Radagast.

Yes'd been fine. Generally I think it's sad that all those nice eye-candy objects are not available for cultures to build. I would love to make a Roman Signifer (Standardsbearer) erect put the standards into the ground. Or make units erect flags, put up trenches (because digging is not possible we could at least have an object for that, and eye-candy for that we have I think). Other than that, I must say the artwork is impressive!! All the new unique buildings in the newest version ... and the mechanics and animations of catapults and ships .. simply wow. This is a mindblowing piece of art!!

nope, we want the AI to run in separate threads. So it will have to copy the data in some way, to not edit the simulation data live. Absolutely! Thread is the secret here. Thanks for pointing out! So now I can continue making my AI common-api compatible. Let's hope I don't hit the next problem in understanding too soon.

That's the point and where I'm stuck. Why do we create a snapshot of the game state this? Can't have the reference to the simulation state object instead?Is it because we use simulation 'rounds' and only synchronize each round? Edit: Got it. .. it's because of the scope and the instance creation ... this way we ensure we have only one object of this 'class' Object - and this object is m as it is returned at this anonymous function's end. Somehow this scoping looks special, so let's examine it in more detail. What we finally do in common-api/baseAI.js is: to create an wrapped object of type Object within an anonymous function (scope),to then create a SubClass called BaseAI (in this example file baseAI.js),to then extend the created wrapped subclass BaseAI via prototype,run the function so that the wrapped object m gets out of its scope via the internal implicit copy operator.The question is, why wrap it in its own scope if we copy it in the globally scoped variable API3 at the end of the anonymous function anyway?Is this to avoid a conflict if another API had BaseAI class too? It's my only guess.

If Cleitus The Black were around, then probably we should do better than what happened last time. This man saved Alexander's life in battle. He was the leader of the royal guard, has served under Alexander's father Philip until his sudden death ... and it's quite realistic that many victories were also won due to his experience and elite skills (next to Alexander's enthusiasm, for trying the impossible and fresh strategies). @funeral: At first - once I saw the thread - I was shocked - what .. is this .. is this a funeral .. well .. is it .. it's mine!? The funeral pyre sounds impressive, difficult to tell if it's a wonder ... it's comparable to the bridge of ships that shortened the Persians' armies way to Greece in the 2nd Greco-Persian War if I'm not wrong. It's difficult to tell if it actually was a wonder, though it was ingenious!

You are the master!! I like it. And I will tell you whenever we get around all those features we want to add and use your models too. Looking forward to. Open source is wearing oneself off too a bit as pressure of society is not negligible (somehow people try to convince you that you should not do it without getting money .. but that's the point in life, finally if you are falling from a cliff there also will be no money, either your buddies help you freely or you fall - freely too. ). Sounds important to me now. But what exactly did you mean. Can you give some hints on what other project you're talking of? Another engine? As capable as pyrogenesis?

Sorry, currently I'm a bit squeezed between two frontiers, so I could not shift into this thread earlier. Interesting. This looks like another precondition for our more dynamic military system. Your efforts turn essentially for my plans. I now also realize that we might have three AIs soon as my approach decentralizes AI decisions completely - though it still requires to query each AIs data just like you pointed out. This is a really critical point. I hope you can figure more details. Once I finished my exam I will rejoin the effort, finally posting my code in the repository if you like. But it could be useful to keep the development separate for now as it's still possible that I will hit a cornerstone .. that renders my approach unsuitable. (One such problem is the timescale, how often should a command/or how you call it: group redecide its military movements?) Your focus on rates of change is essential. I like the idea. In these terms our AIs could turn out compatible.

If that is a problem for wildfiregames, then I can opt to make it cyclic. So the time will start over in 500 B.C. again right through 0 A.D. where it will start all over again. The cool thing of this is, technologies could be research by time, e.g. by specifying a date property in the XML as we already do it everywhere.

First I thought of the councils (senate) I'm currently trying to get our AI to organize. Now I get, that you want a broader umbrella for all mod work as this is all somewhat lost in several corners. So you want to gather it am I right? Gather it into official repositories of 0 A.D. to have all artwork of all mods in the SVN, but in its own branch folder? I think that's what is planned for the Git transition. Though I wonder if we really need the autobuild Philip has to focus on currently. Would love to free this dev of this workload. Devs have already put so much work into the makefiles ... I think Git is a nice to have, but couldn't we setup such an umbrella for SVN too? This massive task makes me feel it's best to simply branch and try keep it all compatible until I come up with real solutions. Time will tell. Edit: I got it all wrong!! The Council of Modders shall decide on timing? Do we really need it? I mean people have real lives ... do we need to press an artists into artwork by due date? I'm convinced of the opposite. Only if you are convinced of what you do, then you will make things happen.

The AI developmemt has made some more progress and another new idea could be put together:The decision tree now is connected to the commanders in chief. That adds yet another level of strategy as it now is meaningful if the senate (in Roman Republic Mod Branch's peacetime mode) or You (in current 0 A.D.'s Emperor/Dictator mode) decide to replace a commander. The new commander will have a completely different set of military experience (decision tree) and might surprise your enemy with unexpected tactics.I hope we get the AI into contact with Aegis in a few months. Should such kind of AI really turn out invincible (at the later simulation) then we should try to figure its best commanders and capture it or wait until the most capable commanders have died of age. Really can't await seeing this algorithm in action ...

This is good news Josh! Thanks for throwing it in. I wondered alot the last days about how I get to a toolchain working on Linux without loosing compatibility ... Your hint will speed up my venturing into the Entity/Actor/Object system and how we relate all objects. Edit: Has anyone some tips of how to debug on Linux? In the Wiki I found only the entry for Windows so I guess here Visual Studio step in. Well .. it's possible without, but for a project of high complexity I'd not really embrace having to go without code stepping or least some breakpoints. I'm still heavily involved in the teachers' project whose goal is nothing less than to introduce teaching modularity (online versioning, splitting and joining of created exercises and exams) and if I consider I'd had to do that without stepping the code at execution time ... oh oh, I guess I would still try to track down the odd bugs from the last autumn offensive. Despite all this I rather go the hard debugging way before leaving Linux behind. Of course we could try to setup a debugger ... hm .. but really I'm currently only interested in getting my ideas into a small virtual universe from 2000 years ago. Long speech short: Anyone some hints for C++ and especially JavaScript?<-- found it That you don't use it is great! To use JavaScript for the UI is a good choice, blender's doing the same with python. This is also great news for my hybrid AI plans ... btw, they are getting forward, I think a few months we can see it in action. Can't await it!

Before this idea gets lost in my a thousand line posts, I better reflect on it now (than tomorrow). The idea sparks another idea that fits perfect in the algorithm we forged with agentx, nietkd, waritii and all the other colleages: The buildings that are farther apart are more susceptable to weather, so the 'half-time'/decay of buildings/things could be calculated as a function of:distance to the next building andtime difference in minutes* since the point of time when it was constructed (started to build/foundation creation? from the point it was completely surrected? --> If the building material itself already degenerates by time then this would solve this issue as the wood would degenerate following a natural decay-function depending on time and starting from the wood being harvest. The building condition then would be twofold:cohesion (#parts_the_building_is_constructed_of_initialy / #parts_it_currently_is_made_from where part is an object, be it a prop or one of the construction items),condition (= average condition of all individual parts).).[local weather] <-- at a later point once we have that ready.The cool thing of this is that the current special case outpost would be covered of this concept too. Thoughts on the base time: A timescale more sensitive than minutes makes no sense as not even a military action or a falling tree will happen/can make decisions in less than minutes. The whole procress from thinking --> reacting/giving orders --> until these orders have physical effect, so to say the order reaches a unit or the unit decides to go around the fallen tree. This will take its time and probably will not happen within milliseconds. On a purely decisionmaking scale this might happen within milliseconds or seconds [e.g. reaction time] but not if we consider the transmission of the decisions made (the distribution time). If we settled on seconds instead of minutes I fear we'd get in serious trouble [variable overflow] once we wanted to store a bigger time span (let's say from the foundation of our city e.g. 200 B.C. until it was destroyed 0 A.D). Here is why: 200 years are 105 189 120 minutes. To store this we need at least 27 bits (so we choose 32 bit of course as we need a power of two as current technology is digital, ie. binary, ie. knows only 0 and 1.). The maximum time we could store in a 32 bit unsigned variable (there is no negative time, so we can drop it and can use all bits for storing a bigger positive number). So we could store at max 4 294 967 296 minutes. This is 8166 years. I think that is enough for most plans we might currently have in mind. If we chose seconds instead as base units, then we could store 4 294 967 296 seconds in a 32 bit variable. This is 136 years and looks quite dangerous. A city can exist much longer ... (the value differ by a factor of 60). To build up structures of individual units: Houses out of wood, metal, ...War elephants out of elephant, saddle, ...catapult out of wood planks, metal, ropes, ......will be increase the polycount significantly. I am aware of that. And should we have severe performance issues we could still:drop GLSL support and use textures only for a significant speedup.Furthermore a LOD (a level of detail) system will save render time if we (read: the cameras) are far away from an object. This object then will not be rendered. This would also make all props on a building disappear if we have a very low zoom.Not sure if 0 A.D. has a LOD but the performance lag is significant once the zoom is low (high altitude). The reasoning behind the full-object principle is that should I really work on walkable meshes then I wish to have the real thing: e.g. climb into that castle through the window. Break free the door. Cut the rope of the catapult. (a physics system would be helpful but would introduce another computational problem). Should we use textures to emulate/trick doors, windows or ropes. Apparently our plans would be doomed from the beginning. Thus to rework the object/entity system in our AI-Human-Hybrid Branch is essential as we wish to make weapons droppable, arrows collectable from the battlefields, ... @Topic: AI tournaments between pure AIs will still be possible even if AI and Human coexist in a single team: Put exclusively AIs onto a map and no human can ever interfere and falsen the outcome of the tournament. Ah, this sparked another idea: Why not have the possibility to start an AI game and join it at a later point. Then you colleague died and says she/he'll exit and go for a walk with his dog. Later this fellow can rejoin by simply choosing a unit. The AI will not even realise it because at the low level the player joins the game it makes no difference at all.

It's hard to believe that military commanders of the past did not know that too subtle differences between opposing forces might endanger battle efficiency. So they of course came up with solutions that modern reenactments simply drop? A reason could be that they fear a flame war and incompatibilty as the fighting groups might be coupled loosely nowadays - whereas in foreign times the poor had to serve their lord and this was fixed until death. Imagine how ourkind should settle on a banner colour and how we should achieve to colour them all equally - while the fighters actually come from across the globe. It'd require some form of organzation and expenses I think the reenacters of military battles can't afford. I wonder If they perhaps leave the colours out because they don't focus on military effectiveness but rather want to enjoy the total chaos? (they don't want to kill each other, in the contrary they even have to be darn careful that nothing worse happens ... so without colours the dampened actions might be cooler? )

The fortress looks interesting, no towers though. Perhaps they really didn't have towers like sander meant and the image nietkd posted implies ... Some kind of viking towers have been found ... I posted some images above (but there also false friends are in). hough the scientists are not always sure themselves. Those rims around the palisades 'd be nice ... I found some blender models (so they are to use), textures included: Source: http://www.blendswap.com/blends/search?term=viking So we have to model a female ... or rather take the model of other civ, introduce some changes to give it a viking look and k too similarhange the texture only? Currently all civs' citizens still too similar I think. Couldn't we add scale factor that gives the mesh a little bit of variation? Some taller warriors - others more squeezed. This would have a significant effect on the feel of 0 A.D. don't ya tink?

Brilliant! And it matches our council system. The decisions will be taken at a low level: for example the army commanders have some freedom for fulfilling goals and can request reserves and even request the commanders in chief to ring the 'army groups' alarm bell so to trigger the senate to gather for an emergency session. It's true that this sounds way complicated ... I had to fight 24 hours at least until getting this ready. Especially the decision tree and the weighting required me to start over again at least three times. Wraitii's work is very inspiring. As is yours. I enjoy the discussion a lot. I also believe rates are advantageous. I also settled on that at the end of the decision tree especially unit_rate = units - lost + recruited, because it also helps against variable overflow. Finally that's been the main reason why I turned to unit_rates because I faced just this problem in the the weighted decision tree. Oh .. oh good gracious ... is this a dream? The strategy you outlined made me feel very strange, such a variation in strategy can be decisive. I always dreamt of such a system where units learn how to best position themselves. Realizing that the enemy started an outflank manoeuvre once the units realize ('see', hear, get told of) it. Not because of the AI being omniscient and knowing everything. The goals is that the units try to respond to the enemy movements, no matter how hopeless the situation. As an example: Remember William Wallace & his scots at Falkirk battle? What a horrible battle, immobile scottish lance bearers being delivered to the enemy because of their leaders being unable to try ANYTHING to rescue their comrades that could not manoeuvre in the marsh land. Before the battle really started, they all high commanders and all melee units left the fields because they were 1 against 30. This was all much worse than depicted in the movie Braveheart. Archers played a crucial role in the battle. But guess why? The scottish melee units having left the fields, the cavalry trying to free the lancers but realizing there are too many enemies ... so off they are, too. So who is left in the marshland? - Thousands of lancers! No leader. How could that happen? Is this an AI learning by testing if the outcome is better if the melee and cavalry abandon the lancers? The enemy of course sent in the archers, against archers and lancers - that could not move apparently because of marshland and their large weapons. It took some time until enough arrows were brought by to kill them all. Really this was yet another horrible battle that showed how senseless this warfare all is . Their'd be no difference if the leaders had just not recruited the lancers at all and had left them on the fields harvesting and gathering wood. Instead they: call them in, put them in 4 formations, and abandon them shortly thereafter. You know ... this really makes a lot of sense! In context of archers importance in battle in the medieval times, I also remember the battle of Harold of England against William the Norman. The English were in bad condition because of an almost simultaneous invasion of vikings just three weeks ago. Harold had to rush northwards to Scotland within a single week. 3 days after a decisive victory of Harold in the North, they heard of the Normans having invaded in the South. So here you go, gather your remaining troops and lead them south. Harold got hold of quite formidable ground on a hill before the battle started - the next day early at 9 p.m. the Normans having been on high alert all night long. The English's position was surrounded by rivers and streams at each side and luckily even a way to retreat just inbetween the two rivers was available. I think we can call this good ground in a military sense. But hey, the English had no Archers .. imagine that. So the Normans ran short of arrows because the enemy did not send new arrows back. Imagine hordes of archers looking for arrows but finding none! I wished 0 A.D. had this possibility too. Archers having to decide whether to break out of other positions to quickly collect used arrows from the battefield or if it's too risky. For the English I'm afraid this was a very dark day. As they were somehow cheated into demise though stronger in numbers and on excellent position, furthermore the enemy having not slept the whole night. As if this'd not been enough the Normans had to attack uphill for hours - with no effect other than less soldiers in its rows. Don't forget: The archers could no longer help as they had no more arrows. After a 'ceasefire' if you can call it like that in this timeframe, the Normans more and more used tricky manoeuvres: They attack uphill and fell back quickly, rather chaotic situation, fleeing the battlefield. At least that was what the English on their high ground believed in. This triggered the experienced frontline troops to profit from a decisive chase of the fleeing enemy so to end the battle. Hence down the hill they ventured. So far so good. Had this not been a trap - or at least the Norman commanders made it to convince their troops to stop fleeing the fields, smashing the English royal troops from all sides - what a horror. Still this was not decisive, but with the experienced soldiers now rare in the frontline the shield wall began to crumble. Imagine the AI using tricks like this to make your frontline troops give up the high ground. This is doable because by the very nature of the decision tree the enemy AI will realize that losses are high if it attacks uphill while losses are lower if they start uphill and abort the attack shortly thereafter. This then might make your AI that controls your commanders (if those are subordinates of you, so you are in higher rank then it's up to you to control them) realize that now ground can be gained with very few losses. That they will face no resistance while the troops shift downhill will support the AI's hypothesis at first. At the end, the enemy now might have the chance to annihilate your army. I would be very interested in seeing a scenario like this in action in 0 A.D. Especially if we get around modifying the unit's frontline behaviour so to decrease losses and to make units more difficult to outflank or penetrate as they slow down significantly depending on armour and stamina if they have to go uphill while performing the manoeuvre. Strengths and weaknesses of units and armour should be much more emphasised then. Combine this with supply lines that can be cut off. Good gracious, will we or the AI profit from this increased importance of strategy? I tried creating a system like this several times before ... mainly I tried to reenact something like fantasy books' councils and legends and guild systems and druids gathering in woods using webtechnologies. My friends and my humble self, we always dreamt to dive into adventures from times that were long forgotten. and still having the characters in this world react naturally and dynamically. The units in the end should have local awareness: if I cut down this tree, then the wind might harm and enemy spies might see the house much quicker. Somehow I always overlooked the potential of AIs for achieving this until recently - before I was for a human only approach. The new hybrid solution opened my eyes.(and made me text even more than usual ) The hybrid system allows to combine RPG and RTS and allows fellows to change sides if they are unhappy with their tribe or the AI expelled them because it imposed a dictatorship. The key to how we want achieve this is by dynamic and random decision making and quickly learning from mistakes. This will ultimately create almost invincible AIs especially late in the simulation when it might either have evolved into a Mastermind of Offense or Defense - depending into what turned out to work - so it depends on not only how much you check the AI in the beginning but also when you check it (by a preventive invasion once the AI amasses troops and your scouts tell you, for example). If you're unlucky the AI will realize that it's no good idea to amass his troops inside his own territory and might send them somewhere in the mountains to invade your country downhill. If the powers on the map are balanced it might well be possible that the AI figures that it's best to have a defesive character. The actions in this direction would produce more mutations. Thus this could result in in incredibly difficult to penetrate enemy whose defensive capabilities will bring you to the brink of ruin - luckily the AI will not start an invasion once it has evolved to the master of defense too quickly. For that too happen we are giving the process a random variation, that is non-static. That is the influence of the random part grows with increasing duration of stagnation. This way the mutations get more and more extreme and once a mutation in decision making turned out quite well, the algorithm will probably settle on this the next time too. If the outcome then is no longer significantly better or even getting worse, then the weighting in the decision-making tree ensures that the AI will go another route next time. This ensures a variation in strategy and a never inactive AI. Another option to break the defensive character will be the ratio of population per ground. If this ratio gets out of balance, then by the weighted decision making tree will produce worse results, leading us to leading the AI to dislike the bad outcome the defensive decisions produce. Now it's only a matter of time until the AI will realize it has to break the alliance that prevents its military action. That's not a requirement though as it's enough for the AI to simply decide on a massive invasion of an ally target, effectively declaring war with this aciton. I'm looking forward to an incredibly hard to beat and unpredictable AI. I think an such invincible AI is no bad thing! It will unite people ... It was an honour. Thank you too! Our discussions on several threads in this creative forum made clear to me that the combination of an AI in interaction our own human decisions in a more role-tied fashion is what creates the magic. The ally human interaction always has somewhat made my sad (as little guys fellows and me stared on those small settlers wandering around in a different world, but when it came to an ally, ha , no help could be expected, allies will watch you fall into demise, no troops, no help, no diplomatic efforts, nothing. Really making one sad and realizing that what we do here is purely virtual and artificial.). Our AI human coexisting system is not tied to a 1 AI <-> 1 Human relation within one tribe. It's even possible to have a x AI <-> x Human configuration wihtin the same player on the map. As an example: consider another AI (perhaps Seafarers) might have landed on your coast and decided to become part of your empire. They settled down and suddenly you had animals striding around your countrysides you had never seen before. The viking even decided to apply for a council and helped the neighbouring farmer with the harvest because the ox-wagon broke because the weather had turned the street into mud and the wagon was not the youngest. 'Ah look there.' A rider is passing down the little stream into the valley. 'Why'd he hurry that much?' the viking asked. 'Doesn't want to help us with the harvest before winter for sure. Never seen a horse that quick though.', the farmer answered. 'Never seen a horse before at all.', the beardy giant looked no longer as grim now as in the beginning, but wait - something's happend to his face - where is he looking, why has this man simply stopped having three one meter bunches of ears of wheat on his right shoulder - how can this man lift all that? And how can he stand still with this weight? What's he shouting? Why's he coming back? 'Hey viking, it's no good idea to bring the corn back to the field. Winter will bury it deeply in the cold.' He's throwing it away? Running towards me - wants to attack me, good gracious I was short before trusting this man. What's going on? He's looking so different. 'Come ... come ...' this rough voice, he frees the dogs that I tied so carefully to a post in the field. Almighty, what it this? Why is the horizon behind these hilltops looking so different, now I've reached the last tree, can see it soon. The man sees a huge cloud .. and a blackening sky. Masses of people are fleeing the valleys below ... ox-wagons are seen stuck in the mud, not one,- dozens of wagons. They've invaded, the rider must have been a vanguard - or was it the rearguard even? Mighty, where are those hordes coming from, where are they going? How can I get to my command. Where is my command? Where the consul. I need a horse. 'Our fields no longer need us.' the viking shouted towards the farmer while hastily bringing two horses from the stables. Two horses? For three? Will he go by foot?, your scepticism of this stranger rose. 'I will sail north and fetch help. Come.', 'Wait.' the farmer says, he not wants to come with him. You are standing next to them and wonder if it'd not be better if ... I mean, I might be a simple archer only, never capable of holding back an army, just being freed from military services to help this farmer on his field like many other common soldiers had been forced to. I wonder who had the idea? Perhaps the consul, old and rickety as he, as he warned of an early winter. Oh great benevolent, why did he dissolve the army for helping farmers. How can a man that stood in a hundred battles come to such decisions, why did noone realize that the enemy prepared an invasion. I have to find my division. Alone my arrows can't help us out. Where are they? I only see civilians, chased down and stabbed from the rear or trampled by giant horses, where did the enemy get these horses from? Ha, this reminds me of the viking, where did he come from? Where is he anyway? He'd just still been here some moments ago. Where's he gone? Where is he going? Shouldn't I come with ..- ' No! I can't leave you with all that work, farmer.', the young man suddenly had gathered his wits. 'They will be here soon, you should go and find ... anyone capable to fight. I remember times where we were forced onto an expedition as young men. The consul led us into foreign areas and we ran against a wall of enemy lines. No one ever penetrated. I didn't want to be reminded of that. Now 50 years later they have turned against us themselves. In the meantime I had lost all fear, they seemed not intrested in us once they fought us off. Now go, and don't look for me. At all times don't forget that even the very subtlest spark of hope might relief a complete army encircled and feared to death. Go and never come back, you will not find me anyway. Because ... They've not forgotten. They will take the hillsides like they did fifty years ago, we will run against a wall, but this time.. this time the wall is in the middle of our country .. they will go where the people are fleeing, sure they will ...', the man headed back to the field, caught the freed barking dog and tied it to the post it had been before the viking had freed it. The farmer then gathered the corn the viking had thrown on the ground after his freeze. Realizing that this man will get overrun soon without even trying to escape made you feel like quartered - each quarter following another route .. one the viking, one protecting the farmer, one helping repair the wagons and the last ... facing the enemy. Suddenly you were shivering: How should I - me, the only archer I see around - ah okay, there are hundreds of black clothed archers ontop of giant horses .. well, very soothering, hm? You had to laugh but felt struck by a bolt while you slowly mounted on the old farmer's rickety but trustworthy horse. You couldn't wait anymore, would die from waiting. .. and off the horse and rider went and neither they went towards the farmer's hut, where the farmer stood watching them as they left - for a short moment you meant seeing him raising some ears of grain towards the clouds to send a dear farewell - nor they followed the vikings path as they rejected to face the enemy. The wagons they surpassed without further notion .. leaving a chaotic situation inbehind .. the horse started accelerating for from the right flank the enemy was approaching. You could not see a gap in the lines as far as you could see in this cloudy wheather. Scarily you looked ahead to seek a path to follow, then to the left - only to see another neverending line. Where do they all come from? you tried to grasp the situation while the battle cry came closer and still the horse's route was straight - did they want to cross the valley inbetween these two hollows? How shall they reach the other end? They must be dreaming ... Godness. What mess did I produce? But that's what it all about: Being in the middle of the happenings like it was for the archer in the story above, or maybe you want to go the viking's way - whatever that'll be? It's all upon your decisions. Sorry for all this off-topic.

If you wondered what I did since yesterday ... just started writing our AI for the Roman Republic Mod (rather branch probably?). Combined agentx brilliant state machine with my algorithm for decision making. The decisionmaking algorithm steps in for each "command". A command can be all you can think of, generally it's a subdivision of tasks like e.g. one command for the east front and one for the west. Here a more detailed example I put together. It also shows how we plan to introduce councils and a sympathy/reputation system. Time will also find it's way, for allowing for night/day lateron. But first to the example: You will notice that the AI is present despite us being a human participant. This is intentional. What we plan is a new AI, that relays the decision making to citizens (because of performance issues we restrict it on the elite: council members, military leaders, ...). command_defensive: { units_assigned: { commanders_in_chief: [ new CommanderInChief(this.units_assigned.all_officers.chooseRandomly()) .assignedArmyCommanders.addAll(this.units_assigned.army_commanders) /*each army commander has an army assigned, this way we get a realistic command structure.*/ ] }},command_occupation: { occupied_tribe: ai.getTribe(tribe_that_surrendered), commanders_in_chief: [], decision_leadership: { IMPOSE_FOREIGN_LEADER: impose_foreign_leader, FORCE_NO_LEADER: force_no_leader, CHOOSE_LEADER_FROM_OCCUPIED_ELITE: choose_leader_from_occupied_elite, ALLOW_ELITE_OF_OCCUPIED_TRIBE_PROPOSE_A_LEADER: allow_elite_of_occupied_tribe_propose_a_leader }, allow_elite_of_occupied_tribe_propose_a_leader: function() { this.occupied_tribe.councils.senate.forbidden = false; this.occupied_tribe.councils.senate.getUpcomingSession() .setPointOfTime(Math.min(this.occupied_tribe.councils.senate.upcoming_session.getPointOfTime(), NOW() + 3 * 60 * MINUTES)) .getTopics().addTopic(new Topic(this/*== command_occupation*/) .addPoll( new Poll( ELITE, POLL_TYPE_YES_NO, this.occupied_tribe.leadership.consuls.addProposal( this.occupied_tribe.getAllUnits(SORT_REPUTATION_DESCENDING)[0] ).getProposals()[LENGTH-1] .shallBecomeNextLeader //<-- this is what is decided ) ) ); //set up the poll for our own tribe as the victorious party will have the 'rights' to overrule the subdued tribe's decisions. ai.councils.senate.upcoming_session.topics[] = new Topic(this).addPoll( new Poll( COUNCIL_SENATE, POLL_TYPE_YES_NO, this.occupied_tribe.leadership.proposals[LENGTH-1].shallBecomeNextLeader ) ); }, ... /*other commands*/So much as a snapshot. Thank you for the interesting AI discussion that made me put that (and 500 lines more) together. Currently I still fight the algorithm at a complicated part but I'm now convinced that it will work. The logic is a little bit complicated as we use the AI's 'experience' of previous decisions in similar situations to make the best possible decision. (Hopefully we can test it soon. It would be fun to see the AI plan to attack 10 targets at the same time ... and shift his troops one front to the other because a commander requested reserves! I've implemented that!! Just need more time to finalize it and to set up the 0 A.D. system and make my work compatible to Aegis/the current system (if possible)... The AI might even decide to force a counterattack on the civic center if it is attacked itself.Ah, I forgot, I added supply lines too. That's a also a 'command'. So the AI will learn how to control the supplylines too. I'm really excited.

Interesting state machine. Wraitii also uses different stages, but it really is a lot of hard work he has done! *hats up* Yours looks like a happy hopping around - quite dynamic. The order of states to check to enter within one of the branchable (non-directly executable, singularity) states is fixed? Or do you traverse each branchable main state randomly? (all left-hand "<var>:" could also be called a "state wrapper"...) The check for if all requirements are met to execute this state or direct action is useful and looks safe. Won't the problem be how to decide if the preconditions for attack are given? Or rather if one should attack or not... hm.. I think at this point my idea for a semi-genetic algorithm could step in: If raw conditions are met (soldiers can be mobilized/freed without hampering economy rates too much and enemy has been scouted, then [Note: better not check for 'if one is invaded' more than once. this the algorithm that follows should cover automatically by time and experience. (so to learn that it's wise too abort a planned invasion to protect homeland/own people)]): while --invasion_count_determined_randomly_before > -1: Are we invaded ourselves? YES/NO -> store.Shall we abort and switch to defensive action/state (see agentx's state machine above)? Pick YES/NO randomly. -> store.Determine count of units that should be required for another Invasion. Pick it randomly. Note the number.Guess: The number of available units is enough to succeed? YES/NO. -> store.Decide randomly one out of three modes:Draw some troops from already out of our own territory fielded soldiers? Neutral ground. YES/NO -> Save the outcome.Draw reserves from troops on enemy territory? YES/NO -> Save.Draw reserves from the homeland despite the randomly picked economy threshold is not met? YES/NO -> SAVE.If those units are engaged, draw troops anyway? YES/NO -> Save.Draw from the backline or the frontline?Order here cavalry, melee infantery, archers, catapults or bolt shooter or of all types or any combination of it (decided randomly)? --> Save result in the decision tree.Decide if soldiers are too far to arrive at the destination in time? YES/NO randomly -> Store.Is a unit nearby in trouble?Shall we help? YES/NO --> store.Decide invasion target count. (#target_count = random(0, NUMBER_OF_ATTACK_TARGETS_AT_ONCE_MAX)). Note the random number of positions in a vector or list.While --#target_count > -1:Divide attack on several enemy factions at the same time? #tribes_to_attack_maximum = 0..MAX -> Store. #efforts_for_picking_target = -1 target_tribe_picked = false While not target_tribe_picked && not ++#efforts_for_picking_target > maximum_number_of_efforts_to_pick_a_target_tribe: Pick random target_tribe.If not target_tribe.is_ourselves() && not target_tribe.is_ally() && target_tribe.is_scouted():If target_tribes_picked[this_round].isEmpty() || /*this tribe was chosen already at least once [so it's valid, let's pick it again]?*/ targets_picked[this_round].exists(target_tribe) || /*Okay, then another tribe has been attacked somewhen previously this round: so has it been decided to attack more than one enemy? */ count_different_tribes_attacked_this_round() < #tribes_to_attack_maximum):Accept the random target_tribe. -> Store.Attack picked target tribe at random enemy position. [not necessarily near the border, can also be in the middle of enemy territory but losses will be high and the AI will learn from that].Give a random number of attack commands to individual units/formations. (the count of commands is random and is to be noted. So is which command mode is picked. e.g. what the target was (e.g. hero, catapult, ...).)Note the total outcome of the current actions. -> Store units_lost_count (killed + captured), units_returned_average_health, units_lost_average_attack_strength, units_lost_average_defense_strength, ground gained/lost, economy state (growth rate = (production rate = harvest_rate + timber_rate/average_distance_to_tree_per_worker + goods_production_rate) + buildings_built_rate + units_born_rate), ...Each decision will be weighted by the losses and economy state in comparison to all other tribes on the map that have been attacked. If a route in the above tree that is carefully stored has been gone once and turned out bad (at each decision we look out into the final results and average them over all branches). The average of the outcome weights the decision, so that a non-gone way will be taken. As will be a successful branch. This way a branch that results in a better outcome (no matter how) will always be prefered than one with a worse outcome. Sounds promising. Could you test it in the simulation?

That's a topic we have to dig into anyway for our MOD - or rather kind of feature development branch. IBM: I have found this too, that's our best bet: As a start: Windows VisualStudio -> Windows Eclipse (keeping up compatibility) http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/cross-platform-cc-development-with-eclip/232300575?pgno=2 Then it's becoming more difficult: Win VS -> UNIX and Win Eclipse (keeping up compatibility is difficult here due to the GUI that pyrogenesis uses, but we must give it a try). http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/cross-platform-cc-development-with-eclip/232300575?pgno=3 We might not succeed very quickly in keeping up compatibility to Visual Studio, but we will get pyrogenesis to work in Eclipse on Linux somehow (as historic_bruno said this will require heavy changing where the VisualStudio libraries were used). If we fail, we still have a Virtual machine where we can run VisualStudio. 0 A.D. should not use VisualStudio because it's not Open source, but I understand that this is for historical reasons and I'm not angry or such, because no doubt VStudio might not be a bad choice.

Same thoughts... Couldn't we define a RECURSION_LIMIT? Whenever the AI looks for something in iterations (like good places to build a field or a good dropsite) then it is simply stopped earlier if the difficulty is set not as hard. Then automatically not all resources are examined and nevertheless the AI has to choose one of those examined and will pick the best. But probably there had been a better choice had it not been interrupted by the RECURION_LIMIT. The same for looking for good attack routes ... it has a limited time to find a good one. Of course for this to work properly the order of the entities we iterate over has to be random!

This could be done I think, but I'm not sure it's useful currently because we have no idea what the best Interface structure is ... There is an API but it still will not open the way for innovative / different algorithms like genetic, but I could be wrong because extra variables could be defined despite implementing the interface, even global ones. It's not a bad idea! You can of course simplify and keep out the mouse movements. e.g. here: womanClosestToAnimal will be a function and has to iterate most of the entities anyway, so why not give the entity the order to move with speed 30 /*px/s*/ immediately. ENTITY_MOVEMENT_RUN could be a global constant or value of enumeration defined as (PixelPerSecond)30 so that speed adaptions could be easily made later on.

Oh, no problem. No rush required. Just thought it would make things easier but am not even sure about it. Yes, blender supports it since some releases .. perhaps we can inspire and reuse their implementation if the licenses of pyrogenesis and blender are compatibel. I guess thay are, but it's just a guess. Anyone knows more on this? And is it useful? Then we could pre-define <material></material> in 0 A.D. e.g. for skin, face, banner, flags, animals, wall types, roofs, grass, ... would save tons of textures (less memory required) but CPU requirements may increase? Blender community has already created/programmed really useful OSL setups/nodes so that really would be a quicker if we knew how or if it's possible to combine textures and OSL in pyrogenesis. And we have to clarify if it makes sense - I'm only guessing with half-knowledge.

Of course we do, credit where credit is due how we call it on blendswap! "Portfolio is a freelancers most powerful weapon." And this is already quite mighty and honourable. Thanks a million. Open source is the future, because it has the potential to change the world on a wider scale and not makes the world reinvents its gears over and over again ... Don't know animations in 0 A.D. but it looks like realtime .. very interesting indeed. i see huge potential in this engine ... I hope I'm not dreaming ... Finally your models are ... awesome. Godness, thanks for sharing. I have to give back more too. Luckily another open hardware project has made good progress today sparking hope that this all comes to a good end. Wish I had such artistic skills like yours and those of devianart or blenderartists ... admirable. Ah, no problem dude, just a versioning system to keep track of changes you make. The colleagues form CGCookie blender created a video about how to rudmentarily keep track of your changes to 3D models (to be able to revert easily). http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/08/20/using-mercurial-version-control-with-blender-projects/

At first I thought this was a viking settlement, but definitely it's Norman: Those could make some good props for viking units: The tower shown on your screeny perhaps looked like that and could be of colonial origin. Scientists argue about the origin, whether it was norsk/viking or norman or colonial ... (it's been built in North America). On this site there are many more viking portraits and other knights too: Another amazing artworks: For viking ships there is a blender model around ... I have it somewhere ... okay, did not find it. But I found other 3D community models: a fisher's hut, deer, giraffe, jaguar, many kinds of fish, frog, ant, insects, spider, squid, dolphin, butterfly, furthermore blender can generate trees like willows using tree sapling addon. Do we need any of this? And what about OSL - is there Open Shading Language support like in the blender engine? Would save us a ton of texture work eventually .. though I don't know at all if OSL is preferable in all cases? Any input on that?

This looks fantastic!! Great works!! Thank you so much!

I'm not bound to git or anything. It all works similar .. I just like that you already have a git mirror so that we can fork easily and multiple times in constant time and memory. SVN is good too no doubt. Don't rush ... Are the 3D models available, colleage? I have to find the devianart page. Btw, brilliant artists on this site. Hope they create real physical paintings too ...

I think we can easily solve be by adjusting the write access to certain folders and then wrap a rewrite of AI algorithm genetic files into try {} and catch nothing so to not make the failed write attempt to a game building or such visible. This way the AIs can only change its own files. But there will be another easy solution sure that I overlooked. For the genetic algorithm I think we can have a hybrid Aegis. Attacking and Defending will be easily more generic by storing the outcome of attacks in form of: How many units lost?How much ground won/lost? If lost, then next time send more troops for defence.How long did it take?This way it is automatically ensured that the AI will not try very often to attack e.g. uphill because of high losses (once we have the slow-down of uphill attacking units and stamina) .. Looks like then the AI automatically learns military tactic by trial and error. The same can be applied for gathering from resources: Resources where losses are high (on its way to or while working there ...) will be first tried to be freed by military action - if the losses are high there too and not much ground was won, then the losses of the dropsite will still be high and finally be abandoned (and marked as unaccessible/dangerous in a list of dropsites attached to the civic center or faction. Thanks for the links. Didn't know there exist many different strategies for skat ...