thudmeizer

Dawn Of Skirmish *DARK CRUSADE EXPANSION + v1.2 PATCH ONLY* V2.5 RELEASE and Acknowledgements (Aug 15, 2007)

Main Download Link (Fast!)


Meet the Cast:
==============

Thudo (Thudmeizer)..>> Team Lead/Coder/Gfx/Bonafied Cheerleader
ArkhanTheBlack......>> Lead Coder/Scripter
LarkinVB............>> Lead Coder/Scripter/Beta Tester
Corsix..............>> Coder
Inquisitor..........>> Beta Tester/Assistance with camera mod
Zenoth..............>> Beta Tester
Malkor..............>> Beta Tester
Troubadour..........>> Beta Tester
ThetaOrion..........>> Beta Tester
FinalDeath..........>> Beta Tester
QuietDeath..........>> Beta Tester
JBird...............>> Beta Tester
Slash...............>> Beta Tester


Introduction
============

Prepare for a more enhanced Dawn Of War - Dark Crusade skirmish experience!

This project started after the release of Dawn Of War with the intent to bring to the global DoW community a more intense and satisfying AI opponent on the field of war. We hope you will agree that has been achieved with the understanding more is to be done in the future. Our work continues to evolve and in the coming months will make current efforts pale in comparison. However, you have to start somewhere and hot damn what a jumpstart!

Its been a slice from start to, well, continuing! We're so looking forward to enhancing the AI even further in the coming months!


A Personal Thanks
=================

At this time I would like to personally thank all the participating members of the team:

ArkhanTheBlack, LarkinVB, Excedrin, and Corsix, as well as our beta testers, Malkor, Zenoth, ThetaOrion, FinalDeath, Troubadour, Slash, JBird, QuietDeath and (all who keep our work "in-perspective" and "on-track" with our ultimate goals of achieving the most competitive DoW AI opponent we can create!).

Its through your dedication, patience, and technical expertise that allowed the work to commence and prosper. Without you fellers, there'd be a pittence of work compared to the greatness this project has become. We've come a long way and do sincerely hope to continue our expert correspondance into the future of the product.

CutterShane (Original idea and implementation of the Heroes mod)

Alex Gnome (Original idea and implementation of the Camera mod)


Disclaimer
==========

This is to acknowledge that we take no personal responsibility for any hardware damage or data corruption brought forth by the use or installation of this DoW modification. As used, this modification works "as is" and has been thoroughly tested and should not cause any major problems. In the event, however, that something serious does occur, it is up to the user(s) of their computer(s) to make appropriate backups before any attempt is made to install the following DoW modification. Use at your own risk.


Whats In The Package?
====================

o Main Installation Package containing the Enhanced DoW AI scripts (contains ONLY those .ai files that our team altered)
o Dawn Of Skirmish DC V2.5 dowai.txt (what your reading)
o Doc folder containing information how to add your own faction to the AI project.


Installation
============

Piece of Cake! Run the executable and it will extract to where your <installed Dawn Of War folder> is.

Once installed, run the newly placed shortcut on your desktop "DOW Skirmish AI V2.5" or from StartMenu/Programs/"Dawn Of War Skirmish AI Mod". You will know if the modification is running when on the top-left section of the Dawn Of War Main Menu it will display: Dawn Of Skirmish V2.5.

To uninstall this modification, go back to StartMenu/Programs/"DOW Skirmish AI Mod" and choose "Remove Dawn Of Skirmish AI Mod" to remove the modification from Dawn Of War.

**NOTE**

This version of the AI mod will only work with the Dark Crusade Expansion + v1.2 PATCH.


What's new in Dawn of Skirmish DC AI 2.5?
=========================================

o Improved AI speed (less lag)
o AI Highspeed option is now more than twice as fast as before to please people with low end computers (much less lag)
o Some more race optimizations
o Attack and defense behaviour improved
o Some bug fixes
o Heroes Special is now activated in campaign mode


Extended camera zoom modes
==========================
Optional installation feature which adds two files camera_high.lua and camera_low.lua to the Dowai_mod\Data folder.
If you dislike them you can deselect them during installation or just delete them if you already installed them.
The default view is almost the same like vanilla therefore you shouldn't notice much difference until you start
to zoom in or out. Thanks to Alex Gnome for the original discovery of the camera settings.


AI Highspeed Setting
====================
Option set in the game mode panel at the setup of a game.

People who experience heavy lag and sync problems in multiplayer should try this option.
Some AI calculations are simplified or skipped to increase performance.
But beware, the AI could be slightly weaker because of that.


Heroes Special
==============
Option set in the game mode panel at the setup of a game.
Activates the Heroes Special mod which is a rework of CutterShanes exceptional Heroes mod, that specializes
only on the unit experience system. Have a look at the Heroes Special readme file for further information.
There's also a Heroes Special modding document which describes the inclusion and modification of Heroes Special
for other mods.


AI Donation System
==================
Option set in the game mode panel at the setup of a game.

- All races donate requisition if they own more than 800

- All races demand requisition if they own less than 200

- All races donate power if they own more than 600 (Necrons: more than 1100)

- All races demand power if they own less than 200 (Necrons: less than 400)


AI Config Panel
===============

There are several options you can change for each difficulty level to adjust the AI behaviour to you liking.

1.) Dancing
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dancing is the ability to run away with ranged units if they are attacked in melee.
There are three possible settings:
a) Off => Dancing is not used at all
b) Standard => The AI is restricted to only dance with one unit at a time
c) Godlike => The AI will dance with several units at a time if necessary

2.) Attack Delay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This forces the AI to wait with an attack until a specif time has passed.
You can adjust this time in two minute steps from 0 to 20 minutes.

3.) Tech Speed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With an increased teching speed, the AI will spend its resources more on teching than on building troops.
With a decreased teching speed, the AI will spend its resources more on building troops than on teching.

4.) Teching Handicap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A handicap will slow down the teching of an AI. It will also hoard more ressources
instead of spending it immediately for units or buildings.
You can give allies an handicap or opponents. If you give allies a handicap, all
AI's allied with a human player are affected. If you give opponents a handicap, all
AI's not allied with a human player are affected. You can use this behaviour for
example to weaken AI opponents if you don't feel good enough to face them at full
strength. Or you want the exact opposite, a real challenge, and weaken your own
allies, so you have to do more yourselve.

5.) Allow alternative strategies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All AI's have 4 different strategies:

- A solid allround strategy
- A special ranged strategy
- A special melee strategy
- A vehicle fast tech strategy

If alternative strategies are activated, the AIs will choose one of those strategies at the start by
random, though the chances of each strategy are influenced by opponent and map size. If deactivated,
the AI will always choose the solid allround strategy.

6.) Early Harassing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This allows commanders and combat troops to make an attack at an extremly early state to
avoid opposing scout capturing strategic points. If successfull, this can severly cripple
the opponents ressource income and decide the game at a very early state. On the other side,
harassing can also lead to a quick sacrifice of troops, which gives the opponent an advantage.
Harassing is only possible in the first 4 minutes.

7.) Multiple Troop Production Buildings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The AI normally builds more troop production buildings if it has excess ressources. This allows
often an outproducing of the opponenr who can't replace its losses fast enough.
Bear in mind that the AI might still build more troop production because of other reasons. IG for
example need to build them to increase their squad and support caps. In this case those buildings
are normally only built a bit later. This can also hurt the balance between the races since some
of them are affected more and others less of it.

8.) Allow Relic units
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If deactivated, the AI won't build any Relic units like the Baneblade from the Imperial Guard or the Chaos
Bloodthirster.


Script Changes (from the original game to what we have today)
==============
Available upon request.


Comments?
=========
Visit us at our home base: http://forums.revora.net/index.php?showforum=478
You can also drop by the official Relicforums here: http://forums.relicnews.com/

Cheers DoW Community and prepare for some serious ownage!

runab0ut

Sweet.

Good job AI team.

Cheesenium

Yeah man,new version of ai mod.

Thanks a lot for the great mod.

haloelite52

w00t you guys pump these out like its nothing nice keep work you worker bees... just kidding take your time.

†TYRANICK†™

Ahh dude i love you!! This works brilliantly! No lag at all, even on 4v4 on huge maps, love it, thanks for this release =]

mdcertainty

Excellent work AI Team! Thank you very much even speed optimized ehh..... great! Can´t wait to battle with 2.5.

cheers

sgb

This is great news, thanks for your continued efforts in making the best single player mod even better. Now hopefully the updated DCPro gets released sooner than later, as the AI in 2.02 is crap right now. As much as I like the new stuff, I've gone back to DoS until they get a halfway challenging AI up.

thudmeizer

With the help of both Larkin and Kaiser.. DoWPRO **IS** updated and utilizing 2.50. Larkin and Kaiser are graciously putting the final tweaks to it. Its now what Korbah had expected the superior DoWPro AI to be -> King Ownage Material!

Colonel Temp

great work thudo and team!

i still think your a military program gone corrupt...

LarkinVB

@sgb: dowpro 2.0.2 is already using skirmish AI 2.40. If you find it crap then please explain in detail and provide evidence. What is DC + DoS 2.40 doing better than dowpro 2.0.2 ?

horusheretic

i couldnt possibly begin to think how wrong that would be.

any chance of gathering some hired help on added winconditions (things like no rushing scripts etc ) and that the ai will recognise. so if you have a no rushing for 5 mins the ai says to itself dont go near that base yet, or troops die

i know theres a control panel for this sort of thing buts its nice to be able to have a beastie rushing match and then dont want to be rushed on the next with out restarting the game.

Lor

Once again Thud, a big thanks to you and the team. Your ongoing efforts continue to impress :P

ThetaOrion

Kudos, Thud and Arkhan and Larkin and team!

fs_xyz

Multiple game corporation should hire you and your team for your skills.

ozzy

Can't wait for the latest AI to work with Inquisition DH and DOWXP. I have been having quite an easy time playing against the AI in both these mods with the difficulty set to hard and the win condition on annhilate.
I usually play the AI on 1v1 map. No matter the enemy I have noticed that the AI is very vulnerable to aggressive attacks at the start. It runs away quite quickly and as long as you bring all your forces to bear in 1 spot it doesn't really stand a chance. It lacks the ability at the moment to consolidate it's forces and then go for a big push in order to displace me from a point I have captured. Pretty much, I win all the time by harassing the AI off a CP, then decap it or destroy the LP on it and keep going until I encounter resistance too stiff to handle. Then I just retreat, build up a bit, make sure the AI doesn't recapture the points, which as I said earlier is pretty easy as it never brings sufficient force to the battle. Once it doesn't have the economy it's really quite easy to just engage in a war of attrition and wear it's resources down while your superior resources will inevitably hand you the victory.
If I had any suggestions it would be to make the AI defend and retake critical CPs on the 1v1 maps, with a greater level of urgency and intensity. Not all points mind you, just enough so that it's economy can gain parity with mine. Without these it just can't compete. Part of the problem may be excessive dancing. The AI on occasion dances itself right back to it's own base instead of standing and fighting which might have given it a chance of winning.
The other scary possibility I haven't considered is that your AI mod has made me just too damn good and I can't be beat on hard anymore!!

LarkinVB

Play harder so Arkhan can have a break instead coding in your wishlist

ozzy

Funny I thought they actually wanted feedback.

LarkinVB

Of course, I was joking. But if you want to give feedback that isn't easily overlooked please post here: http://forums.revora.net/index.php?showforum=478

ozzy

I realised you were joking, so was I. Thanks for the link btw.

ArkhanTheBlack

Hey! I DO watch these forums too . I'm often just too lazy to post...

†TYRANICK†™

Wow there is hardly anyone on this forum section, where is everyone.

Also.

I have no criticism to give because i have no problems at all, its great

thudmeizer

They were all playing our AI, got owned so badly so often, smashed their keyboard over their mouse breaking both.. thus, taking a long unexpected break.

ozzy

I've gotta say this version of the AI is amazing. The game runs so much smoother now. I hadn't realised just how much the previous AI versions slowed the game down. Thanks for the hard work guys, I'm having a ball.

PathFinder

has any body successfully defeat the ai? in say.. 2v2, 3v3? on the insane setting?

†TYRANICK†™

Oh a challenge? is this the default insane setting or the more insane settings I.E. allied handicaps and monsterous oppenent teching speed?

I can do advanced...just, against IG with eldar, i just spam grav tanks and start hacking away at there base asap. but thats on destroy HQ.

I dont feel to confident doing it on Annihilation setting lol

The_Guardman

I use the following setting both alone, 2v2, and 3v3:

Timer
Take & Hold
Ground Control
Annhilate
AI Donation
AI highspeed

Generically, I win 99% of the Hard games and often (I can say 80%) of the hardest games. Insane is a lot tricky, I can win by rush if alone ( 75% +/-), but on MP it is near impossible due to the time it take to rush, not talking about the dyng AI donating to the other(s).

What I noticed is that the AI hardly do anything to stop Take & Hold or Ground Control victories if it have some troop to shoot upon. This sometime leave me & friends a "win by cheating" sensation, like having hit a dumb child in the back of the head.

thudmeizer

This is 2.50 AI? Doesn't sound like the AI I know since its far more brutal in T&H and GC winning conditions ESPECIALLY if you up the skill into the HARDER+. If you can win against the 2.50 AI on anything on HARDER+ then yer likely too good for your liking. As I always state, over 90% of this community cannot contain the AI even on HARD. Until we get true dedicated AI processors, there isn't enough lines of code to make any AI for any RTS game a challenge for you.

PathFinder

a noob question. How do u acess the setting for the "AI Config panel"? like dancing setting etc..

thudmeizer

@PathFinder - through START/PROGRAMS/THQ/DARK CRUSADE/Dawn of Skirmish...

PathFinder

Uah.. Whoops. sry. i always did it using the game manager.

how does changing the settings affect multiplayer? if 2 player have different ai settings who's would be used?

ArkhanTheBlack

Both settings are used since the AI's are spread to the different computers. Therefore the the AI's controlled by computer 1 use the player 1 settings and the ones controlled by computer 2 use the player 2 settings.

†TYRANICK†™

I dunno, i think if you were dedicated enough you could make an unbeatable AI.

Ok i tried a 3vs3 on insane against necrons...lol big mistake, I forgot the monoloths could teleport anywhere, and didnt realize they'd make 8 of them each!

Playing it on heroes isnt always such a good idea either haha, fun though even though i got pwned

ArkhanTheBlack

So until now we were just lazy because the AI isn't perfect?! Very nice indeed...

thudmeizer

Unbeatable AI = Not fun either. If we had perfect AI then why have humans around? There has to be balance in the universe or why have THE MATRIX?

†TYRANICK†™

@ Arkan.

WTF?! i wasnt calling you lazy, that was not at all in any way aimed at the AI being crap, what crawled on ur arse and bit it? i wasnt hinting that ur lazy...dude ur paranoid.

I was simply saying...that if you (not actually meaning YOU arkan, i mean "you" as in in "self" as in someone, ok?)

Ok "if a person" was "dedicated(not lazy)" whats absolutely determined and was to put in nightmareishly and seeminglesly nigh impossible commands in, then you could make and AI unbeatable, only down side is no-1 would have so much spare time...unless well u know, and 2 it would be a massively large file size.

Now dude...chill.

Also thud, that makes number 3 unbeatable is no fun, seems arkan is touchy 2day lol

thudmeizer

No man.. do agree with Arkhan..

See.. when you passionately mod like we do with DoW AI we don't take things quite so lightly because every part of us is in these scripts. Yes it sounds weird but this project is our heart, our angst, our joy, our sadness. Even I get "touchy" having to defend what the AI does because we're so a part of its success and its failures. Please don't mind if we sometimes take it "personally" considering the raw labour which is required. There has been ALOT of BS we deal with to get it to where we are today.

LarkinVB

To clear things up I make a rough guess how much time I did spend working on the mod. I think it's a lot more than 500 hours. That's just me, sure Arkhan and Thudo will add a lot more. That IS dedication.

†TYRANICK†™

Ok fair enough thud, but he totally took that the wrong way, i was only after all idealising a situational possibilty.

Besides your AI is awesome, it proves a massive and very enjoyable challenge for me, insane really is insane, im glad you take passion in your work, its a positive and benificial thing.

All in all, keep it up guys

ArkhanTheBlack

Okay, maybe I overreacted a bit, but you hit a sore point. I've no problems if someone says the AI is weak since the AI definitely has its weaknesses and sometimes it can react really stupid. But I spent the majority of my spare time in the last 1,5 years in AI coding, therefore saying that I wasn't dedicated (I understood the statement that way) was pretty much a slap in my face. But okay, you couldn't know that.
The problem is that we can't get the AI much better without sacrificing a lot of performance. It's pretty much Better AI => Slower AI, that's the deal. The last four AI revisions were mainly focused on increasing the AI speed without weakening the AI effiency. But now we've reached our limits of what we can improve without getting any disadvantages in exchange.

†TYRANICK†™

Then leave it as it is, as you've said u've worked ur ass off, i cant see it getting or in reality, needing to be improved, its already awesome, wonderful job u've done arkhan

the_hunger

And the regulars around here--and anyone who has spent time tinkering with game code--REALLY do appreciate this. We know that this is a labor of love, and we are grateful. The AI mod has kept DoW playable and interesting for me ever since I first played it as part of the Steel Legion mod (another wonderful production). I think that Dawn of Skirmish is the best mod that has come out of Relic's otherwise extraordinary game. I am hoping that DoW2 will ship with a great AI. However, in the likely event that it does not, I hope that Arkhan and Thudo and the others will step up to the plate again and give us some more AI goodness!

Many, many thanks, guys.

Woohamer40

may i just ask, does this work with annihilation mod?

vecctor

Always have to drop in and say thanks. I can't believe you guys are still improving this - massive props for the dedication.

Looking forward to trying this out, as always.

Oh, also:



I respectfully disagree! This is the best MULTIPLAYER mod too! It's great if you have an odd number of friends or all want to play on the same team for a larger game.

shrp

I don't know what you did to the AI but on harder, Into the maw map, 2vs2, SM vs Necrons, I just can't win. All my strategies fail, it never happened before. The AI is too cruel to me

Muahahaa, good job

The_Guardman

Btw, is the AI configured to use the Harbringer? I never see it build. The Drone Harbringer + Kayoun path is a nightmare of 700 HPs 30-20 DpS swarm producer, if used correctly it simply kill anything.

Also a suggestion: if useful to shoot the enemy, the running away units (exemple, tau FW attacked by Assault marines) could run sidewise of the enemy, not necessary away from them. This leave more time for onther friendly units to shoot them down.

In respect to the harbring, this tactic would be very nasty with the drones: one is shooted, it move laterally around the target (they are fast!) and slowly the drones form a circle around the target...

Deathguy3

Woot mc wootenstien

Awesome patch!

thudmeizer

Yes the AI builds the Drone Harbinger (its just hard to notice since it uses the same chassis as both the Skyray and Devilfish).. its been also pre-scripted to deploy drones in a rather nasty way

Uka919

Uh, I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask this, but, whenever I play against Eldar, they continue to build relic units even though the box is unchecked. Can anyone help me out?

LarkinVB

Maybe a bug. Not sure as I never tested this feature. Arkhan should know.