AMAI 2.2

Yep, 1vs1 Normal. I'm thinking of trying Insane mode in my next games, but with your good news hints of improved AI, I would rather try that! :) I'm using the AMAI for Patch 1.16 right now.

Almost everyday I go to Blizzard and check if 1.17 is already out, same goes for AMAI. :)

Does Easy affect team co-ordination? I play with some truly awful players, I'm not exactly hot myself. 1 on 1 I can beat the AI (Easy Blizzard, haven't tried anything else, except one game with AMAI on easy), but in a team game we get crushed, simply because the AI moves armies together, responds to attacks on its base... it does so far too well for an Easy AI.

Crap players don't have that level of co-ordination, believe me :) Does AMAI lower its team co-ordination on easy?

actualy the team co-ordination in the AI is hardcode, and it's a great flaw, we want to turn it off to make them play even better in teams, as it is now they co-ordinate every single attack and it looks so stupid when a AI attacks a small group of creeps and all it's allies come running from other side of the map just to get half the way and the first attacking AI has already killed the creeps.
They would be better off creeping by them selves and leave the co-ordination to attacks on other players.

I guess this is the second most serious hardcoded flaw we need to take care of somehow now when the return to base finally is fixed. Fortunatly the return to base will also help making this flaw less serious since the computers that was heading to help another will no longer run back to base again before they start the next attack, they will just turn to the next target when they see that the allied computer don't need the assistance any more.

Well, actually Easy is not that much easier than Normal. There are only some hard coded behaviors switched off. If it is requested we can switch off some of the things we added to AMAI on Easy.

Well, from playing the Blizzard AI, the AI seems to take a little longer to start creeping, but that's about all I noted. Once suffering a heavy defeat it does seem to take longer to get moving again... maybe.

The differences are hardly night and day though. I expect the same is true of AMAI if what I read above is true.

The number of heroes used is related to the difficulty level with Blizzard AI
I noticed that on Easy, the Blizzard AI never made more than one hero.
In Normal difficulty , i never saw more than 2 heroes.

But, as it is been a long time since i played for the last time the Blizzard AI (the much interesting AMAI is my way of playing offline since lot of time) , it can have changed with some patches.

The differents between easy and normal in standard AI is for what I know:

Easy is limited to 1 hero (Might be harder to beat due to this, hard to say since one hero get much more experience and will reach level 6 skill faster) Normal can build 3 heroes since the release of TFT.
Easy has a huge sleep in the main attack loop making it wait 5 minutes between every attack(Easy will most of time be stationed in it's base).
Easy build no towers to guard expansions.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function group fleeing.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded function hero buy items.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function smart artillery.(they don't stay out of the towers range with a catapult)
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function target enemy heroes.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function units flee.
Easy don't make allied target attacks(co-ordinated attacks) against large creep groups and players.(yet still they do try to help each other all the time no matter what)
Easy don't use mega targets.(Sending a huge attack against weak enemies to kill them)
Easy only attack enemy towns directly if they got 3 or more towns, this is one or more for normal and zero or more for insane.

Thats about all I can find, the only things of these used in AMAIs easy is for wht I know the hardcoded micromanegement functions that are turned off. thats:

Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function group fleeing.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded function hero buy items.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function smart artillery.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function target enemy heroes.
Easy don't make use of hardcoded micromanagement function units flee.


We never thiguht of AMAI to hard to beat since I can beat a normal very easy, we have mainly concentrated on trying to make the normal skilled and easy skilled to be as hard as possible to beat, or only te normal skill but since most of it will directly have a impact on easy as well it will make easy harder as well for every improvement.
But we can add more limits to Easy if you guy really think it's needed.

Very interesting informations, i never thought the Easy AI was that limited on purpose, but i must say that i played so few games in Easy since i have this game that i don't really remember (only the 1 hero only fact).

Is there such a difference between Blizzard Normal and Hard or is Hard advantage based only on the extra gold it can collect ?

I never saw any Normal Blizzard AI to build 3 heroes.
Maybe it was because i never left them to do so or maybe it is because i do not have TFT (AMAI on Normal build the 3 heroes often, no problem).

And is there a difference between AMAI Normal and Hard beside the extra gold ?
I never played AMAI Easy now that i think about it, as i have already lots of fun with Normal level (and i began to play AMAI at Normal level).

But if AMAI Easy is already too strong for a beginner, maybe it could be interesting for those player if you could add the same 1 hero only limit that can be found on Blizzard AI.
Despite the Easy AMAI would arrive to level 6 quicker, this way the beginner would have to deal only with a hero (and so no "nuke" , no multi aura ...).

But maybe it would break too much a lot of the AMAI build orders and AMAI strategies ?

Personally, I would like to see AMAI made a viable alternative to the Blizzard AI, no matter your ability (only on easy of course). However, that isn't really viable at its present Easy skill. There are many reasons to want AMAI, besides its superior abilities, its unpredictability compared to the Blizzard AI for one.

I would rather see limits that were more in line with newbie mistakes than silly limits like no guard towers by expansions. If there's one thing newbies do, it's build too many towers, not too few.

The Blizzard limits would be a good beginning though.

I guess we can put in some more limitations to make AMAI Easier in Easy skill.

The difference between Normal and Insane in the Standard AI is only the dubble income. In AMAI however there is some adjustments to Insane to make it play better(since it got the resources to play better).
It is allowed to switch strategies more often. This is something that insane can benefit from with all the resources but would make the normal skill become wors and start wasting resources.

I am beginning to play on Hard (i made a typo in my previous post when i wrote that "and i began to play AMAI at Normal level" , it was Hard that i meant)

And it is really fun, i already won versus the Hard Blizzard AI on 1vs1 but after some defeats with the Hard AMAI i think it will take me a lot more time to figure out some strategies to defeat AMAI at that level.
Maybe selecting always the same map to fight the Insane AMAI on it repeatedly will help to learn from my own mistakes.

Until now, it is very challenging and interesting, at this difficulty level AMAI deserve its name "Insane" :)

well so far only my friend who betatests AMAI (WargH) is the only one I have seen beating a Insane with normal play without any AI abuse like air harass over the forest/water or very fast rush/harass.

His tactics is to expand him self and prevent the AI from expanding and by that making his income the same as the computers, and if he can survive until the computers starting mine is depleted he usualy win.

Hi guys I just had a strange game with the amai 2.20 ReMus. After 20 mins ReMus' fiends stand around the Necropolis for 4 mins and at about the 25th min his fiends were attacking each other. The remaining ones were :god_help_us: around a goldmine. o_O Here is the replay.

I have not time currently to watch that replay but I will do so some time. From the description it sounds like the focus fire bug that caused them to attack each other (I am unsure if that one was still in 2.20). If it is that, then it should be fixed now.

Ok War3 1.17 is released and we are revealed that Blizzard fixed tha multi hall upgrade bug that appeared in the beta of 1.17.

AMAI 2.40 should be released within a week if we are lucky, still a few things need to be updated.
As I have earlier promised visitors of our IRC channel will get links to beta versions earlier and it's there already.
#AMAI at irc.quakenet.org
Information is in topic of the channel.

Go there if you want to be a unofficial AMAI beta tester and have a taste of what the new AMAI has to offer while you might spot some bugs we missed that can be fixed before the real 2.40 release hopefully. :)

My nick is always in the channel, however Im not awake there most of time but it never hurts to ask me.