Peppe

its the ai's name - which means nothing (eg how is engsy or whatever).  It doesn't truly matter with regards to the AI, but in MP games, I always want to know who bought currency as it means they are generally weaker for a bit.  I think the generally rule should be that any announce from the AI should include its character, though - abbreviated, of course (ub, erb, etc).

That's a good point... I wouldn't mind seeing it turned on for a few of these builds to see if its over the top or not, though. 

I didn't go through every iteration.  The high gold gets cats or if its alone everything.

If there are only two then the second reserves enough for priests + angels. 

If there are 3 or more they all save whatever angels cost.  Figured they could all save for angels and spend the excess on other upgrades/items.   Probably should extend the logic to have one save 1800 and the other 3600 and the rest nothing, but I was tired and discovered the idol purchasing issue.

AI skirmish (mod version) .26c/uberfix 1.03 (last version published by miriyaka)

Settings:  the brothers/High Towers - all other settings on default
AI settings:  normal
4v4

rook (human)/ub/da/sedna v rook/ub/da/sedna

Observed results:

good initial shop.  ai's tend to split up some for flag control.  This is great!

side note - the initial messaging at the start - its a minor complaint and probably doesn't really need addressed, but if its easy, check it out - I'd prefer if the build posting was more clockwork.  Eg, all ai's wait 5 sec to start posting builds.  Then 1 posts a build, 2 sec later another, 2 sec later another.  As it is, 5 sec (or so) pass, then 1 posts build.  2 sec another posts... .5 sec another posts.

will edit this with more results soon.

noticed a little bit of logic breakdown on brothers... as there are only 2 key flags that are contested and one of them is a portal.. the ai tended to focus on the portal flag - even though its not as important on brothers early game.

i noticed there is a HUGE difference in the ai's levels vs me.  I am 15 - the best on my team other than me is 10.  On the other team, the best is 10.  I think the difference is pretty much caused by the whole going nuts for the portal early.

The map is probably available.  How advanced or different would your strategies be?

Going to tag the nickname with this, so whenever the AI chats it will be [TB]Some name (to allies): Message

Any issues with the acronyms?

Is it true to say we can ignore the portal count of all maps with an uneven portal total and just capture flags naturally until war rank 8? 

The AI understands absolutes, so we could probably get some non map specific logic in that works well on maps like brothers that would be better.  I don't recall how many maps have an odd number of portals, so this may be an absolute that only applies to brothers, but if a new map ever came out that had odd portals the AI would handle it if we write it in a general way.

If i missed something brought up in the thread let me know.  A lot of posts to read/track.

26d:

http://www.filefront.com/17579187/Skirmish_AI_v26d.zip

http://www.filefront.com/17579190/Skirmish_AI_v26d.exe

Changes:

Whatever code miriyaka posted is in for priorities.

AI save for x upgrade function flushed out to adjust to 1-3 AI's on a team to save for the troop upgrades

   - If there is one AI it will start saving for the troop upgrades at 6 otherwise troop savings starts at 7.  

   - My test with 3 normal AI had the 3 level 8 upgrades all purchased within 20-30 seconds of the warrank 8 announcement. 

      Currency went 6-10 second after warrank 3 was announced. 

   - Not sure of a good spot to announce who is saving for what as the AI can call the save function several times a second when it builds its item priorities list.   The current high gold AI is the saver for single items (currency 1 and giants) and then broken out to the cats, angels, priest if enough AI's are available.

AI's sound off their builds promptly starting at 11.5 seconds and in 3.5 second increments

All AI chat is tagged with their demigod type  [TB] Nickname

Pending Item:

AI Idol Buy/Sell could be unpredictable as there is no comparison to what idols it currently has.

Don't know if i can fix it  --  There is a delay in the AI chat, so if it does two actions with an announcement before the delay is up then the first announcement is overwritten with the new one.

I just tried your AI mod, Old ones worked. This latest release the AI just stand there and do absolutely nothing.

I tried just this mod alone, I also tried enabling "uberfix" with this AI that did the same thing.

version .24 works but not version .26

Make sure you're using Demigod version 1.3, and also that you don't have multiple versions of the Skirmish AI Mod enabled in the mod manager.  I don't think any other released mods should conflict with it, so I'm not sure what else could cause that.

Peppe, do you mean the Sync transit delay?  In other words, if it tries to announce two things within like 2-3 ticks, the first one is overwritten?  That shouldn't be happening, at least according to how the lua handles it - it does a table.insert on Sync.AIChat, which should allow multiple messages to co-exist just fine.

If you haven't already, take a look at ui/game/chat.lua.ReceiveChat, as that's what handles the display of it.  I don't have time right now, but I'll browse through it later as well.

I'd vote for going best-available unless the majority of generals (including human) on their team already has that specific idol, then going for the next down.  This way a 3-general team might end up with two bishops and a high priest, a 2-general team will do one of each.

I realize this isn't flawlessly optimal for some kind of Sedna / other general mix where they're splitting healers with each other, but that's a pretty specific scenario that might not be easy to make the AI reliably take advantage of anyway.

Another mod really needs to alter the healer ROF in some way so that this isn't necessary, because it's a really really stupid game mechanic.

Not sure on the advanced tactics.  Don't know if the TP vortexes are a category of object the AI can scan for.

Tried to find an add ping on the sim side, but the functions didn't make much sense to me.  Not sure what parameters the function is looking for.  The sim side can generate pings as you get one whenever a flag is captured or a building is attacked by a enemy hero.  These seem to be done in sensors, but i couldn't follow it all the way back to the UI.

There is a portal to threatened tower action in at the moment.  The portal threatened action is similiar but includes a chat message.  The tower one results in ganks occasionally.  If its weight was bumped way up and its goal sets aligned with more goals it could be selected more often/consistently.   Maybe the distance tuned to minimize false alarms that waste tp scrolls.  

Right now it just looks for an enemy demigod to pass near a tower. I think the distance is about the distance of the ranged demigod.

The AI may not carry TPs early or often enough for this action to be seen until later in the game.

I can add flags as targets to that action or any teleport targets.

We might split it off into a second action that focuses on flags with a hurt enemy condition.  If you would gank flags differently than towers.

I can add a health check of the demigod that entered the area and only TP for a hurt enemy.

Can also add conditions to scan for allies.  Maybe multiple the weight by the number of allies.

On micro there are some flee actions if i recall that take into account being outnumbered.  We can abort attack actions quickly if outnumbered and up flee actions and we might get a more skittish AI.   We could also just up the threshold to run away in general.  I believe it doesn't consider any flee actions at 70% health and above.

no testing time tonight.  should have some tomorrow.

Actually, one caveat with this, that the more experienced players can probably weigh in on - and that is that once one team or the other has giants, the center-map portals are pretty important too.

26e:

http://www.filefront.com/17583522/Skirmish_AI_v26e.exe

http://www.filefront.com/17583525/Skirmish_AI_v26e.zip

New version should slow down now.  Hit a lot of the major items on my list.  Rest is fixing or writing the individual actions, which takes a while.

Idol purchases fixed.  AI now respects their priority and when it buys a new idol the original is properly sold for a refund.

AI generals should buy bishops save one general who buys high priests.  If only one general is on the team it will upgrade all the way to bishops.

Re-wrote the teleport to tower action.  I didn't put many conditions on it, so it may fire too often.  AI's will teleport to flags, towers, portals that have an enemy near it. 

Updated the teleport to threatened portal to only be active warrank 7 or higher.  The action above will defend the flags somewhat.  At warrank 7 the portal action (the one with the announcement) will be active and has about double the scan radius.  So the AI will tp earlier to protect portals late game.

I may start playing against this version  

Played 3 games (skirmish AI 26e with newest Uberfix enabled). Everything on normal settings. Normal AI. (my reg doesn't use anything: skills, items, upgrades, except in 1v1 I use upgrades)

Cataract

|Regulus (human)/QoT/Qot vs Regulus/Qot/Qot | reg (human) v qot | reg (human) v qot|

So, as I haven't tested any other Ai mods except the old one, I see a great improvement (without anything I lost 3v3 , but won two others with just citadel upgrades)

In 3v3 it did upgrades well, managed monks good also. Now the things, which I saw ai doesn't do well

First of all it goes too far into towers. However in normal towers usually manages to get out except cloak of night queen. She pursues me (both full hp), then warps after me into towers, then spikes and either tries to retreat and dies or attacks and dies. With blood queen she retreats soon enough.

When demigod is damaged and runs away, if healing potion is on the way, he won't take it (would have saved his life as it was 3000 potion and demigod was nearly in his towers).

Now more about queen herself. I played two games 1 (me reg) v 1 (queen) before just for a small test. One time QoT used cloak, another - blood. First time was incredibly easy because queen had not much hp and didn't use shield. After that I watched the replay, and saw that it actually had shield skill, but for some reason didn't want to use it. Second game it was more difficult to kill her, but same thing with shield. Both games queens maxed shield, but didn't use it a SINGLE TIME

In a game of 3v3, In whole match of 4 Queens, I saw shield being used ~2-3 times. Not so much as for shield/spikes build I think... The reason to that might be another problem. Why does every QoT walks around the map in open form? I think her closed form is stronger form for wandering around the map, killing troops, etc, because of the regeneration and small attack aoe... Maybe QoT somehow could go to open form only against demigod/lots of (strong) troops/towers?

Then again. I saw only one QoT build (maybe accident?) with only difference of favor items (that means shield/spikes build with cloak or blood). Thus making it a bit bad as queen doesn't use shield skill often... Did a specific test for QoTs. 5 (reg + 4 qots) v 5 qots. All Qots were walking in open form most of the game, used shield... few times... No shamblers for any Qot (reached levels 10-11 at the end of game), lots of ground spikes/waves.

Now old problem of regulus. He doesn't snipe when needed... I several times on purpose went in his snipe range with low hp and he didn't shoot me for a kill. Another time, I was low on hp and he used thunder on me (had about 650 hp before thunder), so he could have killed me with snipe after it, however he didn't. Maybe regulus somehow could track more demigods around the map as his skill range far surpasses the range he cares about (low hp demigod can go not far away from him, and won't be killed). But I saw towers being sniped at... very short range... which is pointless (he reached with normal attacks from same range).

And one more thing. Can AI take commands from players? Let's say to instantly teleport to me or something? (might help in portal capturing, protecting, etc)

to both of you.