Nullkiller AI

International board General discussion
#101

@ val-gaav Hi. May be it will useful Hire.rar (1009 KB) (a purple player)

#102

My version was downloaded in May 1st.

#103

Can confirm. However the error is not critical. AI probably wants to something with chains or has a goal but ends up without ability to hire hero. Then it resumes and does other things, so I would guess it is more like a warning then error. Anyway it is very alike to the msg when AI tries to hire units from dwellings but has no space on hero for them.

This doesn’t happen when hero limit is set to two. Anyway I looked around AI code and ended up not finding the part that might be the problem.

#104

Some problems are still exist in Nullkiller AI.

  1. Time costing in AI turns. AI often costs a long time to fight with neutral creatures. And it is hard to play a big map with many players. VCAI cost only a little time in this action even if it is stupid.
  2. AI doesn’t build mage guilds and some other buildings. If mage guild is not the condition of dwellings, AI will never build it. And some new buildings like ToW are also ignored by AI, even some buildings are banned in map, they still don’t build another(like Angel and Paladin).
  3. AI seldom defends the town. Sometimes they run away from a town even my troops is very close here.
#105

Do you mean that battle takes bigger amount of time? This is strange because it is the same Battle AI.

#106

Did you still work for AI? I asked some friends to collect their views for VCAI, it might have no ‘bool’ to decide recruit activities, but it builds every day. I have already set a large amount of resources for each AI player, so it needn’t take care of costs. I am still a learner in C++ language, so I can read some of codes but cannot alter them.

So, did you think it can made some conditions in recruit activities? I am pretty sure that AI is to a large extent the factor of popularity. I have asked for some friends, they supposed large map is still popular in HoMM3, but VCAI supports. From a viewpoint of entertainment, they don’t need a very strong AI. However, if you still make effort for Nullkiller AI, I am also glad to see it better.

#107

Nullkiller and other devs are sitting at slack. It’s better to join vcmi channel there and chat with them.

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#108

I think I will get back t NK AI and try to find a way to make it simpler and faster but not sure when this will happen

#109

Thanks for your response, I found every turn AI will use vcmieagles to reveal the map, it might cost more time to read whole map and it would be the main reason, especially in a large map. And it also crashes in any random map.

#110

Probably mods.

#111

I found the biggest weakness of VCMI to be the AI, as even the NKAI is very stupid and makes lots of mistakes

  • abandoning castles and leaving them unguarded, even when the attacker is close, the AI don’t retreat and stays in the castle, but runs around leaving the castle empty
    (eg. my strong here approaches a town where the AI hero is, on the next turn, the AI here leaves the town, leaving it unguarded and not attacking my hero either - when it would stay in the castle, it would make me hard looses, even considering me to attack it)
    so its tooo easy to capture castles and win, the campaigns are no fun, no challange

  • the AI leaves behind resources, like it attacked guards, but didn’t collect resources, or even artifacts

#112

We know, right.

Usually there are secondary heroes to collect minor stuff later.