[0ad community lacks sportmanship]

This seems like a situation where both sides have a case. You want to play the game until your army's defeated. The other side wants to guard against the problem of people who fight all the way down to the last unit and cause silly lengthening of games.

 

In a situation where neither side is clearly in the right, you should negotiate it out beforehand.

[How to ask resources from AI Ally?]

I've never been able to ask an AI ally for resources, though I've actually had an AI ally send resources to me unprompted. When it's happened, it's been something I was particularly low on, compared to my other resources. I assume there's something programmed into the AI that checks for resource imbalances in allies.

[Does the AI Play to Its Opponent?]

I think I'd rather not remove the feature from the AI. If anything, it makes the AI a more interesting opponent at any stage of learning how to play the game. It shouldn't take first-timers very long to learn how to beat the AI on Sandbox, even with the AI's omniscience. And once you get past Sandbox, the AI's omniscience seems to help her become a more interesting opponent who doesn't just repeat the same set of steps each time (i.e., attack at 9 minutes, build a barracks here and here, and so on).

Lately I've been working toward the goal of developing about 8-10 units per minute, which seems to be the bare minimum of what really good players do. And even getting into that range, the AI can still throw me a challenge or two when set to Medium (even though I now win on Medium the vast majority of the time).

 

[Does the AI Play to Its Opponent?]

17 minutes ago, Freagarach said:

PetraAI is omniscient.

That's what I thought. I'm well behind in any technical details of AI, but when looking at replays from the perspective of the AI, it can see the entire map the entirety of the time. That feature was some of why this came to mind in the first place: I noticed that the AI seemed to behave very differently depending on what I was doing, and then I watched the replay and noticed it could "see" me the entire game.

[Does the AI Play to Its Opponent?]

12 minutes ago, m7600 said:

I've never noticed that, but it's entirely possible. For what it's worth, here are PetraBot's scripts.

Maybe the answer is in attackManager.js and attackPlan.js.

Though buildManager.js and some other files are probably related to this issue as well.

Hope that helps somewhat.

 

Thanks! Some of the issue might just be that when I develop more quickly, my cavalry is more likely to wander near the AI's territory when hunting. It could just be responding to having earlier encounters with my cav/troops.

[Does the AI Play to Its Opponent?]

I'm not exactly sure quite how to ask this question, but I'll describe some experiences recently while playing single-player games against the AI (usually on Medium, sometimes on Hard).

 

I've noticed that the AI seems to roughly match my pace of development. When I've developed more slowly, the AI has taken longer to go to Phase III and attack me. Whereas, when I develop quickly and expand my territory more quickly, the AI attacks earlier and develops more quickly. Meanwhile, when I set up games and watch the AI play another AI on Hard or Very Hard, the games seem to drag on forever and the AI develops pretty slowly.

Are these just coincidences? Or does the AI develop more quickly when its opponent does?

[Are Stone Towers Too Powerful?]

As a beginner player, I definitely find it easier to raid human players than even an AI set to Easy or Very Easy. I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing, but the AI does oddly prioritize stone towers over, say, generating more soldiers.

 

If there were a fix needed, I'd think it would be less about how powerful towers are and more about nudging the AI away from lining its borders with them.

[Please make it a little less ... sexist]

The OPs original proposal of having male citizens who gather resources and don't fight is one that seems worth taking seriously. And it passes any realistic test of historical accuracy. Just about all civilizations have had both men and women who gather resources and don't fight. There's variation in terms of which classes they come from, and so on, but the underlying fact of people of multiple genders who gather resources and don't fight is near universal.

[AI never builds palisades or walls]

On the other hand, when I've played the AI, it always builds lots of defense towers. Often what looks to me like too many. It's possible the AI is just built to prefer defense towers to palisades or walls?

[Starting Multiplayer Games?]

6 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

So some general advices are: Keep the ammounts of resources in the bank low by spending them on useful things on the field. It is better to have 20 more infantry than having 1k wood and food in the bank.

Yeah, this is something I'm starting to learn. Even in games I've lost to the AI, I was still way ahead on resources. That seems to be a sign I'm not making enough soldiers.

[Starting Multiplayer Games?]

I've definitely had the impression that there were strict limits to how much one can learn by playing the AI. I've watched lots of Tom0ad's videos of MP games, and it's obvious that the best players play very differently from the AI. The AI plays way too defensively and isn't able to pump out units quickly after initial units are defeated.

[Starting Multiplayer Games?]

Out of curiosity, when do all of you think a person is ready to start doing multiplayer games? Right away? Only after beating the AI at a certain level?

 

At the moment, I can easily defeat the AI on Sandbox or Very Easy mode. I can also win most of the time on Easy. I haven't yet tried playing the AI at a greater difficulty setting than Easy.

[Where are you from?]

USA - Iowa. My nickname is my background: I did my degrees in philosophy, and I'm a recovering philosophy professor.

[what games do you play besides 0ad?]

I'm really not a gamer much at all. Played Age of Empires (Rise of Rome and 2) in high school, and got into 0ad in the last few months.