Inferior team play

I play team games almost exclusively, be it 2v2 with my GF, or 3v3 with my GF and brother. With the release of 2.41 we changed our opponent to AMAI thinking to get a greater challenge as my GF and I had got to the point where we always won against Blizzard simply by out-creeping it (as the Blizzard AI creeps everything in the area before attacking... very RoC).

After watching the recent Battle.net Championship replays, we've adjusted our game to a much more aggressive, early assault approach. We found we won every game against AMAI by amassing an army, rushing a base, surrounding and killing enemy heroes without losing ours, and then generally winning by the 20 minute mark with very little creeping.

Having read the comments by Zalamander that he hadn't much experience with team games, I thought to compare AMAI with the Blizzard AI, so we setup a 3 on 3, firstly whooping AMAI (Normal) with the usual tactic, then taking on Blizzard (Normal), trying to apply the method used against AMAI. Much to my surprise, we were destroyed. In truth, this was probably due to the way our play, and the targetting routines of the Blizzard AI work, rather than any huge difference in how they play, but even in the second game when we had a much better idea of what to expect, we still found it harder. I admit, I believe we could beat Blizzard with ease simply by out-creeping, but that would be harder to beat than we find AMAI right now.

I don't know if this is limited to team games as they're the only ones I play, but beating AMAI with greater ease than Blizzard seems wrong, after all, why work for two years to produce an inferior AI?

I've attached a series of team games I've had with AMAI (don't expect perfect play, we're not brilliant, but we can beat the AI and for the purposes of this forum that's all that matters :)). The ones of greatest interest will be the 3 on 3 games as we used the same map three times, once against AMAI (winning with the usual tactic... our first ever game on this map), one losing against Blizzard, and then the third beating Blizzard.

I suppose it could be in part because all the Blizzard AIs have the same personality, while the AMAIs don't, and in team games you tend to play to one strategy, not several. However, I'm no master of the game so don't think to write a deep analysis of these games. I simply hope these replays can help you to identify any problems that might exist, to isolate the reason behind the ease/difficulty we had in our games, and to make AMAI a greater opponent than Blizzard in every way... AMAI is just so much more interesting to play, but if it isn't harder...

Anyway, hope this proves useful to you. My folder structure is as follows:

Maps
Maps\AMAI
Maps\AMAI\Frozen Throne
Maps\AMAI\WebMaps
Maps\Frozen Throne
Maps\Scenarios
Maps\WebMaps

In the 3v3 AMAI game, note at 18 minutes the flght or flight confusion exhibited by light blue... actually, light blue was a powerful force in that game, yet seemed to continually abandon his allies time and time again. With his help, they may have driven us off for a while.

interesting....so youre showing these to us to......show that amai is not effective? i didnt quite get what you were saying...then again, im awefully tired.

I'm simply saying that, when playing our 3 on 3s, we found AMAI easier to beat than Blizzard. There are many reasons this might be, so I'm posting the replays in case the team is interested so they can see if there is any way AMAI's team play can be improved, as Zalamander has already said it's not exactly his speciality.

ooh....i see. ill have to watch the replays later, but it sounds cool.

thanks.

-flames'

We cant expect an AI could be smarter than human player especially wc3 players who has been playing alot like me :P, so we have to give some kind of handicap to the comp like they have more gold, yup play in insane mode, amai is goin crazy on insane mode, far more than blizzard ai could have done. Try to beat amai in teams on insane mode and let me see the replay ..thanks

That's a rather blanket statement. Men may on average be stronger than women, but that doesn't mean all men are stronger than all women. Likewise, the AI isn't better than good human players, but it's better than a lot of them. Not only that, but the AI can excel in ways no human can. Script engine allowing, its APM should be able to blow away the fastest Korean.

Anyway, the point from my original post was that it isn't a case of humans being better than AIs, but rather than even in a best case scenario, AMAI is no better at team games than Blizzard AI. Are you going to tell me that Blizzard AI is as good as AI teamplay can get? I don't think so.

I have zero interest in playing against Insane. If AMAI becomes too easy, I'll start adding more players to the other team. However, as I said, my point is that for team games we don't play AMAI in the first place, we play Blizzard because it's harder to beat in a team situation.

I posted the following over in the "Oh no!" topic by mistake, I meant to post it here (and this post would have come before both mine and Shadowstrikes).


Hmmm, maybe I spoke too soon. While my GF and brother can't take Blizzard yet, under my might command :) in a 3v3 and 2v2 we took Blizzard with ease. So, maybe it's just more experience in spanking AMAI in team games/being surprised by the level of Blizzard's hero targetting?

However, at best AMAI ranks as "no better" than Blizzard in a team game, and at worst "not quite as good". That stinks of room for improvement :).

Anyway, I upload the four latest games for your analysis.

http://www.wc3campaigns.com/attachme...chmentid=51451

Yeah I would gladly improve team game a bit more but I don't know of any improvements we could do, Im only getting so pissed by the Blizzard hardcoded team AI making the computers helping each other with "everything" thats interupting with every singel improvement we are trying to apply to team games.

Firgure how irritating in a team of 3 computers when te hardcoded AI send 2 other computers to help the 3rd one to creep a creep group of 1 level 2 creep and 2 level 1 creeps(a creep group anyone almost can usualy take on with an alone hero).

Until we find a way to override this hardcoded AI the team game improvements is almost going nowhere.

are you sure youre using your words carefully? if im not mistaken, thats stereotyping. excuse me if im wrong, but how can one be so sure of this "fact"?

You've lost me.

@Zalamander

I could see a few things

1. Blizzard's armies tend to stick closer together. Almost certainly due to them all playing the same way, but it means you can't take out one before the others arrive... at least it's hard.

2. AMAI doesn't support its allies properly. I believe I mentioned it above, Agressio (however you spell it :)) teleports in to help his allies, then runs away again about ten seconds later. Without his forces, the other two AMAIs armies are spanked, a base goes down, and then it's 3v2 and game over.

In a team game the AMAI players act independantly where as teams don't. If you watch the replays you'll see there's very little independant play on the human side. There's a lot of me shouting down my mic and pinging the map, and trying my best to ensure that all three of us stick together and attack early before the AI has got its act together.

The AI's are dangerous when they attack together, but the thing is they're so easy to rush. If you get your team to put together a force quickly, then move on the enemy base (and even if there are multiple starts, they're not hard to find with your first ghoul/beetle) you can take out their hero/army before the others arrive, and from then on the odds are on your side along with the initiative.

AMAI needs to realise that so long as each AI is doing its own thing, it's weakened. If we launch the first attack then AMAI is either

a) going to lose an army

b) going to use TP scrolls

That is, unless its armies stay close, which they don't. Perhaps AMAI needs to track its allied armies and not allow them to be more than X apart. Right now each AI does its own thing and they only work as a team when we come calling and force them too, then it's off creeping again, or one AI sending over some units.

As I said, hopefully my replays will show WHY it's losing, at least to us. Creeping isn't a problem because it barely gets a chance to. We don't, I might take one green camp as I get my troops out faster than my GF and brother, but then we launch our attack and probably don't touch a creep camp again from then on as we proceed to win the game.

hmm our way to make them not return to base between attacks might be whats causing that bug when they are going to help that they run away at once, should test to disable that in team play I guess.

Watch the replays (I'll stop saying that now :)), I've done (at the least) the comparative work for you. At worst, you should be able to see why we find Blizzard a touch harder in team games (even if it's simply down the way we play).

The code for armies helping each other is old and not very good. It has not been improved for quite some time. It will be one of the things that are rewritten with the introduction of the plan system.

I look forward to that. I find Blizzard boring and predictable, but AMAI is just plain inferior in team games, which is a real shame.