Spring RTS Engine

I mentioned this a while back, but ever since I started setting the unit limit to 5000 in games against AAI, it pretty much never crashes. Might not be anything to do with it, but results are results

Maybe there's an indirect link between unit limit and AI behaviour

hello
I am kind of new to playing vs AIs, when I tried long ago they would usually stop after building four or five buildings So far I've only tested AAI 0.62 but I was surprised how well it worked, it only stalled once when it spawned in the water. It was great fun to "teach" the AI how to play, for example spam bombers - and suddendly it switched from tanks to samsons. very impressive.

What excactly does the aai learn?
I once build my level 2 tech in the middle of Sunken Outpost, in the next game aai tried to do the same. A coincidence?

When the game ist canceld before there is a winner, is the "learnt" data still saved?

tons of missle trucks (XTA) get wasted because they get killed by LLTs, although they could easily kill them from a distance. Maybe units should try to attack using their max. range?
Some units seem to marked as scouts by their speed, the same way units should be declared artillery based on range etc. and also get used in a special way.

The early build up just sucks, even after a number of games.
Com -> *walk,walk,walk*->mex->*walk,walk,walk*-> wind ->*walk,walk,walk* and so on.
Also, the AI goes level 2 way too early, resulting in nanostalling while building the factory. Fusions Plants (XTA) seem to be the favorite building of level 2 builders, often two of them are started although it takes AGES to finish. Maybe units/buildings that at the moment just can not be afforded shouldnt be build at all, no matter how good they are.

The scouting on the other hand is really great, a pity the gained informations are hardly used.

just wondering if anyone's doing a config file for E&E? I'd love to be able to play against AAI on that :)

knorke wrote: Also, the AI goes level 2 way too early, resulting in nanostalling while building the factory. Fusions Plants (XTA) seem to be the favorite building of level 2 builders, often two of them are started although it takes AGES to finish. Maybe units/buildings that at the moment just can not be afforded shouldnt be build at all, no matter how good they are.

I think AAI has mainly been developed with AA in mind, so it doesn't play XTA as well. It's mainly down to the crippling energy costs of the moho mines in games i've seen - that, and the fusions take longer/cost more to build in XTA.

Soulless1 wrote:just wondering if anyone's doing a config file for E&E? I'd love to be able to play against AAI on that :)

isnt there already one included in 0.63? off course you have to rename it since i used a pre release test version at that time. butif there are no big changes it should work

knorke wrote:hello
I once build my level 2 tech in the middle of Sunken Outpost, in the next game aai tried to do the same. A coincidence?

When the game ist canceld before there is a winner, is the "learnt" data still saved?

the same way units should be declared artillery based on range etc. and also get used in a special way.

-> mobile artillery already exists as a unit category, but aai doesnt use them yet (will be added later)

-> the learning data is saved when spring is shut down - as long as the game didnt crash it will be saved

-> the k bot lab placing was a coincidence :)

unpossible is right, aai does not perform that good in xta. i never tested aai with xta since i really dont like that mod....

submarine wrote: as long as the game didnt crash it will be saved

eek, i didn't know that

i just watched a few games on EE with aai GD playing against URC and the two sides seemed to have trouble identifying each other as a threat. the scouting was done so they could 'see' each other but i have the feeling they didn't register them as an enemy or something.

attack groups aren't given commands other than to intercept scouts which are attacking the outlying mexxes as far as i can tell.

Is it just a case of the ai thinking that all units are useless against all others at the moment so they don't bother trying to attack?

edit: deleting the learning file seemed to partially fix the issue..but now GD are constantly spamming scouts instead of making an army. (scouts being the scout tank and attack helicopter). I'm not sure if this confuses the URC...they seem to go back to having no orders and just trying to intercept the scouts after their first initial attack

hmm sounds strange, i'll run some e&e tests the next few days

Well I've had fun watching AAI play itself repeatedly on Altored Divide. If your focus is on base building and economy, you are doing a good job. Improvements that I would like to suggest:

Try to optimise con unit walking to build mexes etc. Its quite noticeable that the commander often does a lot more walking than necessary to set up the first few mexes and solars.
Build earlier defence. If anyone wants to program an AI to beat AAI, just teach it to produce a party of 5 raiders early and that would set AAI back badly. Just a couple of LLTs early on and a few combat units mixed in with the first half a dozen con units would help against early rushers.
Delay construction of second factory.
Allow AAI to expand further late game. In long games it becomes obvious that AAI has a fixed base that it builds a defensive ring around, with everything outside being llts + mexes. Perhaps once this ring has been established, start work on a larger ring. Or not even have a defined base, but have a 'safety' map, allocating a safety factor to each part of the map depending on how heavily defended that part of the map is. Units with a certain value require a certain safety to be built. If nowhere has enough safety, then more defences are needed....

And of course I think the biggest and fastest improvements to this AI might be made by focusing on the attack side of things.....

played a little more, this time pitting one side against the same side (both aai controlled). GDC (mechs) don't have any trouble launching ground assaults but:

never build air scouts (as far as i can tell)

never use the aircraft they build. the aircraft just fly to the gathering point and land.

The GD DO seem to get off to a proper start and will build an attack force and then send it, but for some reason they switch to spamming scouts (tanks and heli's).

Once the spamming starts all the attack forces are directed towards the scouts incroaching on their territory - they never actually attack the enemy base.[/i]

ok, I will do some tests with AA then. Just thought XTA was the "easiest" mod, fewest units etc.

"it becomes obvious that AAI has a fixed base that it builds a defensive ring around"
ring?
looks more like a square to me
http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/994/screen3010ps.jpg
(thats two aai's playing xta)

yeah currently aai places defences at the edge of its base resulting in "rectangles"

unpossible wrote:i just watched a few games on EE with aai GD playing against URC and the two sides seemed to have trouble identifying each other as a threat. the scouting was done so they could 'see' each other but i have the feeling they didn't register them as an enemy or something.

attack groups aren't given commands other than to intercept scouts which are attacking the outlying mexxes as far as i can tell.

Is it just a case of the ai thinking that all units are useless against all others at the moment so they don't bother trying to attack?

edit: deleting the learning file seemed to partially fix the issue..but now GD are constantly spamming scouts instead of making an army. (scouts being the scout tank and attack helicopter). I'm not sure if this confuses the URC...they seem to go back to having no orders and just trying to intercept the scouts after their first initial attack

I second that

Would it be possible to make AAI build multiple self-supporting bases? Basically multiple AAI instances in the same global AI "instance"...

That'd require soemthing akin to what i did with NTai, moving all the logic into the Global class out fo CGlobalAI and simply adding calls.

It also makes it a lot easier to add Exception handling and other little things...

Zaphod wrote:Would it be possible to make AAI build multiple self-supporting bases? Basically multiple AAI instances in the same global AI "instance"...

i dont understand what you want - on aai player/instance that builds several bases? why?

and what about the starting units? it gets only one com right? *little bit confused*

I think he might mean it as a way to help the AI in the long game...setting up peripheral 'bases' to boost resources/ hold strategic points...

did you mean 'self sufficient' in the literal sense Zaphod or just as in 'makes units/ has defenses/ gathers resources/ helps the cause' ?

aaah ok, with some minor modifications this should be possible

Multiple bases would make AAI grow much better, right now it is not really expanding a lot.
Take KAI 0.0.0 for example, it rapidly filled the entire map with its units, making it very hard to destroy once it has most of the map covered.

It doesn't necessarily have to be self-supporting, I'm just guessing that would make it easier since you can then just have multiple AAI instances to handle this.