AI Development Discussion and Feedback

[Cernel]

I always like reading battle reports.

Yah Classic is tilted a lot in fanvour of the Allies (I think the bid for Axis is about 20), so, if the AI would become as good as a fairly skilled player, then beating the Allies AI in a standard game should be virtually impossible.

I recally I already suggested this, but maybe you want to try skipping only the first combat move with Russians, instead of skipping the whole first turn. This would be a practice in between your two extreme of either totally skipping the first turn or playing by the box. This should give you a fairly balanced challenge, instead of the extremes of the game being either almost impossible or overly easy.

Tho I have to say I'm intrigued by maybe trying out your AI handicap of totally skipping Russians 1 and see if I might beat the AI anyways.

Side note, you don't need to blow your dice on tech, or something like that. TripleA now allows you to remove PUs with Edit mode. You can also just buy units and not place them, since in Classic they get destroyed.

[Captain Crunch]

@cernel Oh thanks for that tip about removing P.U.'s but, anyways, completely skipping Russia's 1st move was something me and my friends try occasionally for fun with the actual board game and my friends have actually beat me when I was the Axis and they were the Allies and they skipped Russia's 1st turn and let me go first with Germany and they still beat me and they loved that win!

Against the Ai, I can't remember if I've ever beaten the Axis AI still when I forfeited my 1st turn with Russia (I would say it if I did in my posts earlier in this thread!) but it's my usual routine for testing the updated AI - the 1st game I do the Russia forfeit move, and then if I lose I don't forfeit my 1st move with Russia in the next match. Once I've beaten the Axis AI, I then do a regular match against the Allies AI which is very hard as I've said ... and getting harder!

[Captain Crunch]

For beating the Ai, oh I wanted to mention that using Low Luck dice is a massive help and if I didn't use Low Luck dice I bet I would have played way more games trying to beat the Ai so basically Low Luck dice is a bigger help against a machine opponent than a real person I am positive eh?

[Frostion]

<attachment name="triggerAttachment_Produce_submarine" attachTo="Player1 " javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
<option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_Player1_produce_submarine"/>
<option name="purchase" value="Submarine" count="1"/>
</attachment>

A human player receives the free submarine from the above trigger and can place it during the placement phase alongside other normally purchased units, but the AI is seemingly blind and does not know about, see and place the trigger given submarine?
I actually thought that the problem of AI not placing free units was restricted to infrastructures and upgrades, I don’t know it also didn’t place normal units. Or is it just given isSea units that are not placed by the AI?

BTW: I played on 1.9.0.0.10498

[redrum]

@frostion My guess is its just "isSub" units as the AI doesn't fully handle them though I'd need to take a look. If you're able to run a quick test giving them say a destroyer instead of a sub then that'll help narrow it down.

[Frostion]

@redrum
No, I have now tried with Battleships, Cruisers and Destroyers. The AI gets them in the bank (this can be seen in the history at the left of screen and in the history fan to the right) but the ships are never placed.

I don’t think AI can place sea units that have been given via trigger.

I have tried the same conditions and triggers with land units, and they are placed.

[redrum]

@frostion Alright, thanks for the additional info. Guess placing triggered sea units must not be implemented. I'll try to take a look at it later today.

[redrum]

@frostion Do you have an example map that I can test this with so I don't have to make a bunch of fake conditions/triggers?

[Frostion]

@redrum You can test the AI’s ability to place given sea units with the latest v0.2.5 release of Iron War downloadable from GitHub. Germany gets a submarine:

    <attachment name="triggerAttachment_German_Submarine-Pens_produce_submarines" attachTo="Germany" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
        <option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_German_Submarine-Pens_produce_submarines"/>
        <option name="purchase" value="Submarine" count="1"/>
    </attachment>

So the Submarine is by default delivered in the beginning of the purchase phase, and this can also be seen in history, but it is never placed. Not even after a few rounds.

I hope you are able to figure out what is wrong?

[redrum]

@frostion Oh I know what's wrong already as I looked at the code yesterday. I never implemented having the AI place triggered sea units (only land/air). I think because I couldn't find any maps that actually did that so decided not to tackle it until someone did which looks to be now

[Frostion]

Ahhh, OK. Well, thanks for fixing the code

[redrum]

@frostion Here is the PR: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/3542

Here is a screenshot showing the Germans placing the sub:

The one limitation is that the AI only considers the extra triggered units after its purchase. So Germany's turn 1 if it buys 10 units then it doesn't have anywhere that it can place the sub (which happens sometimes). Ideally, the AI would consider any triggered units before making its purchases but that's a more significant change and this should handle most cases.

[Hepps]

@redrum Couldn't you hack this by designing a special unit that doesn't require a placement? (Just an idea)

[redrum]

@hepps Yeah that would work. There are probably other ways to do it as well like triggering extra factories, production per factory, etc before the place phase.

[redrum]

Can be tested in this pre-release: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/releases/tag/1.9.0.0.10558

[Frostion]

Hurra! Nice update

[alkexr]

@redrum Just messing around with xml, experimenting... it seems that Hard AI doesn't recognize a production facility unless it is an infrastructure. I changed a factory to have canProduceUnits, canProduceXUnits=-1, immobile land noninfrastructure construction. Humans and Easy AI can produce units, but Hard AI only sees an empty list of territories for placement (according to the log).

[redrum]

@alkexr Hmm. I know the AI won't purchase non-infra factories but thought it could at least see them as potential placement spots. I thought I tested that on 270bc which uses legions but could be wrong. If you have an example map to test glad to take a look.

[alkexr]

@redrum Calling it a map would be a bit of an exaggeration... this is a copied version of a map of mine for all sorts of xml experiments. I think I restored all previous experiments before trying this. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T8QwATSzqb1SQgaSbDeqrZWwF5n2afTQ

[Cernel]

@redrum So now the AI also places movement 0 units? Because legionaire in 270BC can place only forts.

EDIT: Actually, the legio of 270BC would be a peculiar example, in that such unit should really receive no bonus (or maybe like a 0.05) to its value for being able to place units (limited to fort). It is rather the fort that should be valued a little bit more for being placeable by the legio, thus not only in cities (main example is placing some forts in Messana without a city in it). It would be really wrong if the AI would build significantly more legios due to the fact that they have some placement ability, in this case (really, it boosts the fort, not really the legio).