AI: Thing’s I’ve got that you don’t

By Draginol on November 10, 2011 5:01:56 PM from

Draginol

Join Date 03/2001

+96

Elemental has rally points.

Oh, you guys don’t get them. There’s no UI for it presently. But they’re there. Just like in Galactic Civilizations but much more sophisticated.

Did I mention you guys don’t get them right now?

One of the things I’ve been working on is getting the AI to use them in ways far beyond what I’ve done in GalCiv or other AI’s before. Using rally points intelligently (and without using a lot of CPU time) is a serious trick.

Now, in the screenshot above, the AI’s archer army is building up just outside of town even though those armies had to collect together from a very long way away.

While simple on the surface to do, there’s a lot of thought that has to go into making this work (otherwise, the player could just figure out where the rally points are and station an army there ready to pick them off, there’s a lot of timing involve to make sure units aren’t vulnerable long).

Quoting RogueCaptain,

reply 75

Brad, judging from your posts it sounds like you're having some brain busting difficultly with the game's AI.

To cut down a chunk out of your work, why not restrict tactical battle confrontations to special unit and hero lead armies only?

This opens up more time with focus on other AI pursuits and it comes out as a feature because a hero is now more *cough* heroic.

Edit: make that Rockstar Heroic.

I actually somewhat like that idea, not because it makes Brad's work easier (because I doubt it actually does) but because it adds more importance to champions.