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stachnie
Known Hero
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posted June 08, 2011 01:04 PM |
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Now I play the Ultima Classic with the 3.1.8 beta. I play as Orange (Academy). The AI exe sometimes hangs and there are some other problems (e.g. when I try to reload a save the game always crashes) but it seems this is also the case for the unmodded game: Opinions at maps4heroes.
Red AI turns sometimes last very long - especially if their hero tries to go through a set of multi-way portals. AI didn't manage to flag all mines and dwellings (if they are too far away from main directions of their interest), perhaps because there are more important things to do (go for enemy towns, defend conquered lands etc.). I have noticed (not only in this map) that AI completely ignores lighthouses and obelisks.
S.
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Quantomas
Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
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posted June 09, 2011 07:16 PM |
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We have now a new beta 3.1.9 that improves the hero behaviour with Heroes III style kamikazee attacks and fixes an issue with neutral champions being disabled after quick combat and replay.
Additionally, I have uploaded the EE sources to the server. These have now become too precious to be stored in my little office only here. They represent a development effort of estimated 15-20 million Euros, and are probably, considering the level of optimizations, ultrafast scalable pathfinder and advanced AI routines, the most advanced AI ever developed for a computer game.
@Cepheus, Markkur and TheBaron
Could you please download the sources and store them in a save place? It would be best if you could burn them on CD that they could withstand an EMP if need be. You find the archive here: EE-source (25.2 MB) Don't worry about their safety, they have a military encryption, not one of those publicly approved blockbased encryption standards, and without the key the files are practically inaccessible.
@Stachnie
Please try 3.1.9. To be on the safe side, please follow the clean-up instructions after 3.1.8 described in our bugs and known issues thread. The next upgrade focuses on the AI.
Current stable build:
3.1c public release (7.8 MB)
Latest beta build:
3.1.9 beta release (12.3 MB)
Project website:
Heroes 5.5 - Eternal Essence
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TheBaron
Promising
Known Hero
dreamer of dreams
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posted June 09, 2011 08:16 PM |
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Quote:
@Cepheus, Markkur and TheBaron
Could you please download the sources and store them in a save place? It would be best if you could burn them on CD that they could withstand an EMP if need be. You find the archive here: EE-source (25.2 MB) Don't worry about their safety, they have a military encryption, not one of those publicly approved blockbased encryption standards, and without the key the files are practically inaccessible.
You make it sound like someone is going to try and nuke it! Perhaps I should put in my dungeon winecellar. Don't worry mate, no EMPs down here in Oz, just kangaroos that'll kick the bejesus out of you... and Miranda Kerr. She is not to be trusted... No one should look that good 4 months after having a baby.
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Cepheus
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Far-flung Keeper
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posted June 09, 2011 09:38 PM |
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Edited by Cepheus at 21:38, 09 Jun 2011.
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Quote:
Could you please download the sources and store them in a save place? It would be best if you could burn them on CD that they could withstand an EMP if need be.
I wish I owned such a disc! Nonetheless, I am of course complying and will try to take care of my duplicate. This is surreal to say the least!
____________
"Those who forget their history are inevitably doomed to repeat it." —Proverb, Might and Magic VIII
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Hellglory
Hired Hero
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posted June 10, 2011 12:28 AM |
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The tests I've done are very impressive but I wanted to note a quick observation on AI behavior. The AI is aggressive about taking towns but seems to place low priority on intercepting problem heroes near a contested town. They (even the hero who "knows he will win") will dance around eachother like two coalescing galaxies taking the town with each pass until they inevitably encounter eachother. This is still an early observation. Also, I'll have a new [url=http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=35267&pagenumber=1]Axis of Evil[/url] update posted within hours and run some tests the most recent beta AI behavior afterwards. This patch will focus on structure and balance while the next will be a major aesthetic update that will likely take a couple weeks to finish. The aesthetic patch will focused on removing repetition, increasing a natural look to the terrain (ie the square water channel that boarders the map), and other changes with great focus on an immersive appearance.
*Edit* There are a few more tests and modifications I want to make before this release. The new version should be available within 24 hours.
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stachnie
Known Hero
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posted June 10, 2011 07:26 AM |
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Quote:
@Stachnie
Please try 3.1.9. To be on the safe side, please follow the clean-up instructions after 3.1.8 described in our bugs and known issues thread.
Now I am downloading 3.1.9. I think in my case cleanup is not necessary - up to now I have installed AI patch without EE. I think I will install EE, but after I finish current game.
S.
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Jukhta
Hired Hero
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posted June 10, 2011 01:20 PM |
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What exactly are the differences between normal, hard and heroic, for both the difficulty and lookahead slider?
I know the lookahead option toggles how far the AI plans ahead, but what are the values exactly?
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Quantomas
Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
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posted June 10, 2011 01:59 PM |
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Quote:
You make it sound like someone is going to try and nuke it!
It can't harm to be prepared. 
It's indeed a thing that I consider that some Fukushima style disaster can happen, and all of a sudden all your backups, even those you have placed miles away with your friends and relatives are gone. It puts my mind at ease to know that you guys keep safe what is essentially worth a couple years of work of my life.
Nice to know that you are in Oz. I am doing work on geoentropy (I actually coined this term) and this land has a special place in the history of climate change.
Quote:
I wish I owned such a disc! Nonetheless, I am of course complying and will try to take care of my duplicate. This is surreal to say the least!
Maybe, I somehow expressed it wrongly, I thought your PC specs sounded like a fairly high-end machine and that these days nearly every PC comes with a DVD R/W drive. Thanks, good to know that already two team members have the backup.
@Jukhta
The lookahead range is by default five days, and the AI switches to six and seven days later on. I think it's currently week 4/6. You can verify that from the beta debug dumps, the lookahead parameter and others tell you how far it looks ahead. The slider sets a hard cap, 4/5/6/7 from easy to heroic.
The difficulty setting affects various AI parameters, for example on easy the AI doesn't use powerful spells, on normal it builds only every second day, on hard and heroic the player has less starting resources and the AI tends to attack human players a bit more likely.
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magnomagus
Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
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posted June 10, 2011 02:12 PM |
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Hi Quantomas,
Is it possible for you implement the neutral guardians as map editor function in such a way that the editor can define which neutral stacks have guardians and which not? Would you be interested in also making the following functions:
-The ability to customize the guardians in the editor
-The ability to see on the adventure map which stacks have guardians and which have not (possibly triggered by having the scouting skill)
____________
MMH5.5 Downloads | MMH5.5 Translations | MMH5.5 FAQ
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Jukhta
Hired Hero
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posted June 10, 2011 02:15 PM |
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Quote:
@Jukhta
The lookahead range is by default five days, and the AI switches to six and seven days later on. I think it's currently week 4/6. You can verify that from the beta debug dumps, the lookahead parameter and others tell you how far it looks ahead. The slider sets a hard cap, 4/5/6/7 from easy to heroic.
The difficulty setting affects various AI parameters, for example on easy the AI doesn't use powerful spells, on normal it builds only every second day, on hard and heroic the player has less starting resources and the AI tends to attack human players a bit more likely.
Alright, thanks.
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Jukhta
Hired Hero
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posted June 11, 2011 05:56 AM |
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I've got two questions..
1) It seems to me the neutral hero stacks are too powerful, too early. On Day 2 of the game as I tried to take a sawmill it was defended by 48 drarven shieldbearers, and a hero. This hero was able to cast ice bolts, which is strong enough to kill 9 out of 11 of my hunters in 1 shot. This is just one example. In general, I have found it impossible to take over the resource camps in a reasonable amount of time. (In one fight the enemy neutral hero cast Armageddon too) Is this working as intended?
2)Is this AI mod fully compatible with random maps generated from RTMG?
Thanks in advance.
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rpgyay
Known Hero
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posted June 11, 2011 09:25 AM |
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The guardians are optional probably for that reason, though I do admit that some of those spells can be a little powerful early on. I'm using a map altered with RTMG right now without any problems... though I didn't have it use NCF creatures since that's not working with current AI Mod.
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Quantomas
Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
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posted June 11, 2011 09:43 AM |
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Quote:
Hi Quantomas,
Is it possible for you implement the neutral guardians as map editor function in such a way that the editor can define which neutral stacks have guardians and which not? Would you be interested in also making the following functions:
-The ability to customize the guardians in the editor
-The ability to see on the adventure map which stacks have guardians and which have not (possibly triggered by having the scouting skill)
I am rather happy that the neutral champions show up randomly. Even if you play with them at normal strength, so that they show up only every third time in average, discourages the common exploits to fight strong but slow random stacks (golems for example) with a small stack of blood furies or ranged units + ammocart.
One day we might overhaul the map editor and then can think to include much more options, particularly if the magic terrain is around.
What could be done, is to give an indication how likely neutral champions can occur in the adventure monster tooltip and indicate how much the threat can vary.
Quote:
1) It seems to me the neutral hero stacks are too powerful, too early. On Day 2 of the game as I tried to take a sawmill it was defended by 48 drarven shieldbearers, and a hero. This hero was able to cast ice bolts, which is strong enough to kill 9 out of 11 of my hunters in 1 shot. This is just one example. In general, I have found it impossible to take over the resource camps in a reasonable amount of time. (In one fight the enemy neutral hero cast Armageddon too) Is this working as intended?
2)Is this AI mod fully compatible with random maps generated from RTMG?
The neutral champions are selected randomly from the hero pool on the map according to the race of the creatures. They get elevated to the attacker's level (something like the Mask of Equity) and receive according skills. It's important to note against what hero you are up to, because different skills have a different likelyhood to show up. For example, Dungeon has often destructive magic and if this is on expert level they are quite powerful, whereas for example Sylvan heroes have quite low spell power.
The spells the neutral champions receive are selected randomly.
The setting difficulty = normal and neutral champions = normal is the most balanced one. The difficulty impacts the level of the neutral champion, on hard or heroic they get bonus levels. The probability with which they occur is halfed in the first turn, e.g. 1/6 on normal.
In general these changes require you to rethink the way how you deal with neutral stacks on the map. It can indeed be tough to fight 48 dwarven shield guards, if you cannot simply take them out with your archers step by step before they ever reach your melee units, while the neutral champion decimates your archers. But if we are honest that was just an exploit before, that with a couple archers you could take out the dwarves without any real fight.
You have to be smarter now what targets you select and how you build up your forces. In general, I find that melee units, particularly those with stamina are more valuable, that the balance between ranged and melee units is restored. It is also more realistic that there is generally attrition in the battles, i.e. that you can't avoid casualties completely.
The other thing is, it has a profound impact how you level up your heroes. For example defence and magic resistance become valuable. I hardly used defence at all before, because attack is more powerful. What good is it to have opponent attack damage reduced by a percentage, if you could get an attack damage bonus instead that reduces the attacking stack by an equal proportion? Now, defensive skills and magic resistance are valuable.
You also need to use your wits which stacks you place in the combat arena if you fight a neutral champion. For example, with Dungeon it's not wise to expose your more vulnerable units (blood fury for example because of their low health) and go for the melee units with stamina, minotaurs and hydras are priceless now. I didn't need to do that before, it is fun to figure out what works and what not against neutral champions.
I don't know enough about RTMG to make a statement about that. But unless there are special objects that are not supported by the original game it should work.
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magnomagus
Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
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posted June 11, 2011 01:18 PM |
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The problem of neutral creature balance was that they were too weak later but not too strong early! This is why I think the neutral guardians are not balanced. It is true currently easy and normal are most balanced but this setting doesn't solve the late game issue which is much more important. The fact that NGs can have destructive magic+they randomly appear cause large unexpected spikes in the amount of creature losses, this is even more problematic if you want to make EE multiplayer later. If you are unlucky your wood mine can be guarded by a stack of stalkers and your army is completely obliterated!. Please read some of the threads in the temple and TOH forums about how the randomization factor destroys the balance of H5. You can start of here for example:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=35180
The problem is easily solved, just remove the destructive magic, there are plenty of spells left, warlocks can also be summoning specialists. This will make the guardians weak early (where they aren't needed) and produce the desired strong late game stacks on hard and heroic mode for advanced players. Early game wasn't problematic in the first place and you don't need to fix something that wasn't broken.
Quote:
One day we might overhaul the map editor and then can think to include much more options, particularly if the magic terrain is around.
I understand you are busy and I can wait for years for this mod!, I'm also hoping to do more work on it later when I have more time. But I don't understand why you constantly move your development efforts from function to function without first properly finishing them.
For example you have just implemented 8th skills and without even any discussion taking place on the rebalancing of the H5 skill system with regards to this change the interests are already moved elsewhere. The same applies to the neutral guardians, instead of fully implementing it like it is in H4 with the functions I described in my previous post it is now somewhat half-done.
____________
MMH5.5 Downloads | MMH5.5 Translations | MMH5.5 FAQ
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Hellglory
Hired Hero
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posted June 11, 2011 01:20 PM |
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It seems to me that you have to design a map specifically for some of these new features to be balanced. Neutral heroes, even set to weak, make fights that were meant to be easy significantly more difficult and can change the entire pace of the map. It's a neat feature to have available and can always be turned off if not wanted.
On a side note [url=http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=35267&pagenumber=1]Axis of Evil 2.2[/url] is now posted. As stated before the "aesthetic update" is quite some time away, weeks likely. I'm eager to play against your AI with a friend and it brings me to a question. I checked out the future progress thread and didn't see multiplayer on the list. Does this mean multiplayer is distant on the horizon or of low priority?
*Edit* Issue with the map description and name being blank ingame immediately fixed as well as the leftover units in the Dungeon home town from testing. Apologies, should be pristine now.*
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Quantomas
Responsible
Famous Hero
AI Wizard
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posted June 11, 2011 07:16 PM |
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Quote:
Does this mean multiplayer is distant on the horizon or of low priority?
The singleplayer game will go through quite a comprehensive cycle of changes before we have EE. It is the logical order to do first singleplayer and once this is stable to add multiplayer.
I see multiplayer primarily as a means for human players battling each other. Because the project is focused on AI, it is not to the same extent relevant to multiplayer, and thus I recommend to use 3.1 vanilla for multiplayer. But I take great care not to pollute the original game installation, so that 3.1 vanilla and the AI patch can be used alternatively without the need to reinstall anything. You simply launch one or the other. If your intent is to battle the AI in human coop mode, that's a different story, but eventually it will come.
@magnomagus
I do not share this view.
The recent enhancements are not affecting the balance only, these are changing the entire pacing of the game. In fact EE will entirely remake the game balance. The options coming with 3.1c are not intended to tweak the balance, my goal was to present means how we can change the pacing of the game, and open the minds that we can do almost anything in the game.
They play entirely different. I tested TheGreed with difficulty = normal, lookahead = heroic, neutral champions = hard, artefact guards and eight skills, and the factions Dungeon (red), Stronghold (blue), Inferno (green), Necropolis (yellow) and the balance was about even. You have to play entirely differently and resist rushing, but it is good fun.
But there are deeper reasons that stem from the EE project itself and the logic to maintain a development that is feasible. I follow the stated goals of the project. I wouldn't see myself as a defender of the currently perceived H5 balance. This would be impossible. Also to put an effort into balancing individual skills, perks, creatures, spells, buildings and others would be a complete waste of time at present. Anyhow, it is doubtful that this actually can be done manually by humans. It's technically hundreds of parameters, tweak one and others need to be changed as well, and there are already different opinions about what is a balanced tweak.
EE will have algrebraic factorization. It will do something like reporting a challenge factor at game setup time. This will say for example, with all the current game rules, adventure map layout, faction settings and the like, Dungeon/red has a leverage of 1.34, Sylvan/green 0.67, Inferno/blue 2.15, Necropolis (orange) 1.70. It will also track player performance, so if it is known that the red player usually performs 1.3 about average, this will be factored in as well. In the second step it will offer the players balancing options, to have the factors level (or not), and these can include all kinds of tweaks, like a multiplier to experience earned, creature growth, income, movement speed, magic skills or whatever.
This is the vision I have in mind. That is where the true power of the AI lies as an advanced service for the entire game.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted June 11, 2011 07:57 PM |
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at worst you could set neutral champions to appear only with tier 4 to 7. by the time you get to fight them, your hero should be at least half decent.
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magnomagus
Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
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posted June 11, 2011 08:20 PM |
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Quote:
The recent enhancements are not affecting the balance only, these are changing the entire pacing of the game. In fact EE will entirely remake the game balance. The options coming with 3.1c are not intended to tweak the balance, my goal was to present means how we can change the pacing of the game, and open the minds that we can do almost anything in the game.
I will rest my case until you have all those things set up, but take in mind my comment was only pointed towards the destructive magic spells because there is a huge difference between:
1. making battles more difficult by making strategic thinking necessary to make a small amount of losses in a battle.
2. making battles more difficult by simply guaranteeing the player unexpectedly loses a huge amount of creatures once in a while.
Option 2 makes the game boring and Bless, curse and summoning spells stimulate Option 1.
EDIT
Quote:
at worst you could set neutral champions to appear only with tier 4 to 7. by the time you get to fight them, your hero should be at least half decent.
I was about to propose let destructive magic come in for lvl 15 guardians and higher and leave the distribution system as it is.
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Hellglory
Hired Hero
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posted June 11, 2011 09:34 PM |
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Quote:
If your intent is to battle the AI in human coop mode, that's a different story, but eventually it will come.
This is indeed the main the focus with Axis of Evil. An intelligent and integrated AI alliance that will challenge even the most veteran pair of players. At this maps birth I simply created 30 or so random maps and selected the most interesting one to minorly modify to be played with a friend of 25 years all the way back to our first co-op games of Heroes I. As time passed and we played bouts on the map, I couldn't help but brainstorm one great idea after another as my knowledge with the editor expanded. For fun I should post the original just to show how much the map has evolved. My goal wasn't to instigate battles with hundreds of teir 7's to create AI difficulty but rather to give them, you, your ally high potential war engines that ramp up from weak to strong through strategic expansion and exploitation of unique strengths. A sporty fight. Assets given to the AI were carefully balanced against Axis advantages. All territories have been shaped heavily from long observations of AI tendencies but warping the map to force the AI to act more intelligently would only take me so far... then the issue of computer turn length began to hurt the fun factor of Axis of Evil as well. That's where I discovered your impressive AI mod. I'm very interested in and patiently await multiplayer support for this mod, at the same time Axis will always have heavy emphasis on a powerful AI presence. Infact I do feel this maps claim to fame isn't its multiplayer, but its dangerous and interesting AI. Combined with EE, it's well worth waiting to play with my long time friend. I won't complain of your priorities Quantomas. They seem to be well set.
*PS: [url=http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=35267&pagenumber=1]Axis of Evil 2.2a[/url] release posted, very minor changes to rumors*
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Jukhta
Hired Hero
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posted June 12, 2011 05:06 AM |
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Quote:
They play entirely different. I tested TheGreed with difficulty = normal, lookahead = heroic, neutral champions = hard, artefact guards and eight skills, and the factions Dungeon (red), Stronghold (blue), Inferno (green), Necropolis (yellow) and the balance was about even. You have to play entirely differently and resist rushing, but it is good fun.
Quantomas, I admire your dedication in creating something so advanced as an advanced AI. However, I do want to make a point.
The essence of any strategic game is choice: choice between which strategies to adopt. In this context we are talking about choice between, say, aggressive expansionist strategy, early assault strategy, defensive creeping strategy, and so on. Of course, strategies can be fluid and adapt to the other opponent's strategy or specific tactical moves - but that's another matter.
The issue here is that with your vision I worry that choice will become a rarity. As you said, "You have to play entirely differently and resist rushing". The tough difficulty of neutral stacks do indeed accomplish your vision of changing the game pace, but at the cost of choice. Now, players may be forced to wait days or even weeks before being able to take over certain resource camps. In effect, all players now can't play a rushing strategy. This indirectly affects the balance of the game. As the game pace is forced to be slower, Towns with stronger higher-tier creatures gain an unfair advantage right from the start.
Perhaps you say in the original game Towns with stronger early/mid game have an unfair advantage from the start - simply because neutral guards were too weak. I agree. They did. But this weakness is overcompensated to yield a similar weakness - now late-game Towns are favoured.
All in all, I hope you bear in mind that choice is essential to a strategy game. All choices have to be equally viable. If I wish to play a rushing game and rush a nearby enemy town, I should be able to do so. I shouldn't be artificially restrained by immensely strong guards guarding the resource camps and the borders, forcing me to mass pitlords and devils before I can invade another enemy.
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This thread is pages long: 
