI that learns.

Isn't NTAI technically a 'learning AI' as well? It uses information it gathers to decide targetting priorities and what units to produce.

PicassoCT · Post by **PicassoCT** » 13 Sep 2006, 01:00

As all other AAis don`t work, i mainly use NTAis AI and for theSwamp, i had in ten tests always a self-kill of the Comander in Acidlakes. But if it gets a foot on the Map it is a really tough Enemy to defeat...
AAIs need to cheat to get over there problemparts and get a chance to use there strengths.. Be ashured that the AI doesen`t Cheat so excessive. You can compare it with real good Players..

As far as i remember NTAis it is only using BlackSheep (watching the Whole Map)

Oh, before i forget it - should have said that long before. @ all the AI-Makers- especially AF - great work, lot of people (me included) depend on your work. Thx a lot

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 13 Sep 2006, 05:05

KAI is the only AI that cheats by default, if it doesnt float your boat, play any other AI, most of which are also pretty good and stable.

secrecite · Post by **secrecite** » 13 Sep 2006, 12:26

I would use AAI as per your advice, because I love an AI that learns and I definitely love an AI that doesn't have to cheat! It's still a good opponent although so long as you stick to your guns (literally) you can nearly always win (or at least I can.) As it learns it gets harder and harder to win (you're talking 40-50 games for some serious learning.) The incredibly cool thing about this AI is the ability to archive and swap around your "learn" folder content and see how different people fight an AAI that has adapted to yourself! Endless fun for me as I'm a sad AI freak (although I don't know how to write them for TA:S... (any takers for teaching me what language I need?))

However, the main point of this post is the only gripe I have with AAI (otherwise I never would have bothered you guys asking how to get the other AIs to stop cheating. I ask because I can't get my beloved AAI to work any more! I follow the included install instructions, putting everything where the readme says, but AAI doesn't even appear as an option in the drop-down list of bot AI's when I try to play! Could this be that it doesn't work with Absolute Annihilation 2.11? AAI doesn't have universal mod support does it? I know it can be taught to work with any mod, but I'm useless at doing so. Could someone tell me how to getit to work with AA2.11? I'd be REALLY appreciative of such knowledge!

I'm not meant to be insulting anyone else's AI here, it's just that AAI is my favourite because you can transfer it's learning around and it don't need to cheat!

NTAI is a great AI, but for some reason (and I don't think it's my PC (2.2Ghz and high-end Nvidia) whenever it gets blasted away from my base about 10 times (nice big clear area of the map around my defenses) it just seems to get sore and hog the CPU to 100% and crash to desktop. Plus it cheats. I never knew it learned but to be honest, never saw evidence of this. It has done the "sore-loser-CPU-crash" with me in nearly every version of it that I have played, except one, which for some reason completely forgot to build energy generation and so never GOT to this stage... NTAI is by far the shiniest AI and lovely and easy to install and all that, but it can't actually put up a good fight, hogs the CPU to crashing and has long pauses occasionally (which sometimes drops connections to other human players). Maybe my PC needs to be a dual core, dual CPU 3.0 Ghz custom made monster to play NTAI, but that would just suck more... I don't think it's my PC.

KAI is the single most difficult opponent I have ever fought. THe amount of stuff it builds and throws at me would suggest that it is using a resource cheat as well as the "all-seeing-eye" cheat. It just chucks wave after wave of massive units at you backed up by artillery like I've never seen! I can beat it every time now, but KAI is pretty early stage and I don't want to know how good it will be when it's all properly released! Amazing AI work (a little less kudos to you if it uses a resource hack, because that would explain it's maniac number of units!) Again, my only gripe being that it has to know where everything is all the time to be able to play. This makes stealth fun completely obsolete, radar jammers pointless etc. Only cloaking still works (I'm assuming it's a kind of "no fog of war for AI player" cheat because of this.) It also makes it INCREDIBLY annoying because KAI does a very
good job of prioritising stuff in your base to attack. So, with the all-seeing-eye being it's ususal annoying, unfair self, it will instantly detect that you're building a Vulcan, a Buzzsaw or other important unit and immediately have a bomber wave on the way. Excellent idea to get it to throw bomber waves at important targets that might do it serious damage or be game-enders, but it should have to scout these out. Makes the whole "please don't discover it" bit very exciting and provides a need to shoot down scouts and worry about cloaked spies. I'm not "having a go" at your AI, it just seems that with the skill to write AIs that is obviously there, it's such a shame that it cheats. I still play KAI, especially with it's mod support ready to go and love it.

So, going back to what I actually asked for... AAI to play Absolute Annihilation 2.11? How? Am I being an idiot when I install it?

Thanks again for the replies!

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 13 Sep 2006, 14:33

NTAI reports cheating but doesn't actually do that. Probably just a workaround for some API deficiency. Try watching it as a spectator, it doesn't seem to do anything it shouldn't.

KAI doesn't ressource cheat AFAIK (it stalls badly in CvC) but it prioritizes attacking and doesn't need to scout which is why you see so many attacks coming from it. It also keeps all units at their maximum range and since it doesn't need scouting it's very effective with long-range units of course.

AF · Post by AF » 13 Sep 2006, 19:55

NTai doesnt cheat untill you give the comamnds:

.cheat
.aicheat

Upon which it spawns an extra 3 commanders, gives itself a 300x resource multiplier, and the all seing eye maphack and switches to a cheat buildtree designed to maximise on this (teh cheat buildtre is an XTA thing).

There si no workign AA 2.11 buildtree however.

The messages AI cheating at startup is because jelmer added the message so it gets displayed when the AI calls the engine for a cheat interface, but NTai doesnt use it till you tell it to.

And NTai was developed on a 2.4ghz 32 bit monocore celeron D, you're not running it on speedmetal ro with .nocost are you? Eitherway I'm aware of the lag spikes.

And onyl NTai and KAI have universal mod support. AAI wont attempt to use a mod unless it has a config file. KAI uses the same configless approach to all mods, and NTai will use configs if they're there else it will use a highly generic/abstract buildtree to attempt to use the mod and rely on rules and learning to adapt.

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 13 Sep 2006, 20:42

In effect that means none of them will support an arbitrary mod, by the way. NTAI plays very suboptimally without a config file, AAI refuses to work at all (despite using much less specific mod profiles so a generic one would work better) and AFAIK Krogothe doesn't expect KAI to run at all with mods other than those he added behaviour for. As someone who has made a mod that deviates a lot from the TA conventions I can say that KAI doesn't handle the different economy at all and doesn't really get going. AAI just crashed when I gave it a profile and from what others told me that's because I had mobile cons build other mobile units so it doesn't like my mod at all. NTAI offers enough flexibility through its profiles that I could actually make it play fairly decently, although it still doesn't work efficiently enough to prevent a very early attack from wrecking its base (though that's kinda expected, maybe I could tune it to the point where it can handle even that since I can't find documentation on many of the tags) and obviously doesn't know how units must be combined or microed (not something I'd expect an AI that wasn't specifically written for that mod to understand anyway).

secrecite · Post by **secrecite** » 13 Sep 2006, 22:53

Righto! Thanks for the input there guys. Much appreciated.

So... now my idea is to get answers to the following questions:

1) Does NTAI learn and if so, in what kind of way?

2) How can I get NTAI NOT to chew my CPU into the ground and crash to desktop, throw his commander at me trying to build in my base (really silly that!)

It's mainly the whole lag thing with NTAI, now that I know it doesn't cheat.

Sorry about accusing you guys of writing cheating AIs when you don't, that message "AI has enabled cheating" really threw me.

Thanks again!

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 18 Sep 2006, 17:17

If you want to become good, then you're going to have to give up this silly notion that cheating ai's spoil your fun.

Beat KAI on 100% handicap, then I'll be impressed.

Quite honestly, no ai puts up a better fight than Kai, and that's why it's great to practice with.

KDR_11k · Post by **KDR_11k** » 18 Sep 2006, 19:37

1. It learns unit efficiencies so if you use air almost exclusively it will notice that its anti-air shoots more stuff than other units and build more anti-air.
2. Make sure the mod you're using is supported (AA is not) and you've got the newest version of NTAI. Unsupported mods will lead to very bad AI performance since it has no idea what all those units are supposed to be.

If you want to see NTAI with a supported mod I think Nanoblobz will work, if not, CvC is supported. It's actually quite passable in the latter.

redcoat · Post by **redcoat** » 18 Sep 2006, 21:30

Ditto on the makin sure you've got the right version of NTAI. I assumed when I downloaded spring it would package the latest version (which it doesn't). That version spent 50% of the game's computations on Global handling (iirc), and always wanted to rush with the COMM. After a bit of work I found the latest(?) version which does an excellent job of handlin cpu time and buildin what it should, etc.

I realize this is probably mentioned in a few threads already, but i'm gonna say it anyways: there really needs to be a single source location/package for mods, popular maps, and AIs. I'm getting really sick of searching forum posts and websites running out of bandwith only to DL older stuff. :/

[/ot]

-|2edcoaT

1v0ry_k1ng · Post by **1v0ry_k1ng** » 24 Sep 2006, 00:12

no not cheating AI will be better than a player at a ta style, Ta gamespeed game, theres just too many intelligent decisions to be made and guesswork that an AI would re-create. I think KAI has the ideal mix. it only cheats for vision, and that lets it behave like a human: a human would KNOW that there will be popup on that hill.. an AI wouldnt.. It would be great if a version of AAI was released witht he vision Haxx.. just a subversion not the mainstream one cuz we need one good noncheat ai.. but just to see how it competes with KAI in a fair game.. love AI fighting

krogothe · Post by **krogothe** » 24 Sep 2006, 20:45

redcoat wrote: I realize this is probably mentioned in a few threads already, but i'm gonna say it anyways: there really needs to be a single source location/package for mods, popular maps, and AIs. I'm getting really sick of searching forum posts and websites running out of bandwith only to DL older stuff. :/

-|2edcoaT

I agree completely. Its incredibly hard for a new player to find the stuff he needs besides maps. Lobby integration would go a long way to help it. Even a couple links to a page where mods and AIs can be found would suffice...

With projectile code, one of the main reasons why KAI cheats is lifted, so it could be interesting at one point to work on an "honest" version, to see how much impact it has on its performance if anything. Need to get motivated again though...

Spring RTS Engine

Ai Cheating

Ai Cheating

Ais!

NTAI?