Currently Online

Latest Posts

Topic: Build 20

hessenfarmer
Avatar
Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16
Posts: 2645
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Bavaria
Posted at: 2019-01-21, 07:24

king_of_nowhere wrote:

I've never needed more than one crystal mine. Maybe two on very huge maps without other stone sources. The AI should not make two. Maybe put a limitation like "don't make more than 1 for the first three hours of game"?

the AI does not work like that. rather than having multiple tribe specific AI's we have one where its algorithm should work for all tribes. But I agree that we need to look after this.


Top Quote
Tribal-Chief
Avatar
Joined: 2018-12-09, 17:16
Posts: 62
Ranking
Likes to be here
Posted at: 2019-01-21, 10:21

Been lurking for a while, just finishing up a few projects before I move to new coding challenges.

It seems to me that AI playing and AI control of human players assets are both severely broken and have always been so, in different ways in different versions. My plan was to start from scratch and build a new working AI so players could make a meaningful choice about the level of AI used, currently at best the AI does not reach what I would term very weak.

In checking the new tribe I noticed the scale errors in all the buildings, a barbarian barrier on a map near a small frisian building looks like a crate of beer on the doorstep. I am thinking of doing a lot of graphics work before the AI as it is so disconcerting to look at the size errors, and watch people on roads walking through buildings.

I am not sure where the idea that the frisian tribe are weak comes from, playing them myself or with AI it is obvious they are the best tribe on many maps and they are easy to play, why are they experimental?


Top Quote
WorldSavior
Avatar
Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
Posts: 2091
OS: Linux
Version: Recent tournament version
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-01-21, 11:42

hessenfarmer wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

simplypeachy wrote:

I've seen a Frisian AI build three+ reindeer farms in close proximity.

That's too much if the whole economy is still small. For big economies it can make sense...

Agreed. One can't evaluate an AI behaviour without knowing the circumstances.

The AI also seem to prefer building small military buildings near areas of recent military conflict, which weakens their position. I am not sure if either of these behaviours are new.

Yes, that's right. I think it's new. The AI now also dismantles military building close to their frontlines and/or sets soldier capacities very low

That is indeed a behaviour I find annoying and can confirm. On my usual map to watch 4 AI / 4 tribes matches this is the reason for the matches lasting very long. Perhaps we could improve the algorithm on this site. At least it is on my list for after b20. I believe the AI has difficulties considering different military influence on crucial fields but I need to dig through the code and values more thoroughly.

Thanks for taking care of that

What mistakes?

For example Atlantean AI's often fail at making a tool production running: They build too many quarries so the picks are wasted for stone, and then they build 2 crystal mines very soon, so they cannot occupy their iron- and/or coal-mines without putting the miners from the crystal mines into the other mines (which they are not able to do).

I noticed this as well very often but after a change in the code and additional training it seemed to be better in recent builds. Maybe we could do something about this by the definitions of basic buildings. Do you have a special map where this is especially evident?

"Barren Island"

king_of_nowhere wrote:

I've never needed more than one crystal mine. Maybe two on very huge maps without other stone sources. The AI should not make two. Maybe put a limitation like "don't make more than 1 for the first three hours of game"?

Good idea

Tribal-Chief wrote:

Been lurking for a while, just finishing up a few projects before I move to new coding challenges.

It seems to me that AI playing and AI control of human players assets are both severely broken and have always been so, in different ways in different versions. My plan was to start from scratch and build a new working AI so players could make a meaningful choice about the level of AI used, currently at best the AI does not reach what I would term very weak.

Nice that you want to work on the AI

In checking the new tribe I noticed the scale errors in all the buildings, a barbarian barrier on a map near a small frisian building looks like a crate of beer on the doorstep.

I think that this is a little bit like exaggeration...

I am thinking of doing a lot of graphics work before the AI as it is so disconcerting to look at the size errors, and watch people on roads walking through buildings.

Well, the graphics of Widelands don't mean to represent the real world exactly... The advantage is that you can still easily see the people while the buildings are not too big.

I am not sure where the idea that the frisian tribe are weak comes from, playing them myself or with AI it is obvious they are the best tribe on many maps and they are easy to play, why are they experimental?

The idea is from me. On which maps do you think are they the best tribe, and why are they easy to play? They need a lot experienced workers and upgraded buildings...

Recently I compared Frisians, Atlanteans and Barbarians on "Ice Wars" rather directly. The result was that Frisians are still much much weaker than the other tribes on big maps.

Edited: 2019-01-21, 11:44

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

Top Quote
king_of_nowhere
Avatar
Joined: 2014-09-15, 18:35
Posts: 1668
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Posted at: 2019-01-21, 16:17

hessenfarmer wrote:

king_of_nowhere wrote:

I've never needed more than one crystal mine. Maybe two on very huge maps without other stone sources. The AI should not make two. Maybe put a limitation like "don't make more than 1 for the first three hours of game"?

the AI does not work like that. rather than having multiple tribe specific AI's we have one where its algorithm should work for all tribes. But I agree that we need to look after this.

huh? how can you have a single algorithm when all the buildings are different?

In general, all the tribes are different and they must be played differently.

Maybe that's the source of AI weakness? I know the algorithms are optimized by having the AI play against each other

Tribal-Chief wrote:

I am not sure where the idea that the frisian tribe are weak comes from, playing them myself or with AI it is obvious they are the best tribe on many maps and they are easy to play, why are they experimental?

there are ways with the other tribes to get a fully promoted soldier very fast, within one hour of game. such ways are not available for frisians. they take too long to develop


Top Quote
kaputtnik
Avatar
Joined: 2013-02-18, 20:48
Posts: 2433
OS: Archlinux
Version: current master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-01-21, 16:26

Hi Tribal-Chief and welcome to our forums face-smile.png

For all participants in this thread: Since this bug is for things related to build20, please open another thread for things that are post build20. That is all except the open bugs mentioned here and possible new critical bugs in current trunk. Thanks face-smile.png


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

Top Quote
Tibor

Joined: 2009-03-23, 23:24
Posts: 1377
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Slovakia
Posted at: 2019-01-21, 18:59

AI needs to be generic, tribe-agnostic. We have 4 tribes, anybody can create another one. Moreover, attributes of buildings can be easily changed, and AI should cope with such modifications as well..


Top Quote
kaputtnik
Avatar
Joined: 2013-02-18, 20:48
Posts: 2433
OS: Archlinux
Version: current master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-01-22, 17:19

There are windows builds available now (only 64bit). If you want to help with the desyncs, install one of those builds:

You may need only the release build if you want to help with desync debugging. For completeness here is also a debug build:

What you should do if a desync happens is explained in this post.


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

Top Quote
WorldSavior
Avatar
Joined: 2016-10-15, 04:10
Posts: 2091
OS: Linux
Version: Recent tournament version
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-03-15, 16:16

What is stopping build20 now?


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

Top Quote
GunChleoc
Avatar
Topic Opener
Joined: 2013-10-07, 15:56
Posts: 3324
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: RenderedRect
Posted at: 2019-03-15, 20:45

WorldSavior wrote:

What is stopping build20 now?

New crash reports, and I sometimes need a break from bug fixing face-wink.png

Edited: 2019-03-15, 20:46

Busy indexing nil values

Top Quote
kaputtnik
Avatar
Joined: 2013-02-18, 20:48
Posts: 2433
OS: Archlinux
Version: current master
Ranking
One Elder of Players
Location: Germany
Posted at: 2019-03-16, 11:21

GunChleoc wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

What is stopping build20 now?

New crash reports, and I sometimes need a break from bug fixing face-wink.png

I feel with you face-sad.png

There so many good things ready planned after build 20 we could have a new feature freeze close after releasing build 20 face-grin.png


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

Top Quote