AI Clearinghouse

[Otto Halfhand]

The purpose of this thread is to provide a clearing house of information to Community members who are looking for ways to improve the game engine AI.

Reaction times:
Human reaction time has limitations. An average adult takes ~1 second to respond to a visual stimuli. Age, physical condition (EG drunkenness,etc) and infirmity modify this response time. The vCOH game engine has a response time of 8 times per second. (.125) You know them as ticks. This is the basis for the saw: "the computer sees all and know all". To my mind this is the biggest difference between PvP and AI play. From a stompers POV  the AI operates  /- 8x faster than a human. In a team stomp the human responce ratio (HRR) is improved.  IE 4v4AI:  HRR=4/sec, AIRR= 8/sec. The reason for this is people can and should cooperate with each other. AI factions operate independently of each other.

Limited arc of fire DF weapons are at LARGE disadvantage vs AI, (ATHT, SU76, SU122). An AI vehicle will start to back out  .125 sec. after contact (hit or miss). when out of LOS the AI vehicle will stop and target you in .125 sec. At a HRR of 1/sec even in an ambush environment The human player must shoot and scoot. BTW the vCoH AI repair vehicle ability works very well. Superior range of human operated weapons in no way overcome this problem. The case of LAoF DF weapons with lock/down (Marder), is better for humans but not much. The locked/down units are reacting at 8 times /second. My rule of thumb is: If the prevailing opinion of Baalancers and other high ranking Players indicates 2 marders are required for a particular mission 3 marders will be required in a compstomp.


Test Observation: Kalach 1vs3AI(Wehr) normal difficulty, no activity by human. The AI obtained control of 21/28 SPs in 5min/20secs. .72 map control (VPs were all captured but not included in map control calculation.

[Killar]

AI expert gets double manpower income compared to human player but same fuel.
Meaning with this huge amout of MP it will spam infantry you can´t counter with your MP income (you build 3 volks, the comp can build 6).
This infantry blob will cap the whole map and your fuel meaning vehicles will also come faster. Only way to beat a expert comp is to beat the MP income. Only way to do it is by spamming snipers because you don´t loose MP compared to infantry vs. infantry fights where you have to retreat and reinforce.

2 engies, tier2, 2 snipers, 2 TH, 1 sniper or strelky, then depending on what doc you have teching or calling in units. The AI wont counter the sniper in the most cases = easy win


@Otto

In most of your posts you want to change unit balance but thats not the problem against expert comp. Its the high manpower income. Only way to "balance" it against human is that human player will get the same amount of mp income as comp. Problem is then that game will be again boring because of poor comp AI. If you want a challenge play automatch.

[Otto Halfhand]

hi Killar. I am under the impression that comp hard is 1.25 expert 1.5?
That doesn't change your argument. It is sound.

My major difficulty with Snipers is they are micro intensive (for me). I neglect other areas entirely too much when I get involved in fire fights anyway. The only workaround I have found for this is playing normal or easy, which as you point out really is not much fun. I do not have difficulty dealing with Comp Spams in general. A Storm/Stu42H Spam is a good challenge.  My personal problem with PvP is two fold. I know how to micro effectively but my various H/Cs make me uncompetitive in PVP. In human vs AI MP compstomps things are a little too easy because the human response time is cut in half, as cited below. I find this effectively reduces to difficulty level to easy, or if your 2x MP number is correct to a normal level. Playing MP compstomps at expert AI seems to be too much for many of the Lower Level players that I have come into contact with on line. IE frustrating for them, and  frequently causing them to drop. Curiously my micro is most effective when an opponent has a slow CPU. I have slow hands but a fast CPU. There a problems with the grace period and frustration drops here too.

The biggest headache I have in dealing with High Level players and balances on the boards is philosophical. In game play vs equal opponents you need to fox them and not worry so much about resource gain. In my case I need to plan my gameplay on the assumption that the other guy has resource acquisition dominance. I need to budget my MP more carefully than most players budget their FP. Cranial for one doesn't understand my method in this regard and frequently chides me. THats OK. It is so easy to fall into silly misconceptions when dealing with AI and I really appreciate being set straight when my reasoning is faulty. (Ego's aside)

[Cranialwizard]

I don't mean to come across like that 

[Otto Halfhand]

I know cranial its not a problem.

[Otto Halfhand]

Jos.Jo this is why using the Amis model for Static AI Sov BO is NFG. 1AC @4m/24s. 2AC@5m/26. 11:1 VP ratio!