Hey Everyone!
I am thrilled to release this newest update which I have worked very hard on since the last update in December. I sort of ran out of time in implementing every single thing I wanted to so have decided to release as is. This will likely be the last update for a potentially long time (months), but this update is loaded with NEW features. I hope you guys love the newer salty chats, and improved unit control when it comes to DUC. Please comment your experience below if you have a few minutes to share! Thank you all so much for trying out Jester! Until we next meet friends,
-ScreamingKoos
;==========UPDATES for Jester Version 2.2:==========
- The time has finally come. I have decided to add a few more basic DUC (Direct Unit Control) rules for Jester! Version 2.2 is noticeably more DUCCY than ever before! Please note these rules are very new and bugs may be expected (although I have tried my absolute best to prevent them).
;----------The following includes some of the new micro/DUC rules for Jester:----------
- 1a: Fine tuned all pre-existing DUC rules with new lessons learned to prevent DUC leaks, save physical performance where possible, and existing rules are much more optimized than ever before!
- 1b: This includes improved dodging arrows from fortifications, sheep-micro in nomad games, gurjara Jesters milling their initial starting sheep, starting scouts gathering sheep etc... Now for the new rules:
- 1c: Jester now attempts to dodge arrows from multiple buildings of the same type, no longer just the first enemy fortification built. Includes most buildings that shoot arrows (town-centers, watch-towers, donjons, castles, kreposts etc).
- 1d: Along with dodging arrows from up to 10 of each of these buildings, Jester attempts to retreat from the actual arrow fire by retreating at an angle to the fortification to better actually dodge arrows.
- 2: Jester now has improved retreat rules and uses DUC to prevent units getting lured from his town when not attacking (NICE TRY MICRO GODS!)
- 3: Villagers no longer idlely standby as battering rams and armored-elephants smash their homes to rubble! Villagers actively target battering rams and armored-elephants inside their town with renewed vigor!
- 4: General backup market rules have been improved with more reasonable distances, and Jester now attempts to use the power of DUC to place markets a little better! (still a WIP)
- 5: Jester now slowly circles enemy fortification buildings (any building that fire arrows) when dodging arrows to eventually make his way into the back of his enemies bases! Has seen great results in the early games, especially while drushing!
- 6: Aweful early lumber and mining camp placements have been greatly improved. Jester uses the holy powers of DUC to actively delete bad lumber and mining camp placements. Jester then retargets the LOGGY BOYS & POINTY FELLAS better than ever! What a great guy!
- 7: The first Georgian mule-cart now uses DUC to attempt to find the closest forest in the beginning of the game instead of boosting the straggler trees like a total noob.
- 8: Jester now uses improved split-rule-goals, up-jump rules, and timers to help prevent your pc from melting into a pool of lava! Make sure to say thanks by sending Jester a Christmas card next year!
- All jokes aside, just adding these few additions/improvements took a monumental amount of time to learn, add, fail, test, fail, relearn, fail, redo entire sections just to get basic functions to even fire, and so on.
- Jester uses minimal micro when compared to many other ai's, but I hope you come to appreciate I always attempt to thoroughly test/optimise Jester's script with even the most basic rules before releasing an update.
- I hope to keep learning new ai techniques and implementing them furociously into future updates. With the new year (2024) the updates will definitely be less often, but we carry on! For now, this is all you get
- A very special thanks to the whole aiscripters community! Thanks so much guys for your knowledge!
- NOW ONWARDS! TO THE GENERAL UPDATES!
;----------END OF DUC UPDATES----------
;----------START OF GENERAL UPDATES:----------
- - Fine tuned many gathering rules across all ages. Jester now gathers more efficiently based on strategy which leads to improved age up times (and military production) for flushing and fast-castle strategies. The following are some examples of what this means:
- 1: When Jester pursues a scout or skirmisher rush he delays gathering gold for much longer and instead focuses on heavy food & wood gathering, which allows for more units much quicker.
- 2: Jester uses less gold villagers instead of 3 or 4 when going for fast-castle, and the extra wood or food villager makes a difference.
- 3: Jester is better now at deciding when to buy & sell resources, or even to drop stone for castle-age up after long feudal-age times.
- 4: Jester takes into account when going archer-rush to not gather as much gold whenever he needs to add counter skirmishers to the flush.
- 5: When Jester is under heavy pressure in early feudal, he focuses on food & wood longer before going for more gold or stone for defence.
- 6: Fixed a serious but rare bug where Jester's feudal economy would stop adapting and he would stockpile too much of the same resources (when attack and defence strategy for feudal were both activated at the same time).
- Improved farming rules in all ages - especially in feudal-age where Jester would sometimes take a very long time building more than 8 farms often affecting age-up times.
- All ages now have improved + backup farming rules so Jester should never just stop producing farms for a long time.
- - Improved town-size rules so Jester gets stuck less often when attempting to place new buildings. Fixed a bug where Jester would not increase town-size at all when under attack for a long time. Still 1 bug where sometimes town-size gets too large too fast (WIP).
- Improved lumber and mining-camp rules to be more efficient and build more often needed camps compared to Version 2.1. This is in addition to the early game micro camps mentioned above ^
- When Jester loses his only town-center, he now deletes all farms, mills, lumber-camps, mining-camps, and mule-carts so he can relocate his base more safely without constantly sending all vills to their deaths at his old base (helpful in long games).
- Tweaked some building-placement rules that use up-set-placement-data to be more reliable.
- Jester no longer builds bombard towers. Instead he builds the watch-tower-line when under pressure in the mid to late game. I was finding the bombard towers rarely hit their target, and don't really damage rams all that much, so #watchtowergang is where we are at now!
- Added back in outpost building rules! Maybe militia rush in imperial-age rules next? (just kidding!)
- Pocket Jesters now have their own attack rules, they are in general much more aggressive & have more influence added to not sit at home!(not perfect, but better!)
- Military level counting is now more dynamic. Jester is more aggressive against smaller military-population enemies, but is much more conservative when attacking target-enemies who have larger armies.
- Fixed nomad rules including DUC rules for nomad sheep gathering, when to place a lumber-camp, mule-cart or town-center first, as well as prioritizing the correct resources for building a town-center as soon as possible. (NOTE: villager scouting appears to be bugged in current game version).
- Fixed a bug that would prevent Jester from rebuilding his town after his last town-center was destroyed in the mid to late game.
- Fixed max-dropsite gathering rules to influence Jester not to walk across the map for resources (usually in enemy bases) when he still has resources nearby.
- When going for a feudal-age rush (flush), Jester holds his units in their buildings before attacking to help hide unit composition from enemy scouts.
- Refurbished focus-player & target-player rules so Jester has more clear conditions on which enemy to target and when to change targeting tactics (generally closest enemies but taunts improved too).
- Jester can now properly research ri-supplies & ri-gambesons.
- Bohemian Jesters now take advantage of training many more monks after completing their unique upgrade that turns monks gold cost into food.
- Jester better balances out economy population when constructing multiple feitorias as portuguese.
- Slightly improved resign rules depending if Jester is alone or on a team. Jester can sometimes be stubborn or resign too easily, so remember you can always use the taunts above to control resigning!
- Identified that Jester has not been explicitly countering any unique-units. Temporary rules have been added so Jester now produces basic counters to MOST enemy unique units. Better counters for these units will definitely come in a future update (see WIP section below for more info).
- Taunt 69 now works as expected (delete the object at the flared location) for allied Jesters, as well as taunts 61 -68 (targeting a specific enemy player, only works on enemies, has been fixed).
- Improved garrison holding and releasing rules based on special circumstances (last update was bugged with this, it now works!).
- NEW CHATS: Changed out/tweaked many chats Jester sends to enemies and allies throughout the game. This includes NEW resign chats, NEW "Banter-Chats", and a NEW under attack chats system! Jester now harrasses you at the start, middle, and end game!
- Many more smaller bug fixes/improvements/updates but at this point I don't remember them all! Thanks for reading though!
;----------END OF GENERAL UPDATES:----------
If I had more time I would love to update Forthwind further, even adding in more walling rules, improving his trush and just making his strategies even more random (maybe like full trash rush, mangonel and monk rush, or even militia in imperial age rush as a complete meme?) lol. That being said if I ever do find time I would love to add further updates for Forthwind (I have gone through A LOT of learning while improving Jester, all I have learned would greatly come in handy for updating Forthwind).
Good luck!
