Three Issues: AI Turn Time, Resource Map Discrepancy, Factory Spam

[CaptBeefheart]

Hello Vic et al.,

I'm at work, but I'll try to send a save within 24 hours. I have the new 2.40.035 loaded and recently fired up a Rising Dawn random scenario with five players (four AI and myself) and X-Large map.

First of all, this is very anecdotal and subjective, but it seems to take a lot of time for the AI players to process their turns. It's gotten worse as the game progresses, like maybe on an exponential curve. I played Ormond's Four Seasons a few years back and this seems to take quite a bit longer to run the AI turns. Shadow Empire also plays out quite a bit faster.

Secondly, on the map there is not always a resource match between map label and hex information. For example, it could read "Oil 3" on the map, but if you click the hex, it may say the hex is a "Raw 2" in the hex information box. Not a big problem, but could cause confusion for someone new to the game.

Thirdly, I may have missed it, but I didn't see a button to limit factory building by the AI. It's so bad, there was even an enemy rifle unit behind the lines that built two gun factories before I hunted it down. Not sure how it could even do that since it had no engineers and supply was cut off. Thanks for the two factories, though.

Cheers,
CB

[ernieschwitz]

Thanks for playing, and the time you spent reporting

I believe the naming issue is a simple one to fix, so that will happen soon. The factory part is a little more difficult, but it could be done. I already mentioned to Ormand (my partner in crime) how to do it.

It must be noted that the AI does not require an engineer to be present to build a factory. The AI really does not understand engineers, except to build roads/bridges. Factories, that were an addition late in the process are handled differently. I think it might be possible to make the building of them in strange places a bit less common. Certainly we can make an option to make the AI build fewer.

The last thing, about turns taking longer than in Shadow Empire. That is natural. This game is somewhat older, and the code for it is too. The bigger you make the map, and the more opponents, the longer it will take. And yes, your observation that it takes longer and longer time the more you get into it is true. This is because the number of units grow, and thus the amount of information that needs to be processed grows too. Killing units would of course reduce the time.. I guess that is another motivation to do so The AI improvements we make will also make the game take a little longer to process turns. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. You either get worse AI play and faster turns, or better AI play and slower turns.

Anyway, I have brought up the issues, and we'll see what can be done

[CaptBeefheart]

Hi Ernie,

Good to hear from you. Understood on the AI processing time and on the AI factories. In his Four Seasons mod, Ormond had a limit AI factory building option. That would likely be helpful here.

I uploaded my most recent save file (need to change "txt" to "at2") in case it helps.

Cheers,
CB

[Ormand]

Thanks for the feedback! I think, but I'll need to check again, that I fixed the naming issue. Sorry, this last update has taken longer than it should. The summer and then back to various activities. And fixing/adding some other things.

As Ernie mentioned, the AI does factories, as well as resource upgrades through events, but fairly simply, i.e., not with engineers. In some ways this is natural as the factories are fairly specialized, and the engine is actually very general, so putting factories in the AI engine could turn out to be complicated and make life difficult to modding. Because it is possible to have various different factories, and the needs are game dependent. And yes, I did add a variant to 4S that slowed them down, and in what I am working on, I also have a fairly simple prioritization for building them. I haven't put it into Rising Dawn because, well, it would change things, and might make people unhappy. But I could do it. I have also succeeded at getting the AI to build airfields and shipyards. All through events. I am trying to tune it though. And, as you noted, it adds a bit of time to the AI turn as I have to check the entire map and look for spots that are within range of the front lines so that the airfields are useful.

I hope to get the next update out this weekend. And, with luck hopefully a new FourSeasons.

One of the items on my to do list is to profile the code and see where it spends time and try to speed things up. More than likely it is a lot of little things that have to be done that cycle over units and the map. But, we'll see.

[CaptBeefheart]

Good to hear from you, Ormond. I look forward to the update.

One other thing I just noticed: The commander of my 4th HQ, Steven Drummy, has zero experience and is at Level 0. He's done about as much fighting as anyone else, so I don't know what's happening here. You'll be able to see it in the save file.

Cheers,
CB