AI objectives different for Glorious Achievements?

[econ21]

Quick query: do the AI factions play the same under Glorious Achievements and conquest games?
I just read a post on the totalwar.com forum that suggested the AI factions try to meet their glorious achievement targets (specifically that HRE targets Prussia and Pomerania later in the game). I never thought of that - is it true?
That is to say, the AI on conquest mode tries to conquer but on GA mode tries to meet its GA goals?
I hope so, as I like to "roleplay" the game and GA mode is best suited to that. If the AI tries to play "in character" too that is fun.

[GilJaysmith]

Department of "Behind The Magic"...

I amn't the right person to answer this in detail, but I'm the only one you've got at the moment :)

From what I know of that bit, the AI factions take note of provinces which are going to be scored for GAs in the next few turns, and increase their priority for defending or invading them as the time gets closer. This is a simple and quite effective method of making the AI look like it understands its goals perfectly :)

On the other hand, it may also be the reason why the AI sometimes stages shocking diplomatic betrayals; it looks at its borders, can't find anything else to do, and concludes that the GA bonus for a neighbouring province of yours, combined with its current personality, makes launching a suicidal attack the best option. It depends what the weighting factors are. Tricky one...

I don't know how the AI pursues more complex goals, such as that one about the wool trade, but I expect it's a similar boost along those lines in the part of the code which decides what and where to build. "I need to tech up so I can have trading posts in these regions I own which produce wool, and I need to think about destroying those other guys' trading posts", and so forth.

Gil ~ CA

[econ21]

Thanks, Gil - a full reply but you prompt an interesting series of further questions when you mention an AI acting in accordance with its "current personality". I am not aware of what "personalities" there are in MTW and intrigued that they may change over time (maybe with change of king?). I know in Shogun some factions were more or less "trustworthy" (IIRC, Shimazu green was the most reliable; Mori red and Takeda black the least?). Despite playing a fair amount of MTW early period games as English and HRE, I confess I don't have much of a feel for the personality of my AI rivals. Of course, if the personalities change a lot, this may make inference rather difficult. The French and Danes do seem to backstab a fair amount, but given the strategic position this may be reasonable behaviour rather than a distinct personality. The Italians and Scilians have a penchant for starting a war by a minor attack on my lines of trade, but again this may be general behaviour (heard reports of the same with the Byzantines). The Poles and Hungarians tend to be rather pacific and "nice" towards the HRE, but then again this may be due to position.
Anyone care to shed any light on AI personalities? I seem to recall there was something in the moddable txt files that may be relevant - perhaps I should have a root around?

[GilJaysmith]

Quote[/b] (Simon Appleton @ Dec. 06 2002,06:10)]Anyone care to shed any light on AI personalities? I seem to recall there was something in the moddable txt files that may be relevant - perhaps I should have a root around?
Yep, that's the thing I mean. It isn't so much of a permanent nationality personality as an ever-changing mood :) You can set the initial personality, but during the game the AI will frequently evaluate its position and change its mood accordingly.

The production spreadsheets contain some weights which influence the AI's choice of buildings and units according to its current mood. Modders should have fun with those.

That's about all I can tell you... EatColdSteel is in charge of the strategic AI, so you'll have to wait until the New Year when he comes back from his record-breaking holiday, and perhaps he will smile upon you and let you know more. Or he may already have posted something relevant; you might find something searching through his earlier posts.

Gil ~ CA

[DojoRat]

Thanks Gil,

I always wondered what promted the AI to throw itself at me at less than 3-1 odds. They must be under stress because I find that after a few turns of my "you asked for it" counter attack the faction often falls into civil war. Could be unrelated but seems to happen a lot.

[+DOC+]

Gil,

The AI will obviously change among the following personalities depending on the state of the faction at any given time:
Desperate_defence
Close_to_support_limit
Poverty_stricken
And the default personality that each faction starts with (e.g. Spain being Defensive_crusader)?

However, will the AI also change to the other major personalities during the course of the game?? Say the French changing from Catholic_expansionist to Catholic_trader for instance?


http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Kraellin]

hehe, looks like our discussion of this in the dungeon is being moved over to here, doc ;) for those interested in some more speculation on this, see the 'ok, i've begun modding' thread in the dungeon.

i've got another one or two to add too, doc. i believe the changing of faction leaders also plays a part. each new leader brings his own set of variables to the table and can influence things differently than his predecessor. and to re-hash a few of the things mentioned in that dungeon thread, the ai seems to alter itself based on things like being at war or not, monetary situation, neighbor's conditions, alliance status, original faction behavior setting, what current the current 'office' level is, and perhaps a few other things like which period you're playing in at the moment.

and like gil said, there are some of these things that can be modded. Doc and i have both made mods that alter the ai behavior, most notably, the ship building capability influences.

any hints on where and what else, gil, would be nice.

one suggestion i made in the dungeon thread was to take something like catholic_expansionist_trader and break it down into its parts and be able to add or subtract parts to a given ai behavior. in this way, you could tailor the faction behaviors a little better. if you had the separate parts and could simply put them together in a chain as additives to each other, you would have a more flexible system. thus, from the part names, 'catholic', 'expansionist', 'trader', 'raider', 'muslim', 'barbarian', 'pagan', etc, you could simply mix and match a 'personality as you wished by adding or subtracting any of these items to a given faction. if you also added a numeric indicator to the end of the item, like 'catholic(50)', 'muslim(25)', 'pagan(25)', it could be used to set up the original religious ratios in a province, such that the catholics, in this case, would be 50%, muslim 25%, and pagan 25%. you could even do the same thing with the other items by also giving them numeric suffixes. thus, a 'trader(50)_expansionist(50)' behavior would be, 'play using trader routines 50% of the time and expansionist 50% of the time' or some such. that's just a rough example of it. i'm sure it could be worked out even better.

and putting one together, just as an example, you might have something like this: catholic(50)_orthodox(25)_muslim(25)_expansionist(25)_barbarian(25)_defensive(25)_trader(2
5). the coders would best know how to arrange this. you might just make it various fields, like 'religious' field where you set only the religions in that one, and then another for 'base policy' or something, and yet another for 'modified policy' and so on, depending on how many you wanted to do.

K.

[HopAlongBunny]

This helps explain why the Danes will start a war at sea with one ship and 2 provinces. Gotta get that trade goal http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif