Public Beta Patch 1.05 RC1

[ArmChairGeneral]

I would be willing to work on this as well, but have the same questions as minipol.

[Merlin]

If some of you want to help with a few AI scripts or 'agents' then that's quite feasible. Some betas knowing nothing about that did some good work in EAW, this is not technical at all. You just need a few hours to do improvements in the game, and there is no need for the developer here

We would need a basic primer on commands, values, and basic operations. Every engine is different, there is no one place to get this information, and most of my limited efforts to mod the game have ended in failure because I'm trying to figure out the scripting by trial and error. If not one of the core team members, could a beta player be persuaded to put such a thing together?

[Barca]

+1

Would like to help out as well.

[richfed]

Yes, Pocus, I too would like to assist, but I have no idea what I can do other than report what I am seeing. Sad to say, but the 1.05 beta patch - as currently constituted - makes the campaign, at least, pretty much unplayable. One must be unbearably cautious [as the CSA] to the point that it is difficult to move troops in the vicinity of the enemy to reinforce, relieve sieges, or just plan travel without being destroyed - not just mauled, but wiped out. As I have mentioned, this can mean an entire division, an entire corps, or even an entire Army. It's bad. Even in a feint/probe mode with avoid combat ... POW. Gone. Very often.


Here's what I see:

• The retreat/ZOC issues [which I presume are largely responsible for the above behaviors]
• The increasing disinterest of the AI as the game progresses
• Naval supply management slider does not seem to function - I can leave ships in the blockade boxes forever - until they suffer combat hits - they never need to resupply, even with the standard rule
• Raise taxes/issue bonds - are they supposed to lower inflation 1%? Because they do.
• I just had an instance - this may have happened before but I did not notice - where I had only $18,000 in the treasury. I clicked on build powder mills in the Carolinas to see if it would allow me to go into debt. Instead, my money increased to $57,000. [war supply went down appropriately]

This all leads me to wonder how many other things are not working as they should?

[charlesonmission]

Ironclad and I are using the beta patch on the PBEM/AAR on YouTube.

Naval supply management is working normal (I have to move the units to ports to resupply

Battle results seem to be very reasonable.

On Richfed's last point, I noticed that too and didn't understand how it was increasing. I assumed it was showing me the estimated result of the money of the next turn after the decisions are made. However, would like to hear confirmation on how this is working... as Richfed notes, it does seem odd.

[Pocus]

About agents, there is some theoretical course here:
http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/AI_Agents

I see that not many of you have the habit of checking the AGE wiki, we should probably advertise it more. And you are welcome to update if you feel confident.

I'll see if an EAW beta can get you started. In a nutshell, you add a small instruction to guide a leader. The instruction is born by an AI agent. For example here is the instruction for Alexander von Kluck:

AI.AddLeaderAgent = $aiaForceAttack|$uni_GER_Kluck3|Regions $Bruxelles $Lille $Amiens $Paris|UnitRef|SelRegion

You specify an agent, who is concerned and then a list of regions to follow. Not THAT difficult right? Just doing it would help focus the AI quite a bit and it's possible to conditions to switch agents and be more intelligent and less predictable.

[minipol]

This would mean that Von Kluck focusses on Brussels, Lille, Amiens and Paris? Nice.
What happens if Von Klcuk dies? In CWII leaders die more often than TEAW

[Pocus]

Well, the agent on von Kluck is the Force Attack one, so it deprecates in 4 turns anyway but has a peculiarity: its 'depth search' is 3, meaning it can target at anytime the next 3 objectives in its list, so this is less predictable as you may think, as the first target will be Bruxelles OR Lille OR Amiens. Now it does not make weird things, as to reach Lille, chances are that you need to crush Bruxelles, but this will slightly alter its course.

If the leader dies, the agent is removed. It is in 'limbo', not killed but not affected to anyone. There are many possible improvements on Agents, but so far the possibilities offered by what is coded made happy enough the betas. You can indeed imagine that with agents additions and removals with events, you can program historical moves, what if and then weave interactions between leaders (only add agent C if leader X has reached objective Z, etc.).

For reference, this way of coding the AI is what is used in Operational Art of War, except that everything is done with that in OPART, whereas in AGE Engine, the basis is a large code base of 'generic AI'.

[minipol]

This could be really powerful to script the AI. It makes it possible to coördinate moves. Very nice indeed!

[Captain_Orso]

Is there something like "Overall Strategy". For example a Souther Agent that can tell the AI generally put more emphasis in the East than in the West, or balanced. Or to be more aggressive in general in the agents it picks, for example more defensive than aggressive in the East--no invasion--?

[Pocus]

You can do that with the scripting language, the tools are there. An event can evaluate the objectives and combat power ratios for each area of your choice, and then activate, deactivate any agent.