guidon101

[guidon101]

Salperticon wrote:

This is the double rotation use I talked about earlier:
Strange use of Rotation by the AI
I am not sure why the bandit raider did this, but as it is not my let’s play and I therefore have no access to the saves, I cannot reproduce it at the moment.

Haha, that’s so funny especially with the guy’s comment… “Oh, they swapped with me…and then they swapped back because of… I uh… I don’t have a logical explanation guys, I really don’t…” Wow that’s a fun LP series to watch, thanks for linking it.

I forgot to mention Rotation as a skill, but from my experience, it’s been used rarely by bandits and it sort of like the Orc Bash where they sometimes double-use it, but the 2nd use usually doesn’t make sense for the situation. The 1st use is usually appropriate though that I’ve seen (at least it serves to delay or hinder the player from Focus Firing on the player’s initial target).

iason wrote:

The positioning seems to be very difficult for them, especially in forest battles. It has happened a few times already to me, that I had to scout the map after the battle for that one last archer in the forest, who was confident sitting where he was and not participating in the fight at all.
This seems to be a bigger Problems, not only the Archers do that in Forest Battles. I have often Bandits which waits somewhere out of sight during the wohole fight. After I killed all but one bandits i go searching and find a lonely two-hander guy or something sitting there, like he didn’t knew there was a battle going on.

Both good points, and I also noticed both behaviors in forest battles: archers or other units don’t actively participate in the main engagement, and I have to mop them up after the rest of their comrades are wiped. I thought it might be because they Fled during the fight, and I just didn’t see them flee? Unless they were just out of sight and out of the battle the entire time, which is rather non-team-player-y (there must be a word for this?) of them.

Salperticon wrote:

If nobody pointed it out by now (took a while to write this all up at work), bushes work just fine to conceal your units. However, if the enemy saw you moving into it, they will remember your unit being there for a while. So not only your battle brother has to be hidden to make this work, but also his movement into that cover. Therefore, they really work best as am-bushes (sorry for the pun). Fall back, retreat some guys into bushes, the rest further. The enemy will come to them, even with his archers.

Ah, thanks for the clarification! That makes a lot of sense. I applaud the AI there, both playing smart yet at the same time showing appropriate weakness. Good balance.

[guidon101]

Great write-up! I thought to enhance your point by describing what I think WORKS RIGHT NOW for the AI (from a player impression), and go from there before making suggestions.

*WARNING: LOTS OF TEXT. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF EYES*

Correct me if I’m wrong on some of these, but these are some observed AI battle tactic behaviors that I think work well or at least give the player an impression of intelligence, so that maybe we can benchmark what we consider “good AI”:

1) Flanking: Whether due to sheer numbers and so the battle lines inevitably stretch out, or there is an active flanking script, the AI seem to commonly apply flanking tactics (regardless of faction, although orcs and bandits seem to achieve this more effectively). Especially when presented with a solid battle line of spearwalls, the AI shows propensity to avoid a full frontal assault (it will still do a partial frontal assault, but its main force will fall on the flanks). This is awesome battle behavior :)

These flanking maneuvers seem to be limited to the right/left flanks, as in the AI usually does not go for a wide rear-flank attack (only counting when two battle lines face each other, not ambushes). A rear flank is much harder to pull off, especially without enough forces, but would be cool to see if the AI had the resources and algorithm to pull it off. Optional.

2) Unit Targeting Preferences and Focus Fire: From observation, the AI seems to target units that it has the highest chance to hit (from the player’s point of view, the mercs with the lowest melee def or range def), also avoiding those with defensive buffs up, such as ShieldWall or Riposte. This is great. However, this sometimes makes the AI ignore certain “targets of opportunity” (for example: a high def melee warrior that has its armor destroyed and low hp; it’s harder to hit, but will likely die if hit; the AI will prefer to target another fully armored merc, with lower defenses because he is easier to hit; there seems to be some randomization, so I think this is not as predictable). Overall, good targetting behavior for Melee Units.

Ranged Units are another story. I can’t tell if they only like to shoot the nearest target (or because all other units are out of range), or they also apply similar targetting algorithm as the Melee Units… but I don’t feel like enemy Ranged Units are very effective in their choice of targets. Player archers tend to target AI archers or high damage/low armor targets. When given the choice to shoot all 12 mercs within range, the AI archers don’t seem to pick the “best” targets (the targets a player would pick for maximum impact), sometimes they shoot the unshielded Swordmaster, sometimes the archer, sometimes the heavily armored and shielded knight…and then they shoot different targets so that the damage is dispersed, and basically ineffective against the organized player who will then counter with selective focused fire.

3) Defensive AI Posture: I’ve only started to notice this recently, so not sure if this has always been the case, but it seems now that sometimes when I grossly outnumber the AI, the AI will adopt a defensive posture on good terrain (high ground) and refuse to advance on the player. This is smarter than launching an assault against impossible odds, but the smarter player would run away against those odds. Since the AI doesn’t have Retreat as an option, the Defensive Posture is probably their best last resort. In fact, the AI should probably do this more often than we currently see (for certain factions like Bandits or maybe Orcs); the AI still generally has a propensity to assault under dire odds (acceptable behavior for undead or orcs, but not for bandits).

4) Unique/Special AI Skills: There is a great variety of these, so I won’t go into detail on each one, but suffice it to say the AI seems to use the active skills available to them with good frequency, although not necessarily to optimum effectiveness. I see ShieldWall/Riposte/Spearwall used pretty frequently, and I think their use is generally effective. Some skills are sometimes not used to full effectiveness though, for example, the Orc Warrior bash — very effective in breaking player formations, however, oftentimes the Orc Warrior bashes twice, and the second bash is often extraneous/redundant or the AP would probably have been better spent on a follow-up attack.

5) Ambush Bushes: Is it just me, or is the AI always aware of my mercs hiding in bushes? Even archers run away when I approach “stealthily” from one bush to another (LOL). Anyway, I think the AI being aware of the player’s “hidden” units helps the AI respond more intelligently to the flow of battle, but the player should not be given the illusion that his unit is “invisible” to the AI. Yes, the AI archers can’t shoot an “invisible” unit in bushes, but they certainly know that merc is there. Good AI, but somewhat deceiving to the player.

6) Specific AI Tactics: Many here, just listing the few I can think of right now.
6a) Taking High Ground/Pushing Player Off: One of the best AI tactics at work!
6b) Ranged Unit Skirmish Behavior: As much as I hate to chase archers down, this is undoubtedly a smart way for them to behave
6c) Orc Warrior Bash: Mentioned earlier its effectiveness, but also sometimes redundant double-application.
6d) Orc Young Stun: Very effective AI use currently
6e) Orc Warlord Warcry: This is a great skill for the AI, but I haven’t seen it used probably to its full effectiveness. This has the potential to route entire chunks of the player’s company if used well, in addition to Rallying routing Orcs. Currently, it seems somewhat sporadic and random when this is used. Needs to be used more intelligently/effectively. (e.g. offensively, trigger frequent use when more than 3 mercs in range of effect; defensively, use when there is at least one Orc fleeing/breaking in range of effect)
6f) Lost Soul Wail/BansheeCry: Very cool AI skill, with all the recent nerfs/patches, balanced and effectively used, I think.

As I’ve said before, I enjoy the current combat mechanics and even AI, but sure there is always room for improvement; so here are some other suggestions for maybe some incremental improvement:

1) Battle Buddies: As a player, I tend to have a “buddy system” whereby at least two mercs will support each other as much as possible. A shield merc providing cover for a billhook-merc while advancing. Two archers complimenting each other’s line of fire coverage (e.g. one covers the right flank, the other covers the left, and they have a deadly zone of converged line of fire).

I think it would go a long way for the AI to try not to charge alone but try to move in synchronization with one or two other units. I think this happens to some extent already, especially when starting with battle lines formed. However, in ambush scenarios especially, the heroic solo-unit advance of the AI is not very effective. The AI should always start in clusters and advance/withdraw in clusters to help them out against players who are usually very organized in their formations and maneuvers.

2) Focus Fire: Battle Buddies should also play in terms of Focus Fire, where two or more AI units should try to focus fire more on a good target instead of dispersing the damage across multiple mercs. Currently, each AI seems to think individualistically when it comes to picking targets and maneuvering on the battlefield (is this true?). Focus Fire is one of the most basic yet extremely effective player tactics, a pillar of Teamwork. It sounds rather lame to say it, but basically the AI could show more Teamwork, especially with target selection/focus fire, especially for ranged units. The AI appears to do focus fire to some extent, especially when surrounding a merc, or no other adjacent targets are available, but in general since the AI units seem to behave more individualistically, I can manipulate the AI aggression (without the Taunt skill) by tempting their hits away from the merc they have been pummeling to near-death towards a fresh lower-defense target.

On a slight tangent, near-death units should look tastier perhaps to the AI (but only if they are skilled enough to hit the ailing unit, and approach only if they have the support to back them up while also taking into account the battle circumstances if they will fall to a player trap using low-health or low-defense characters as bait).

I find it difficult to propose specific tactical maneuvers as improvement for AI. Mostly because every time I think of a good maneuver, I can think of a good counter-maneuver… so for now I only have these basic suggestions to enhance overall AI performance.

And I would also like to add caution, with the popular saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” :)

[guidon101]

GOD wrote:

EDIT: Sleep deprived math error. Embarrassing.

No worries, GOD! To err is human :)

GOD wrote:

For example. A units spends 4 AP and waits. That unit then gets stunned. The turn they were about to receive is skipped and 4 AP is deducted from the AP pool of their next turn.

I like this solution.

[guidon101]

Thanks for the response, Rap. I’m impressed how responsive you guys are, and I admit I feel some of what I report as bugs/issues seem petty, so I hope these are not keeping you from more impact-ful progress in the development. (and also want to sneak in THANKS! for the recent patches)

Having said that, here is my response to those two points:

Rap wrote:

Interesting, I didn’t know about that one. That’s a tricky thing to solve, though. I guess I could have stun last another turn when the character hit only has 2 or 3 Action Points left?

First, you could say this is not a problem :) But if it is not working as intended, then I suggest: If I understand the mechanic correctly, a Stun is a type of buff/debuff. So, since you have other buffs that work properly through the turns (e.g. Spearwall and Shieldwall) — they last through one full turn into the next turn — I would recommend to borrow the same algorithm or logic, if that works. I think that may be a more consistent fix (the turn-based duration buffs all work consistently and predictably) than to make the stun duration circumstantially dependent on AP left.

Rap wrote:

The XP gained for slaying resurrected enemies was at 50% before and has since been reduced to 25% in order to remove some incentive for farming this way. Not sure yet if that is a good number.

Ah, thanks for the insight! If I really had no life left, I would recommend 0% XP for resurrected enemies :) But, I think 25% is probably a good balance because you want the players to have some reward for plowing through all those re-animated undead during those lengthy battles, while at the same time keeping the incentive low enough that only the most-low life players (guilty) would be willing to exploit it. Good idea!

This is only my opinion, so others may have vastly superior suggestions.

[guidon101]

GOD wrote:

Guidon – the randomness really adds a lot to the replayability. If I wanted to know the outcome of a match beforehand, I’d go back to memorising chess moves.

So even if you were among the venerable RNGods, you would still let me miss my 95% hit chance! Blasphemy! I shall have to save my sacrificial Egon the Beggar for a more useful deity than thou art ;)

Of course, I agree about the randomness and replayability. I was merely pointing out that the randomness causes us players to have very different experiences in the game, and these different experiences shape the different opinions we bring to these boards to some extent, in addition to our personal predelictions.

Having said that, having played Pillars of Eternity (PoE) and having seen how the disengagement rules play in effect, the main difference between their approach and BB is that a “disengage” in PoE has huge bonus To-Hit and Damage but can only happen once per AI/player (usually one is deadly enough though), whereas here in BB it’s not a deadly strike necessarily but the unit gets pinned if hit, which makes it deadly in combination and tactically. In BB, disengagement attacks are practically negligible with high melee defense, from what I have experienced (e.g. I dance around enemy formations with a high-mdef swordmaster); likewise, in PoE with high enough melee defense or damage reduction, disengagement attacks are also negligible. Also, having said that, I also recommend PoE as a pretty decent game to satisfy the RP Baldur’s Gate gameplay itch…

GOD wrote:

inclined to sacrifice troops for tactical purposes

I think this is the key difference: perspective/attitude. I would definitely do this kind of thing in an RTS, like let’s say the Total War series; sacrifice a bunch of peasants so my ranged troops or cavalry can disengage more safely… The thing with BB is that it’s a bit of a hybrid, so depending on the player’s attitude (play it like an RPG or play it like an RTS), it really changes how a player might want the game mechanics to work for gameplay enjoyment. And one man’s garbage may be another’s treasure in that sense, so we can’t please everyone.

I just vote for whatever solution does not make the map mop-up worse, so I may even advocate tougher disengagement mechanics, otherwise fine with the way it is now, but always open to listen to innovative ideas on the issue.

Also, we talk about how players respond to fleeing BBs to save them, but we never see the AI do this (not that orcs or undead would be smart enough to lore-wise), where the AI tries to save their companions to gain/restore/maintain their upperhand in battle, or in general respond intelligently to a demoralizing battle (good/realistic design or deficient AI?). So there is something to be said when the AI is not symmetrically enabled or competent to deal with the morale/retreat mechanic the way a player would with all the tools available to the player, which is probably at the core of this discussion (the current morale/retreat mechanics can be exploited by the player in a way the AI does not)

[guidon101]

I have one, not sure if bug or WAD (working-as-designed):

Unit Turn/Stun mechanic: if I make a unit “wait” to move again at the end of the turn, and then that unit gets Stunned, then when his move comes up at the end of the turn, he doesn’t get to move due to the Stun effect, but then the Stun effect immediately wears off at that point, so it doesn’t carry over into the next turn. Therefore, this unit is no longer stunned in the next turn, and gets to use his full AP.

This is one of the “tactics” (exploit?) that I use against young orcs, not to nullify their stun, but to reduce its potency, since their stun would only last within the same turn, so I’ll still be free to fully retaliate on the next turn.

Another one potential exploit, although the benefit seems to be questionable versus the time invested:
Undead XP Farming: Since certain undead creatures or with necromancers could indefinitely respawn more undead, one battle with them could potentially be farmed for XP, as terribly boring as that is. I think they may have “nerfed” this effect possibly, as it seemed to be more effective before (8-15xp in-battle per deathblow, versus 2xp now; although I’m not sure how the post-battle XP is calculated, if it takes into account the “re-kills” and gives XP as if it was a full kill, or not); I haven’t tested much or really done this much due to the potential to lock-up the AI turn, but I did think it was viable before, especially for a low level party, since recently-raised undead are pretty easy fare for them.

[guidon101]

I don’t see a lot of mentions for Javelins. After playing with them for a bit, I have found them to be pretty awesome, so I would add them to my favorite secondary weapon, for almost all my mercs except for pure archers.

At first glance, they might seem ineffective, especially for melee trained mercs — but I noticed even with a low hit-chance tooltip, they still connect at reliable frequency, granted they usually hit shields on shielded opponents. So I have often found use for them during the gap-closing, when I can either get adjacent to the enemy, and then do nothing until the next turn, or get close but not adjacent, and then throw a javelin in his face (and surprisingly connect frequently enough), and then let him close the gap next turn, forfeiting his extra attack, while I switch to my primary weapon and unload a full round of attacks.

Another HUGE benefit to javelins is I get to keep my shields up! Unlike switching to billhooks or other ranged weapons, which would normally be a bad idea for the front-line shock troops, with javelins I get to keep my defensive line defensive, while simultaneously presenting an offensive hail of damage at short-medium range.

I haven’t used them as a primary weapon, although I can see a “skirmisher” ranged support build as potentially viable with javelins.

[guidon101]

WHOA! Mind blown. That sounds sick. Sorry to hear about your team, though.

I almost feel deprived I never had that experience to see a zerker in its full glory, now I shall make extra sure never to see it lol. Thanks for the tip!

I love these unique AI abilities and design, so I hope we see more of this variety in the future content!

[guidon101]

Oh, the plain save file exceeds max file size… oops… Ok, re-uploading it in a zip file…

Attachments:

1. game04.zip

[guidon101]

Ok, here’s my current “ironman” game (version .40). I consider this my 2nd long-term game (first was in version .38), and I min-maxed/save-scummed the crap out of the first one to learn the mechanics of the game. This one, I’ve been playing under certain house rules:

1) No save reload, except “to interview a new BB” (my RP justification) — as in, to peek at his traits, and then reload/dismiss if I don’t like him
– no re-roll of level up stats
– no reload from battles
– reload allowed for crashes/bugs; only had this happen a couple times when the AI turn froze and I couldn’t finish the battle

2) the theme I was going for is an “elitist” merc group that only admits the most combat effective/experienced members, except for the starting founders

3) I “play” as “Guidon The First” — but when he dies, he will be succeeded by Volkar The Slayer who will be “by tradition” renamed “Guidon The Second” and so on; fortunately I still have The First, and one Founding Brother left; only a Guidon is permitted to wear the best helm to signify his rank; only my favorite core mercs (founding brother, and Guidon’s potential replacement) allowed to wear the best body armor; I titled the mercs according to their rank/role

Otherwise, no other restrictions on battle tactics, skills, loot, quests, and gear.

This is also the first game where I started to try a battle strategy based around Rally the Troops and Perfect Focus, an idea I borrowed from the forums here; I have four experimental mercs for that (one archer, one pikeman, two captains); also started experimenting with Orc weapons. I play similarly as you do at the start, keep a low profile and do GOTO and PROTECT quests, stay out of trouble, retreat most of the time unless I have confidence in the battle, etc. I save up several thousands, then go on a hiring spree, then start combat-training my company. There is a point when all of a sudden, my company can hold a fight, usually when I have around 6 members, but before that point, everything is a deadly encounter, and I lost so many mercs on the way (I look forward to the Annals/History feature to commemorate my fallen…)

Needless to say, I had many “ironman” games preceding this one that ended in ignoble wipes, and out of those games I developed these “company traditions” that I enjoy. I should probably come up with a better company name than the default “Battle Brothers”, but I actually did not expect this company to survive…I ventured with this company after one of my favorite starting companies named “Dire Wolves” got wiped (by werewolves, of course) in a previous game, so I was in very low morale and just “getting by” until all of a sudden, I got past the early game harsh curve, and the rest is history.

You will notice that I have tons of money and supplies, more than I know what to do with. This is why I was wondering about the whole “economic efficiency” approach, considering in the late game, a combat-effective company would be flush with money, and money becomes no object to the point that I started to hire/dismiss mercs just to clear the rosters of cities to make it easier to tell newly arrived recruits from old ones, but it is also at this point that the game starts to get boring due to lack of end-game content.

But I heard there are secrets in the nether regions… that I have never explored… so I am off to do that tonight :)

[guidon101]

Whoa! Never knew that about the zerkers. How did you know/find out about the battle rage skill? I just read someone’s advice about orcs to “kill zerker first”, and I just blindly followed that advice, never really realizing how much of a threat they could pose, as I guess I never let them get that advantage. The BB Wiki doesn’t mention it yet either.

[guidon101]

Oh, if only you were in the pantheon of the RNGods…

But on topic, the story about the Swordmaster is the kind of epic that I like to see in the game. As you all said, it’s situational, you can’t really pull it off with everyone/build, in any scenario. Not to mention that Swordmaster would need to manage his fatigue if he wants to sustain that position and those tactics against more numbers (unless ofc he is getting the magical Rally Fatigue support nearby) or those more resilient/immune to demoralization.

It’s interesting you point out the randomness factor because it seems people have wildly different experiences of the game as a result of it. In my experience, retreat/disengage is not as predictable or problematic as the OP describes; I miss plenty often, they get away, and vice versa. And dropping the weaker members or picking up fearless to demoralize, somehow the only times I had a mass retreat was against a massive army of ghouls, and once against a massive army of thugs/raiders; and in those situations, it felt like just a rodeo, rounding them up… I wish I could just end the battle when everyone flees, but anyway — that was not fun to chase them down in the forests…

i’m just biased, I admit, so I’m glad they don’t get to move if I hit a fleeing target (I see it as “pinning them down”, similar to the concept of “suppression fire”; can’t really run away easily when engaged with someone with a weapon; have to interrupt/stun/push/disengage away somehow first, which the game already gives us some options to play with)… now maybe if the AI used some tactical skills to allow for their companions to retreat… maybe that would help balance the (maybe) lopsided retreat mechanic.

[guidon101]

Rawbonus = Addition of all hard stats, without boni like +5% chance to hit / head or +15% more or less xp, as they represent some kind of “bonus” level ups at hiring.

Ah, I see, I get where you’re coming from now. It makes sense with your premises established. That is a very interesting perspective/comparison using the Daytaler and the Knight as an example. Probably the kind of trade-off analysis hard-core min-maxers (guilty) would find very useful. When I play, I tend to just go with intuition/abstraction “knight > peasant” until numbers like these make me wiser. And sometimes, I’m in a role-playing mood, and numbers just go out the window!

Sure, I’ll attach an advanced party, but will have to be in a few hours, when I get home :)

[guidon101]

SO FAR, I see no reason to recruit anyone with high upkeep (KNIGHT, SELLSWORD, SWORDMASTER), because they are simply not worth the upkeep, because they block you from certain missions like: GO there get 310 gold, SEARCH FOR X get 325 gold.

Different playstyle, so I respectfully disagree :)

Early on, I agree, I have to avoid high-costs and try to optimize my expenses, but later on…
At some point in the game, I don’t need to take those low-paying missions; instead I opt for the high-paying Raze Missions, or even just plain raiding without missions. My playstyle is made more effective by the powerful raw combat stats usually offered by those classes. Their performance in combat is worth every penny and then some, especially taking into account BB lifetime/longevity otherwise. If you want to talk about $ over time, I think Raze missions/raiding/looting becomes much more efficient than what you would make doing those “peaceful quests”; not to mention more fun (combat), if that is a factor.

Actually, I was worried that everyone would think those backgrounds are overpowered, and render the rest of the other backgrounds worthless… so I am so glad you have a different opinion and playstyle :)

[guidon101]

Wow, you are going somewhere with this! :)

Wanted to offer some constructive considerations. Maybe you already had all this in mind, and you were just starting with the RawNumbers approach as a base… but in case it adds any value:

As with all statistical approaches, I worry that quantifying things empirically may get convoluted and misleading due to many factors, if the other factors are not taken into account properly: for example, (1) contextual value and (2) temporal value and (3) purpose/playstyle

It seems right now you are going for an “economic raw BB-stat optimization curve”; what’s most cost-efficient with highest raw stats, is that right?

Also, when you create those variable labels, like “RawBonus” I was wondering how you defined them? Is it the raw sum of the numbers from background+trait, so you are treating +1 mdef = +1 rdef = 1% xp bonus = 1 raw point ?

In that case, I would consider coefficients/weights associated with each stat based on at least:
(1) contextual value: In my opinion, not all stats are made equal depending on context. +1 mdef is worth more to someone prone to be in melee vs. not; +1 mattack is worth more to a melee fighter than +1 ranged. In this sense, it becomes not cost-effective to pay for a high-RawBonus +20mdef/+20mattack Swordmaster, only to make it an archer (not that anyone would, because we all weigh all these other contextual considerations when we decide)

(2) temporal value (another kind of context): for example, with the +%10 xp bonus trait, it becomes completely worthless when you reach level cap; it’s value is closely associated with the early game development; so in terms of the RawBonus points economic model, you are paying $ for 10 RawPoints, worth nothing at lvl 11

(3) purpose/play-style: if you are going for 9 tanks/3 rangers, you may optimize on specific stats; 9 melee-oriented stats, 3 ranged-oriented; I would never just look at the Raw numbers for this reason; some stats are more valuable because of my play-style/purpose. In one game, I opted out of using Rally Troops and decided to manage fatigue individually; in that game, I never saw cause to put points into Resolve since I had no “rally captains”. Or, for example, if I want a “Perfect Focus” character, I would value high-Fatigue stats more

Basically, depending on context, a player would probably place a value coefficient for each stat (whether we do it consciously through hard numbers or subconsciously through intuition). I imagine that is hard to model with high fidelity, but that may be a fun and informative challenge and maybe that is your goal/point.

Taking the “experience based”/experiential “normative economics” approach is also very useful, and maybe more preferable/easier to understand/relate to for most people.

With the level of detail you are approaching, I very much look forward to where you are going and the final result, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

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