If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

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AxalaraFlame
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If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by AxalaraFlame »

Say, we can choose to fight Easy, Normal, Hard, Brutal AI, just as StarCraft and RA3, and the hardest AI can readily defeat most players in general, would that be funnier and more chanllenging?
:wink:

Though AI fights in a really peculiar and unwitting way, make it a harder opponent doen't necessarily mean we have to design a great artificial intelligence. Instead, we have a very obselete but feasible way--make the AI "cheat" on different difficulties, which is a quite effective in strengthening its power.
Actually we only need to modify the gold and income, here is my suggestion:

EASY AI: -20% additional gold for the enemy; +1 additional income per village for the players
NORMAL AI: as usual
HARD AI: +20% additional gold, +1 additional income per village for the enemy
BRUTAL AI: +20% additional gold, +1 additional income for the enemy; -20% additional gold, -1 additional income per village for the players
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lipk
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by lipk »

You can already set starting gold and income for each player individually.
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AxalaraFlame
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by AxalaraFlame »

lipk wrote:You can already set starting gold and income for each player individually.
But set them one after one each time would be inconvenient, let alone different income per villa is not adjustable only if we write a map.cfg file to restrict it. If we can build a default setting of "easy, normal, hard, brutal" level to harmonize the AI difficulty, it will be very handy
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alexanderthegre
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by alexanderthegre »

You might want to check out mattsc's grunt rush AI (it's in AI modification demos on the add-ons server), it's much better than the normal AI.
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lipk
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by lipk »

But set them one after one each time would be inconvenient, let alone different income per villa is not adjustable only if we write a map.cfg file to restrict it. If we can build a default setting of "easy, normal, hard, brutal" level to harmonize the AI difficulty, it will be very handy
I'm not sure that it would be that much of an improvement. Most of what you want can already be done, and I doubt that many people play against the AI on multiplayer maps anyways. Certainly, it wouldn't be harmful to have the option, I don't think, however, that anybody would find it important enough to actually implement it.
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AxalaraFlame
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by AxalaraFlame »

alexanderthegre wrote:You might want to check out mattsc's grunt rush AI (it's in AI modification demos on the add-ons server), it's much better than the normal AI.
I will check it. Is it a better designed AI which has greater intelligence? :? I am only suggesting a very old and cheap way to brutalize AI
mattsc
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by mattsc »

AxalaraFlame wrote:I will check it. Is it a better designed AI which has greater intelligence? :? I am only suggesting a very old and cheap way to brutalize AI
'Intelligence' is not the word I'd use... :) Also, if you check it out, be aware that it is still very much work in progress with lots of flaws at this time.
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AxalaraFlame
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by AxalaraFlame »

@mattsc

Facinating! :D
In tried your AI Demo campaign, which describes(and obviously, largely improved) many kinds of AI behaviors.

YOU ARE AWESOME!
Especially when I was trying the AI Defence scenerio. The default wesnoth AI is too foolish to hold any strongholds, so I have never worried about defeating them. But this AI is awesome!!! :D It holds the valley bravely and correctly, and the AI rotate its troops back to the healers, standing on the proper position, which is so smart that I've never seen before.
I lost 17 orcs to kill them all, but they have successfully held the valley for 47 turns.

I hope you can apply these advanced AI behaviors into default wesnoth AI soon :) It is really promising
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by mattsc »

Thanks, AF. Let me also point out what I have said in other places though: All of those AI's are specialized one way or another, and would lose badly against the default AI in an average setting (averaged over all maps, factions, etc.). Or they would simply not work at all. For example, the Pass Defense AI even has hard-coded hex locations in it how to place units on that specific map - and while those would be relatively easy to generalize, it would still only work in the particular situation of a narrow bottle-neck with no other way around.

I'm continuing to work on (somewhat) more general behaviors, but it's become slow going by now. Thanks for testing and the comments.
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AxalaraFlame
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by AxalaraFlame »

:( I understand. "General" things are the most complicated ones.
So you don't call them as "Intelligence" is because that their behavihors are only settled in certain hexes, right? Hmmm...I would still say they have potential. :) Even if campaign makers need to apply different behavihors one after one into campaigns, making the AI stonger and tougher day after day, which is a heck long march to go, as a player who loves challenge, I would still be glad to fight against smarter computers. :lol2:

And thanks for noticing me before... :oops: The last year may be the worst period of time in my life.
mattsc
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by mattsc »

AxalaraFlame wrote:Hmmm...I would still say they have potential. :) Even if campaign makers need to apply different behavihors one after one into campaigns, making the AI stonger and tougher day after day
See the latter part of this post for where I want to go with this. I think that's along those lines. It'll just take some time...
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Spell
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by Spell »

mattsc wrote:Thanks, AF. Let me also point out what I have said in other places though: All of those AI's are specialized one way or another, and would lose badly against the default AI in an average setting (averaged over all maps, factions, etc.). Or they would simply not work at all. For example, the Pass Defense AI even has hard-coded hex locations in it how to place units on that specific map - and while those would be relatively easy to generalize, it would still only work in the particular situation of a narrow bottle-neck with no other way around.

I'm continuing to work on (somewhat) more general behaviors, but it's become slow going by now. Thanks for testing and the comments.
You could try to combine them into one state machine, I mean if the situation is like this then use the routines of this AI and if the situation is like that use that AI. Like the AI would be changing their whole tactic depending on the situation.
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by mattsc »

Spell wrote:
mattsc wrote:You could try to combine them into one state machine, I mean if the situation is like this then use the routines of this AI and if the situation is like that use that AI. Like the AI would be changing their whole tactic depending on the situation.
Yes, that would be a long-term goal of this, but that really is a long way off at this time. Also, sometimes it's hard for the AI to make that kind of decision, so I also want to give the scenario designer the option of choosing one or the other, together with "map-specific" hints. So, in the end (if I ever get there) it will probably be a mix of the two.
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AxalaraFlame
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by AxalaraFlame »

Will that take years to accomplish? AFAIK there are veryvery few essential technical revolutions took place in wesnoth these years.

I suppose artificial intelligence is one most cardinal thing in a MP game, so the developers should pay more attention. Do you cooperate with a developers team?
mattsc
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Re: If Wesnoth has different AI difficulty to choose...

Post by mattsc »

AxalaraFlame wrote:Will that take years to accomplish?
It's hard to say. I hope that it won't be years, but it could easily be one year or more.
AxalaraFlame wrote:I suppose artificial intelligence is one most cardinal thing in a MP game, so the developers should pay more attention. Do you cooperate with a developers team?
The developers are very busy with lots of other things, we shouldn't tell them what they should do. :) But besides that, yes, I am in contact with them and am getting a lot of help - to the point where they change the source code when needed (there's even an entire Google Summer of Code project on that). And just as importantly, lots of other people have gotten interested in this recently too and are helping in lots of different ways. So this really isn't a one-person effort any more.
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