Ai blocking/attacking, wasting damagers

All about getting the AI less baka...
Yorien
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2010 10:59 pm

Re: unhappy ai

Post by Yorien »

wololo wrote: 1) There was a strong misunderstanding here. I wasn't saying casting LB on the Kahmal. I was saying using Both a LB AND Kamahl to deal a total of 6 damages in one turn to a 6/6 creature, sorry if I wasn't clear on that. I don't know why an experienced Magic player wouldn't use several damage cards in a row to kill one creature, if this is needed. If you have 2 lightning bolts, or a lightning Bolt + Kamahl, you can kill a 6/6, that's my point. I agree this does not happen very often, but I don't understand why we would want to completely remove this possibility. I still believe that knowing the AI will never cast a lightning bolt if it knows it can't "one shot kill" will be pretty obvious and fairly boring to most players. Again, we can tweak the values, but making this possibility entirely 0 sounds extremely weird to me. From a pure logical point of view, reducing the life of an enemy creature should not be considered as a "wrong" move, which is what "0 chances of doing it" means to the computer.
Yep, maybe I didn't got it first time, but my point of view it this one... If you plan on using both LB and Kamahl to kill a 6/6, AI must plan both moves and perform then sequentially. Problem is, AI is currently casting the LB and then "forgets to finish the job". It may seem boring, but you as a player wouldn't ever think of doing that move unless you target the same 6/6 with Kamahl afterwards. As some people has pointed, looks pretty dumb for the AI to cast a LB on a 4/4 and then leaving the monster alone.

Here's the failure, AI doesn't take into account the EoT full healing. That's why AI (at least for now) should always consider partial damage as a "wrong move". Of course, this is mainly a "patch" (that I'm pretty sure will highly improve AI efficiency) till "finish the job targeting" is coded somehow.
Last edited by Yorien on Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Zethfox
Posts: 3029
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:28 pm

Re: unhappy ai

Post by Zethfox »

i see a good point in what yorian is stating...maybe it would be possible to have ai do a quick check for damager/life reducers BEFORE choosing the cards to play...if it can find enough to chain cast and kill something, have it contenue as normal in hopes that it will choose to target the same thing with both cards...if not then reduce(not make it 0) the eff of casting that card by half...then let "chance" take its course....
wololo
Site Admin
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Location: Japan

Re: unhappy ai

Post by wololo »

Agreed with you all. The current system only looks at cards individually and doesn't have a global strategy, so my examples don't make much sense. I still think reducing the probability to 0 is over the top. Lets reduce it to something like 5? instead of the current 50 and also apply muaddibs patch when damage is over toughness.
muaddib
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:28 am
Location: Russia

Re: unhappy ai

Post by muaddib »

and more same may do with blocking, I saw that AI often blocking creature 2/2 with creature 1/1 when there is more creature 1/1 in atacking.
Now I explained it with random how in the case in damage. AI may select which creature to block same that in damage, with iterate (AI may suppose that given creature is killed and see of summary damage to AI), but seeing abilities as first strike, regenerate, double strike and so on. If there are few creature to block and kill AI must prefer creatures with abilities to creatures without abilities. But AI may blocking creature which it cannot kill for example it damage 50% or more AI life or atacking creature life much more blocking creature life. So were in Microprose Magic the Gathering. In this case saves AI creatures that in the future may block opponent attack. If creatures do damage more or equal AI life, AI must sacrifice creatures so that minimize damage to him.
Of course I'm simplification situtation, AI needed to see not one of own creature, but group of own creature.
But the meaning is this.
Zethfox
Posts: 3029
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:28 pm

Re: Ai blocking/attacking, wasting damagers

Post by Zethfox »

muad, thank you for explaining it better, this thread ended up in trash becuase it started out as a complaining thread with no good ideas or suggestions...now i moved it back into ai improvement because we are constructively discussing how we can get ai to choose damagers and blockers correctly without getting itself killed instantly....see the difference a constructive approach has :) saying "this game sucks!" doesnt help us fix it...but posting what you posted directly above me is a fountain of information to study and try to improve....
Yorien
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Feb 02, 2010 10:59 pm

Re: unhappy ai

Post by Yorien »

muaddib wrote:and more same may do with blocking, I saw that AI often blocking creature 2/2 with creature 1/1 when there is more creature 1/1 in atacking.
Now I explained it with random how in the case in damage. AI may select which creature to block same that in damage, with iterate (AI may suppose that given creature is killed and see of summary damage to AI), but seeing abilities as first strike, regenerate, double strike and so on. If there are few creature to block and kill AI must prefer creatures with abilities to creatures without abilities. But AI may blocking creature which it cannot kill for example it damage 50% or more AI life or atacking creature life much more blocking creature life. So were in Microprose Magic the Gathering. In this case saves AI creatures that in the future may block opponent attack. If creatures do damage more or equal AI life, AI must sacrifice creatures so that minimize damage to him.
Of course I'm simplification situtation, AI needed to see not one of own creature, but group of own creature.
But the meaning is this.
Maybe AI could "separate" creatures by how they are gonna be used, but that would mainly depends on two things: AI battle behavior and common card usage

AI behavior is already being discussed in another topic somewhere around, as I can recall. The idea under that is probably to "build" diferent AI times, from the Suicidal/Full attack one that almost never blocks to the Turtling/Full defense one that tries to avoid damage building walls high enough to reach the moon.

As for card usage, cards having more power than resistance and some skills like flying, fade/shadow, double strike,... are more prone to be used as attackers, while cards with more resistance that power and skills like regen are more prone to be used as defenders. Finally, cards without skills and specially tokens are more commonly used as "meat shields". This could be considered as "common card usage"

Problem is combining both "common card usage" and AI strategy. Probably AI strategy should have more strenght in general terms (for example a Suicidal type should "almost never" leave creatures untapped, no matter it puts into play cards more prone to be used as defenders))

As for "how to do that"... well, I always will prefer the keyword approach, as I said in other posts. All magic games over here (from the old Shandalar to the latest Duels) work with preconstructed decks, and those decks usually cannot be changed. Wagic allows you to create all decks you want and allows the AI to play those decks, but AI plays "all decks" the "same way" with the "same thinking" (except for some randomness here and there, of course). This means AI will play Suicide Black same way as a Sligh, same way as a Fragment deck, same way as a White Winnie.

Setting the AI behavior will probably help as long as the "correct" behavior is chosen (but here we'll have another problem... how to code some "advanced behaviors" like combo ones?), but that's not enough. I'd say to "lend" a hand to the AI, and not only code the generic behaviors, but some preconstructed card behaviors to "help" the AI.
Zethfox
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Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:28 pm

Re: Ai blocking/attacking, wasting damagers

Post by Zethfox »

yorian its being discussed as "ai personality" almost to the point where we are almost running it into the ground. we WANT to do this soon...but no one has taken up the project to do this yet.
muaddib
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Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:28 am
Location: Russia

Re: Ai blocking/attacking, wasting damagers

Post by muaddib »

Do you plan to make something like 'Shandalar'?
Zethfox
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Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:28 pm

Re: Ai blocking/attacking, wasting damagers

Post by Zethfox »

its in the plans...but no telling when we will get around to it....
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