No-Brainer AI Fix List

[Croaxleigh]

Time to continue an age-old tradition here... it's the return of the No-Brainer list! It's being done a little bit differently this time around, though; the original No-Brainer list focused only on bugs, but this time we're doing lists for balance and AI as well. These lists will help to isolate specific areas that any Relic devs or modders who read them may wish to improve upon in their work.

Here's how this is going to work. This thread will serve as both a list and a respectful discussion area for items that others have mentioned. Any off-topic posts, argumentative posts, or posts that don't directly address a AI issue will be deleted.

Posts should follow this format:

* Name of AI Issue #1: Suggested fix
* Name of AI Issue #2: Suggested fix

When replying to another's post, use the quote function to quote the SPECIFIC AI ISSUE that you are discussing; don't quite the whole post.

Any issues which are fixed in Chaos Rising can be pointed out in the thread as well and will be removed from the master list.

Note that this thread is for AI issues only. the No-Brainer BALANCE list is HERE, and the No-Brainer BUGS list is HERE.

[Idonahari]

Name of AI Issue #1: I want the CPU players to do battle, not play TAG.
Currently, the AI will use all it resources on claiming each req point on the map, it wont engage my army until i'll let him capture the entire map. Instead of skirmishing he sends low tier units (usualy just 1) to cap points. It should keep "killing human player's units" as a priority instead of being a resource hog.

Name of AI Issue #2: The AI has a very simple logic- as long as it has resources it'll purchase the strongest units available. E.g if the A.I is Tyranid it will keep spamming Carnifex and throw it at my anti-armor troops.

I really wish it'll fall on the right ears, i spent countless hours playing DOW's skirmish, in DOW 2 it comes to like...3 hours.

[Ruzdreg]

AI issue 1: One unit army!
Although the AI can have multiple units on the field at once, it tends to keep them all seperated from each other and so offer no form a resistance to your attacks.
In a recent game I left a single Slugga mob with the Burnaz upgrade close to the AI's base. The AI would send 1 unit at a time towards these Sluggas (well not the Sluggas but the Req point next to them) and so my Sluggaz jumped them and killed them off everytime.
At the end of the game my Sluggaz were level 4 with no losses and I had a massive kill total on the end score board. Basically by the AI sending just one unit at a time, it was sending them to jump off a cliff - only death was the outcome.

Solution: They need to start grouping some units together because you can't win a fight against an army with just a single T1 unit.





AI isse 2: Scouting Devastators!
It was nice to see the AI start building more units in the patches but they're not done too well. Setup team units are treated exactly like normal units and for the AI that means teating them like scouts.
The AI wont setup a setup team unless that unit itself has encountered an enemy in its own sight. However by then the enemy will charge the setup team and kill them before they can get to fire.

Solution: The AI needs to keep setup teams back and have them setup in certain possitions from time to time to defend areas.





AI issue 3: "Let my commander do it, he is all that I need"
Sometimes (and always in certain cases) the AI will eventually stop building units after a few minutes or may not even build anything at all from the very start and just play with its commander for the whole game!
This game is about unit stratergy and so not building units goes against the whole point of the game.

Solution: The AI should petty much always be building units.





AI issue 4: Vehicles rally point - in the enemy's base!
The AI will always send its vehicles (regardless of what type it is) into its opponents base, the only exception is if you engaged the unit before it gets there but that only stalls it till you leave its sight and will continue its adventure accross the map, to its enemy's base.

Solution: The AI should use its vehicles more with its army and / or to push infantry back from points, not to suicide them into their foes keep and let it stand there till it gets blown up and then repeat with the next vehicle.

[Ruzdreg]

AI issue 5: Abilities on targets!
It appears that when the AI decideds to uses an ability such a throwing a grenade or using some form of jump or something, they'll use it on the enemy regardless of their possition at the time or what the ability actually does.
They may even be trying to use friendly abilities on their enemies too.

As such you'll get situations where one of the AI's units could decide to throw a grenade at an enemy unit thats in melee combat with their own unit causing it to blow themselves up.

Another situation is that when they want to use the "jmup ability" on an enemy unit, they could already be in melee combat again and then just jump up and down on the spot. Assault marines can make some use of this due to their knock back but units like Storm boyz are just wasting resource doing so.
Teleport abilities are also used in the same way - they use it on their foe. Of course, having a Mek boy teleport into a group of Banshees is pure suicide.

Basically it looks as if the abilities are used as soon as available and after a target has been spotted. Also regardless of the ability's effect, its used on the enemy unit.


Solution: Have individual behaviour code for most abilities as asposed to having that generic one.
So teleport abilities for example could be used to keep the unit out of melee instead of using it to get into melee since units with teleporters are ranged units.
Also have a range check before the abilities are used which can prevent the AI ordering a greande throw at a unit that's at point black range or stop them jumping on a unit if they're already in combat.

Something that I still need to check is to see if the AI can cast abilities that only work on their own units because they may be trying to use them on the enemy units following the assumed generic ability casting code thus ever preventing them using those abilities.

[weyseer astarte]

AI Issue:- Too predictable and too easy to beat even on the hardest mode.

The ability TO CHEAT and roll out a carnifex in 5 minutes into the game wont guarantee a win if it doesnt kite or harass me.

Vehicle AI seldoms reverse or kite unless engaged in melee and just allow AV to freely kill them with no support(predator vs 1 missle squad is always a bad idea)

Fix:-Allow the AI to kite vehicles and use vehicles offensively.

[MasterOfMankind]

AI Issue - Tyranid AI builds way too many spore mines that it never uses.

I've found that, whenever playing against Tyranids (regardless of difficulty) they will slowly accrue more and more Spore Mine squads, which the AI never uses. These spore mines will gather around the HQ building, floating harmlessly, doing nothing, moving nowhere, and not blowing up even when they are under attack. The Tyranids will slowly add more and more Spore Mines to their infrastructure, wasting resources and squandering pop cap. I've never played the maps long enough to determine if this is the case, but at their current rate, it's reasonable to assume that the Tyranid AI will eventually max out their pop cap with nothing but spore mines.

I suggest that the AI be modified, so that when the Tyranids spawn spore mines (via the global ability) that the spore mines actually seek out the nearest enemies and detonate themselves, which should fix both issues (taking up pop cap, and doing nothing) simultaneously.

[Phantom Fox]

AI Issue 1, Reacting to Infiltrated Units: The AI currently reacts to infiltrated units even if they do not have a detector (for example, a Warboss stopped capping a point and ran away when my infiltrated Lictor Alpha started to get close).

Suggested Fix: If infiltrated units are built then the AI should build detectors and use them to reveal said units as opposed to simply reacting to them.

[cerevox]

AI Issue 1: When a unit in ranged stance is attacked in melee, it pulls its melee weapon to defend itself, but it keeps its old, ranged, target. This means that if your ranged units are attacked in melee they go charging across the battlefield to melee the target they were shooting at and ignore their new attackers.

Suggested Fix: When a ranged unit is attacked in melee, it drops its current target and fights back in melee against its current attackers.

[Rotlung]

AI Issue 1: Repeated building of assault cannons
At one point in time, I found an Expert AI building assault cannons repeatedly (through a replay) on a Force Commander that had no upgraded to Terminator Armour. It only had a power fist upgrade.

Suggested Fix: Fix the looping upgrade - the Force Commander shouldn't even be able to get the assault cannon without purchasing Terminator Armour.

AI Issue 2: No leaders
AI does not upgrade their squads with leaders, from what I've observed.