Jester (V 2.21) & Forthwind (V 2.1)
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2021 1:11 am
Hi everyone, I have decided to update the main page here, as well make an additional post when a new update has become available! Enjoy!
*The following comes from the main Jester.per file which is included in the download*
JESTER.AI Created by ScreamingKoos
Version 2.21
Release Number: 8
Release Date: March 9, 2024
;==========OVERVIEW FOR BOTH AI's:==========
- Jester & Forthwind are two separate RM (random-map) ai's created by me.
- Jester can play any civilization in the game up to "The Mountain Royals" DLC (up to Armenians & Georgians). Jester can play as or counter any of these civs.
- Forthwind can play any civilization up to "The Lords of the West" DLC. This EXCLUDES: Armenians, Bengalis, Dravidians, Georgians, Gurjaras, and Romans. Forthwind will is not optimized to play as the new civs.
- Jester is stronger, more updated, and less random than Forthwind.
- Forthwind will tower-rush, build walls, and not play as competitively as Jester. Both ai's are, however, quite silly and fun to play with.
- Both ai's can play land maps (like arabia), connected water maps (like coastal), and separated water maps (like islands). They perform best on land maps and the least on island-style water maps. They do have basic water map rules for ships & economy for compatability purposes.
- They both can also play any nomad-style maps (where there is no town-center or lumber-camp to start with and they must start from scratch).
- Please note, both ai's are not tested to play the following map-types: Migration, "Nothing" style maps (like forest-nothing), and Michi style maps.
- Both ai's are aggressive. They have many different strategies that are initially randomly generated at the game start, and improve over time as the game plays. You will experience a different game every playthrough even if they use the same civilizations. You never know what to expect!
- Both ai's are fun to play with as allies, enemies, or even just spectating them fighting other custom created ai's.
- Jester gets his name from having a humorous twist on all things he does! (Forthwind is humorous too).
- Jester & Forthwind are only tested on and work for Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition (No wololo-kingdoms, or HD editions sadly).
- I am not currently working on new updates for Forthwind (but may in the future), so for this reason the following below is mostly referring to Jester, although many of it still applies to Forthind:
;==========DID YOU KNOW? (quick facts)==========
- Jester can play nomad style maps (land or water just not migration-types), and has rules to always prioritize either a lumber-camp, mule-cart, or town-center when his last tc is destroyed (or the game starts without one!)
- Jester will automatically sling extra resources to any allies that are low on resources. You can still use taunts 3 - 6 for a more manual way to ask for resources (player or computer allies).
- Jester will always mirror your diplomatic stance. Comes along with some chats for every type of stance change during the game. There is NO tricking this guy!
- Jester responds to several taunts in the game and depending on the age may respond differently. Most taunts work when Jester is set as an ally. Taunts are listed below:
;==========;TAUNTS:==========;
; Use taunts 3 - 6 to ask for resources.
; Taunt 31 - Attacks immediately if he is able to (not under attack and has reasonable military).
; Taunt 32 - Pursue default aggressive strategy for current age (dependent on civ-selected).
; Taunt 33 - Pursue economy strategy for current age (boom).
; Taunt 36 - Disable attacking rules (use taunt 31 to re-enable afterwards).
; Taunt 37 - Build a wonder (imperial-age only)
; Taunt 43 - Current strategy information.
; Taunt 44 - Current resources & population information.
; Taunt 45 - Temporary retreat back to main town-center.
; Taunt 50 - flare a location on the map and send this taunt for a chance of Jester to build a tower, donjon, krepost, or castle at the location.
; Taunt 52 - flare a location on the map and then send this taunt for a chance Jester will build a market at the flared location.
; Taunts 61 - 68: Jester will temporarily target the numbered player (this taunt now works as intended, only resets if Jester is under attack or the target-enemy dies).
; Taunt 69 - Deletes the object at the flared location.
; Taunt 72 - Pursue militiaman-line (infantry) strategy.
; Taunt 73 - Pursue melee cavalry units strategy. (knights, shrivamsha-riders, savars, battle-elephants, steppe-lancers, camels, etc.). This is dependent on the current civilization and only works for that current age. Use these in imperial-age for a more permanent strategy.
; Taunt 74 - Pursue archer-line strategy (foot archer only).
; Taunt 76 - Drush the enemy (must be early dark-age to work).
; Taunt 104 - Fully turns off all resign rules (when taunting either enemy or ally Jesters).
; Taunt 105 - Revert back to default resign rules after taunt 104 was issued.
; Taunt 150 - Resign immediately (when spectating as Jester, useful for casting games).
; Taunt 151 - Resign immediately (when taunted to an ally or enemy Jester, useful for a stubborn opponent or casting games).
; Taunt 250 - Chats current Jester version.
; Taunt 251 - Chats certain testing strategic-numbers (I use this for testing Jester, but feel free to use it too lol).
; Jester also responds to some other taunts, but not in a way you would expect! (example: Taunt 69).
;==========UPDATES for Jester Version 2.21 (March 9, 2024):
- This is a smaller update that aims to fix some recently introduced bugs and make Jester playable again for the March PUP. Added a couple new additions as well!
;====================================================
- Fixed a bug that was introduced in the March 2024 PUP that would make Jester unplayable.
- Fixed a circular logic bug that could cause Jester to turn on & off arrow dodging rules repeatedly.
- Provided a bug fix for a rare but critical Direct Unit Control (DUC) bug that would set all military units to no-attack-stance forever. Should not be able to happen anymore with backup conditions added.
- Jester now disregards using villagers to target rams & armored elephants when villager numbers are too low (dynamically based on pop-cap settings).
- Improved focus-player rules by allowing them to update much more often. Jester's initial scout should have less of a chance to dying from early enemy TC's.
- Fixed a bug which consisted of Jester endlessly deleting the first mining-camp foundation even when it was placed correctly near gold or stone. This could sometimes lead to serious delays of the first mining-camp greatly affecting economy.
- Jester now targets and deletes his oldest camps (lumber & mining) one at a time after a number of them have been built.
- Introduced a temporary solution that forces a small number of villagers to nearby berries (if close to a mill) once farms start getting built (useful for Yucatan style maps).
- Testing VERY basic rules in this update that should influence Jester to help AI allies. Ran out of time to test this fully...
- Jester flanks & pockets now properly counter war-elephants and have improved countering for enemy unique siege units (i.e. organ guns, hussite-wagons, etc).
- Jester no longer automatically retreats when pursuing a booming strategy (was causing Jester to stop attacking even when far ahead in military, allowing enemy to reboom in many situations and catch up).
- The first placed castle has improved preference to be placed at the front of Jester's base.
- Jester can now research ri-devotion.
- Changed out a few of the chats/updated existing ones!
- A couple other small improvements/bug fixes.
;----------END OF GENERAL UPDATES:----------
;==========KNOWN ISSUES/WIP:==========
1: Jester will break easily against tower rushing or castle drops, There are basic defence rules against this but they are not as intuitive yet. (WIP - this is only really possible with DUC, with the level I'm at now, I may be able to implement defence rules soon! - fixes to come)
2: Jester on water maps in general, I'd like to improve the water rules more in the future (WIP - recently identified many bugged rules, but Jester still plays half decent on water maps - fixes to come)
3: Jester will have more variety in imperial-age strategies in a future update. (WIP - needed fixes identified - still prioritizing other issues first)
4: Mule cart logic may need DUC rules to fix the mid to late game of them bunching up together with no resources around them. (WIP - on hold - new DUC logic may come in handy for this down the road)
5: DUC leaks/errors. (Always a WIP as new DUC gets added - Currently there are no known DUC leaks, split rule goals have immensely helped in preventing this)
6: Prioritizing civ bonuses to be taken into account more often! (with upwards of 40+ "playable" civs in this game now for Jester, I plan on accounting for more specific civ bonuses to make them "optimal" and not just playable!
- The following are some of the already implemented civ bonuses with Jester:
- Bohemian castle-age hand-cannoneer rush, Gurjaras milling their starting sheep and having the chance to go "camel-scout" rush, Malay creating a few more villagers before clicking up to the next age faster, Burgundians researching techs an age before,
- Cumans building 2 town-centers & siege in feudal-age, Goths + Huns + Sicilians + and Bulgarians creating units in either their barracks, stables, donjons, or kreposts, the best imperial-age unit strategies for each civ by default etc...
- I will be working on incorporating more of these civ bonuses into Jester for future updates! (in-progress).
7: Jester's rules for helping allies. (WIP - one fix applied in this update for helping ai allies (very basic, not fully tested yet - fixes to come).
8: Boom strategy causes Jester to go fully defensive even when ahead in military, allowing enemies to reboom and catch up. (FIXED - deleted conditions causing this, Jester follows default attack/defense rules for this strategy again).
9: Siege units have questionable behaviour, often times retargeting too often and wandering into tower arrow fire. (WIP - problems identified - I've identified that attack-groups are to blame for this behaviour and a few other things. Have to come up with a solution later)
10: Fishing ship training/deleting logic loop - (FIXED? - I may have fixed this already and forgot about mark it down but it appears to be fixed).
;==========CONCLUSION:==========
- Jester can be a fun ai to play with or against in team games, use in custom games (scenarios), or is commonly used for testing against other ai's.
- It is by no means a perfect ai, sometimes has bugs, and uses minimal DUC. But Jester has been an amazing project to work on for many years at this point (since the AOE II HD days).
- Please leave a comment of your experience on the ai scripters website, AOK Heaven website, or in the ai scripters discord group about your experience and if there is anything you'd like to see added/improved or just your general experience!
- Thank you for playing with Jester! GL & HF!!!
Your Pal, ScreamingKoos
;==========INSTALLATION:==========
- Simply download & unzip the Jester V 2.21.zip file and drag and drop everything into your AOE2 DE ai folder (the .ai file, the .per file, and the Jester folder).
*The following comes from the main Jester.per file which is included in the download*
JESTER.AI Created by ScreamingKoos
Version 2.21
Release Number: 8
Release Date: March 9, 2024
;==========OVERVIEW FOR BOTH AI's:==========
- Jester & Forthwind are two separate RM (random-map) ai's created by me.
- Jester can play any civilization in the game up to "The Mountain Royals" DLC (up to Armenians & Georgians). Jester can play as or counter any of these civs.
- Forthwind can play any civilization up to "The Lords of the West" DLC. This EXCLUDES: Armenians, Bengalis, Dravidians, Georgians, Gurjaras, and Romans. Forthwind will is not optimized to play as the new civs.
- Jester is stronger, more updated, and less random than Forthwind.
- Forthwind will tower-rush, build walls, and not play as competitively as Jester. Both ai's are, however, quite silly and fun to play with.
- Both ai's can play land maps (like arabia), connected water maps (like coastal), and separated water maps (like islands). They perform best on land maps and the least on island-style water maps. They do have basic water map rules for ships & economy for compatability purposes.
- They both can also play any nomad-style maps (where there is no town-center or lumber-camp to start with and they must start from scratch).
- Please note, both ai's are not tested to play the following map-types: Migration, "Nothing" style maps (like forest-nothing), and Michi style maps.
- Both ai's are aggressive. They have many different strategies that are initially randomly generated at the game start, and improve over time as the game plays. You will experience a different game every playthrough even if they use the same civilizations. You never know what to expect!
- Both ai's are fun to play with as allies, enemies, or even just spectating them fighting other custom created ai's.
- Jester gets his name from having a humorous twist on all things he does! (Forthwind is humorous too).
- Jester & Forthwind are only tested on and work for Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition (No wololo-kingdoms, or HD editions sadly).
- I am not currently working on new updates for Forthwind (but may in the future), so for this reason the following below is mostly referring to Jester, although many of it still applies to Forthind:
;==========DID YOU KNOW? (quick facts)==========
- Jester can play nomad style maps (land or water just not migration-types), and has rules to always prioritize either a lumber-camp, mule-cart, or town-center when his last tc is destroyed (or the game starts without one!)
- Jester will automatically sling extra resources to any allies that are low on resources. You can still use taunts 3 - 6 for a more manual way to ask for resources (player or computer allies).
- Jester will always mirror your diplomatic stance. Comes along with some chats for every type of stance change during the game. There is NO tricking this guy!
- Jester responds to several taunts in the game and depending on the age may respond differently. Most taunts work when Jester is set as an ally. Taunts are listed below:
;==========;TAUNTS:==========;
; Use taunts 3 - 6 to ask for resources.
; Taunt 31 - Attacks immediately if he is able to (not under attack and has reasonable military).
; Taunt 32 - Pursue default aggressive strategy for current age (dependent on civ-selected).
; Taunt 33 - Pursue economy strategy for current age (boom).
; Taunt 36 - Disable attacking rules (use taunt 31 to re-enable afterwards).
; Taunt 37 - Build a wonder (imperial-age only)
; Taunt 43 - Current strategy information.
; Taunt 44 - Current resources & population information.
; Taunt 45 - Temporary retreat back to main town-center.
; Taunt 50 - flare a location on the map and send this taunt for a chance of Jester to build a tower, donjon, krepost, or castle at the location.
; Taunt 52 - flare a location on the map and then send this taunt for a chance Jester will build a market at the flared location.
; Taunts 61 - 68: Jester will temporarily target the numbered player (this taunt now works as intended, only resets if Jester is under attack or the target-enemy dies).
; Taunt 69 - Deletes the object at the flared location.
; Taunt 72 - Pursue militiaman-line (infantry) strategy.
; Taunt 73 - Pursue melee cavalry units strategy. (knights, shrivamsha-riders, savars, battle-elephants, steppe-lancers, camels, etc.). This is dependent on the current civilization and only works for that current age. Use these in imperial-age for a more permanent strategy.
; Taunt 74 - Pursue archer-line strategy (foot archer only).
; Taunt 76 - Drush the enemy (must be early dark-age to work).
; Taunt 104 - Fully turns off all resign rules (when taunting either enemy or ally Jesters).
; Taunt 105 - Revert back to default resign rules after taunt 104 was issued.
; Taunt 150 - Resign immediately (when spectating as Jester, useful for casting games).
; Taunt 151 - Resign immediately (when taunted to an ally or enemy Jester, useful for a stubborn opponent or casting games).
; Taunt 250 - Chats current Jester version.
; Taunt 251 - Chats certain testing strategic-numbers (I use this for testing Jester, but feel free to use it too lol).
; Jester also responds to some other taunts, but not in a way you would expect! (example: Taunt 69).
;==========UPDATES for Jester Version 2.21 (March 9, 2024):
- This is a smaller update that aims to fix some recently introduced bugs and make Jester playable again for the March PUP. Added a couple new additions as well!
;====================================================
- Fixed a bug that was introduced in the March 2024 PUP that would make Jester unplayable.
- Fixed a circular logic bug that could cause Jester to turn on & off arrow dodging rules repeatedly.
- Provided a bug fix for a rare but critical Direct Unit Control (DUC) bug that would set all military units to no-attack-stance forever. Should not be able to happen anymore with backup conditions added.
- Jester now disregards using villagers to target rams & armored elephants when villager numbers are too low (dynamically based on pop-cap settings).
- Improved focus-player rules by allowing them to update much more often. Jester's initial scout should have less of a chance to dying from early enemy TC's.
- Fixed a bug which consisted of Jester endlessly deleting the first mining-camp foundation even when it was placed correctly near gold or stone. This could sometimes lead to serious delays of the first mining-camp greatly affecting economy.
- Jester now targets and deletes his oldest camps (lumber & mining) one at a time after a number of them have been built.
- Introduced a temporary solution that forces a small number of villagers to nearby berries (if close to a mill) once farms start getting built (useful for Yucatan style maps).
- Testing VERY basic rules in this update that should influence Jester to help AI allies. Ran out of time to test this fully...
- Jester flanks & pockets now properly counter war-elephants and have improved countering for enemy unique siege units (i.e. organ guns, hussite-wagons, etc).
- Jester no longer automatically retreats when pursuing a booming strategy (was causing Jester to stop attacking even when far ahead in military, allowing enemy to reboom in many situations and catch up).
- The first placed castle has improved preference to be placed at the front of Jester's base.
- Jester can now research ri-devotion.
- Changed out a few of the chats/updated existing ones!
- A couple other small improvements/bug fixes.
;----------END OF GENERAL UPDATES:----------
;==========KNOWN ISSUES/WIP:==========
1: Jester will break easily against tower rushing or castle drops, There are basic defence rules against this but they are not as intuitive yet. (WIP - this is only really possible with DUC, with the level I'm at now, I may be able to implement defence rules soon! - fixes to come)
2: Jester on water maps in general, I'd like to improve the water rules more in the future (WIP - recently identified many bugged rules, but Jester still plays half decent on water maps - fixes to come)
3: Jester will have more variety in imperial-age strategies in a future update. (WIP - needed fixes identified - still prioritizing other issues first)
4: Mule cart logic may need DUC rules to fix the mid to late game of them bunching up together with no resources around them. (WIP - on hold - new DUC logic may come in handy for this down the road)
5: DUC leaks/errors. (Always a WIP as new DUC gets added - Currently there are no known DUC leaks, split rule goals have immensely helped in preventing this)
6: Prioritizing civ bonuses to be taken into account more often! (with upwards of 40+ "playable" civs in this game now for Jester, I plan on accounting for more specific civ bonuses to make them "optimal" and not just playable!
- The following are some of the already implemented civ bonuses with Jester:
- Bohemian castle-age hand-cannoneer rush, Gurjaras milling their starting sheep and having the chance to go "camel-scout" rush, Malay creating a few more villagers before clicking up to the next age faster, Burgundians researching techs an age before,
- Cumans building 2 town-centers & siege in feudal-age, Goths + Huns + Sicilians + and Bulgarians creating units in either their barracks, stables, donjons, or kreposts, the best imperial-age unit strategies for each civ by default etc...
- I will be working on incorporating more of these civ bonuses into Jester for future updates! (in-progress).
7: Jester's rules for helping allies. (WIP - one fix applied in this update for helping ai allies (very basic, not fully tested yet - fixes to come).
8: Boom strategy causes Jester to go fully defensive even when ahead in military, allowing enemies to reboom and catch up. (FIXED - deleted conditions causing this, Jester follows default attack/defense rules for this strategy again).
9: Siege units have questionable behaviour, often times retargeting too often and wandering into tower arrow fire. (WIP - problems identified - I've identified that attack-groups are to blame for this behaviour and a few other things. Have to come up with a solution later)
10: Fishing ship training/deleting logic loop - (FIXED? - I may have fixed this already and forgot about mark it down but it appears to be fixed).
;==========CONCLUSION:==========
- Jester can be a fun ai to play with or against in team games, use in custom games (scenarios), or is commonly used for testing against other ai's.
- It is by no means a perfect ai, sometimes has bugs, and uses minimal DUC. But Jester has been an amazing project to work on for many years at this point (since the AOE II HD days).
- Please leave a comment of your experience on the ai scripters website, AOK Heaven website, or in the ai scripters discord group about your experience and if there is anything you'd like to see added/improved or just your general experience!
- Thank you for playing with Jester! GL & HF!!!
Your Pal, ScreamingKoos
;==========INSTALLATION:==========
- Simply download & unzip the Jester V 2.21.zip file and drag and drop everything into your AOE2 DE ai folder (the .ai file, the .per file, and the Jester folder).