The new AI

[dlaor]

First of all I'd like to thank the developers of BfW, I really enjoy your game!

BfW v1.6 showed up in my package manager today and I immediately installed it.

I think that the new version 1.6 is a great improvement over v1.4, everything seems to have become very `sleek' and beautiful. I really like the new dialogs.

However the AI also seems to have changed, in the campaigns the computer player now does things that I don't understand. For example in the first level of `The South Guard' (in the highest difficulty mode) the enemy seems to split up in two groups, which attack seperately, one after the other. This makes it easy to defeat them. In 1.4, where they used to attack all at once, I almost always lost one of my units, but today, with v1.6, I've played the same level four times without losing anyone. Even the foodpads somehow just move 1 step per turn (where they can make 4 or more through forest) to stay with the second group.

It makes me feel the game is now suddenly easier and I don't really like that.

I would like to know why this happens, how did the AI change?
Also is it possible to use the old (v1.4) AI in the new BfW v1.6? (That would be great)

Many thanks again for this great game!
Cheers, dlaor

[Livor]

While there is a new AI that in in the planning stages, the AI does not change between 1.4 and 1.6. Perhaps the AI grouping in that scenario has changed?

[Wintermute]

Unfortunately, there have been some bugs regarding changes to the AI in the 1.5.x development branch (leading up to 1.6). We thought they were (mostly?) fixed, and it is unfortunate to hear continued reports of odd behavior.

Are you using 1.6, or 1.6a? If the former, could you please download 1.6a and try again?

If you have a GNA account, you can browse the currently active bugs, and see if one of them seems like your problem (in which case post up some of your savegames and replays to help us diagnose the problem better). If you don't (and don't want to get one) please post some savegames here.

Thanks for the report!

[zookeeper]

While there is a new AI that in in the planning stages, the AI does not change between 1.4 and 1.6. Perhaps the AI grouping in that scenario has changed?

No, the AI has changed.

What happened was that we noticed that the AI was seriously broken not so long ago. But 1.6 was released anyway quite soon after a series of fixes to the AI, because we just can't stay in development limbo forever especially because people just didn't test and give feedback on the development versions enough. As a result, the AI in 1.6 is probably a little bit worse than in 1.4, but it's likely to get more fixes in the subsequent 1.6.x releases.

[Livor]

Well my bad then. I'll just shut up and hide in the corner

[cool evil]

I didn't see that much of a problem over the AIs in 1.6. In fact, i found them to be quite challenging as opposed to the AIs i had faced in previous versions of wesnoth, starting from 0.9. Many factors influences the way the AI behaves, such as the aggression value and grouping. I actually thought they were pretty decent when you are playing on a difficult campaign (FYI, south guard is an easy campaign even on the highest difficulty). Try doing the same thing in "under the burning sun" and you'll see what i mean.

[dlaor]

Sorry for this late reply, yesterday I was very busy getting the new 2.6.29 kernel to work with my Intel graphics card... :S (back to 2.6.28 for now)

Thanks for all the replies.

Wintermule -- I am using version 1.6a.

I just played some more and, after reading your comments, think differently about this now. It seems that in the South Guard campaign the AI has just gotten less aggressive, which results in the bandits not going for far-away villages anymore and some units holding back for defence.

It still seems easier to me than in v1.4 but, as cool evil says, SG is supposed to be an easy campaign and maybe the developers made it easier?

One strange thing that did happen was a poacher not moving in the 2 successive turns after it was recruited. The replay showing this is attached to this post. It is the poacher in the upper left corner of the bandits keep. Is it helpful to tell to the developers about this?

Cheers, dlaor

[dlaor]

Here is a second replay (I'm not very proud of this one ). Notice how many move points are wasted by the bandits, especially in turns 3 and 4 (you can click on the units after there turn to see how many unused movement points there are).

This behaviour is what I found strange yesterday. Do you think is this how it should be?

Also there seems to be a bug in clicking the `start the replay again from the beginning' button. Clicking this button after having played the first turn of the replay gives you a second peasant, which appears in your keep. At the point that a unit is recruited in that spot a `corrupt replay'-dialog is displayed.

[dlp]

I notice this replay stops at turn 7. Did you do this deliberately somehow, or is it another consequence of the file being corrupted?