Thanks for sharing that thread Rasteve.

I believe Rasteve is referring to the following:

Quoted from ES_Sandyman:

Here is how the AI "teams up" against you.

Shortly after you start the game, you'll receiving messages saying something like "Tiglath-Pileser changed to Enemy". All the civs that say they became an enemy are implacably hostile to you, and are teamed up together against you. The civs that did NOT say they became your enemy are neutral towards you.

When you play vs. 2 CPs, both are hostile. When you play vs. 3, 2 are hostile. When you play vs. 4 or 5, 3 of them are hostile. When you play vs. 6 or 7 CPs, 4 of them are hostile.

Now, the "neutral" CPs will turn hostile if you attack any of their units twice. This includes towers shooting their explorers or scout boats shooting their fishing boats. That "attack twice" happens pretty fast, so if you don't want to make them hostile right away, you'll need to change your own diplomatic view towards them to Allied (that's the only way to be sure you won't inadvertantly attack them).

In addition, the neutral CPs will turn hostile anyway 10-15 minutes into the game if you don't tribute 1000 resources to them by that time. If you _do_ make the tribute, they become your ally. This alliance is permanent until you (duh) attack them twice. Which if you're allied will only happen if they get caught by the splash effect of an elephant or a catapult stone. Good luck.

ES_Sandyman forgot another common situation where your Ally will become an Enemy. If your Ally has lots of priests, it is likely that he will convert a number of enemy units. If you are not careful, you will kill your Ally's converted unit [right after it has been converted]. This is especially more likely to occur when you are using projectile units [e.g., archers, ballista, towers, catapults]. This happens to me almost every Random Map game where Egypt, Babylon, Persia, or Phoenicia is my Ally.

I was not around AoE Heaven in 1998. I assume that ES_Sandyman was a member of Ensemble Studios who worked on developing AoE. Does anyone know?

Does anyone else know of any other elucidating posts explaining diplomacy or how the ai works?



EDIT: I am not too sure what ES_Sandyman says about diplomacy is entirely correct [at least concerning Random Map games]. I have recently been trying to test what he says in Random Map for Rise of Rome. I set-up a four player Random Map without any teams. Two players immediately declare me their Enemy. I set the Neutral player as my Ally so as not to hit him. As soon as I have enough gold, I tribute the Neutral player 1000 units. He always initially swallows it up silently. I keep tributing gold until he finally make me his Ally. However, he usually becomes my enemy within 10 minutes of him Allying with me without any provocation. Also, there have been times where he has declared me his Ally without me sending any gold.

[This message has been edited by EME2940820 (edited 08-16-2009 @ 00:00 AM).]

Yes Sandyman was the lead designer for Rise of Rome. I don't think he did anything for the original AoE, but seems to do a lot of work for the expansions (including AoKTC).

I believe Sandyman was probably quoting the development manual!!!

I will see if I can dig anything else up.

BTW - I can remember reading somewhere how "AoE AI was far more intelligent that other RTS games for its time as it didn't depend on cheating".... clearly a lie!



http://www.microsoft.com/games/empires/features_historical.htm

Quoted from Bruce Shelley:

The 12 cultures in the game use four different building sets. The buildings of an Asian culture will look quite different from those using the Egyptian or Greek set. Each culture has a unique tech tree. No culture has all the possible technologies. Some have better soldiers, some better cavalry, some better ships, some better priests, and some have economic advantages. For example, Shang (Chinese) villagers move faster than the villagers of other cultures, making them more efficient in resource gathering. The Egyptian priests can develop the greatest range, making them more useful for converting enemy units. Each culture has to be played differently to take advantage of its strengths and overcome its weaknesses.

http://aoe.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aoecgi/display.cgi?action=ct&f=4,5390,,all

Shang faster than the others' lol, yeah, right.
It kinda disappoints me when the ones behind a game make such horrible mistakes.

I believe that information is from the beta, in which I believe shang had a speed bonus instead of reduced cost.

Quoted from Rasteve:

BTW - I can remember reading somewhere how "AoE AI was far more intelligent that other RTS games for its time as it didn't depend on cheating".... clearly a lie!

Rasteve,

You may be referring to this interview with AoE AI specialist David Pottinger.

Dave on Dave:
I'm the Engine Lead and AI specialist for Ensemble Studios. I have a terrific wife of one year by the name of Kristen. I'm a 25 year old graduate of the University of Arizona with a computer engineering degree. I spend most of my time working; free time is spent relaxing with my wife, going to movies, and working on our house.

Games Web: In most real-time games, the emphasis has been on multi-player play versus the single player experience, and thus, the AI has suffered. What has Age of Empires done to improve the single player experience in terms of the AI?

Dave Pottinger: The simplest answer is that we have spent almost a year of development on the AI and given it a very high weight (in terms of time and effort) compared to other tasks. We've also picked a couple of key areas such as tactics and varied strategies to focus on. This focus allows us to concentrate on making those things jump right out and grab the player's attention (hopefully as a crushing herd of war elephants rumbles through a human player's town.

Games Web: Did you address the computer AI and the unit AI separately?

Dave Pottinger: Yes. The UnitAI is exactly the same for the human and computer units. We did this to help reinforce the concept that we didn't want to cheat. The computer player interacts with the game in exactly the same way as the human player does. The UnitAI was completed first in order to let us play multiplayer games (for design and balance reasons); the computer player AI was started after the UnitAI was stable. The computer player also went through a comprehensive design process that has paid us huge dividends.

Games Web: How sophisticated in the AI, does it learn?

Dave Pottinger: It's really pretty sophisticated. It does learn about the scenarios it plays and also learns player tendencies (so it should improve over time). The tactics were probably the hardest thing to get right; we had to make the tactical AI module a lot more complicated that we originally thought in order to get it up to the level of the human player (we ended up going through three totally different models before finding one that clicked).

Games Web: A major weakness with the computer AI in games is that they cheat, is this the case with Age of Empires?

Dave Pottinger: This is a tough question; we've debated the issue extensively. Our primary focus for the AI is to have it create the best single player experience on the market. As such, cheating is secondary to that. Our goal is not to cheat, but we will if we need it to create a better game. We are getting closer to our goal everyday, though. The only way that we have to cheat right now is to give the computer player a resource boost at the beginning of the game. As we make improvements to the AI, we are able to reduce that boost. We should be able to remove the resource handicap on all but the hardest difficulty levels.

Games Web: Does you computer controlled units maintain formation in combat? Also, do individual units cooperate with each other?

Dave Pottinger: Yes, we have what we call a playbook. The computer player has a ton of plays that he can choose to run (simple frontal assaults, multi-front attacks, formation attacks, protection formations, etc.) from all directions on the map. It's a fantastic thing to see the computer attacking with catapults and protecting those catapults with infantry. The unit cooperation is achieved with a hierarchical combat model. Grouped units have a unit commander that runs the combat for that group. If a unit runs into trouble, he'll report to his commander for help. If the commander's group needs help, he'll ask the computer player to send more forces over.

Games Web: What else about the AI do you find worth noting? What makes it different or unique?

Dave Pottinger: We've attempted to do a complete AI that handles all phases of the game. I think the major differentiations will be the tactics, strategies, and the emphasis on not cheating. To play a game and have the computer build completely different units than the last time and use them in a different way is a great thing to see.

Games Web: What's the most challenging part of what you do?

Dave Pottinger: At this point, it's time management and execution. There are so many areas that I'd like to spend my hours on: there are always a ton of features to add to a game or an engine, the engine is never quite fast enough, the game designs change as the product evolves, the AI can always handle one more situation, etc. Deciding which items are most important and which deserve time is critical. Even more critical is an accurate, successful execution of our effort.

Games Web: As technology advances, multiplayer games are more and more involving, where do you feel that computer-based games are headed?

Dave Pottinger: I see a big shift in two areas: the real expansion of the massively multiplayer games and the resurrection of the adventure and role playing genres. Massively multiplayer games have been around for a long time, but recent technology is allowing us to do a lot of fun things (persistent games with a 100K players, etc.) that will really open up the games to huge audiences. I think the industry rotation is also coming around to role playing and adventure games again. New technology like speech recognition/synthesis and improved AI will play a big role in these, I think.

Games Web: Was there a particular point in your life where you realized that you were definitely headed towards game development?

Dave Pottinger: I did some "time" at a large computer company -- not MS. I hated every minute of it and decided to do something fun; so I started a game company. That never really took off, so I joined Ensemble Studios last year and have been happily busy ever since.



The death animations rock!
-Dave

http://www.microsoft.com/games/empires/behind_dave.htm



This is all very interesting to me. Now, if only Mr. Pottinger is still living, able to be contacted, and willing to answer some questions . . .

[This message has been edited by EME2940820 (edited 08-20-2009 @ 02:10 AM).]

Maybe we can get him to answer a few questions on the forum (like the ask sandy questions on AoKH?).

I believe he works for Robot Entertainment:

contact@robotentertainment.com

There is a Ask Sandy currently open at AoKH (here). And Sandy doesn't currently work at Robot Entertainment.

Quoted from fruitfish:

I believe that information is from the beta, in which I believe shang had a speed bonus instead of reduced cost.

Well in that case i was the one who did a horrible mistake. Shame on me!

The original Warcraft is legendary, shame for the AoE developers having a go at it.