Skirmish AI: E323AI 3.22.4

[slogic]

But in most cases you're attacking. If you wanna hide a unit then just set its movement property to stop roaming or make it don't shoot. Right? :)

[Error323]

How do you 'update' the config files? I simply pasted entire E323AI where it's due, having original folder structure in mind and it pops up in as a choice already.

That is indeed what I mean by update.

Comet Catcher remake02, one E323AI vs two KAIK ... and it indeed beat them. It was funny to watch, Peewees everywhere doing some kind of guerilla warfare ... hit and run, hit and run. At some point both their bases were completely destroyed and around 100+ of their kbots moved in one mob chasing one Peewee in circles for some time, till bigger clash and final defeat. Commanders got eventually annihilated as well.

My impression is that this 'beginner micro' simply exploits KAIK weakness in fullest ... I will have to throw it against RAI once in a time, since the latter is rather passive-defensive and is obsessed with enemy trying to enter it's base.

Cons so far? Well, apart from the rather primitive build order, it's quite efficient at what it's doing. It started to build tier 2 kbot lab but enemies destroyed it twice and they exploded anyway before any unit was built from that factory. Lack of defences and naval is kind of obvious, but I believe your first priority will be land + air anyway? Not everything at once, they say.

Though, real con remains, it eats much, much more CPU power than any other AI. When I accelerated the game to 3x speed, it went up to 30%, 40%, 45% and then crashed on second run at some point. I can imagine the same thing happening on normal speed on bigger map and with more units or enemies. I don't know why it eats so much resources, but I'm safe to say version seems to be quite stable on machines which can handle it's demanding requirements.

What impressed me the most was micro of the units ... they actually really fought in the combat, maneuvering to avoid missiles or extra casualties. I only wonder if it's possible to tell the AI units to not shoot through wrecks for too long if they can't reach and damage their target.

It is exactly this microing of the units what is causing the higher cpu load. On each logical frame the path of a group is recalculated with respect to the current threatmap. This is done in a round robin fashion, so even if it has a small number of units the cpu load will still be (fairly) high. Though still good imo (considering what its doing).

Overall, what I have experienced and seen is certainly beyond what I expected, despite the primitive (yet) tactics employed by it. I didn't play against it personally, but so far it seems to be a killer of other AI's on small-normal sized land maps.

:D thanks

[1v0ry_k1ng]

you might want to remove the connection between anti-air units and attack groups, as atm in BA it chooses AA kbots over all other assaulters. even in xta, unless the AI can do commander repair micro- which it cant- it should be building ak/storm/thud, not crashers, because crashers are only effective in conjunction with repair.

[Umrug]

:)
0.80.5.1, BA 7.04, maps: comet catcher redux, barren, crossing 4 final
Tested in 1v1 vs RAI.

The good stuff:
- No more idle units! You finally fixed that one, well done :) Hooray!
- Much better performance!
- Actually managed to complete a game on Comet :) needless to say it won

The bad stuff:
- Increasing (though much more slowly) lag, then crash, in most cases. Traditionally, infolog and log are not helpfull.

See? Much more good stuff :)

Logs still contain some pathfinding (EE), but looks like they are unrelated to crash (have them on comet where it didn't crash, and doesn't have any on Barren where it did crash).

I can't wait till you fix the crash - to go on about the strategy stuff (some simple things need to be improved atm)

Stats from comet game:

________________PCT_AVG_TOT
eco-incomes___0.36% 0.06 396
eco-update____0.86% 0.14 940
intel__________0.89% 0.14 970
military________4.72% 0.79 5138
pf-followers____2.03% 0.34 2212
pf-grouppath___21.2% 3.54 23041
tasks_________1.75% 0.29 1905
threatmap____68.15% 11.4 74058

[Error323]

UPDATE v2.13.5 Tue Nov 3 10:21:16 CET 2009
Changelog:

• Massive threatmap optimization by ~ factor 10
• Memory leak fixes
• Less antiair units
• Fixed SIGSEGV (thanks Hoijui for pointing out)

E323AI SO/DLL: E323AI-v2.13.5-Ultralisk
E323AI SRC: E323AI@github

[Umrug]

Well - tested in 5 games on different maps... No crash!!! YAAAY! Looks like we got ourselves another - and excellent! - AI :)


Can you add
"corfast,LAND,MOBILE,BUILDER,ASSISTER"
instead of the current corfast line in BA logs?

The config it creates automatically is not perfect, but a playable one - so its OK in this department as well :) (Would be better if it tried to look for existing config for older version of mod, and copy it over.)
Also, I see it doesn't build metal makers anymore. Not critical, but pity.

Some of the future "nice to fix" stuff:
- When some passages get blocked by wrecks it becomes helpless (all units just roam around the problematic place)
- It does not expand into areas that were once under threat, but not anymore. (Or maybe it does, but with some huge delay)


IMO it's good enough to enter next spring distribution. (houji you hear?)
[EDIT] And its first time I say that since I'm on the forums.

[hoijui]

i agree, looks good enough to get into the installer now
can not hurt to have some more testing in advnace though, i guess its only the three of us here that tested it so far. it would also be nice if the CPU usage in path-finding/-following could be tweacked a bit...
but i can now run it in a 1vs1 on my low end PC without heavy lags for quite some time.
It is unclear yet whether the AI should be integrated into the installer or downloaded separately during install.
Ahh yeah.. also, the AI has to fail gracefully and give usefull info if it is started with a mod it does not support. It is ok if it can create a half way decent config file, but if it will just do nothing or nothing worth mentioning, it should rather kill itsself (this is possible without killing the units, so a player can take over, or an other AI can be initialized for the team).

[1v0ry_k1ng]

awesome

defenses now its stable?

[Error323]

Hell yeah,

The first clustering algorithms / raw defense system is already in the master branch. See attachement.

[Nonoce]

Just did a game against this AI on ba, it worked smoothly.

http://replays.adune.nl/?1805

It's funny to see how close our eco were to each other the whole game.

The main flaw I could see was the AI wasn't very bothered with defending it's base.

[Achilla]

i agree, looks good enough to get into the installer now
can not hurt to have some more testing in advnace though, i guess its only the three of us here that tested it so far. it would also be nice if the CPU usage in path-finding/-following could be tweacked a bit...
but i can now run it in a 1vs1 on my low end PC without heavy lags for quite some time.
It is unclear yet whether the AI should be integrated into the installer or downloaded separately during install.
Ahh yeah.. also, the AI has to fail gracefully and give usefull info if it is started with a mod it does not support. It is ok if it can create a half way decent config file, but if it will just do nothing or nothing worth mentioning, it should rather kill itsself (this is possible without killing the units, so a player can take over, or an other AI can be initialized for the team).

It should be definitely included with installer. That way our humble AI modder will get more feedback and support, quite crucial at this stage, since the AI has reached (imo) a stable performance and is improving in leaps now.

[slogic]

E323AI v2.13.5 problems on Tangerline map (played vs KAIK 0.13):
* economy handling (AI does not care about metal)
* pathfinding problem (AI moves across water in the middle)
* AA-only units improper handling (attacking Wind Energy Maker)
* building AA-only units while there is no enemy ariforces (assuming AI cheating is ON)

Finally E323AI was smashed by hordes of KAIK units.

Demo is attached.

[Error323]

E323AI v3.0.0 - High Templar
All new, All fresh, All epic! Changelog:

• Smart defense placement
• Configurable (See AI/Skirmish/E323AI/3.0.0/configs/config.cfg)
• TECH 1, TECH 2, TECH 3 (Epic shit)
• Memory leak fixes
• Better economy
• Fixed SIGSEGV
• Tested extensively with BA704, XTA might need a configfile update

E323AI SO/DLL: E323AI-HighTemplar
E323AI SRC: E323AI@github

---

Some stuff I'm quite proud of :D

• Beats KAIK
• Beats RAI
• Beats KAIK+RAI in a 2v1
• Beats XAI

Try, Test, Play with the config file and above all, have fun!

- Error323

[slogic]

Well, i see almost no changes on Tangerline map. AI just collects bigger groups of units. Replay (attached below) is dull but somewhat funny at the end.

Bugs:
* AI moves units into the water (i see it selected the most safest path, but units can't swim except Jethro)
* economy handling: AI does not build more metal makers
* two builders at the beginning were doing nothing while they could build metal makers

By the way, why Geothermal Powerplants are not marked as EMAKER in configs?

[Error323]

Pathfinding is not yet fixed, I'll check that out lateron. Geo isn't marked EMAKER since it requires a special spot and not all maps are fitted with geos, so this should be kept the way it is for now.

The two builders doing nothing were probably trying to build land defense in the water.

To be safe, just don't play watermaps :)

[slogic]

To be safe, just don't play watermaps :)

I've rechecked the first page to make sure you've written smth about problems with water before my report. There was nothing related to water. Worth to write i think. And i don't think Tangerline is a watermap (because every part of land is connected in graph terms), but a good map for testing a land AI as yours. :)

I have to admit how fast your AI reacted (changing the path) when KAIK sent its units to enemy base leaving its base naked.

[slogic]

Tested on Tundra map. There is as little water as possible. SAME problems occurred. :/

Also here is CPU usage:

Code: Select all

                     PCT	AVG	TOT
  defensematrix      0.07%	0.03	77	
  eco-incomes        0.05%	0.02	56	
  eco-update         80.24%	32.08	80177	
  intel              0.34%	0.13	346	
  military           15.58%	3.11	15574	
  pf-followers       0.04%	0.01	42	
  pf-grouppath       2.86%	1.14	2859	
  tasks              0.07%	0.03	76	
  threatmap          0.68%	0.27	686	
  unittable          0.01%	0	19	

[Umrug]

ZOMFG it rapes, it rapes so bad!

I'm making new config for BA (half done).

Several issues:
- Defense placement is weird, it makes some little def early in the game (goood!), and almost nothing in late game (pity)
- Never went t3, even having ton of income
- log is full of
[36:33] (EE): CUnitTable::getBuildables no candidates found TECH1 | TECH2 | KBOT
(what was meant to build?)
- It really should invest a bit less in constructors, at least in BA. I'd say 30% less
- Metal makers! Right now it has some trigger to make it build estorages. Can you make a test - if one estorage of this type is already present - make metal maker instead?


Features that I think are nice to see:
- Reclaim. In AI battles its inevitable that tons of m are lying around. Can it give area reclaim commands? Precision is unimportant (worst case con will get stuck because he can't pass somewhere, or will walk into enemy, who cares)
- Get cons away from danger - at least from enemy static defenses (low importance)
- Can it upgrade mexes?
- More oriented towards spammy attack - right now it clearly doesn't play well once its income in BA goes above 60-70 - one lab (+one t2 lab) is just not enough. So - can it make more labs? Preferably other kinds of labs (veh, hovers, air, more t2 labs) Just increasing number of assisters is bad for several reasons.


I'm here all pointing out bugs and making requests, but don't get me wrong - it's a total badass rapist AI. Not less.

[FluXy]

Great to see it progressing :)

I tested it against KAIK but it crashed.

[Umrug]

My BA 7.04 config. Many fixes (about 60 i guess)

http://rapidshare.com/files/303901073/B ... n.cfg.html

The only controversial stuff I made is to remove defender/pulverizer from "defense" and add sam/packo. The rest is trivial changes. I suggest you put it in distribution as it clearly plays a bit better then default one.