Tiering up with WE AI Editor

The regular WE AI editor (not directly edited .ai files) seems to always wait until it has twice the resources required for the tier 2 upgrade before upgrading, and 3 times the resources when upgrading to tier 3. I got my AI all set up, made a big timeline and everything in Excel, so that it runs smoothly from order to order. However, this issue really destroys any strategies that involve early teching. It doesn't seem to happen when the computer's difficulty level is set to insane, but that is more likely just because Insane computers get such massive amounts of resources that it doesn't have to wait at all.

So, is there any way I can get the AI to tier up instantly, rather than waiting for twice the resources it actually needs?

This issue may turn out to be one of the many Warcraft III limitations, but have you tried adding a condition to the order that checks for 450g and 100l rather than the default, say, 800g and 150l?

Tried it already =\. It is looking like it's just one of the limitations.

hm... i never had that problem with my ai.... sometimes my ai built the tier too fast for my setup.... its probably waiting in the queup...

I did my test, and this can be solved if you put the upgrade as the first first priority. The most probable reason of this issue is because it gives priority to other things before the upgrading.

Check the screenshots to see how I did my test.

For a long time I thought it was something wrong with my build order. However, after watching it more closely it was always *exactly* when the AI got twice (or three times for Tier 3) the resources needed. I was messing around with more unusual AI builds, and was trying to get a quick tech to tier 3 with a hero harassing (so it's probably quite a bit different than yours unless you also had a fast tech build, although I'm not sure). It was somewhat successful, but this problem is slowing the tech down a ton, and speed is obviously crucial to its success.

Edit: Thanks a ton moyack! Not sure why I didn't try that, I've had to do that with several other of my problems too ; ). I didn't think it would be a priority issue because the AI does nothing else while waiting for enough resources. I'll try this right now.

In order to have this working, you must focus the AI on improve the gathering speed, so it has enough resources to achieve the upgrade as fast as possible. Probably you are looking that the AI gets enough gold, but you forgot that the lumber cost of the upgrades is high too (in the case of the orcs, the lumber cost is 375, too much for peons which only can carry 10 lumber per gathering) :p

Unfortunately, what you suggested didn't seem to change anything. It still waited for 2 times the resources required before upgrading to the Keep (I'm using Human). Did you test it with that method,and it worked? Maybe there's something else that I need to change.


Don't worry, I played a good bit of melee in my day :). Although the calculations I made within my "timeline" for the build order were surprisingly inaccurate as far as lumber is concerned. Probably because the AI always builds their lumber mills as far away as possible =P. Should be easy to work out though once/if I get this issue resolved.

Yes, I tested it with orcs, and the AI upgraded as soon as it has the required gold and lumber.

oO. It's doing the same thing for me with Orcs too. Can I see a screenshot of your other tabs too (I think the General tab would be the only applicable one)?

I'd still like to know what the problem is, but I was able to somewhat work around it by creating more units during and after the upgrades to tier 2/3, since I had more money from waiting around. So far it seems surprisingly effective, I've tested against a few of the AI's from the contest and had no problems, as well as easily handling the regular Blizzard AI.

Edit: Something I've done to modify the AI seems to have fixed this problem. I find this very wierd though...I wish I knew why it happened.