Misconception??

Hi All
I've started taking an interest in AI scripting and would like to explore it further. The game that started it all was Age of Kings where AI scripting is possible. I then found this forum on AI modification. However I have a few questions regarding the AI:

• What is the difference between using AMAI and for argument sake me scripting the AI?
• I've read that actual changing of the AI is quite mammoth and only AMAI have actually achieved this, so basically what has AMAI done on improving the vanilla AI?
• Can I alternate between strategies (that I've made) by using AMAI?
• What is JASS used for in the great scheme of things?
• What similarities do all of the above have in common with AoK?

I'm sorry for the length post, however I have only so much time on hand and would like to invest in something worth will (such as the activities on this forum).
Basically all I want in the end of the day is to have an AI where I can customise its manner of thinking in skirmish games.
Thanks,
Nitram

Hello there, nice to see more poeple with our AI interest in common is joining.

Unfortunatly I have never improved AI before war3. only tried a bit in starcraft so I have now idea how it is in Age of Kings.
But well, war3 AI can be changed and improved almost into infinity thanks to the very open and powerfull JASS script language war3 uses. ( http://jass.sourceforge.net )

Well this might gonen be a little text but well here it goes.

I can tell you some of the big differences from War3 AI and AMAI we have made the past 2 years while it has been in development.

First thing that is the "AMAI" that really started it all and that was big thing in the release of AMAI 0.1 is the dynamic build function.

Normal War3 AI build: Everything builds in a static order, every single unit, building and upgrade is entered in a list and the AI builds everything in exactly that order. the bad things with this is many, among them are that you will need to enter a lot of code just to make one advanced build order, the other big bad thing is that the order is easily distrupted when a enemy player destroys things that was already built earlier in this order, they have to build up everything again without thinking about if they need it or not.

AMAIs Dynamic build: The main purpose of AMAI is that it's made to be easy to edit and at the same time work better than the original War3 AI. This dynamig build is one of the greatest acomplishments that helps us reach this goal. It makes it possible for you to only enter in a list what you want the AI to get in the end instead of typing down a whole order of things that leads to your goal.

example:

Yes this is the thing, AMAI can do in 2 rows what normal War3 AI does in 18 rows of code or more, I didn't enter the building of worker units needed to harvest gold and lumber in that order, they usualy is present there as well.
So AMAI automaticaly knows what it need to acomplish the goals, it knows that it have to build workers to get the resources to build these footmen and riflemen, it also knows they are produced in a barrack and that the blacksmith is needed for reiflemen, lastly it also knows that farms is needed to support the food usage of the units. AMAI will probally also build all this ina faster more optimized build order than the one in normal War3 and it comes up with this build order almost all by it self by making calculations with priorities, prices and build times.

The second big improvement of AMAI came with AMAI 2.0, that was our own strategy editor for it that made it very easy to change in strategies and settings and add new strategies to the computers without any problem but well. the amount of improvements of AMAI is much greater than I can even remember or want to write in a forum.

Im working on a article that will take upp the whole history about AMAI, it will be posted on our web page once Im done.

For additional information about AMAI and how it works compared to normal War3 AI you might want to read the manual for AMAI Developer Edition.
http://amai.wc3campaigns.com/MAN/AMAI_DE_Manual.html

Im not sure what you mean with the alternat strategy question but im sure you can find the anwere to that there. And Iguess you know by now if yoy read all this that JASS is used for almost everything in question of War3 modification.