How good is the A.I. of computer player?

@IronParsley212 said:
You are wrong in multiple levels, AI simulation is in fact extremely easy for almost any computer nowadays

You seem to be confused that ‘making’ a simulation is the equivalent of making a GOOD AI. These are entirely different problems. Running a simulation is not the problem. Its running an AI that humans think is making good rational decisions. And within a timeframe that is acceptable. And with totally limited resources on what could be a Pc that resembles a toaster

Only problem with AI is the time it takes to code it , which shouldnt be an issue to microsoft. There is no point of mentioning cpu cycles as core logic of games almost never use more than 10 percent of a single thread , not the mention AI can quite easily be multithreaded.

I’m not sure where you’re pulling this ‘10 % of a single thread’ from. I can assure you something like Alphago or watson is not using '10 % ’ of the custom ASIC or server racks.

Render calls BY FAR take more cpu cycles than simulating even the most complex AI does

This is actually part of the problem. Because rendering now sucks up more cycles there is less cycles for the AI to process the environment, meaning it has less resources to work with

Just because an AI can auto-queue units and send his army all at once doesn’t make him better than a human player. Just think of these few situations:

Firstly, RTS games aren’t like GO or chess where the AI knows everything that is on the board and can calculate all potential outcomes at any given time. The AI must be able to base decisions made on assumptions when it doesn’t have access to information like the player’s army position or even its composition. Thus why AI in rts games seems ‘stupid’ because it often sends units in one direction towards your base because it A moves to a designated target it scouted earlier.

When you attack the AI it may react to your attack by sending its whole army or, conversely, maybe it will spread all of its units out evenly and may even remain stationary if your attacking force is small.

It can’t make dynamic decisions about the strategy you’re using or judgments about your play-style, you could park your whole army outside his base and goad him into sending a few units at a time or you can study patterns in its priorities and react accordingly.

You could kite it to death with ranged units because it commits to a fight it thinks it can win mathematically.

If it detects water it may decide to build a big navy even though the map has very little water, or it may build a castle at the very back of its base because that is where your scout attacked one of its houses.

You can build walls around its resources and its villagers will pile up on the walls…and on the other hand if the AI automatically attacks walls you build near its base you can simply spam walls and occupy its army while you attack.

It may queue a warrior and see you have a horseman and then cancel the warrior to train a spearman and one moment later see a different unit and cancel the spearman again and in effect not train units because of the way it calculates what it needs.

…The list goes on and on.

Current AI in RTS games doesn’t outsmart its opponent, if you lose to an AI its because its macro is better than yours (it doesn’t forget to train villagers and it spends its resources immediately) and it just made a bunch of units and A moved into your base.

AI in the original Age of Empires is rather simplistic, you have your *.per files which houses how the computer manages units/resources/diplomacy/etc and *.AI files which houses it’s build plan. There is also *.cty which focuses on how the computer places buildings and *.ply which picks from several different combat tactics but the main two are the AI and PER files. Really easy to come up with your own if you wish. I spent a lot of my childhood fooling around with that stuf.

I wonder though if they’ll use the same system in the original AoE or they’ll use AoC’s script based system.
If they are using the original AoE, I hope they’ll fix the elephant hunt bug, the AI refusing to build a granary first until a storage pit is up, and hunting animals but leaving the corpse to rot as it retasks villagers. Those three really hampered AI eco.

@Satoru said:

@IronParsley212 said:
You are wrong in multiple levels, AI simulation is in fact extremely easy for almost any computer nowadays

You seem to be confused that ‘making’ a simulation is the equivalent of making a GOOD AI. These are entirely different problems. Running a simulation is not the problem. Its running an AI that humans think is making good rational decisions. And within a timeframe that is acceptable. And with totally limited resources on what could be a Pc that resembles a toaster

Making a GOOD AI is creating the AI, while simulating the AI is running that AI. I did not say anything about complexity of this AI, it can far exceed even the best players decision making abilities. AI algorithms, especially on a game where AI has direct access to data (No image processing required) , takes very few CPU resources. Unless we are talking about intel pentium level processors.

Only problem with AI is the time it takes to code it , which shouldnt be an issue to microsoft. There is no point of mentioning cpu cycles as core logic of games almost never use more than 10 percent of a single thread , not the mention AI can quite easily be multithreaded.

I’m not sure where you’re pulling this ‘10 % of a single thread’ from. I can assure you something like Alphago or watson is not using '10 % ’ of the custom ASIC or server racks.

3 years of game development experiance, its not that long but i still have pretty good understanding of how hardware resources are utilized in games. And AI is not part of the problem.
(There are sub-problems that are connected to AI, such as Pathfinding, which can put a serious load on CPU if not coded properly, but thats another topic)

Alphago and Watson are Neural Networks they are not hardcoded AI. No game, as far as i know, utilizes Neural Networks for their AI. And it would be extremely stupid do to so right now as Deep Learning is a field that is way too dynamic, the most effective and frequently used function is in fact merely 2 years old, being found in 2015.

You are comparing two, completely different forms of AI. And you are trying to win an argument thats about hardcoded AI by making referances to NN AI.

The thing that is on the “size of an apartman complex” is the hardware that _creates _ the neural network. After it is successfully created, neural network itself can be run on any computer with ease. An easy way to understand this situation is comparing rendering movies to watching movies on your PC. It takes hundreds of computers to render a movie and it takes months-long time, yet your computer can easily watch even 20 movies at same time.

Render calls BY FAR take more cpu cycles than simulating even the most complex AI does

This is actually part of the problem. Because rendering now sucks up more cycles there is less cycles for the AI to process the environment, meaning it has less resources to work with

This is not really part of the problem, Render calls are only done in main thread, AI can be run in any thread, and considering every CPU now has more than single thread, bottleneck certainly is going to be on the main thread.

AI hasnt been a hardware resouce problem in past 5 years, and im talking about AI that are far more complicated that like of which is going to be put on this game. It is not a problem and i have no idea why you are making it a problem.

@Raw1812 said:

Current AI in RTS games doesn’t outsmart its opponent, if you lose to an AI its because its macro is better than yours (it doesn’t forget to train villagers and it spends its resources immediately) and it just made a bunch of units and A moved into your base.

lmao…I am new to AOE and just learning AOE II…I normally play a different kind of game (dark souls, battlefield, kill zone even Castle Siege (first AOE game tbh) and since I am learning…on single player mode…the AI is kicking my butt lol…it has a ton of ships built and attacking me before I get what I need built…so maybe I should try it on easy to start…I didn’t pick hard, but HaTe to do anything the ‘easy’ way lol…any advice Jedi Master?

@Brittlebuns said:
I hope the AOE 1 AI gets improved, when AOE 2s AI was improved it made singleplayer or even human team vs AI alot more fun

I agree with you :#

@“Wicked Wulf” said:

@Raw1812 said:

Current AI in RTS games doesn’t outsmart its opponent, if you lose to an AI its because its macro is better than yours (it doesn’t forget to train villagers and it spends its resources immediately) and it just made a bunch of units and A moved into your base.

lmao…I am new to AOE and just learning AOE II…I normally play a different kind of game (dark souls, battlefield, kill zone even Castle Siege (first AOE game tbh) and since I am learning…on single player mode…the AI is kicking my butt lol…it has a ton of ships built and attacking me before I get what I need built…so maybe I should try it on easy to start…I didn’t pick hard, but HaTe to do anything the ‘easy’ way lol…any advice Jedi Master?

Ahh haha… well you need to start on a mode you can at least compete at and then you need to learn some opening build orders. Don’t stop making vills, spend all of your resources etc. Then you just scout and attack and counter whatever the AI is doing. You are probably making early mistakes so just googling AoE2 build orders/strategy will help a lot. Also, the Viper is streaming right now so if you watch his stream for like an hour you will learn a lot.

@Raw1812 said:

@“Wicked Wulf” said:

@Raw1812 said:

Current AI in RTS games doesn’t outsmart its opponent, if you lose to an AI its because its macro is better than yours (it doesn’t forget to train villagers and it spends its resources immediately) and it just made a bunch of units and A moved into your base.

lmao…I am new to AOE and just learning AOE II…I normally play a different kind of game (dark souls, battlefield, kill zone even Castle Siege (first AOE game tbh) and since I am learning…on single player mode…the AI is kicking my butt lol…it has a ton of ships built and attacking me before I get what I need built…so maybe I should try it on easy to start…I didn’t pick hard, but HaTe to do anything the ‘easy’ way lol…any advice Jedi Master?

Ahh haha… well you need to start on a mode you can at least compete at and then you need to learn some opening build orders. Don’t stop making vills, spend all of your resources etc. Then you just scout and attack and counter whatever the AI is doing. You are probably making early mistakes so just googling AoE2 build orders/strategy will help a lot. Also, the Viper is streaming right now so if you watch his stream for like an hour you will learn a lot.

Thanks…will do my best lol

@Navhkrin said:
No game, as far as i know, utilizes Neural Networks for their AI.

Supreme commander 2 and the more recent Blitzkrieg 3 used neural networking AI. I’m sure there are a few others as well (reaper bot for Quake comes to mind).

And about resources, if you’re going to make a really impressive AI it will require a lot. Particularly for an rts where you’d want the AI to calculate assumptions based on limited information, scout with purpose to gain information that will be useful to current assumptions, learn and respond to player behavior specific to each match, etc etc. You’d basically need something similar to AlphaGO that analyzes all available current information and information history, including opponent behavior in different fields, from various viewpoints and then reach decisions by cross-referencing results and assigning priority - it’s gonna require a lot of hardware power and it’s simply not viable currently for something as complex and fast as an rts.

@“Wicked Wulf” said:

@Raw1812 said:

Current AI in RTS games doesn’t outsmart its opponent, if you lose to an AI its because its macro is better than yours (it doesn’t forget to train villagers and it spends its resources immediately) and it just made a bunch of units and A moved into your base.

lmao…I am new to AOE and just learning AOE II…I normally play a different kind of game (dark souls, battlefield, kill zone even Castle Siege (first AOE game tbh) and since I am learning…on single player mode…the AI is kicking my butt lol…it has a ton of ships built and attacking me before I get what I need built…so maybe I should try it on easy to start…I didn’t pick hard, but HaTe to do anything the ‘easy’ way lol…any advice Jedi Master?

Well, I don’t know which version of AOE2 you play, but in Conquerors hardest AI starts with a huge stockpile of resources, so if they go for a rush it can be frustrating to deal with, since they can go to the Castle Age in like half the time it should be possible for you. I would suggest trying to beat “hard” AI before (it doesn’t get a resource advantage, looks almost identical otherwise)

If you feel like the AI is outpacing you, I would suggest practicing on “slow” or “normal” speed so you can get used to the timings and build order (how many villagers to put on wood, when to send a hunting party, building houses at the right time to minimize worker building time while being able to train more, etc).

Another way to train against the AI would be gradually scaling the difficulty with custom team games.
Example: You vs weak-ish AI (Korean AI seems to build too many towers around the map, and too few units (usually a bunch of war wagons) so you can sometimes win comfortably just using rams + pikes, even in hardest diff)

After winning this, you can try to play 3 vs 4, then 2 vs 3, then 3 vs 5, then 1 vs 2, and so on

AI can kick your butt, or you can steam roll it. It just All depend on your strat.(Blitz, Town island, Defend). The Devs can only do so much with AI. now i will agree the Devs need to make the AI better for AoE, but it all come down to the player.

I would prefer an AI that is more capable, but not one that just receives more resources than the human player (like the way things are done with the current game).

What would be interesting is to allow players to easily make customizable personalities for the computer players–something more in depth than what is currently used, and with a easy interface that would allow one to modify the personalities without having to mess with text files.

I would definitely recommend something similar to BWAPI so that the modding community can make its own AI.

As far as I know when it comes to the AI, Supreme Commander had an amazing AI, very brutal.

I haven’t seen anything as close to its intellect in much of anything. Starcraft series has been laughable as far as I can remember, and still to this day. I consider it a speed game, no strategy required.

As far back as actual strategy games are concerned, like Command & Conquer or Age of Empires, I also will lump in the predecessor to Supreme Commander - Total Annihilation. We haven’t seen many games go into the detail those games have, story, gameplay, and the need to change tactics on the fly. Commander & Conquer and AoE does this very very well.

One of the newest games that seems to give us a good strategy run is one that I am quite enjoying, and the AI will destroy you on a mistake.

Ashes of the Singularity.

The same creators who made Galactic Civilizations & Sins of Solar Empire, both are amazing strategy, although I would consider GC to be turn-based strategy and not a true RTS game. Sins of a Solar Empire has some of the best (stupid at times, I agree) AI I’ve seen in recent games anyway.

I hope to see a marked improvement on the AoE AI, and I hope it rivals some of the newer games I’ve seen of late.

Although the original AI still outclasses Starcraft’s AI. lol

I want an AI that will rush and if that fails start a hit n run guerilla war on you. Something that thinks like a human, but is able to counter a human. The possibilities would be amazing, and as well, it will make our victories all the more sweeter when we win out.

@MainKiller7 said:
I haven’t seen anything as close to its intellect in much of anything. Starcraft series has been laughable as far as I can remember, and still to this day. I consider it a speed game, no strategy required.

I think it’s a bit unfair to say there is no strategy required in starcraft, there definitely is. But I agree that it is not a strategy game first and foremost - It is primarily a game about mechanical prowess (particularly BW). I also don’t see how C&C is a actual strategy game, it is famous for it’s tank rushes and not much else.

But yeah, SupCom has amazing AI. I haven’t tried AoS but maybe I should.

@GepardenKalle said:

@MainKiller7 said:
I haven’t seen anything as close to its intellect in much of anything. Starcraft series has been laughable as far as I can remember, and still to this day. I consider it a speed game, no strategy required.

I think it’s a bit unfair to say there is no strategy required in starcraft, there definitely is. But I agree that it is not a strategy game first and foremost - It is primarily a game about mechanical prowess (particularly BW). I also don’t see how C&C is a actual strategy game, it is famous for it’s tank rushes and not much else.

But yeah, SupCom has amazing AI. I haven’t tried AoS but maybe I should.

The original Command & Conquer was a Tank rush like no one’s business, I agree.

However you did have tech levels, you could play without tanks at all, when you downgrade it to where only infantry were in play, then you have a very good strategy based experience haha.

In the later games such as Generals - that was very balanced with its AI, especially its brutal AI.

I’ve done plenty of human team vs AI team battles and several of my own allies get wiped from the map because they just don’t know how to handle a brutal AI, and I can assure it is down right hell fighting 2 vs 4. Even with a super weapon and air superiority.

Of course, I love the challenge, and I haven’t seen many human players ever give me that experience. A brutal AI on the other hand from Dark Reign, Supreme Commander, C&C3, Generals/Zero Hour have always given me a good match. I’ll either come away with a defeat or one hell of a victory.

The AI in starcraft has never been a match for me, even on its highest difficulty. Watched game play of the hardest AI for Starcraft II and knew it wasn’t worth my time.

Starcraft is a rush fest, thats all it is as far I can see. I would hardly consider that a strategy game IMO.

I really hope we’ll have varying degrees of difficulty and strategy come from the AI in AoE. There are plenty of games out there that show it can be done! I’m really hoping for an AI that will give an amazing gameplay experience.

However, there are still OTHER issues with DE currently, that are for another topic altogether.

@DutchAmanda said:
I remember the A.I. in origional aoe1 always liked to either go mass priest or mass catapults scatered around their whole base depending on their faction :wink:

Unbearable, I was just too annoyed the entire length of the game with the priest/catapult spam :neutral: They forced you to go online :wink:

AOE2 was MUCH better AI wise :smiley:

C&C Generals was a fantastic game as was the original Red Alert.

The AI’s ability in AOE is poor but you make it too clever and you won’t be able to do the campaign on hardest.