FrankHunter
Posts: 2111
Joined: 3/26/2004
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Okay, I finished up beta 8 last night. Its still "beta" because of the number of changes to the AI code. Matrix will be making it available shortly.
What I did with the AI is I went over each module to see if it could be improved in any way. I decided that the "history" of past games could be used better by integrating it better with the personality module so there's a closer relationship between past games and the personality that was in charge at the time. So the AI ignores history where a different personality was used.
I also improved the "same game" history and its relationship with the predictive AI. So when a hex falls the AI now remembers what the enemy strength was when it was taken. After all, a human knows this from reading the battle display, so so should the AI. The AI gives precedence to what it knows has happened in the current game over past games. Another place where the AI was changed is that it now knows the start strengths and the number of casualties taken. Again, a human knows this so I figured the AI should. This improves its ability to predict the average strength of enemy forces along the front lines. The AI does not know what your purchases are, however it does know what the average of past game purchases were and uses this for predictive purposes too.
For example, when 2 humans are playing, the French player is well aware of where the German player is making his main effort. Just because past games say the German has attacked 14,11 with 70 combat strength 9 times out of 10, the AI can now tell which of those past games to ignore. If it knows a German human player is making its main effort in the east then it tosses out the cautiousness due to being worried about facing the Schlieffen Plan again.
Since the AI was already recording player purchases I allow the AI to look back through those purchases in past games. This has made the AI much more aggressive in terms of purchasing R&D and Diplomacy points. Its much harder to keep Italy out of the war now for example.
There were also a number of tweaks here and there in the rest of the AI, again, anywhere where I could see an improvement to be made. Tofurther reduce cautiousness while at the same time not wanting the AI to throw its army away in useless attacks I introduced more variables into its hex by hex decision making. As I've said, it can predict with greater accuracy what you might have in a hex but it also now uses that knowledge to keep track of what the minimum force strength is to hold or take a particular hex, what the average strength should be etc. Sometimes the AI will attack or defend with the minimum strength but if it loses it will "remember" by modifying those values slightly.
So with any luck the changes will result in a bit more interesting a game when playing against the AI.
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Just a note - 
Thank you kind Sir, your effort is much appreciated...looking forward to the patch!
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