Hello there!
Finally, after I've been working on this AI since Summer 2021 now, I decided that it's time to share ZebbaAI to everyone.
The initial idea behind ZebbaAI was to create an AI that plays all various strategies to see how they tend to work out in varying situations, including adapting its strategy to opponent strategies. For that to work the goal is to give the AI all the necessary tools to make use of everything the game offers, e.g. deer pushing. It's not yet at a point where I'd like to have it, since implementing some of these abilities are quite time consuming, but I'm working on it.
Game Mode: Random Map, Empire Wars & Custom Scenario (consider map restrictions)
Civs: Can play all civilizations, except Armenians & Georgians
Maps: Optimized on Arabia, Yucatan, Arena, Fortress, and similiar maps. Besides that, ZebbaAI can play nomad and other custom maps. (Not optimized on water-maps though)
ZebbaAI can't play properly on island-like maps or on Black Forest type of maps: It needs a map with land connection to the enemy
Taunts in TGs: AI reacts to following taunts: 3 ("food please"), 4("wood please"), 5("gold please"), 6("stone please"),
31("Attack an enemy now"), 38("give me your extra resources"), Flare-Location + 48("I'm being attacked, please help")
Strategies: Drush, Archerrush, Scoutrush, Towerrush (currently deactivated), FC into Unique Unit, FC into Gold Unit,
Fast-Imp (only pockets in team-games or on closed maps like Arena)
Difficulty: There are no levels of difficulties for this AI. However, the game throttles AI performance on difficulties below extreme, so set the difficulty to extreme for the best performance. Its current level is comparable to the HD AI.
Stay tuned for more improvements & updates in the future!
====================================================
New in Version 1.2.6 (PoArena Tournament Version)
General:
- further improved FC-builds for 4TC-Boom, relic-fights and pushes
- added micro for rams, trebuchets & bombard-cannons: they will now focus down buildings in a specific order
- added ability to guard rams & bombard cannons with ranged-units
- added ability to repair low-hp castles under attack when villagers are nearby
- added ability for detection and reaction of enemy forwardings
- added ability to research devotion
- added ability to garrison unique units into the castle when under attack
- added ability to focus down rams near a castle with army
- will now save low-hp villager under attack to the TC in some situations
- enemy builder-villagers are now being targeted with scouts more consistently
- considerably improved auto-eco-balance system: AI should now switch to other resources faster, especially from wood to other resources
- extended auto-eco-balance system for prolonged feudal-age scenarios
- added a number of dark-age eco improvements:
1) added a system for food-management under TC, prefering certain food-sources over others, leading to a much more efficient food-collection-rate
2) will now eat only one sheep at a time
3) added precise-point deer-pushing, reducing the total time for deer-pushing
4) added TC-hopping for villagers killing deer
5) first lumber-camp will now be placed using DUC. This should reduce bad lumber-camp placements in some cases
6) resource-drop-off builders are now assigned to the respective resource instead of being retasked somewhere else. This will significantly reduce villager walking & idle time in Dark-Age
7) lumberjacks are now more likely to be sent to trees near lumber-camps instead of straggler trees
8) shepherds will no longer kill sheeps outside the tc and rather wait under the tc until a new sheep arrives
- decreased likelihood to delete all walls
- will now recognize newly sighted deer in its base and switch to deer-pushing accordingly
- adjusted villager training rules to further limit villager production when the AI needs to go for army.
- adjusted outpost building rules to not waste stone required to build TCs
- reduced chance to research town-patrol
- adjusted army behavior settings in imperial-age. Should now slightly improve unit retargeting behavior in certain situations
- added defensive behavior system vs forwardings
- will now train unique-units more consistently with certain civs
- bombard tower is now only being researched if being either far behind or having a considerable advantage
Teamgames:
- will no longer send resource requests to allies if AI does have no way to come back into the game
- improved help-request to enemy attacks and reaction to help-requests
- improved caravanserai placements
- will now stop unit-production when rebooming back into the game
FC-Relics:
- added ability to defend relics with scouts
FC-Unique Unit:
- reduced up-times by 1 villager to -> 25 to feudal -> 27 to castle
- castle drops will now be properly defended with army
- A castle-drop is now followed up by either a push or a fast-imp, dependent on if the opponent has a castle or not
Fast-Imp:
- deactivated all fast-imp strategies except monk rushes & Turks Fast-Imp. I will need to rework the other strategies since they were massively lacking performance wise compared to the other strategies.
- the initial attack will now start faster
Evacuating villagers:
- villagers will now be evacuated earliest if the last TC standing cannot be garrisoned anymore
Retreat rules:
- will now retreat with eagle-scouts from garrisoned TCs
- will no longer ignore enemy castles with cavalry in castle-age
- added imperial-age TC retreat for some unit types
- elephant-archer-line will no longer retreat from enemy TCs
- will no longer retreat from TCs & Castles when having a large military advantage
Anti-Ram defense:
- will no longer send villagers to kill rams if AI has a low amount of villagers
Monk Rush defense:
- adjusted unit-training rules vs mass monks
Aztecs:
- will now go for 3-4 militias instead of 2-3 in drushes
Turks:
- will no longer train skirmishers castle-age onwards in any situation
Arena:
- will now always build a siege-workshop on Arena when going for a push or going up to imperial-age
- will now correctly identify opponents gates and target them more likely
Bug Fixes:
- fixed a bug where light-cav would never be researched when playing as pocket in teamgames
- fixed some bugs where the AI would never research town-watch, eagle-warrior or infantry blacksmith upgrades
- fixed a rare bug where the AI would never build a market in feudal-age in FC-builds, causing the AI to never go up to castle-age
- fixed an issue in scenarios with multiple TCs where the AI would prefer to queue villagers in working TCs instead of idle TCs
- fixed some base-scouting & deer-pushing bugs
- fixed a bug where the AI would unintentionally cancel a castle-placement or a castle under construction with low hp in a castle-drop too early
- fixed a bug where the AI would buy & sell wood simultaneously while trying to go up to imp
- fixed some bugs where the AI would unintentionally reselect its castle-age strategy during castle-age
====================================================
I thank everyone for the feedback! If you're noticing any strange behaviour or you have any feedback I'll be more than happy if you'll let me know!
What's next:
- adding playability of Armenians & Georgians
- there is a known issue with trebuchets freezing while attacking
- reducing lag caused by the AI in team-games
- improving monk micro
- adding late game army compositions
- reworking fast-imp strategies to make them more viable
- fully implementing proper ranged unit army micro
- fully implementing micro in drushes & scoutrushes
- implementing sheep scouting
- reactivating towerrush & improving it
- adding a new defensive fast feudal strategy
- adding DUC drop-off-building placements & Dark-age lumberjack DUC
- further develop more controlled army behavior
Next Update will focus more on optimizing Dark-Age eco & Arena strategies.
dette 