Mabuse

and he will probably not as happy as ypu to see this, as it is just copied from AOK-AI. however, these are the most basic things we need in every Case. all the other things will be important also. because of the fact, that an [advanced] AI scripter invest much time to try to assess situations of many kinds - for example how to determinate that the enemy plays a certain strategy, or you look at a Test-Game and thnk if NOW the AI would do this and that it would be "so cool". then you first have to assess the situation and try to describe it with the commands that were given to you. so somthing like "threat-asessment" is somethng we do all the day. So a good start would be the commnds we already have in AOK, but there will be a bunch more of them, that also dependsa lot on the "actions" an ai can execute. so if i can move units to a certain pont, i must be able to determinate ist currnt position, determinate units withina certain are, determinate the current task a Unit has, determinte the stance a certain unit has, determinate which units (of which area) should join a certain group - all that position stuff for groups . ... etc etc etc ... and much more - i could make a list with "fictional commands" - but i doubt that make much sense.

Threat Assessment == Situation Assessment from aiscripters forum ---------------------------------------------------- QUOTE (Mabuse @ Oct 19 2005, 01:09 PM) to assess a threat the scripter does not need more to know than to count units of certain types within a certain area - nothing more. ----------------------------------------------------- Btw, thats of course not all we also would like to know which equipment (upgrades) the enemy units have, which time the enemy is in and so on. in AOK we have thee things to determinate things about the nemy - players-building-count players-building-type-count players-civ players-civilian-population players-current-age players-current-age-time players-military-population players-population players-score players-stance players-unit-count players-unit-type-count cc-players-building-count cc-players-building-type-count cc-players-unit-count cc-players-unit-type-count the ability to detect certain reerches of the enemy (the ones you could detect in some ways) could be also useful in dimensions of 0ad - man more things would come up - the next Step: ---------------- let us not call it "threat"-Assessment - better descibe it as: "Situation-Assessment" then we need much more Informations: (from AOK) true false event-detected taunt-detected timer-triggered cheats-enabled death-match-game difficulty game-time map-size map-type player-computer player-human player-in-game player-resigned player-valid population-cap regicide-game starting-age starting-resources victory-condition can-buy-commodity can-sell-commodity commodity-buying-price commodity-selling-price players-tribute players-tribute-memory can-build-gate-with-escrow can-build-wall-with-escrow can-build-with-escrow can-research-with-escrow can-spy-with-escrow can-train-with-escrow escrow-amount attack-soldier-count attack-boat-count building-count building-count-total building-type-count building-type-count-total civilian-population defend-soldier-count defend-warboat-count housing-headroom idle-farm-count military-population population population-headroom soldier-count unit-count unit-count-total unit-type-count unit-type-count-total warboat-count dropsite-min-distance food-amount gold-amount resource-found sheep-and-forage-too-far stone-amount wood-amount can-spy building-available can-afford-building can-afford-complete-wall can-afford-research can-afford-unit can-build can-build-gate can-build-wall can-research can-train research-available research-completed unit-available wall-completed-percentage wall-invisible-percentage civ-selected current-age current-age-time current-score doctrine enemy-buildings-in-town enemy-captured-relics goal player-number random-number shared-goal stance-toward strategic-number town-under-attack And of course many, many more related to all the new Commands we will get with 0ad. I could now list up a bunch of things related to the things i suggested in several Threads (at aiscripters), but this would not make much sense, snce i don`t know if these commands are used, or whatever Only my Comment so far, in AOK are a lot things missing And we scripters can tell you something about. I would like to see the first Suggestions how the Scripting Language will look like, which Commands it has and so on. If there are some so far.

ah, another Thing came to my Mind. of course it is difficult to talk about something we not know how the scriptlanguage wil owrk finally or look like. so i can only show what i mean in AOK-scripting (or something that is similar) OK: In AOK every Unit has a certain ID-Number. You can ask (unit-type-count archer < 4) or (unit-type-count 4 < 4);4 is ID of archer then there are "-lines" that include all the Units that can be trained in this "-line" like Archer, Crossbow, Arbalest and finally GROUP-Numbers that include ALL UNits that are "ranged foot soldiers" for example. Now what i wanted to ask: Is it perhaps possible to "store" several Values within one Variable for example with (defgroup TROOPS 100, 22, 456, 238 ...) And then i can ask (unit-type-count TROOPS >= 30) and create my own Group-ID (and decide which ID they should include) ? EDIT: hehe, but then again, i could also count all these manually and add them Provided the language allow me to do this

AOK has also the ">, <, >=, <=" beside the Key-Words - and believe me, no (expierienced) Scripter use the Keywords btw, these operators were not the point of his statement - he would like to be able to compare things with each other Instead of making 100`s of Rules comparing the Values like this players-population < 15 food-amount >= 15 ... players-population < 16 food-amount >= 16 ... players-population < 17 food-amount >= 17 instead food-amount > players-population (this is not cvorrect AOK-"Slang" but i guess you know what i mean No need to chec these, the scripter has to search his script for logical errors - how to determine what the Player want to do anyway - if i ask "enemy-unit < 13" and i wanted "enemy-unit > 13" how to determine what i wanted to do ? Thats impossible - and anyway not needed

Can you explain this a bit ? What do you mean with Errors ? By now i would simply suggest that the AI will put out an error Message (which Line, Type) and don`t work at all.

so i want a lot of individual control, but ONLY if i want to do it. On the other HAnd it shoul dbe able to set a few Parameters to determine which Buildings should be repaired when damaged, by what Villagers, - if towers should be garrisoned, by which UNits, in which Cases and so on. EDIT: I am surely willing to help on Design (and Test ), but not programming

i want the AI to do all the things a Human player can do (garrison Buildings, repair Buildings, perform all the commands a Human player can asign to a unit, oput hem in Groups and give them a Formation and/or behave) (and maybe more say a Human can define per strg+1(1-9) Groups - the CP can define a greater Amount of Groups. - and of course add Units to a group, remove them from a group - and so on) I also want the computer be able to move Units around the Map to a certain Location (ok - thats already covered by "i want to CP can do all the Things a Human can do"), and that the AI has the Tools to make this in a senseful way, so that the scripter (the scrpter script an AI for a RM-Map without knowing WHERE the AI start, WHERE the enemies are, where "the Hill" is and so on - the scripter need to be able to determine all this - ye more comfortable ye better of course - getting the cooordinates is one thing, (and already helps a lot, also needed: counting objetcs in a certain Area (defined by a Point and a Radius)) of course this is very general - i weould like to have an IDea how the AI-LAnguage will/could look like - what are the Basic Parts of it ? Will it be "Rules" that go through each Pass, or whatever ?

for example count the Building within a certain Area from the enemies "towncenterpoint"

I guess if you are able to count Buildings of a certain Type within a certain Area - it is ok and easy to handle. No need to define what "forward" is and so on -

lol if this wouldn`t be a Reason that would make 0ad one of the best RTS Games ever - then i don`t know any @TitusUltor: Maybe it would be even possible to use different Models (with different equitment) to represent a certain CLASS of Soldiers, but still this Game would be an RTS game game, which classifies people - i mean, i reality EVERY MEn adn WOMAN has different health, strengh, dexterity - but in an RTS Game all this doesn`t matter - the Units of one class will/should have the same stats @RealDeal: if there are poepole get annyoed that some NAmes may be used mort than one, then just tell them that they should take a look at reality Overall, i think i get used to this Idea,

ok, only wanted to say it, as it was the first thought that came in my mind. On the second look it might be of course interesting, especially for SCN when you may identify People not only by their "UnitName" Of course it may be also useful then to be able to set these manually - -------- and finally to be a bit "ironic" - maybe it will not last until there is another Game Develoment Studio that says something like: "And in "Clash of the Titans" the UNits will become REALLY individually, not only virtual clones with some changed Textures like in 0ad, no, we have several MODELS for different Sizes of the People - so that some People are bigger, have bigger or smaller Feet" -... and so on (joke of course)

Only wanted to mention that this don`t annoy people (like me - ) to much, i don`t want to play "SIM life" - i want to play a strategy game. of course this is a nice Detail, when ALL OTHER is good to very good. When i would have the Choice of a Game where you have 50 Soldiers with different Hair Color, or 1000 Soldiers with the same Hair Color - i guess i would have more Fun with 1000 Units Beside this i don`t think it will take much calculate Power, or that this will reduce Amount of Units, but i am the bad Guy who says that this is a low priority Detail

Ye more ye better - once controlling a few "Cohortes" POP Cap of 150 seem very low, especially when you want to put several (big) Armies at different Locations - and such Stuff - ye more ye better - (that is important for example for BIG Maps) The Game Engine should be the Limit (so if there are maximum 8000 Units possible to be managed for example, and the Game is going to have 8 PLayers max - then take 1000 for example) you could also make some other "requirements" for HIGH Pop Counts that Limits the possible Maximum of Units in another Way - for example additional Settlements or special technologies that help raising Population-CAP (Medical Things, or better Food/Farm-Technologies - or there can be only a certain Number of Units produced in a while, becasue of another resource "Population" - and if you "train" you also need to pay Population, and some Buildings produce this automatically (and also imaginable that some Technologies improve this - or there are several Buildings that will produce "Population" (with a different Rate), and there could be also Buildings that cap the MAXIMUM REAL (not the "resource") Population (for example with 1 "main Settlement" Building you could hae POP100 - makes 10 "main Settlement Buildings for (theoretical) POP 1000 - Houses need to be placed nevertheless of course to make this theoretical POP useable) but maybe thats all not nessessary and just a POP-Limit of 1000 (or more or less of course) is ok - thats my Opinion (more Units more Fun, combined with a nice "System" thats Limits this somehow it also offers more and additional strategic elements)

Is there something that we AOK Scripters can play around with yet ? (or a small AI-Faq or something like that ?) I am sure at aiscripters.com would be alot people who would like to test and mess around a bit Or some Game-Stats, Tech-Tree`s and such stuff ? (i know i could search for myself - , but i am so lazy... ) great work !!!

oh year - the Duke is nice once rolling Glad to see you -

thx that you welcome me here.

Hi ! I am Mabuse and like to script Ai`s for AOK. I am here to visit DA, and also because i am curious about Wildfiregames. Sometimes i visited WFG to look at new Graphics or Layouts for UNits etc... and read a bit here and there... I doubt that i am much of a help in this matter though I here just for Fun - and maybe talk a bit about AI (and other Stuff) with DA (and others) CU