AMAI 2.2

@Tez
"3. There are a lot of cases, when AMAI retreats from battle but his enemy situated between it and base. And AMAI without any hesitations tries to get his way through enemy forces (so… only few of his units save)."

I have checked it b4. It was because units are ordered to go straight to home_location (that is your home town), or fountains.

It would be difficult to fix, I think, just like bliz's scripting on how units can run round about obstacles, but instead taking those creeps' and enemies' eye-sight as "big-obstacles" and run round them...

I think it's possible to make a better detection of situations like this(a superior army is blocking the only escape path) and make AMAI use TP to get out of it at once if it have one. But Im not really sure about it, only the future will tell.

Next up in the series of me asking futile questions about things the AMAI can't be made to do will feature the food limit. I change the food limit in my maps to 125 and I just recently realized the AMAI still doesn't ever go over 100 food in units. This is true even when, in a long game, its supply happens to go over 100 food because of the additional expansions it has built.

Is there any way AMAI can be taught to detect the food limit on a map and take advantage of it if it's higher than 100? I have no scripting knowledge or experience myself, but if anyone could suggest how to change that myself I could try it. Thanks for any help.

Currently that is a bit hidden in the code but in the next version that setting will be exposed so you can easily change it in the settings table.

I am curious. I know previously on this post on of our members inquired about micromanagment and how the AMAI retreats. I am following up with that question of sorts. It seems that AMAI will retreat too early in battles that it could and should win.

-Is there a way to set this or modify this or is it a hard coded Blizzard function?

Also @peon

I changed the radius in the GlobalSettings, but putting in the creep_raduius there caused an error when compiling.

-where should those changes be made?


Thanks in advance.

AMAI tells the hard coded AI when it is allowed to leave by checking the strength of the own army and of the enemy one. If the own strength is lower then the hard coded AI is allowed to leave (if it really does that is another point).

Adding things to the settings tables should work as long as there is a global variable of that exact name in common.eai .

@Zeta09

"I changed the radius in the GlobalSettings, but putting in the creep_raduius there caused an error when compiling.

-where should those changes be made?"

Err... I just changed those values in *.ai and run the amai.exe file putting those scripts in the map. I didn't use perl or something else real "compiler". Not sure whether it is called compile, but it seems working for me.

If it fails to work, say typing mistakes, I just know all worker stop working from the beginning and stand still doing noting. Also I know that declaring variables alone won't lead to compile error...

Anyway, here are the explanations:

expansion_radius = 2000 (area amai would check for enemies' strength and money return b4 expansion, it means to find a safe and high return mine to expand)

creep_camp_radius = 2000 (instead of checking for expansion, it is the area that amai would check for creeps' strength, not necessary a mine)

Note: I set them to 2000 in case another groups of creeps or mines with creeps are nearby.

Also if you change expansion_radius = 2000 then I think there probably need to change function CheckExpansion:

from

call GroupEnumUnitsInRange(g, GetUnitX(expa), GetUnitY(expa), 3*expansion_radius/2, null)

to

call GroupEnumUnitsInRange(g, GetUnitX(expa), GetUnitY(expa), expansion_radius, null)

because there is no need to check creeps' strength in 1.5* 2000 (that is 3000) area, as it is farther than the eye-sight of creeps. The other group shouldn't attack you when you are creeping one of the two groups.

This is all the "meaning" I can guess from AIAndy's coding. Hope this can help you fine tune your parameters ^_^

When there is a threat to AMAI's town. AMAI often tries to reach threatened town simply moving there. And too often it is too late – workers already dead. Or in team play, if one team attacks town – defenders arrive there separately, I think, that's because of different distance from their armies to town.
I suggest to change minimal distance when AMAI uses town portal to defend town:
– For team play decrease it greatly.
– For other cases decrease it too.

And two more ideas.
– Make AMAI to build more towers in every functioning expansion and in main town when it has heaps of money.
– Sometimes there are situations when you have reached food limit (or upkeep limit 50 or 80) and you got some injured units that cannot be healed. In such cases it's a good decision to kill as many of you own injured units as many factories you have. To reproduce them quickly!

PS
Sorry for my English for all my posts.

@Tez: Mine's a different case. AMAI teleports to the town when it sees I'm getting near it, but instead of attacking me, it goes the other direction. Though maybe it's because when I saw it using Town Portal and I backed off, which made AMAI ignore me then. But I am reachable, so I expected AMAI to engage.

I can understand why that happens, thenonhacker. It is due to the computation of town_threatened. It is rather easy to fix by introducing a second such variables for use in different situations but it comes too late for the release of 2.3 (likely today) and I am off on holidays to Lanzarote until the end of the month.

@AIAndy:

Happy Holiday!! ^_^

@Everyone

Just curious, disregard all heros effect, what would you do if your troops came across your rivals' and:

You went air, but they went ranged;
you went heavy, but they went magic, etc that opposite to your armies.

I could think of these tactics, but all seemed bad:

1. Went Ahead and fight, it might be free xp to your rivals

2. Ran away, but what should I do with my troops? Kill them all so that my rivals could not get even a bit xp from me, and changed to others as soon as possible? Dead man walking b4 I can change...

3. Beg my enemies "Couldn't you let me win this time?", heee....

I cannot think of any good way to turn my disadvantage, and put into amai as well...

Any ideas?

Wow. 2.3. Great work AMAI team.

The improved editor rocks. So much stuff you can do and i no longer need 2 different folders 1 for my custom amai and 1 for the real amai. I can have all at once.

Im happy that you like it. :)
Unfortunatly we didn't have time to include everything we wanted to include, I have plans on maybe release a updated version like 2.31 or something in a few days with some other optimizations I didn't have time to do in this release.

Hey peoples. Been using AMAI for a few days now and I must say it is awesome how the AI macros (building and teching quickly) and its micro aint too bad either. However, there are some things I wanna address to better improve the AMAI.

First off, for NE, the DoTC needs to change into bear form during battle aside from roaring and rejuvenating because bears kick a lot more ass than DoTC in its normal form. Furthermore, aside from MGs, bears are the only good meat for NE.

For UD, in a 2 v 2 AMAIs game on Lost Temple Classic, I ran into a game bug. I saw an AMAI UD not re-summon his mine after all his acolytes at the mine died and his mine destroyed as well (this was during his tech to tier 2). Now once he reached tier 2, i think his comp partner gave him some resources, and he rebuilt all 5 acolytes but he didn't resummon his mine at all, instead he built a few more ghouls instead. He soon ran outta money, causing the loss of the game. So that needs to be fixed up. Also, much more emphasis is needed on destroyers. They are actually great against tier 3 heavy armor units, flying units (attack speed and magic dmg), casters, and towers. They are great all around, so it'd be good for the AMAI to get more of them and at a quicker pace. Banshees are also amazing in possessing expensive tier 3 melee units, so some emphasis should be put on there too as maybe on the side counter heavy tier 3 melee strat.

For Orc, emphasis needed on catapults (demolishers), raiders and witchdoctors. AMAI needs to research Burning Oil upgrade for the demolishers, cuz it jus adds that extra punch. Also, raiders needs to become a main anti-air strategy, aside from the usual mass headhunters and shamans/wyverns. Ensnare is a wonderful ability that raiders have and must be upgraded as soon as possible which is at tier 2 not at tier 3. Raiders are not just for seige and they are VERY capable to take down fast speed air units like destroyers/dragonhawks. To strengthen the grunts and catapult/headhunters and catapult strats, raiders must be in both of them as well because of its awesome ensnare ability. This would make the 2 strats waaaay more effective. In any battle, simply have the AMAI ensnare the casters/range at the back with the raiders and focus fire on them with the catapults. Massive wyvern strat needs to be changed to include more batriders. I had a friend take out a [AMAI]chick3n because he refused to change his mass wyvern strat. All my friend had to do was mass batriders+a few raiders and when the comp attacked with his 15 wyverns in a close group, my friend concoctioned his batriders, easily gaining the exp and finishing off the computer. Have AMAI mass batriders when it detects mass air units (such as dragonhawks and other batriders) which can easily take out the mass wyvern strat. Witch doctors which have become almost non-exsitant surprisingly needs to be put back into all orc strats mid game and on. Stasis Traps are amazing at stunning and healing wards own BIG time. AMAI wont have to ALWAYS dance all of their injured units back to townhall, waiting for a healing salve anymore, with such healing wards.

For human, more hawks in their mass air strategies, so that they can easily take out heavy air units such as frost wyrms with their aerial shackles and attack destroyers (immune to gryphons). Also for human, if possible, have the AMAI call the lumber peasants to arms first in case of a harass, instead of calling to arms the whole thing right away because gold is more of a necessity than lumber.

For the overall part, I was wondering if its possible for AMAI to learn how to strategically place their towers and lumbermills. Sometimes, the lumbermill is put too far out of the base and the towers too far in of the base. Another thing, during early harasses, I notice AMAI constantly rebuilding the buildings (towers and shops) at the same places when the opponent take them out. If possible, have them build such buildings at different positions instead of having one permanent building spot. For orcs and humans, dancing injured units all the way back to town hall is a great micro manuever but an even better way is having them dance all the way behind the gold mine. When they do their healing stuff, simply gather them together again. This would prevent any easy killings that their opponents can take, when they approach the townhalls.

You guys have done a fantastic job creating AMAI. Just hoping that such details mentioned above can be implemented/fixed up for the next patch. Peace.

@AIAndy Thanks for confirming, and we look forward to the fix. Meanwhile, enjoy your vacation! :)