Suggestion for changing AI bonuses based on difficulty level

[Jolly Joker]

Why?Why cant harder mean just AI playing better?I dont remember that in chess harder means giving you less figures.

As far as I know exactly that happens when a good chess player, for example a league player, is playing an amateur. The better player removes pieces from the board (depending on the opponent).
But that's beside the point. The question is: why can't harder mean just the AI playing better? Well, it CAN mean that it plays better, and it DOES mean it plays better (it is so in the game, depending on difficulty the AI plays differently). But that's not enough: if the AI plays like a 4-year-old on normal, like a 6-year-old on hard and like a 8-year-old on heroic IT'S NOT ENOUGH. It has taken how many years eaxctly to develop chess programs that will be a challenge for every player up to even a grandmaster? And Chess is an easy game in terms of game elements and so on. Chess is a game where you can compute all possible situations up to x turns ahead with x depending on computing power alone. This is not possible with Heroes games - not without massive cheating, anyway.

[wimfrits]

The way I see how hard or heroic difficulty SHOULD work is that the AI should always be at least 1 step or two [as opposed to 20 steps] ahead of you in order to provide the proper level of challenge.

Not if it concerns a real factor determining AI challenge.

Take combat performance for example. Combat play is a factor determining AI performance. If the AI would always be 1 or 2 steps ahead of the player in combat tactics, then the player would never be able to win, no matter how good he is. So if aspect x is a real factor determining AI challenge, then the player should always be able to gain an edge in that area.

The thing is do you want an AI whose potential is capped at X level and if the human plays better than X they will always win OR do you want an AI that has its bonuses adjusted in such a manner as to theoretically be able to give you a good game no matter how well you play.

I don´t know. I think the second is dangerously complex, since the AI should consider all relevant factors together to determine what boost it should get. Some makeshift boosts are possible, like the ones mapmakers put in H4 maps, but any H4 mapmaker will tell you its a big guess to estimate how the player is performing at any point. There are just too many factors involved to properly estimate things.

However I DO CARE if the AI bonus structure is set up to where certain types of maps are virtually unwinnable against the AI.

A system like yours would imo indeed be useful to fix that.

I DO CARE if the mapmakers have to go to enormous trouble to create a map that is balanced both for AI and human players.

And at this point I think resources have become irrelevant.

[Alamar]

Sorry if I got too frustrated with you yesterday.

Your post below is civil and does a good job addressing issues that you have and I appreciate the manner which you are discussing this topic.

Alamar, seriously.
If the game registers that the human player is ahead and "reacts" by giving the AI a bonus it's already too late.

I would say if ongoing [daily adjustments] are made then I don't think that it's too late per-se.

I mean, how do you expect to make a competitive AI when half of the human players (probably more) are "not competetive" for a hardcore player.

If you are unable to program a competitive AI then logic indicates that if competitiveness is your overriding goal then you should allow the AI to cheat in some manner to allow it to do things [or recieve bonuses] that a human player cannot.

Then you hope that you balance things so that the AI provides a good challenge for the player. A good challenge means there's a chance [if the player never reloads] that the AI will win. Note if the odds of a player or AI winning becomes too high [consistently] then obviously tweaking needs to be done.

Moreover, the competitiveness as such, or the ability to "play a good game" is nothing fixed or reproducable. It depends on what you face on the map, what town you have, what hero you play, what you must achieve and so on. It's the ability to do what is called for to make the most of it.

I clearly agree with this as it is obviously true.

It is clearly impossible to program an AI to be competetive.
What you want is a competetive AI that would get a hard or heroic opponent with the bonusses, and I doubt that is possible.

Well if you mean that giving the AI economic bonuses alone is enough then I agree that it is not necessarily enough. My proposal only involves the creation of an AI [and to a degree human] saftety net in terms of economics.

The theory is that if the AI can't afford to at least build the same things in a castle, buy similar amounts of creatures, etc. then it's game over for the AI.

Another thing. any harder difficulty than normal implies having disadvantages. I mean what would be the "hard" part in a game, if your AI opponent would face the same situation than you (that was done in Heroes IV and it was the worst that could happen for the game)? Answer: It is NOT harder. In fact, it gets easier, because the shortcomings of AI play will be more pronounced.

Even though I didn't go over it much because I thought it may confuse factors my proposal actually does give the AI progressively more economic bonuses as the difficulty evel progresses.

Basically I defined a "cheat factor". Basically this governs how much of a percentage bonus that the AI is guaranteed to get.

I.E. in Normal [as an example] let's say that the AI is guaranteed to get at least as much resources as a human. [cheat factor == 1]

In Hard you could change the cheat factor to 1.2 in order to make sure the AI gets at least a 20% advantage in economics compared to humans.

In Heroic you could change the cheat factor to 1.5 in order to make sure the AI gets at least a 50% advantage in economics compared to humans.

I would suggest altering the amount of cheat factor in the various difficulties so that the AI gets enough of a bonus [combined with its other bonuses] to allow it to be reasonably competitive.

If non-economic cheat factors are required to make the AI competitive [almost 100% certain] on various difficulty levels then feel free to give the AI other forms of bonuses to compensate. I would say that careful balancing needs to be done to make sure that the AI gets just enough but not too many bonuses.

So any difficulty harder thn normal implies that the AI faces another situation than the human player. However, starting money alone is NOT enough. The reason is simple. Monster stacks are harder, and that must be offset as well. So while the AI should ALWAYS start with at least normal starting condition it would have to get another bonus as well, for example a daily income or resource bonus, added creature growth and so on.

Oh ... my intention ALL along was to give the AI DAILY economic bonuses [if needed] to stay competitive. Please note that on heroic difficulty this may be defined as the AI always gets 50% more resources than the player [remember the cheat factor]. Note I don't necessarily suggest 50% as the actual number ... I'm just using it as an example.

FYI: I'm basically against having extra creature growth as an AI bonus. I'd prefer the bonuses to be economic [basic safety net] and other bonuses as to maintain more of an illusion that the AI is just a good human player as opposed to what it really is.

That's the definition of harder than normal difficulty levels. You cannot seriously expect that the AI outplays a halfway experienced player without any significant bonusses, can you?

In reality of course I don't expect the AI to outplay anyone other than a "newb" to HoMM5 no matter what the difficulty level was.

I'm all for giving the AI a sufficiently large bonus that it can stay competitive [depending on the difficulty level you can give it more or less bonuses]. What I want to make sure of though is that I don't give the AI those large bonuses in such a manner that the human player ceases to be competitive IF the AI chose to wipe them out. I believe that is exactly the situation that we have now.

[Alamar]

My sense of justice doesn't like that "self adjusting bonuses" if I play better than the computer. Feels useless to sacrifice troops and stuff to get that goldmine very early if the A.I will get the same amount of gold from thin air....so no, I don't support this suggestion. I'd rather have % bonuses as we had in Heroes II (but lower, 10% and 25% would be enough).

In essence, If I sacrifice troops to get important resources so I can get all my lvl 1-6 dwellings on week 1 then I want a reward for it. I should have the appropriate extra stuff that I fought for so I will be ahead of the enemy.

This post makes sense. I disagree with it given the current AI state but the post has a lot of merit.

Basically I like my proposal more because I've noticed that currently the AI doesn't generate ENOUGH of its own resources to make a "+X% to AI resources that it makes fairly" work. If in the future though the AI can be counted upon to do a much better job of gathering its own resources then a +X% to AI resources would probably be OK with me.

If you want an AI that has a higher chance to be economically competitive, without being overwhelming, then my proposal makes more sense. If you prefer an AI that tends to cheat less then your proposal is CLEARLY better ..... I think it's just a matter of priorities.

[Alamar]

The way I see how hard or heroic difficulty SHOULD work is that the AI should always be at least 1 step or two [as opposed to 20 steps] ahead of you in order to provide the proper level of challenge.

Not if it concerns a real factor determining AI challenge.

Take combat performance for example. Combat play is a factor determining AI performance. If the AI would always be 1 or 2 steps ahead of the player in combat tactics, then the player would never be able to win, no matter how good he is. So if aspect x is a real factor determining AI challenge, then the player should always be able to gain an edge in that area.

Perhaps I did not state this properly. My idea is that on hard difficulty there should at least be a small chance that if a human doesn't reload that it should be possible for the AI to beat them. My idea is that on heroic mode that there should be an increased chance [compared to hard] that the AI might actually beat a person.

Therefore what I should have said [more clearly] was that the amount of cheats [economic cheats in this case] that the AI gets should increase as the difficulty level increases. That is all that I inteded to imply.

Note I WISH that we could just have the AI play better in various difficulties without having to cheat in order to possibly beat a good human player but I don't think we're there yet

The thing is do you want an AI whose potential is capped at X level and if the human plays better than X they will always win OR do you want an AI that has its bonuses adjusted in such a manner as to theoretically be able to give you a good game no matter how well you play.

I don´t know. I think the second is dangerously complex, since the AI should consider all relevant factors together to determine what boost it should get. Some makeshift boosts are possible, like the ones mapmakers put in H4 maps, but any H4 mapmaker will tell you its a big guess to estimate how the player is performing at any point. There are just too many factors involved to properly estimate things.

You make a good point but I don't believe that it's for the reasons stated [if I understood properly].

With the system that I'm proposing there isn't any estimation that goes on at all. The amount of each resource that human and AI players get is recorded. Then [if required] daily adjustments are made as gifts to the AI if it is not performing as well as intended depending on the difficulty level. This guarantees through direct measurement that the AI isn't lagging more than a day or so behind a player. [note the system is more complex than I described above but that is the basics]

HOWEVER my proposal does have a potentially fatal flaw [IMHO]. The issue is what to do with maps that are roughly balanced but achieve this balance in different ways.

Here's an example. Let's say that you design a 2 player map. For player A you give them creature bonuses out of thin air for story reasons. Lets say otherwise player A is designed by the map maker to be "poor". Lets say that player B gets ongoing economic resources to counter player A's increased creature growth.

Obviously if the AI gets control of either side A OR side B then there is going to be a problem. If the AI gets side A it gets extra creatures PLUS too much of an economic bonus. If the AI gets side B it won't be guaranteed to get enough $.

Here is an example where a system like Campaigner [IIRC] proposed would work better than the one I propose. The only issue is that the AI currently can't fend for itself no neither solution is good for this problem.

I imagine that one of our solutions could be salvaged with work but this is an [important] example that indicates that things aren't always as easy as we'd like.

[And yes I have thought a LOT about the AI issues and problem with various systems]

[wimfrits]

Perhaps I did not state this properly. My idea is that on hard difficulty there should at least be a small chance that if a human doesn't reload that it should be possible for the AI to beat them. My idea is that on heroic mode that there should be an increased chance [compared to hard] that the AI might actually beat a person.

I know and I agree. The points I'm trying to make are:
1. Resources are not a factor of significance for AI performance on high difficulty levels. With the exception of resource poor/small maps. For such maps, a system like yours would be good.
2. IF resources were a factor of significance, then logically a system like this wouldn't work, because then the AI would always be stronger than the player.

HOWEVER my proposal does have a potentially fatal flaw [IMHO]. The issue is what to do with maps that are roughly balanced but achieve this balance in different ways.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say; but in a more general fashion. The current perfomance of a player always is a complex mix of variables. Picking just one of those variables and adapting the AI variable to that single variable is dangerous.
That is, if the variable is significant for AI performance, which again I think is not the case for resources.

[Ethric]

OR those lazy bums could program a better A.I! Problem solved

But that's not gonna happen....It'll NEVER be as good as the A.I in GalCiv II anyway....

Yep, that's precisely how it should have been.

[DaemianLucifer]

As far as I know exactly that happens when a good chess player, for example a league player, is playing an amateur. The better player removes pieces from the board (depending on the opponent).
But that's beside the point. The question is: why can't harder mean just the AI playing better? Well, it CAN mean that it plays better, and it DOES mean it plays better (it is so in the game, depending on difficulty the AI plays differently). But that's not enough: if the AI plays like a 4-year-old on normal, like a 6-year-old on hard and like a 8-year-old on heroic IT'S NOT ENOUGH. It has taken how many years eaxctly to develop chess programs that will be a challenge for every player up to even a grandmaster? And Chess is an easy game in terms of game elements and so on. Chess is a game where you can compute all possible situations up to x turns ahead with x depending on computing power alone. This is not possible with Heroes games - not without massive cheating, anyway.

Are you saying that civ is less complex than heroes?Or galciv for that matter?Because those two have very good AIs.True,they cheat at higher difficulties,but there is still a lot of chalenge that comes just from the AI playing as best as it can.

[Jolly Joker]

Are you saying that civ is less complex than heroes?Or galciv for that matter?Because those two have very good AIs.True,they cheat at higher difficulties,but there is still a lot of chalenge that comes just from the AI playing as best as it can.

No, Civ is complex as well. The AI cheats as well.

[Alamar]

I know and I agree. The points I'm trying to make are:
1. Resources are not a factor of significance for AI performance on high difficulty levels. With the exception of resource poor/small maps. For such maps, a system like yours would be good.

Actually the way the current AI neglects to gather resources are you implying that developing a set of structured economic cheats wouldn't be a good idea? I think getting the right set of resource cheats is critical [to my enjoyment of the game]

Right now resource levels do not play a significant role in keeping the AI competitive because the AI has virtually UNLIMITED resources. I propose to change the system to make things more fair for both the AI and the player.

2. IF resources were a factor of significance, then logically a system like this wouldn't work, because then the AI would always be stronger than the player.

Please remember that my suggestions only cover sets of economic safety nets for both the AI and the player. I do not intend to imply that economics is the end-all-and-be-all of HoMM. What I will state is that if the AI [in any HoMM game] falls behind a human player then that AI is REALLY doomed.

A set of cheats to at least delay this would [artificially] keep the AI in a position where it could theoretically stay competitive longer.

HOWEVER my proposal does have a potentially fatal flaw [IMHO]. The issue is what to do with maps that are roughly balanced but achieve this balance in different ways.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say; but in a more general fashion. The current perfomance of a player always is a complex mix of variables. Picking just one of those variables and adapting the AI variable to that single variable is dangerous.
That is, if the variable is significant for AI performance, which again I think is not the case for resources.

Well like I should have said earlier my proposal is only for restructuring economic cheats that the AI gets. Theoretically my proposal should give the AI a big enough economic bonus that it could be competitive economically while not giving it such a large bonus that a decent human player wouldn't stand a chance.

My proposal doesn't cover any other non-economic bonuses that the AI may need to receive to be truly competitive.

[DaemianLucifer]

No, Civ is complex as well. The AI cheats as well.

Way way less then this one.And more controled by the difficulty level.

[Jolly Joker]

We started here:
"Why?Why cant harder mean just AI playing better?I dont remember that in chess harder means giving you less figures."
So I don't yee your point with a game like Civ. It cheats as well.

[DaemianLucifer]

We started here:
"Why?Why cant harder mean just AI playing better?I dont remember that in chess harder means giving you less figures."
So I don't yee your point with a game like Civ. It cheats as well.

Yes,but firstly it gets better by improving its skill,while in heroes it cheats(heavily)from the start.I could also mention the HIII AI here,because it also improved first and got resources later.

[Gaidal Cain]

The H5 AI also improves- but it starts out doing abysmally stupid stuff as not using area effect spells correctly.

[MrSteamTank]

I definitely agree with your suggestion. What I don't understand is why hard is the difficulty where the computer supposedly equals you in resources. Shouldn't normal be the assumed difficulty for having the computer on an equal footing?

[wimfrits]

Actually the way the current AI neglects to gather resources are you implying that developing a set of structured economic cheats wouldn't be a good idea? I think getting the right set of resource cheats is critical [to my enjoyment of the game]

The fact that the AI neglects to gather resources I think is caused by its already wealthy state, so I think it is behaving just like it should.

Right now resource levels do not play a significant role in keeping the AI competitive because the AI has virtually UNLIMITED resources. I propose to change the system to make things more fair for both the AI and the player.

Exactly. The AI has unlimited resources and it still isn't competitive enough. This was true for all previous HoMM games as well.

The only time when resources are a factor is on small resource low maps.

What I will state is that if the AI [in any HoMM game] falls behind a human player then that AI is REALLY doomed.

I agree. But with the current system, this will not happen, since the AI has virtually unlimited resources.

But does it matter if the AI gets [x*player resources] or [+10000000]? I think not.

Theoretically my proposal should give the AI a big enough economic bonus that it could be competitive economically while not giving it such a large bonus that a decent human player wouldn't stand a chance.

Alright, I'm going to change my opinion. A system like yours might work for all maps but only on lower difficulty levels and for small maps on all difficulty levels. Since I think resources are irrelevant on higher levels anyway it wouldn't matter if such a system was present.

So.. good idea

[Alamar]

Sorry for trying to badger you man. How's this ... we can agree to disagree??

All I wanted to do with my proposal is create a system where the AI is competitve economically without being totally overpowering. It is up to the devs. to figure out how to make the rest of the AI competitive in general.

For non-economic bonuses what would it take to get the AI to do better?

[wimfrits]

How's this ... we can agree to disagree??

Sure. Though I still think your system has merits for part of the games, so I'm not disagreeing completely

For non-economic bonuses what would it take to get the AI to do better?

Don't know. Perhaps the AI scripts should be based on the choices of a more experienced player. The current AI still makes a lot of silly mistakes.

[OliverFA]

Sorry for trying to badger you man. How's this ... we can agree to disagree??

All I wanted to do with my proposal is create a system where the AI is competitve economically without being totally overpowering. It is up to the devs. to figure out how to make the rest of the AI competitive in general.

For non-economic bonuses what would it take to get the AI to do better?

Don't worry Alamar. Although I also disagree with your proposal, at least you proposed anything On the other hand, is through open minded discussion how we can produce some useful ideas. Some keep the good suggestions coming!

[OliverFA]

We started here:
"Why?Why cant harder mean just AI playing better?I dont remember that in chess harder means giving you less figures."
So I don't yee your point with a game like Civ. It cheats as well.

Jolly Joker, please don't take offence, but I honestly think that your point of view is too closed to be objective. In every single discussion I see you, you are always in favour of H5 no matter what's the subject. Man, you have to accept that they did something bad!

You are good reasoning and making arguments, but this great skill you have gets completely nullified by the fact that sometimes you try to justify what simply cannot be justified. I believe that your arguments would be stronger if sometimes you were against H5 and sometimes in favour of H5. But not always on the same side!

I hope I didn't offended you by what I said. Take it as constructive criticism

About Civ... Yes, Civ cheats. But it cheats in a "controlled" way. The fact that the AI needs some help to match the player shouldn't mean that anything goes. In civ, most (if not all) the times the "cheating" would be more apropiatedly called "advantage". The AI produces quicker, has chepaer research times, and some other similar advantages. Waht the AI doesn't do is plain cheating such as getting units for free or having infinite resources.

As a player, that kind of cheating is unaceptable. Specially in an strategy game. If my oponent has some advantages to make up for the "dumber" intelligence I can still try to make my strategies and planing. I can still play an strategy game. But if my oponent just gets unfair advantages like getting unit from the void, learning spells which are not in their mage guild, or similar things, if my oponent doesn't play by the rules... how can I create an strategy against him? The "strategy" game is just gone! and I would refuse to play!

Think about what you would do with a player which was less skilled than yourself. You would give him small (or huge) advantages, or give yourself some disadvantages. But what you wouldn't do was allowing him to cheat!