AMAI and Commander

3. This sounds strange and could be a bug. So if you encounter it again plz send me a replay (with the map).

4. This requires an entire new part of the code so I doubt this will be in the next version since the restructuring of the code will be done first.

Feedback is always welcome.

No problem. I will be sure to save the replay next time I see it happen.

Thanks again ;]

Hi again,

If I could just comment on something I noticed in a game I just played vs PC (Normal) AMAI_19rXMas.

Firstly, since I've installed this AMAI onto some of the WC3 maps, there is this unusual "pause" about 5/10 seconds into the game. It lasts for approx. 1 second. Very unusual. You pick it up in the replay too.

I played UD the PC was Random (ORC). It went for the Beastmaster first. My question:

1. Would it be able for the PC to setup a build, suited to a Tavern Hero? i.e. Barracks, burrow, late altar. The reason I ask, is that when watching the replay from the PC's point of view, it clearly isn't the most optimal build. Can PC build's be specified? e.g. at least have 2/3 grunts out when his hero pops out.

2. At about the 5min mark, the PC is sitting on 36/50 food, yet is still on Tier 1. Would it not be possible to optimize this particular Orc strat to upgrade sooner. I am no "pro" with Orc, but from a lot of replays I see, they upgrade their main, sometimes before their hero is out. You obviously set up the strats for a reason, but this is just my opinion ;]

3. Around the 7 minute mark, it spends quite a long time (almost a minute) doing nothing. What causes this to happen. The PC has 7 full health grunts, plus a full health hero, so no reason not to go creeping or attack me.. Something else, shortly before this, I ran my DK into his base to see what was going on, and when the PC (regardless of race) well actually HMN or ORC does a call to arms, or go into their burrows, why do ALL peons go in? Would it not be better for just say, the wood peons to "call to arms" or is this uncontrollable?

4. Something I noticed around the 9:40 mark, the PC tried to build a spirit lodge, but his army of grunts were in the way and the peon was unable to build there. Would it not be possible for the peon to attempt to build somewhere else until it found the necessary space? i.e. so as to reduce time wasting.. It actually tries it again, and then the 3rd time I see it builds it sucessfully.

5. At about the 14 minute mark is the first "main" battle. I nearly kill his Brewmaster, but he runs it away and then his grunts turn around and the fight starts. His Beastmaster, however, stays in his base. Why does this happen? He was almost full health and should have fought in the battle.

Lastly, how do the random strats for each race get chosen? I always find the PC when it is Orc either going MASS headhunters (but never bezerkers and Master Shaman) or grunts and spiritwalkers. Orc tier 3 is very powerful: Master Witchdoctors & Shaman (bloodlust/wards/stasis) and tauren/wayvern.. Would be cool to play agains that.

I think I mentioned in a previous post, I never play against the PC on normal skill that goes "all out" is this due to the "Normal" skill setting?

I hope I haven't gone overboard with these details, but it just things I have noticed ;] Hope it's alright.

wow, thats some questions :) but I'll try to give a good answere to all of them.

Firstly the lag near start of game is intenional since 1.9 as you can read a few posts up in this thread, it's caused by the computers scanning the map (Making a minimap for the computers to see). We hope it don't disturb the players too much. It will allow us to greatly improve the computers AI in the coming versions a it for example improved the current with random expansions (thats not really working very good yet but it's working).

1. The hero choosing is mostly only based on what race enemy is but the build is also optimized in a way so that if a computer have decided to use a neutral hero they will wait with the altar(it's best to build the altar so it's completed by the time the neutral heroes becomes available). Not exactly sure of what ansvere you are seeking here but yes it's possible to make them get the hero when they have 3 grunts very easy, some strategies work that way.

2. Some strategies do tech fast and upgrade early but no strategy does it as human players you see in replays, computers can't handle such things as good as human players thats why the strategies you see in replays used by humans are not exactly used by the AI. I have tried making the AI play that way but it always comes out with a very bad result. The strategies that are good for human players are not always good for the computer players.

3. Might be some errors, or the situation is that its army is too weak to attack any nearby creeps or you so they do nothing while waiting for more units. We always try to investigate and solve all idle situations as good as possible.

4. This is nothing we can solve the grunts shuld have moved by them selfes, they do even for human players(have you tried building on you own units?).

5. maybe the beastmaster arrived in the game just before or when the battle already started?


When you send a replay with custom AI you have to give the map you used as well with the AI on since the AI isn't saved in the replay file else it won't be possible to see the replay. :/

Great, thanks for your reply. I appreciate it. Sorry for not including the map, it crossed my mind, but I totally forgot.

Here it is: Turtle Rock with AMAI_19rXMas installed.

Thanks!

When I start a game with AMAI 1.9 with Humans, my Town Hall doesnt have the Call to Arms ability accessable at all. The button is gone, and when I tell one peasant to CTA, it does nothing. I tested it with a non-AMAI installed map, and the button appeared on my Town Hall just fine. Is this a bug?

Yes, thats a known issue. The Commander is based on the old Blizzard.j . The Call to Arms is manually added to the first town hall since 1.13 . The old Blizzard.j did of course not have that. Thats the reason why it does not work when the Commander is in the map.
The workaround is not to add the Commander in the map.
The next version of AMAI will have this bug fixed by putting the Commander in the newest Blizzard.j .

Thanks again to you AIAndy and Zalamander for the new version and the replies. I too have noticed the units standing around after a fight, especially when the AMAI goes mass ghouls. Just a silly guess of mine, but maybe it's too many units for the comp to control?

Couple other things...sometimes the AMAI will get its units stuck behind buildings, either because it has (apparently) tried to use its buildings to build a barricade and mistakenly didn't allow any openings, or sometimes it'll TP home and a couple units will be stuck between a building and the edge of the map. A human player, of course, would uproot a NE tree and move it if possible, or if he had to, attack his own building and destroy it so his units could get out, or buy another TP and try to get the units free in a new TP (which unfortunately doesn't work so well with the TP bug in the latest Blizzard patch). Any chance the AMAI could be taught how to do any of those things, or maybe taught to be very careful not to build itself into a trap or build too close to the map edge? Sometimes games will be effectively over because the AMAI can't get its units unstuck.

I've been thinking that the AMAI random-expo idea isn't working out very well. Building expansions near your main base, while unfortunately predictable, is a good idea because you're more easily able to protect the expo. Also, the AMAI sometimes sends individual worker units, or sometimes even a group of them, to the distant expo and they can wind up being easy kills.

The AMAI sends heroes alone to the goblin shops to buy stuff. I think a human player would never do that. That works out to occasional free hero kills, which are very unfortunate. I think if the AMAI is going to send the hero somewhere to buy some items, the whole army should go with to protect it, like a human player would do. Also, if there's a fountain of health on the map, the AMAI will send hurt units to it to heal up, but again, they are left there alone. All the races have better healing options in their base, and the AMAI shouldn't expose units to danger like that IMO.

Last thing, does the AMAI maphack? I play on Emerald Garden vs. 2 AMAI, and after so many times in a row of the AMAI attacking my expansion VERY early, I watched a replay from the AMAI perspective. Neither AMAI player did any scouting, but after a bit, when my expo was up, one of the AMAI players flared where my expo was and they both attacked. I realize you can't make an AI do what human players do, and sometimes you have to do things to compensate, but if the AMAI has a maphack, there's any number of things that I wouldn't bother doing because I know they'll see it, and I hate being limited like that. Do you feel maphacking is necessary for the AMAI to compete? I would prefer that the AMAI had to scout like human players, and something (anything, really) else be used to try and help them compete.

But again, I'm very grateful for the work both of you do. I've played against the AMAI so many dozens of hours already it's ridiculous. Thanks again!!

Yeah, the whole "attack your expansion as soon as it starts" is very annoying. You may aswell sit there and wait until it is established/protected so as to prevent the PC from taking it down while it's going up..

A lot of these things are hardcoded into the Blizzard AI which is rather unfortunate as it is very poor in many places.

I agree on the Hero running to the shops by himself, it would be better as you suggested, for the army to move with the hero. I too, have on numerous occasions had a "free kill" in this manner.

MurphGuitar, I also agree with your comments about the "Random Expansions". AIAndy did say that they will improve it in further versions ;]

Let's wait and see.

ohoh, you got us, AMAI got maphack we confess.

Or well to be serious, the AI controlled opponents in Warcraft3 is totaly blind they don't even have a monitor becuse you as player is already using the screen to view your things. So what good is this maphack (if thats what you want to call it) when you blind?

The computer only "know" things in the game, they have to do else they can't make descissions on what to do. They know only key locations for example where everyones base is, all creeps and expansion sites, but not much more. So when configuring the AIs offensive behavior we just make them choose from attacking creeps, enemy main base or enemy expansion. for some of the profiles in AMAI the enemy expansion is a target with high priority while most others prefere to attack creeps or enemy main base, what they choose also depends on the strength of the enemy army(that is as well a kind of 'data' they just know without scouting). But to make it less cheating we made AMAI only almost know that strength it never get's the exact number we add or reduce it with 10% so they won't always make the best descitions by cheating. we also made them don't attack enemy expansions at a rate to remove some cheating from the original Warcraft3 AI (Test to play against the original war3 AI it "always" attack enemy expansions as soon as a enemy tries to expand, AMAI does not.).

Now to the other suggestions.

We know the expansions for computer in AMAI 1.9 don't work very well at the moment they almost never expand on the closest natural expansion sites, this is not our intensions and it will be fixed in next version.

As well will the issues with heroes running away by them selfes, all these features are relatively new and hasn't got much testing before we released unfortunatly thats why there is some issues with computers letting hero/units be killed to easily.

The "units getting stuck" issue has always been there and we have tried multiple solutions, by making them destory own buildings to get out heroes that is trapped behind the buildings and such things but as I already said the AI is "blind" so it's very hard to make the AI understand if a unit is trapped. We don't control the placement of buildings thats all taken care of from the hardcoded parts already in the AI. The issue with notmal units getting stuck is usualy becuse computer place a barack or any other unit production building close to trees and the units get out of the building in a small area behind the building and sometimes get trapped there between the trees. In next version we will try to solve this by making the computer set rallypoint for all the buildings to center of base and that will hopefyllu make the units come out of the buildings in that direction instead of behind the buildings.

Well thats it for now. just ask more, we answere on whatever you all want to know about AMAI and Warcraft3 AI in general.

I've got two AMAI replays here: 8))

Map: Lost Temple
http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/replay/(4)LostTemple.w3m

Replay 1:
AMAI (Rnd->Orc) vs. UD (my bro)
http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/replay/a...LostTemple.w3g

Replay 2:
AMAI (Rnd->UD) vs. UD (me)
http://www.hut.fi/~tgustafs/replay/a...LostTemple.w3g

AMAI was Normal in both of the games, since we did not want it to cheat on resources.

As you can see, the fight wasn't really hard. In fact, AMAI sometimes uses such weird build orders and unit mixes that it feels even easier than the normal blizzard AI (no offense). Look at the second replay, for example. I had creeped some five creep camps before AMAI even begun creeping. When I finally decided to attack, it was so much behind that it had no chance.

I think that the AI would probably perform better if it started creeping earlier at least. Furthermore, it seems that it sometimes uses rather poor units (e.g. all-trolls vs. ghouls) to counter its enemy's strategy.

Cheers,

Tommi

I'll try to take a look at them when I get time. I know AMAI got problems :/ but no they are not easier to beat than the normal war3 AI that we have tested already, AMAI won by at least 16-4 in best of 20 games. :)

Unfortunatly im not a very good player my self so it's hard for me to find the best strategical choices for AMAI but with some help all that will hopefully be solved for next version.

I'm not a really good player either, but I know the Undead pretty well, and I would probably be able to help with designing/testing strategies for them.

Cheers,

Tommi

Im not a very super mega gr8 player. And I don't respond much in the forums. But I think I'll start by talking here :D Cuz I play AMAI quite alot cuz me and my brother doesn't have that good connection. It's an perfect lan enemy if ur just 2-3 guys looking for a fun game :D

So I'll like to help you out with strategies and stuff maybe. I know one UD tactic that's gargs destroyers frostwyrms(Someone of them) fiends. If you can set it so it only works against Orcs. Because orcs mostly just have bat riders and trolls. Not very good anti-air defence. And another UD tactic is Fast Tech necros. (also works gr8 against Orcs) :D

That will do for now hehe. Hopefully I'll respond more in this forum :D

Do you have ICQ?