Fizzer, could you tell us more about what flags we can pass to the AI?

Fleecemaster, I guess Fizzer can not answer your question because we have not got any AI yet. Someone should implement options before you can choose them with flags. Wunderwaffe is the AI to fight bots in a very specific settings. It does not play well in almost any other settings.

Edited 2/27/2016 21:54:25

I just checked with a ton of debug output why Wunderwaffe keeps picking the wrong bonuses / expanding into the wrong bonuses. Priorising the expansion properly was never it's strength however he wasn't stupid enough to priorise a wastelanded bonus highly. Problem is that WarLight needs a more complex data structure than the AI challenge, for example with a territory being part of multiple bonuses instead of only one. For this reason the transformation from the old AI challenge Java bot to the new C# WarLight bot is quite error prone.

Yeah, I think there are going to be a lot of issues arrising from trying to add in super bonus algorithms.

I fixed the bug with the erroneous bonus prioritization however had to also delete some useful related stuff in the process. You can find the changes in the github repository I just created:
https://github.com/Norman1/WarLightAI

I created 3 games on common maps and with open seats. The AI won 2 of those games.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10627347
--> Strange that the AI doesn't go more aggressive into the opponent bonuses.
--> Turn 8 it's strange that the bot accepts getting pushed out of the Scandinavian Peninsula.
--> The bot is supposed to priorize Xinjang high since it borders multiple opponent bonuses.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10627518
--> Very strange expansion turn 1, this doesn't seem right.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10627558
--> Strange expansion turn 4
--> Again the AI doesn't go aggressive towards the opponent bonuses turn 7 however the reason is here that the opponent is threatening a more important bonus.

I'm not sure about some of those fighting issues however the mentioned expansion mistakes shouldn't have been part of the initial AI. Apart from that this looks now more like the bot from the AI challenge. Of course the AI makes way more mistakes than I mentioned however those are mistakes which it always made.

Edit: Trolls Europe map
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10627998
The AI still fails on "strange" settings like an increasec neutral count however it's already capable to defeat standard non prerequisite 1v1 game joiners regularly on "standard" settings.

Edited 2/28/2016 05:43:05

@Norman

Your AI needs to learn how to finish a bonus = fast as possible....
My game with it on EU Troll's Map: https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10627953

From this, am I getting that the plan is to work on Wunderwaffle rather than start from scratch?

You can really do whatever, just keep in mind it will take a good amount of time to get an AI as good as Wunderwaffe is now, so if you start from scratch you have to keep that in mind. That being said, if you have a strategy that's significantly different than Wunderwaffe, then you might want to make your own AI. Personally I'm planning on using my PyBot instead of Wunderwaffe, because I've already spent a lot of time developing it, and I think it could get much better if I improve its heuristic function.

The only thing I worry about is if we all work on different AIs, we'll end up doing more work for the same result. Unless you're just intending to make an AI for just yourself, of course...

@MasterTurtle:
Yeah, I saw that, in fact it was an accident to start the game with 4 neutrals. I believe it didn't even try to take a bonus but just randomly walked around.

From this, am I getting that the plan is to work on Wunderwaffle rather than start from scratch?
I recommend at least copying the data structure.

--> Turn 8 it's strange that the bot accepts getting pushed out of the Scandinavian Peninsula.

Perhaps it prioritized eliminating the enemy from East US (worth 5) higher than preventing elimination from Scand (worth 3)? That's exactly what happened in the game.

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=10627518
--> Very strange expansion turn 1, this doesn't seem right.

Does it have some sort of priority to have a stack built up? The way it expanded early was kinda defensive, by completing the bonus with a stack rather than minimal troops.

Perhaps it prioritized eliminating the enemy from East US (worth 5) higher than preventing elimination from Scand (worth 3)? That's exactly what happened in the game.

Well, I know how the bot is supposed to behave. Scandinavia immediately gives the opponent a bonus when the bot gets eliminated there so the Java bot would have focused there.


Does it have some sort of priority to have a stack built up? The way it expanded early was kinda defensive, by completing the bonus with a stack rather than minimal troops.
It should have taken the center territory to be capable to complete the bonus next turn. This never caused any problems with the Java bot.

From this, am I getting that the plan is to work on Wunderwaffle rather than start from scratch?

I don't think so, Fleece. I think that Wunderwaffe is just the first example of an AI other than Prod that got donated to Warlight.AI under open source.

The only thing I worry about is if we all work on different AIs, we'll end up doing more work for the same result. Unless you're just intending to make an AI for just yourself, of course...

Hmm, I was thinking that things would start with a bunch of different AIs, then pick the most promising looking one from the bunch and work on that. You're right there will probably be duplicated effort that way, but I'm not sure that's avoidable for something like this AI project. Who knows what the best kind of AI will be?

I suppose that's true...

i thinkai should have set levels so you could have it as good as a level 60 player and stuff like that

If the AI gets too good, getting booted (and having the AI take over in a team game) might be advantageous. Currently, there is a large gap between the strength of the AI and how strong the AI would have to be before booting your teammates became a viable strategy. If you reduced this gap by about half, it would be good. If you reduce the gap too much, it would be a problem... you want getting booted to be a bad thing.

This argues for having different levels of AI available, especially if you guys come up with a very strong AI.

Any AI would never be able to do as well as a good human in a team game, simply because the AI can't communicate with their teammates.

i still think ais should pick terrtorys after the team mates