However in both games I see units sitting in the middle of the main civ territory:
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AI : Army Movement
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In the case above it is the 2 res game, the units are concentrated at the coast, I think this is OK as the Incians are at war with the Scotts and the Americans on the other side of the see. However one thing I don't like about the groups is that there are more groups then necessary. We don't see 12 units at one place but rather 4 or 6. That is more vulnerable to an attack then the 12 units solution. However some more compact rallying and that would be fine for the invasion. The oversea invasion itsself seems to work, however the AI moves single ships and that is not so good, because this means that the units arrives at different points of time on the target continent, where single units are a easy goal. In fact the units should arrive at the same point of time and at the same place, a 12 statck is better then a 2 stack. In fact another problem of this fleet is that the ships have all different targets. My strategy in that case would be to move the units or enough units to one target on the other continent combine there the force and attack.Last edited by Martin Gühmann; September 3, 2004, 13:12.Civ2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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The situation in the 5 res game is similar. But now the Incas are at war with the Germans on the other side of the Incian continent. And again a lot of units on around the Incian cities, although it is no problem for the Incas to combine there forces and march to the German cities. In fact one problem I see on this picture is that there are units on the same tile, but aren't grouped. With all the armies here the Incans could conquer all the German cities on the Incian continent and expell the Germans from the Incian continent.Civ2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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In comparision to the Incas the Germans have it better with their invasion/reinforcement transports. We have again single ships but the Germans have a big target area with their cities at the Incian coast, so it doesn't matter if the ships don't share the same target and the fresh troops are good for the city defence. However there is also something positive to report for the Incas. There is an Incian stack with a Catapult in near Dortmund, the garrision of Dortmund just contains one unit and so in fact Dortmund will be history in two turns.Civ2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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The situation for other civs like the Arabs is similar. In the 2 res game the Arabs are at war with the Chinese, but were at war with the Indians on the same continent. However there are again a lot units around the capital, and that was also the case when they were at war with the Indians.Civ2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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I also find the difference in exploration behaviour for the Indians. They explored a little bit more and settled a little bit more but I doubt that the difference is significant, maybe the only effect is the exploration resolution. But to veryfy this some more games are needed to check this. Left in the picture the world map of the Indians in the 2 res game right the world map for the Indians for the 5 res game after 267 turn.Civ2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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Another thing I noticed is the settling behaviour, but actual I already noticed this in a game without your modifications calvitix, the AIs don't settle aggressivly enough. I was able to fix this in GoodMod for ApolytonPack with some text file modifications and I thought by adding those modifications to the startegies.txt I would fix it here as well, but in fact I see here in that game a settler that is obviously waiting for doomsday or whatever. Actual I think the Germans will release a settler from that ship and fill the gap, that should have been filled by the Incians ages ago. And I don't see that the too many cities strategies should be in effect here either as the Incians never hit the city limit. Another thing is that the Incans in the 2 res game have 6 settlers even if the strategies.txt tells them to have only at most 4 settlers.Civ2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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To the picture above, there is a gap between the Incian city of Huari and the rest of the Incian territory, I also thought that I fixed this problem.
However now to the military strength in both games the strengthes do not grow liniarly. That is a good sign, because this means that troops are using and killed in battles. However this should be more effictive. But in the end we have to investigate how it turns out in the next 300 turns. But in the end I see that we still need some improvement.
-MartinCiv2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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Hi Martin,
Thanks for all those reports
To be clear, all the changes I have done about grouping are to allow AI to group units. For the moment, the AI also comport itself as the activision developpers implemented it (contrary to Frenzy for example, I didn’t force the units to group).
I didn’t change anything for the moment about the way transports works or AI attacks, I just change the order in goal affectation to enable them.
Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
However now to the military strength in both games the strengthes do not grow liniarly. That is a good sign, because this means that troops are using and killed in battles. However this should be more effictive. But in the end we have to investigate how it turns out in the next 300 turns. But in the end I see that we still need some improvement.
A lot of improvement or problem you mention can be resolved by adjusting the values in goals.txt and strategies.txt. I’m working on it, for the moment on maps without sea (there is enough problems to solve first only with one continent…)
Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
However one thing I see is that the AI has units in the middle of nowhere. What do the units there.
(I usually add the coords in infobar too (by desactivating #ifdef _DEBUG after the command : Concat(g_theStringDB->GetNameStr("INFOBAR_UNEXPLORED")); in infobar.cpp).
Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
And the same situation in the 5 res game, well the Incians explored a little bit further then in the 2 res game
About Calculation time, one problem is that the expore goals are added every turn with my modifications (I desactivated a condition that added explore goals only when there aren’t any left.
I tried to change it to add explore goals only when half of maxeval goals are remaining, so it improve performance and the goals are regulary added.
Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
However in both games I see units sitting in the middle of the main civ territory:
Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
We don't see 12 units at one place but rather 4 or 6. That is more vulnerable to an attack then the 12 units
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The fortified units in the center of the empire have no goal. Only some of the units in the center of the empire have a goal. So the AI is wasting power for attack, by not grouping and let them "sleep". At least the AI could group those unused units to 12-stacks. For the settlers it looks like the settlers should be moved to spots on the other side of the world, but all the transport capacity is used for the attack forces.
-MartinCiv2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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Hi,
I never had seen so much unused forces! (due to personality of Incans perhaps…). I just discovered a bug in my armytext concerning 'NO GOAL'. When a unit is doing the same goal for several turns, the armytext is reset to NO_GOAL… So perhaps they weren't all unused but blocked for any reason. I'm fixing the NO_GOAL bug and I'll post the new patch soon. Could you post a savegame for this game?
Other points I'm working on (I'm in holiday this week, I expect to have time to finish them to post all I'll have done) :
Wounded units retreat:
When a unit is wounded (criterion : less than half HP), it will have bonus for defend or retreat goals, and malus for other attack goals.
Territory respect :
When non-trespassing agreement, all the goals concerning the territory will be considered as BAD_UTILITY (explore, seige, attack,…) - Only for Civ with Lawful or neutral.
Problem with garrison units :
When a city is taken (by seige force), all the group is actually affected to garrison. So I have to ungroup garrison forces (only one or two have to be affected to garrison, other can be affected to other goals.
Grouping Problems :
When units are one tile close and want to group, it appends on several cases a 'cat-mouse' play : the two units endless go to tile where the other unit was.
Pathing problems :
1. Grouped units cannot go across cities (due to max army problem). The pathfinding don't check that (it checks only the final destination), and the army is blocked. I trried to place roads to avoid the city, but the pathfinding apparently prefer going through cities.
2. When units are in enemy territory, (civilian or not), they most of the time path close to enemy cities (to use the benefits of roads). Problem : enemy bombards them (AI loose a lot of units this way). It will be wise for those units to avoid tiles that are too close from cities.
3. Roads problem : when a tile with road is polluted, AI don't build road around…
In order to realize those last points, I introduced a concept of avoid tiles (tiles that are forbidden for pathfinding). When demanding to find path, we give as parameter a list of avoid tiles.
Princip :
1. find a path without setting avoid tiles.
2. Check for each tile of path if it has enough room (or if it is too dangerous, or if the tile is polluted).
3. If such tiles are found, set them as avoid tiles and try to find another path.
4. again check…. This can be reproduced several time (MAX_CYCLES has to be defined).
I know, it's again time consuming, but I didn't find other solutions. Perhaps any ideas ?
Exploration
No idea why units aren't explore further. Perhaps they entered in war, and all units were required to set war. (It appends during my test games). The problem I have seen in games that need sea invasion is the lack of transport units (specially If the sea distance is high). As I said I first concentrate my efforts on 'One continent games' - map with only land.
With units respecting non-trespassing treaty, I experienced that AI doesn't explore much in enemy territory. So I add a new goal : GOAL_STEALTH_EXPLORE, to use special units to explore deeply in enemy territory. It works fine, except the fact that settlers ARE special units (and I have the same problem you mention, there is too much settler unit, even if there is no room left to settle… perhaps we'll have to add a condition : settler units can only be build if there is settle goals). So I have a lot of settlers coming right in my territory, a pleasure for slavers :.
Stealth Units
By observing special units, I discover they aren't very efficient : (spy trying to steal_technology on civ that don't have any,… abolitionists that try to free slaves where there isn't… I think I'll apply a filter to cancel all those stupid goals. AI so will cheat, by knowing where it's useful to send spy and other units, but it's really needed (otherwise those units are quite useless for AI - I Ttink that's why there have been desactivated in SAP…
For all the changes described here, I have to introduce several new constants in 'goals.txt' and 'strategies.txt', It seriously reduce the chances of backward compatibility (and mod compatibility). But I think we have to go in that direction to really improve the game.
As I said, I'm on holyday, so I don't know how often I'll be connected… (I'll also change my Internet connection too, I'll soon have DSL). Please be patient if I don't respond quickly next weeks…
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Originally posted by calvitix
Wounded units retreat:
When a unit is wounded (criterion : less than half HP), it will have bonus for defend or retreat goals, and malus for other attack goals.
Originally posted by calvitix
Grouping Problems :
When units are one tile close and want to group, it appends on several cases a 'cat-mouse' play : the two units endless go to tile where the other unit was.
Originally posted by calvitix
Pathing problems :
1. Grouped units cannot go across cities (due to max army problem). The pathfinding don't check that (it checks only the final destination), and the army is blocked. I trried to place roads to avoid the city, but the pathfinding apparently prefer going through cities.
Originally posted by calvitix
2. When units are in enemy territory, (civilian or not), they most of the time path close to enemy cities (to use the benefits of roads). Problem : enemy bombards them (AI loose a lot of units this way). It will be wise for those units to avoid tiles that are too close from cities.
Originally posted by calvitix
With units respecting non-trespassing treaty, I experienced that AI doesn't explore much in enemy territory. So I add a new goal : GOAL_STEALTH_EXPLORE, to use special units to explore deeply in enemy territory. It works fine, except the fact that settlers ARE special units (and I have the same problem you mention, there is too much settler unit, even if there is no room left to settle� perhaps we'll have to add a condition : settler units can only be build if there is settle goals). So I have a lot of settlers coming right in my territory, a pleasure for slavers :.
Originally posted by calvitix
Stealth Units
By observing special units, I discover they aren't very efficient : (spy trying to steal_technology on civ that don't have any,� abolitionists that try to free slaves where there isn't� I think I'll apply a filter to cancel all those stupid goals. AI so will cheat, by knowing where it's useful to send spy and other units, but it's really needed (otherwise those units are quite useless for AI - I Ttink that's why there have been desactivated in SAP�
-MartinCiv2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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Here are both savegames, the savegame with the test1 suffix is the 2 res game the savegame with the test2 suffix is the 5 res game. Note that I used the cheat editor to switch to the Barbs in order to let the AI play, so both games are saved as Barbs.
-MartinAttached FilesCiv2 military advisor: "No complaints, Sir!"
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