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Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Temple of Ashan > Thread: Homm 5 AI Testing Grounds
Thread: Homm 5 AI Testing Grounds This thread is 4 pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT»
Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted May 22, 2007 02:03 AM bonus applied.
Edited by Elvin at 14:03, 27 Aug 2007.

Homm 5 AI Testing Grounds

I was recently reminded of Gothrak's AI playground It was a good idea back then and it could be very informative to see how the AI performs and responds to certain situations - Homm5 AI still remains a mystery in some parts. Alcibiades offered his help in making the testing so you should soon have his recorded experiences as well. It was a chance to measure the recent 1.5 improved AIs worth of changes though most seem to be combat specific. That said each of us took the same test in a different version, same map and will post our observations on what happened each day of the week.

Here is the map presentation, I hope it's clear. Alc has a slightly different map as HoF maps are incompartible with the original and I had to remake it but that should not have any impact on the testing results.



The idea is simple, there are some AI controlled players that have a specific task to do and a human controlled hero that overlooks the procedure.


Player 2(blue) is in the northwest island with one lvl 3 random town(fort and tavern already built) and 6 different resources to pick up as an aid to his building process. That's 90 wood/ore and 50 of each rare resource. Let's see his building order

Player 3(green) is in the upper cobblestone island with a single hero, Agrael and five items around him to pick: A random relic artifact, a major, a minor, a chest containing 10.000 gold and an amulet of the necromancer that although a relic should be worthless to him. I wonder what his priorities are

Player 4(yellow) is in the northwest desert island with Maeve, a spring of eldritch renewal and six specific stacks to kill, 40 paladins, 30 death knights, 60 ancient treants, 15 archdevils, 60 druid elders and 500 spectres. Maeve is at lvl 1 but has high stats(7-11-3-3) expert Attack->archery/tactics, Leadership->divine guidance and light magic with all three masteries and is equipped with a tome of light. Her army is composed of 5 weeks of haven army ie 10 archangels, 20 paladins, 30 inquisitors etc
The point here is to see the AI's aggressiveness and priority of targets.

Player 5
(orange) is in the grass mainland with a fully built inferno and Temkham as the garrisoned hero.[If you've never heard him is because he never appears in academy which is too bad considering he has the cool sands of time special ] Anyway he has to get to 2 enemy towns but in the way there are mines and other locations some of which helpful and others redundant such as a dwarven shrine. What I want to see is if the AI will rush, get the mines or waste its time needlessly picking things it doesn't need.

Finally Player 1, which will be known as Wyngaal and will overlook the whole testing for me To aid him I have set up a fully built sylvan as a base for operations(for the comfort) and a cartographer. He is also carrying a Freida artifact, a likeness of Freyda in the shape of a four leaf clover I just found it cute, it has no bonuses ^^
I must also mention that he has a powerful army to take over blue's town so that he can see what he has built before reloading and scouting->silent stalker to see yellow's losses.


Here is Wyngaal's journal entries for the week


Day 1

-Blue buys a hero and builds archers. He does not venture outside to get the resources, curious.

-Green gets armour of the forgotten hero, the chest, the cape of lion's mane, the armour of valor and the amulet afterwards. Taking the chest early makes me think the AI *knows* it contained 10k but it followed the logical route and left the amulet last, great!

-Yellow fights the death knights and loses 1 paladin and a few others, pretty good I'd say.

-Orange buys its army up to tier 5 but does not leave the town. Weird considering he already has 5 archdevils, the other towns are badly guarded and also control the mines.

Day 2

-Blue built peasants. Resources remain a few tiles away...

-Best to forget green, he's done his part for the test.

-Yellow attacks the paladins and spectres with casualties 1 archangel, 2 paladins, 25 marksmen, 15 squires.

-Orange buys rest of the army and stays inside. He must like his place being fully built and all.

Day 3

-Blue built conscripts? Sigh, that seems so wrong on so many different levels.

-Yellow defeats ancient treants with minmal casualties and orange continues to play chicken. Coward.

Day 4

-Hmm the blue built griffins. That's better.

-Yellow finished the neutrals, almost no losses. I think I'll forget about orange too...

Day 5

-Blue built marksmen and yellow visited the spring, cute.

From then on only blue is active(green and yellow are eliminated as they had no town) and it builds successively:
Blacksmith->town->city hall->farms(?)->marketplace and mage guild 1. That's lvl 14 and his resources are over. NO IT DID NOT PICK THE RESOURCES YET!
Seems its mother taught it not to accept gifts from strangers...


Next round

I'll remove Temkhan in case orange decides to buy a new hero and explore the map...

Day 1

-Blue builds gargoyles.

-Green gets Sandro's cloak, amulet of necromancy, the chest, ring of celerity and finally sack of endless gold. Hmm the amulet's priority changed, perhaps it's random?

-Yellow does his part as usual losing a few paladins and archangels here and there. I've tested it a few times and first targets are those with the most hp as the 60 treants, 40 paladins, 500 spectres and 30 death knights. Obviously it's about gaining the most Xp in the least possible time.

-Orange, well...

Day 2+

-Blue upgrades the gargoyles, builds gremlins, upgrades them, mages, blacksmith, archmages(), city hall, marketplace, arcane forge and finally golems on week 3. Resources are over and it still won't consider to pick up those just outside his town.
By now you may have guessed that orange did nothing.


Round 3

Nothing really important. Blue got sylvan and built blade dancers, sprites, upgraded them, blacksmith and then city hall. Not even hunters but how could it with no remaining WOOD?? Sigh.

Green's choices: Lion crown, chest, dragon teeth necklace, necromancer's helm and amulet of necromancy. Seems the chest is steadily second so the AI knows it has 10000 gold inside plus the amulet seems random.


Round 4

Orange is pissing me off so I'll give him Maeve just in case it changes something.

Long story short no effect there.

Blue got inferno and changed his lineup a bit, I'm glad it doesn't do the same for all factions. Quite a relief really.
Horned demons, imps, familiars, hell hounds, horned Overseers(as if you didn't see that coming ), blacksmith, town->city hall, infernal loom(not bad actually, though I'd rather ensure my hell stallions first) aaand...Spawn of chaos! What's wrong with it, must it ruin the one time I thought it was doing something? Stops building afterwards.

Green got: Tome of summoning, the chest, dragon scale armour, amulet of necromancy and ring of lightning protection. Huh, this time the amulet got a new position
It is interesting that it ALWAYS gets relic, then major, then minor.

Round 5

LOOL!
I deleted Wyngaal and Maeve so the blue came out took all resources except crystal, went back to town and then returned to get it!
He was scared by Wyngaal all this time!
Orange is still a spineless coward. Purple got out to seek the rich area in-between. Also I must mention that I set orange and purple as allies.

Grok(orange) went to prison, returned to town to buy army and went at the swan lake. Deleb the new bought hero follows to the lake. Svea, the freed hero went to the magma shrine that the other heroes avoid. Grawl(purple) got to the tomb of warrior and sends a necro hero with imps as backup.

Grok and Deleb identically visit the crystal of revelation and then visit the tomb of the warrior. I must mention that Grawl stays on the other side of the tomb
Purple buys another hero and svea goes to the refugee camp.

Svea goes to visit the tomb as well, it grew popular recently. The -3 morale must be VERY appealing. Now we have a beautiful scene of 4 heroes visiting the same location not wanting to hurt each other in a peaceful moment Demonlords can have their moments too


Round 6

Ok enemies again and Wyngaal, Maeve, Agrael are out to check orange's moves.

Purple goes to the tomb.
Defeats teal on day 3.
Three of its heroes visit the tomb, Grawl leaves it but another comes to take his place.
Grwl visits stables, then refugee camp.
And returns to the tomb No wonder they have consume corpse ability eew

What I have learnt from that is that orange having everything built likes to turtle while purple even with a demolished town will try to improve the situation and play offensively. Orange did nothing even when I removed teal's 3 then 1 archangels and purple's 1 archdevil.

Also the AI when it is out to gather things it buys around 3-4 heroes. They love tomb of the warrior(...), stables and refugee camps. Also it will go for all mines though that's not a top priority. It will avoid incompartible dwellings such as the magma shrine when lacking a dwarven hero.

When I removed the mines from purple, orange still cowered and waited for purple to comes to claim them.


A final note: Blue started having a better building order when Wyngaal was removed. In week 1 for instance it had sprites, blade(war?) dancers, master hunters and unicorns so having few resources affects the way it builds. I should probably check what building order it has with plenty resources sometime later.

Also I need to check the combat AI of 1.5, especially for gated units because I have heard that it disregards them completely.

Wheew that came out a bit long!



Waiting on Alc's report for now!



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Map also hosted on Moddb

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PhoenixReborn
PhoenixReborn


Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
posted May 22, 2007 06:26 AM
Edited by PhoenixReborn at 07:00, 22 May 2007.

Awesome stuff Elvin.

Should really help mapmakers in aiding the A.I.

You kept the funny style of the heroes iv analysis too

Edit:  Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1851065692/m/2421022855

Want to test A.I. chaining ?
____________
Bask in the light of my glorious shining unicorn.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted May 22, 2007 12:49 PM

Excellent job in developing the Map, Elvin, and reporting back! Here are my conclusions from testing in version 1.5:


About the 1.5 map:
The map was slightly different from the 2.1 version, the main difference being that the southern mainland had three factions: Teal, Inferno, who started with a small army of Arch Devils and only few dwellings in town; Purple, Castle, allied with Teal and w/o any dwellings in town; and Orange, Inferno, with a fully build town.

Other factions were Blue (random town, testing building order); Green (no town), testing Artifact pick-up, and Yellow (Knight w. 5 weeks of full army), testing battle order. The mini map is shown below for overview.



First Round
In this round I kept Wyngaal as surveier. However, activating the Cheat Mode let me survery the actions of the different players pretty well, though being new to this, I needed a bit of time to get used to it. This will have an impact as described below.

Day 1
- Blue builds Battledancers. He does not leave his town to claim the resources right outside his door.
- Green claims Shield of Ice and Cursed Ring. This strikes me as a strange choice, as these are the least valuable of the artifacts. But alas, things are going to get stranger.
- Yellow attacks Treants and heads for Druids. He seems to prefer the weaker stacks first to gain experience, which I think is a sound tactic.
- Orange recruits units up to and including Pit Lords, but does not leave town to claim the wealth of mines on his doorstep.
- Teal recruits a Hero and sits tight in town.
- Purple follows the brilliant tactical play of his ally.

Day 2
- Blue upgrades to Wardancers. Nothing else.
- Green does ... nothing?
- Yellow heads for Paladins.
- Orange, Teal and Purple do ... nothing. Purple builds up his town, though (more on this later).

Day 3
- Blue builds Pixies.
- Green does ... nothing!
- Yellow takes out Paladins and Arch Devils.
- Nothing to report from the south.

Day 4
- Blue builds Hunters. Nothing else.
- Green does ... nothing! (sigh)
- Yellow take out Arch Devils.

After this, his remaining Army consists of: 7 Archangels, 13 Paladins, 18 Inquisitors, "lots" of Griffins (I do not get to see the number because they Battle Dive immediately), 52 Squires, 61 Marksmen, 111 Conscripts. Though he has suffered some losses, he has managed to take out Lots of Dead Knight, a Horde of Paladins, Zounds of Spectres, and Lots of Arch Devils, so it does not seem too bad.

His battle Tactic seems pretty sound: Battle Dive Griffins, charge with Paladins, cast Mass Haste, cast Divine Strength with Inquisitors on Marksmen. Nothing much to complain there.

- Nothing to report from the south.

Day 5
- Blue upgrades to Sprites. Still does not claim the resources on his doorstep.
- Green does ... nothing (surprise).
- Yellow is done with his experiment and thus sits still (cannot blame him).
- Nothing to report from the south.

Day 6
- Blue upgrades to Master Hunters.
- Green does ... nothing ...

At this point, I decide to go and check up on Purple, to see what he has build in his town. Thus, I move Wyngraal to the south. This will show to spawn an interesting set of events.

Day 7
- Blue builds Unicorns. Still does not claim resources, but I think Wyngraal can still reach him from his new position.
- Green claims the chest (wooot!), then takes the Amulet of Necromancy, and heads for the Greaves of the Dwarven King. Poor green has his hero abandon him before he reaches the Greaves, though.
- It seems Purple has build his town up in the following manner: Peasants, Market Place, Town Hall, Farms(!), Blacksmith, Conscripts (sigh), Archers Tower.

Day 8
- Blue upgrades to Silver Unicorns. Does still not claim the resources, even though Wyngraal is now far out of reach of his hero.

At this point, I make the following conclusions:

- The presence of Wyngraal obviously affects the actions of some of the players. Maybe this is because he has equipped the Angel Wings, so they know he can reach them?

I decide to re-run the experiment, next time I dismiss Wyngraal on day 1.


Round 2

Day 1
- Blue builds Zombies and claim the resources! Woooot!
- Green claims the Chest and then the Amulet of Necromancy.
- Yellow this time attack the Death Knights and then the Paladins.
- Orange recruits units up to and including Pit Lords, but does not leave town to claim the wealth of mines on his doorstep. This is exactly the same path as last time!
- Teal recruits a Hero but this time he leaves town to start exploring! He also purchases a secondary Hero (a Knight!) whom he leaves in the Inferno for the time being!
- Purple builds Peasants like in last go.

Day 2
- Blue builds Skeletons, and then hires Knight Dougal (this really says it all!).
- Green continues claiming Armor of Forgotten Hero, and heads towards Dwarven Hammer. Seems he takes the artifacts either after value or after which is closest - perhaps next time we should try to swap them.
- Yellow continues his tour, attacking Spectres, Treants and Druids. Nothing much to comment, apparantly once he's picked a place to start, he continues to the nearest.
- Teal sends out the secondary Hero after the primary Hero.
- Purple builds Market Place.

Day 3
- Blue upgrades Zombies. Swaps skeletons to Dougal.
- Green claims Dwarven Hammer and Breastplate of Eldritch Might.
- Yellow finishes off Druids and then Archdevils.
- Teal claims a mine and Witch Hut with primary Hero. Sends second hero back home (?). Purchases third hero (! – this time a Demon Lord) to follow first.
- Purple builds Town Hall.

Day 4
- Blue builds Ghosts. Takes back Skeletons from Dougal.
- Green is done with his experiment (good boy).
- Yellow visits the Spring and is also done with his experiment. Losses seem similar to last time.
- Teal makes Primary Hero visit Battle Arena, and passes by Cartographer w/o visiting. Second Hero leaves town to catch up with third Hero, who follow first Hero – but does seem to take towards another part of the unclaimed goodies.
- Purple builds Farms (sigh).

Day 5
- Blue builds a Fort.
- Teal sends second Hero back to town again. Both Demon Lords claim a mine and visit Learning Stone. Paths seem a bit random.
- Purple builds a Blacksmith.

Day 6
- Blue upgrades to Skeleton Archers.
- Teal sends first and third hero back towards town(!), whereas second Hero leaves town again. Does not claim any new mines, and does not claim enemy's flagged Den Of Thieves, though it does pass right by it. Does visit Crypt with one (and only one) Hero.
- Purple upgrades to Conscripts (sigh!).

Day 7
- Blue builds Vampires.
- Teal sends primary and third hero back to town, whereas secondary hero continues exploring. If there is any logic in this, it surpasses me.
- Purple builds Archers.


At this point, I make the following conclusions:

- Building paths for towns seem very fixed. Purple build exactly the same buildings as last time.
- Each city seems to have a different but fixed building plan. Thus, there is variation between Haven, Sylvan and Necropolis, but all seem to focus a lot on upgrading dwellings rather than to have many different creatures as fast as possible.
- The computer seems to pick up artifacts by value when nothing threatens it. It seems to value chests high (which might or might not be a good thing, after all you cannot reclaim a chest from an enemy once he's picked it up).
- The computer seems to attack neutral stacks from whatever is closest. When multiple stacks are in similar distance, it is not consistant in picking a first target.


To test for concistency, I run the test once more, again dismissing Wyngraal on day one.

I decide to re-run the experiment, next time I dismiss Wyngraal on day 1.



Round 3

I will not give a full day-by-day report of round three, but just give the highlights for each player:

- Blue (this time Academy) build Gargoyles, Gremlins, Blacksmith (obviously to open for Golems), Golems, Magi. Claims ressources and purchases secondary Hero on day two, this time a handsome Necromancer woman who brings many valuable Skeletons, Zombies and Ghosts to the nation's army.
- Green claims Chest, Amulet of Necromancy, then Cloak of Death's Shadow and lesser artifacts. Seems concistant with last run.
- Yellow this time attacks Treants first, and follow path of first run. Thus, it does not seem to be the presence of Wyngraal that was deciding for picking the first target.
- Teal follows a pattern of exploration that is frightingly similar to last time. There are slight variations, however - on day 5, instead of sending primary hero back to town, he keeps exploring, claiming another mine, and visiting Artifact Merchant to purchase Necklace of Lion's Courage and Dragon Wing Mantle.
- Purple follows exactly same building order as last time.


Objectives to test for in future:

- How does AI value artifacts - by distance or by value. Try swapping artifacts so that if it goes for the Chest, the most valuable artifacts are most distant.
- How does AI pick targets - purhaps place similar stacks with lures behind some of them (unfortunately, we have no Leprechaun Dwellings in this version of the game ).
____________
What will happen now?

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feluniozbunio
feluniozbunio


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted May 22, 2007 01:12 PM

Hhaha you guys put them in the cages for the lifetime and are making fun of those poor heroes(?) I can only say im proud of them they didnt suicide or have themselves dismissed

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radar
radar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Castle/Haven player
posted May 22, 2007 02:00 PM

lol! great idea guys! I see AI is not so inteligent as Nival said  Elvin, can you give us some info about ac hero special? I saw in AoH this speciality once but it wasn't explained

keep testing

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted May 22, 2007 02:19 PM
Edited by Elvin at 14:19, 22 May 2007.

A little update! :)

I took Angel Wings from Wyngaal and instead used boots of levitation. Miraculously blue took the resources and orange actually left the town!
He went for the goldmine first of all, while his secondary dwarven hero visited the magma shrine and went for the other mines and refugee camp. Then next thing to do was get to the tomb and the secondary came to pay his respects as well.
That's it, I'm removing the tomb
Purple had walked near to get first but retreated when it saw orange approach. From then on orange's heroes walked a bit to get other things but always returned to that damn tomb, never thinking of attacking purple. Also the secondary returns to get reinforcements when a new week comes.

Btw the only mines it did not touch was the mine of gems and mercury. Maybe it forgets some but I don't know if it was deliberate.


-It is obvious now that the AI can perceive I had angel wings, it can't have had a sudden change of heart. However what of the times I and Alc dismissed him? Maybe just seeing it once alerts it to the possibility or  a script is triggered and it does not change mood afterwards...

Now can it see all artifacts I have? Not sure as I couldn't get anywhere even with boots of levitation. I had forgotten that I should have placed a ramp in each island if I wanted to move around.

Also why orange does not attack I don't understand. Its opponents cannot build fort and it heavily outnumbers them with no fear of invasion. Maybe if I erase the academy so that he has just one enemy?

Alc's results are a bit different, maybe because he tried it on heroic while I on hard. His yellow was probably afraid to take on more powerful stacks as they are much stronger on heroic.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb

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Stella
Stella


Adventuring Hero
Little girl with a BIG sword:)
posted May 22, 2007 03:04 PM
Edited by Stella at 15:04, 22 May 2007.

Great job guys.
- This topic helps a lot for slackers like myself who don't want to test the AI themselves. At least I know that the AI is still stupid so I have a chance to win... Can you maybe test specifically the battles?
- What I mean is that it often happened to me that I've gone against some random computer-hero and killed them but during the process I've lost some of my units and did not have time to resurrect them at the end of the battle. Since I always save before each combat I reloaded the last stage BEFORE the combat and attacked the hero again. The computer made exactly the same moves and since I knew where I did something wrong in the previous (first) battle I corrigated my mistake during the fight at the right time and ended up without any loss. So to explain the situation let's suppose the first battle took 12 rounds. I followed the same steps till round 9 as previously (and so did the computer when he did the counter moves) where I moved one of my units slightly differently and used a resurrection spell and then ended the battle with my full army again.
- And this is NOT a unique thing. I've done this "reload-for-no-loss" thing many many times and it ALWAYS works cause the computer never changes his tactic as long as I do the same steps.
- I only tested it in normal mode. I wonder if it is only because of the difficulty level or is the computer so silly and predictable on higher/stronger difficulty levels as well? (I know that I could test it myself, but maybe somebody already knows what I'd experience.)

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted May 22, 2007 03:26 PM

Quote:
Also why orange does not attack I don't understand. Its opponents cannot build fort and it heavily outnumbers them with no fear of invasion. Maybe if I erase the academy so that he has just one enemy?

Alc's results are a bit different, maybe because he tried it on heroic while I on hard. His yellow was probably afraid to take on more powerful stacks as they are much stronger on heroic.


I would like to point out a couple of things here:

I think it could be enlightening, in the light of these recent testings, to look into the file in the data folder that controls a lot of the AI behaviour. I know there are defined values such as aggressivenes towards other AI players, and I'm sure that tweaking them might make the AI behave differently.

It should also be taken into consideration that although my Yellow player did take on the weakest units first two of the three runs, he did start out with Death Knights, Paladins and Spectres right away in one of the go. These stacks must be considered the tougher ones, and there does seem to be some lack of concistancy in its approach.
____________
What will happen now?

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olmer
olmer

Tavern Dweller
posted May 22, 2007 03:57 PM

Brilliant topic, Elvin. Thanks.
Same staff i noticed – AI (with at least 5x times more powerful army, mid teens hero) does not chase/attack my heroes of lvl20+ with town portal, even if they capture mines/wait outside of their town (out of reach).  Having boots of swift journey not equipped within reach (with boots on) of enemy town also cannot lure overpowered AI out of town (unless it can block the way).  So i guess it does know of your spells/artefacts and takes them into consideration.

Also it seems important that AI appears to have no ‘memory’ of what it did the previous turn. Its priorities can be changed even if you move your hero a step diagonally instead of straight (or make different move with your other ‘irrelevant’ hero on the other side of map) – that is observed on open map with no other players.

Your positioning does not affect damage/luck/morale appearances unless you separate/merge stacks. (i’m sure everyone knows that, but just in case)

I have posted a very simple recommendation to improve AI in 1.5 patch thread – improved positioning scripts, creatures/heroes mix fix and heroes’ constant availability for AI after defeat will vastly improve AI’s survivability and make creeping much tougher.

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ZombieLord
ZombieLord


Promising
Famous Hero
that wants your brainz...
posted May 22, 2007 06:37 PM

Great topic Elvin!

But I think it would be much easier to test with cheat codes and stuff like that (like no fog of war, teleport hero (so that you won't have to use Angel's Wings to scare the enemy))

Also, the Console is pretty useful to find out what the enemy built/recruited and how many resources they got.

If you managed to get the console to work, you know what file I'm talking about next.

Open the file where you have added bind show_console '`', and add these lines:

bind fog_of_war 'CTRL' + 'SHIFT' + 'F'
bind adventure_teleport 'CTRL' + 'SHIFT' + 'T'
bind adventure_remove_object 'CTRL' + 'D'


Now, when you start the map, open the console, enter enable_cheats and press enter.
Now you can press CTRL+SHIFT+F to disable the Fog of War.
To teleport the hero, select him/her, move your cursor where you want the hero to be teleported on the adventure map and press CTRL+SHIFT+T. Note that you can't teleport him/her to an invalid location, such as near a hostile creature/hero.

To erase an object, move your cursor on the object you want to delete and press CTRL+D.

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Lesij
Lesij


Famous Hero
posted May 22, 2007 07:00 PM

That post is just great!

Now I know which colour to choose to have the strongest enemies (orange ofc)...
Ty dudz!!!
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted May 22, 2007 07:59 PM

My turn to thank you guys for the positive spirit and help There is more to be done so should you have any ideas or wonder about something in particular we are open to suggestions.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb

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Lesij
Lesij


Famous Hero
posted May 22, 2007 08:21 PM
Edited by Lesij at 20:23, 22 May 2007.

I'm wondering how would computer players behave, if you made small isles with the towns only and all the resources would be in the water...
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PhoenixReborn
PhoenixReborn


Promising
Legendary Hero
Unicorn
posted June 08, 2007 05:42 PM

Was there going to be any more testing??

If nothing else this was a fun topic.  I find it interesting that the possibility of what your hero can do controls what the a.i. heroes do, that it's reactive, not independently motivated.

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 08, 2007 07:20 PM

I have limited time cause exams are close but maybe Alci could try something. In any case the only things I can think that I would like to check is how the AI builds when it's not afraid it will be attacked() and combat AI to check how different 2.1 from 1.5 is.

When I get free time again I will be sure to do some more testing

Btw something unrelated. Yesterday I tried to make a duel hero and it crashed. It just doesn't work anymore and I haven't touched it in a long while. I only added dfortae's heroes and it seemed to work fine then.
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Miru
Miru


Supreme Hero
A leaf in the river of time
posted June 08, 2007 08:49 PM

Quote:
...(blue) is in the northwest island with ...

...(yellow) is in the northwest desert island with...





anyway,

Someone should try (I will if wanted):

(all islands have resources, pointless battles, etc.. that are identical
to see:

1) if different colors use different strategies
2) if red's strategy is affected by having two bases
3) if being on native terrain affects strategy

also make a chest with one gold and another with 10k gold to see if they know whats inside it, and if that affects their priority
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 08, 2007 11:57 PM

I'm pretty sure they know how much gold it contains. Remember that the AI in my first test would not venture out when I had angel wings but also that they took the chest ALWAYS before minor artifacts and sometimes major ones.

Hmm that should be easy to set up, perhaps I could run the test during this weekend.
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Moonlith
Moonlith


Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
posted June 09, 2007 02:05 PM

My god xD I cannot believe there are more like me who enjoy testing a game for its AI and the like.

I used to do so a lot for Rise of Rome, but I'm not decent enough in HOMM yet to run some tests for its AI. Maybe in due time I can add to this thread

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 09, 2007 02:52 PM

That would be welcome of course As I said I'll try to run one more test this weekend but it may be a while until the next one.
There aren't many requirements, you just think of something you want to test and create a map accordingly. Better to use tiny maps and islands so that you can have an observer that cannot be reached by the AI.
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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted June 10, 2007 12:23 PM
Edited by Elvin at 12:27, 10 Jun 2007.

Yesterday I wasn't really in the mood to continue studying so made another testing map. Here's the map overview:



There are four towns each occupying one corner with favourable terrain and a mirror starting area. An academy on sand, fortress on snow and inferno on lava. Only dungeon doesn't have a familiar terrain but it has no movement penalties. Around there are mines, some adventure locations and an elemental conflux all identical for each area.
Between them each of them is an unguarded city of mine so that I may lure them into claiming it and attacking the other side.

Of course continuing the tradition there is an island in the middle with a cartographer where Giovanni keeps watch over his personal battlefield, a silent stalker

The point is to check how different each faction will play, what are its priorities and how aggressive they are with each other. They can't reach Giovanni but they can reach his four unguarded towns as you can see from the map(they are listed as random towns).

Day 1

Blue(academy) goes straight to a crystal of revelation ignoring the nearby mines. Hmm

Green(dungeon) does exactly the same. Nice teamwork!

Yellow(dwarves) gets wood and ore mine, then heads for gems I suspect casters tend to visit crystals of revelation first.

Orange(inferno) gets ore mine, gallops past the wood mine to go for gems(?) Sigh...

Day 2

Blue gets the crystal mine, visits conflux. Buys Lucretia to get wood/ore mines. Wow he remembered to buy a secondary.

Green gets windmill and goes for crystal mine. Goldmine is SO near him…Buys Vinrael to flag wood/ore mines.

Yellow gets gems, visits conflux. Buys Yrwanna that heads for crystal mine.

Orange flags gems and conflux. Buys Ellaine to flag wood mine

Note to self: They don’t combine armies, every secondary hero buys the tier 1 population that the main hero could have on the first day. Is that a case of Alzheimer? All will soon be revealed!

Day 3

The plot begins to get immersive...
Blue gets my unguarded town and heads for the goldmine(FINALLY!). Lucretia goes past the ore mine to presumably combine armies. Buys Nathir that flags ore and sulfur.

Green RETURNS BACK TO CLAIM THE GOLD MINE and back again to reach the crystal one Vinrael reinforces him and seems to head towards town. Yrbeth gets sulfur and moves towards the dolmen of knowledge.

Yellow flags the gold mine. Yrwanna flags crystal and goes to meet him.Ebba gets sulfur and visits the dolmen.

Orange flags goldmine and heads for the other conflux.Ellaine flags windmill and Nebiros heads to my town.

So far they seem to act pretty similar and not as bright. Makes me wonder, do AIs have contagious diseases? If so that will give us a chance when the robots take over.

Day 4

Blue gets goldmine, windmill, moves towards crystal. Lucretia reinforces him and moves one tile to the north obviously confused. perhaps her usefulness as a hero has ended. Nathir returns to town and moves out with obsidian gargoyles(?). Razzak gets to dolmen, then moves to crystal.

Green reinforced by Vinrael goes towards orange (unclaimed)mine! Vinrael gets to crystal.Yrbeth is in the vicinity. Two mines still unclaimed.

Ingvar gets to second conflux and gets the superior army! And falls back, probably dwarven tactical thinking. Yrwanna moves around and Ebba goes to my town.. It was about time.

Orange chickens out by yellow’s behaviour and superior army and flees in his mainland, he has Ellaine’s peasants with him . Grawl gets sulfur. Ellaine moves to dungeon’s territory. Nebiros gets my town and visits the shrine of magic gesture.


Day 5

Blue seemingly moves onwards to take my yellow captured town with Nathir following. Lucretia buys bladedancers from my other town Now really sais it all.

Green having crossed orange’s space moves on to yellow’s. He must be an explorer Yrbeth returns to town. Vinrael flags crystal.

Yellow moves toward blue's’s advances. Ebba buys skeletons from my town(...)and moves towards him too. Yrwanna returns to town.

Orange goes to dolmen, Nebiros is about to flag dungeon’s gem mine.
Secondary heroes just visit locations.


By now I am convinced that they CANNOT be hostile. None has flagged another’s mine and they will not attack. Others return to their area, secondaries move to others etc.
Their nonsensical movements is killing me, no reason to continue. I did not tick the alliances button, what’s wrong with that editor? What am I doing wrong..?
Anyway that’s enough to tell me that their priorities are wrong. If I find how to make them HOSTILE to each other maybe they would react in a different manner, one can still dream…

Alc thinks they may ignore each other because there is still a human player alive and AI on hard focuses more on hunting humans. I have no idea. Maybe there is an unspecified condition that AI on single is allied..? Anyone who knows something please tell me.

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