Complex questions from a new user
-
Hi Folks,
I'm using TripleA for the first time and it looks amazing! I downloaded the "Total World War" map and set all players to Easy AI just to watch the game play. While I like these kind of games, I'm also very interested in using games as simulations or to explore potential scenarios. I read through the XML file to see how one might make modifications. I have a few questions:
-
Is there any sense of how long a turn takes in real life? In Total World War--is a turn a week? a month? 6-months?
-
Is it possible to export a log of all game decisions and moves in a human-readable format? I saved a game, but it was an unreadable binary file. I'd like to have a large text, CSV, or XML file that describes what every nation did at every turn.
-
How do the various AIs make decisions? Do they make random choices, look ahead some number of moves, and weigh the likely outcomes? Or do they rely on a formula like "buy 50% land 25% air 25% sea units. attack nearest enemies with all available units"
-
Are there any games that add economic trade between friendly countries? If not, would that be very difficult to program into a map? I notice that "Total World War" has a "lend and lease" function, but I'm looking for a model in which each country must spend some percentage of its points on raw materials and non-war related goods and searches for the best current price. There would be raw extraction facilities and non-war related factories that produce these goods.
-
Are there any games that permit a nation to send a unit into a foreign territory with research centers or factories to steal technology?
-
Are there any games that start with diplomatic efforts between countries and their failure leads to war--but just between those two countries and their allies? So, during game play their may be three or four distinct conflicts?
Any advice or suggestions would be welcome!
-da'ud -
-
@daudvyd said in Complex questions from a new user:
Hi Folks,
I'm using TripleA for the first time and it looks amazing! I downloaded the "Total World War" map and set all players to Easy AI just to watch the game play. While I like these kind of games, I'm also very interested in using games as simulations or to explore potential scenarios. I read through the XML file to see how one might make modifications. I have a few questions:
- Is there any sense of how long a turn takes in real life? In Total World War--is a turn a week? a month? 6-months?
I would say that each turn is somewhere between 3-6 months. We never really designed the game with a hard fast timeline in mind.
- Is it possible to export a log of all game decisions and moves in a human-readable format? I saved a game, but it was an unreadable binary file. I'd like to have a large text, CSV, or XML file that describes what every nation did at every turn.
Not that I am aware of.
- How do the various AIs make decisions? Do they make random choices, look ahead some number of moves, and weigh the likely outcomes? Or do they rely on a formula like "buy 50% land 25% air 25% sea units. attack nearest enemies with all available units"
@redrum would probably know best how the AI makes decisions.
- Are there any games that add economic trade between friendly countries? If not, would that be very difficult to program into a map? I notice that "Total World War" has a "lend and lease" function, but I'm looking for a model in which each country must spend some percentage of its points on raw materials and non-war related goods and searches for the best current price. There would be raw extraction facilities and non-war related factories that produce these goods.
This type of economic environment is pretty much absent in Triple A currently. I am working on a new game called Global Dominance which incorporates some of what you discuss. https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/95/global-dominance/483
- Are there any games that permit a nation to send a unit into a foreign territory with research centers or factories to steal technology?
Not yet as far as I am aware. But again, it is being worked on.
- Are there any games that start with diplomatic efforts between countries and their failure leads to war--but just between those two countries and their allies? So, during game play their may be three or four distinct conflicts?
There are some of the FFA (Free For All) games in which Diplomacy is fairly intricate. I think the Napoleonic Empires FFA has all the diplomacy mechanics included.
Any advice or suggestions would be welcome!
-da'ud -
-
You can go to the top menu "Game" > "Show history" then right click on "Game History" at the top of the history panel and "Show Detailed Log". This will show all the moves/battles/purchases through out the entire game in text format that you can copy. You can also use the "Export" menu to export a number of different items like "Full Game Stats".
-
The Easy AI is pretty close to just random and plays very poorly. The Fast and Hard AI primarily try to optimize their current turn but have limited look ahead ability to future turns. Fast AI uses a formula for estimating battles while Hard AI uses the actual battle calculator. Lots of details and discussion for the AI here: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/105/ai-development-discussion-and-feedback. AI performance depends on the complexity of the map as on Total World War they don't understand all the rules such as how to build materials and plan out using them to construct infrastructure.
-
-
@Hepps , thank you for this reply. I have a few followup questions:
Is the saved game format documented somewhere? Is it something I might be able to read and parse with Python in order to extract the moves of each nation?
When will Global Dominance be available?
What does Free For All mean in this context? Aren't all TripleA games free?
-
@redrum , thank you. Your response solved my logging issue completely! Is there any way to enter information into the game XML file that allows the AIs to act more wisely?
-
@daudvyd Not yet. Its on the AI backlog as "Add per map XML AI configuration" from the AI thread: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/105/ai-development-discussion-and-feedback. The idea would be to allow map makers to try and add parameters to influence where the AI tries to focus and potentially even add different AI personalities.
-
@daudvyd said in Complex questions from a new user:
What does Free For All mean in this context? Aren't all TripleA games free?
It means that there are no fixed alliances, and any power is free to attack any one of the other powers (by power I mean an in-game player). It may either have some politic system, as long as it allows to possibly go to war with anyone, or just everyone permanently at war with everyone else.
Technically, you have a free for all when the number of playable powers (in game players) is equal to the number of alliances (sides) (differently from the traditional games, where you have 5 powers and 2 alliances in total).
-
Thanks folks. Can any of the AIs effectively play free for all games or games that involve diplomacy?
-
@daudvyd Fast/Hard AI can play FFAs where there is no diplomacy reasonably well. Most of its diplomacy actions are random currently so maps with lots of politics, the AI usually struggles.
-
@daudvyd Even tho I understand FFA support/focus is very minor, I actually think that FFA all war (no diplomacy) are maybe better for AI gameplay than any other games, except for the fact that the AI will not understand that taking neutrals out of the way of an opponent is usually smarter than the other way round. On the other hand, the AI is very bad (practically worthless, at the current state) for FFA with diplomacy, especially since it looks like it almost never downgrade from an Allied relationship; so once you get it allied, you have almost gained a player to your side.
-
@daudvyd said in Complex questions from a new user:
@Hepps , thank you for this reply. I have a few followup questions:
When will Global Dominance be available?
When the stew is ready an simmering... the Global Dominance will be served in heaping bowls of delightfully complex goodness.
