ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Upload your latest creations here.
Please note that by posting comments to posts in this forum you forfeit your personal copyright on whatever you post. AI Scripters reserves the right to re-use objective comments in script reviews without requiring the posting author's permission. Credit, where appropriate will be given in such cases.
LightAndDarkness
Forumer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:23 pm

ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by LightAndDarkness »

As a new AI scripter, ShadeBot is my first (major) project, and making it has helped me learn a lot about AOE2 AI, though I still have a long way to go, and ShadeBot is still pretty terrible (probably in part because I'm not great at the game myself). I mainly develop ShadeBot on HD (Steam link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =724179957), but the attacked file is for UP 1.4, though the only differences are as follows:

- The 1.4 version will not research the Eagle Warrior or Imperial Camel upgrades, as I do not know what the CD AoFE names them.
- The 1.4 version builds its town in a more defensible way (i.e., buildings closer together). This is a change I have implemented in the HD version as well, but as it is currently the only change from the version currently on Workshop, I have elected not to update the posted version until I have more updates.

ShadeBot is a Random Map, Fast Castle AI capable of playing any civilization, though it of course is better with some than others. ShadeBot's main strategy is to attack with either Knights or Crossbows, depending on civilization, backed up by Monks, trash, and siege. It will also mine stone and start building Castles so as to start using its unique unit later in the game as well. ShadeBot cannot currently play water maps. In team games, ShadeBot will trade and defend its teammates once it has a large enough army, but will not currently tribute resources or respond to chat.

As a disclaimer, I am aware that many UP functions, such as boar luring, are available in HD with the expansions. ShadeBot currently does not use very many of them because I so far have not been able to implement those functions well enough to actually improve performance; I have a development version of ShadeBot that hunts boar and has a set build order, but I think it actually plays worse than the uploaded version.

Thank you in advance for all feedback.
Attachments
ShadeBot1.2.zip
(5.56 KiB) Downloaded 368 times
Last edited by LightAndDarkness on Wed Aug 03, 2016 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Esty
Waheguru
Posts: 1159
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2015 7:37 am

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by Esty »

Hello & Welcome LightAndDarkness

Some first ideas to help to improve ur start :

- 2 villagers should build the first house, to prevent being housed at ur 4th villager (pop5)
- Your first 9-11 villagers should focus on food only. The build order practiced by humans going on wood at the 7th villager is not the best BO for AIs...
- You should research loom as soon as your AI can't produce villager (lake of 50F).

Those 3 tips should help you to make your town center BUSY the first 10 minutes :)

I notice that you dont make more than 26 villagers in dark age. At least you can't research feudal at time. I think you should produce more villagers (maybe 30). It will delay your feudal age time but you'll have a much better economy. Moreover, if your goal is the castle age, those some more villagers produced in dark might give u extra resources, very usefull for your fast castle !

Good luck haha
Author of TRiBaL_Warrior, Yggdrasil, PharaoN, WoodyWood Pecker and currently :o dette :dance

scripter64
Waheguru
Posts: 5891
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:36 pm

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by scripter64 »

Welcome to the forum! :)

User avatar
Promiskuitiv
Waheguru
Posts: 1364
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:07 pm

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by Promiskuitiv »

Welcome to the forums LightAndDarkness! :)

Downloaded your AI and will definitively give it a try in the future (actually i already tested it once but my attention was diverted - it seemed to do well for a new script though)! :)

User avatar
CheeseOnToast
Yogi
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 5:48 pm

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by CheeseOnToast »

Seems pretty solid at the moment, right now you should probably think about added boar luring and such to make it advance faster, also, it may be better to go up on 29 pop instead of 27 pop and training 2 vills in feudal.

Also a variety of units can be very bad for an AI if its not balanced correctly so be careful with that :lol:

Look forward to seeing more updates

LightAndDarkness
Forumer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:23 pm

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by LightAndDarkness »

estyty wrote:Hello & Welcome LightAndDarkness

Some first ideas to help to improve ur start :

- 2 villagers should build the first house, to prevent being housed at ur 4th villager (pop5)
- Your first 9-11 villagers should focus on food only. The build order practiced by humans going on wood at the 7th villager is not the best BO for AIs...
- You should research loom as soon as your AI can't produce villager (lake of 50F).

Those 3 tips should help you to make your town center BUSY the first 10 minutes :)

I notice that you dont make more than 26 villagers in dark age. At least you can't research feudal at time. I think you should produce more villagers (maybe 30). It will delay your feudal age time but you'll have a much better economy. Moreover, if your goal is the castle age, those some more villagers produced in dark might give u extra resources, very usefull for your fast castle !

Good luck haha
You raise some interesting points; I've been thinking of things in terms of normal, human build orders, but those probably aren't right for an AI, especially not an unoptimized one.
scripter64 wrote:Welcome to the forum! :)
Thanks!
Promiskuitiv wrote:Welcome to the forums LightAndDarkness! :)

Downloaded your AI and will definitively give it a try in the future (actually i already tested it once but my attention was diverted - it seemed to do well for a new script though)! :)
Thank you for giving it a look!
CheeseOnToast wrote:Seems pretty solid at the moment, right now you should probably think about added boar luring and such to make it advance faster, also, it may be better to go up on 29 pop instead of 27 pop and training 2 vills in feudal.

Also a variety of units can be very bad for an AI if its not balanced correctly so be careful with that :lol:

Look forward to seeing more updates
Boar luring is probably the next thing I'm going to add; as I mentioned, I do have it working, just not very effectively yet.

So far, unit variety hasn't seemed to cause too many problems, but it's something I'll be sure to

User avatar
Aleph
Yogi
Posts: 487
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 10:07 am
Location: Germany

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by Aleph »

If it doesn't castle in under 16 minutes, it sucks!

Just kidding m8, welcome to the wonderful world of :head :head :head

LightAndDarkness
Forumer
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:23 pm

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by LightAndDarkness »

ShadeBot version 1.2 is now up both here and on Steam.

Changelog:
-ShadeBot now trains 3 more villagers in the Dark Age and hunts boar.
-ShadeBot focuses more on wood in the Feudal Age, allowing for a 2nd TC to consistently go up as soon as ShadeBot hits the Castle Age.
-ShadeBot focuses more on wood in the Castle Age if going for xbows or cav archers.
-ShadeBot has some chat functionality now; it will tell allies its strategy at the beginning of the game, and responds to taunts 12 and 31 from allies.

User avatar
Esty
Waheguru
Posts: 1159
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2015 7:37 am

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by Esty »

NICE ! i will test it...
Author of TRiBaL_Warrior, Yggdrasil, PharaoN, WoodyWood Pecker and currently :o dette :dance

User avatar
Esty
Waheguru
Posts: 1159
Joined: Wed Dec 30, 2015 7:37 am

Re: ShadeBot (Looking for critiques and suggestions)

Post by Esty »

MMh it has a bug : Invalid identifier : town-center-foundation
change with "621" and it will work
or u have to defconst
Author of TRiBaL_Warrior, Yggdrasil, PharaoN, WoodyWood Pecker and currently :o dette :dance

Post Reply