Ai Assisted Play

[gudo]

I was testing out rootbot vs jubot with a little .bat

echo off
cls
echo Ready to vs.
pause
pyrogenesis -quickstart -autostart=Oasis -autostart-ai=1:jubot -autostart-ai=2:rootbot

I discovered much to my suprise that I could issue orders to player 1's units. So I wound up going from just sitting and watching to offering "suggestions" to jubot (he's got a bad habit of building things with my gatherers.) It's actually pretty fun. I had a ton of fun experimenting too (i.e. how much of an improvement do we get when jubot places drop sites intelligently?) It's a cool, interesting way to play. You should give it a try

I also remember back in AOE II, it was possible to have multiple players control the same side (player 1 and 3 share control of the same units) some of my friends and I would have a great time playing that way. Are there any plans to support this type of shared unit control in the future? I sure hope so.

Related, I've been trying to get this going with a 4 player ffa on a random map, but I can't seem to get the proper commands. Here's what I'm using.

echo off
cls
echo Ready to vs.
pause
pyrogenesis -quickstart -autostart=latium -autostart-ai=1:rootbot -autostart-ai=2:rootbot autostart-ai=3:jubot autostart-ai=4:jubot -autostart-players=4 -autostart-random=-1 -autostart-size=256 -writableRoot

It fails to generate the random map and spits out the following error.

ERROR: JavaScript error: maps/random/latium.js line 421 TypeError: civEntities is undefined @maps/random/latium.js:421

ERROR: CMapGeneratorWorker::Run: Failed to load RMS 'maps/random/latium.js'

Is there any way to specify each players civ in the command line?

[Chakakhan]

Hi Gudo,

Great tip! This is definately a great tool for experimenting with the AI scripts. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

[satchitb]

You know what would be awesome? Text commands. I don't know about you, but I always preferred using the keyboard over the mouse. In AoE2, the AI commands were terribly unreliable. In 0AD, however, I'd like to not only be able to issue orders to computer allies, but also to your own units. Simple scouting presets, or an order to all barracks/TCs to produce x number of certain troops. You could also set it to say only affect troops in the current screen view, to allow for more precise control.

Text commands should naturally be short, because one doesn't have a lot of time for typing in a fast-paced game. One major advantage it would have is that the player doesn't have to go around searching for his buildings and, more importantly, change his view. So he could be controlling his economy, while still keeping a close eye on the battle.

Another (perhaps simpler) solution to the problem I see is more advanced minimap filters. In AoE2, you only had normal, econ and military. But how about if you could just display your scouts? Or metal miners?

[historic_bruno]

Related, I've been trying to get this going with a 4 player ffa on a random map, but I can't seem to get the proper commands. Here's what I'm using.

echo off
cls
echo Ready to vs.
pause
pyrogenesis -quickstart -autostart=latium -autostart-ai=1:rootbot -autostart-ai=2:rootbot autostart-ai=3:jubot autostart-ai=4:jubot -autostart-players=4 -autostart-random=-1 -autostart-size=256 -writableRoot

It fails to generate the random map and spits out the following error.

Hi, there was a problem with the autostart commands for random maps, which has been fixed in r9699. (Also make sure you have a hyphen "-" before each autostart )