AI and Victory Conditions - Part 2

Xerkis · Post by **Xerkis** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:45 am

Sort of a continuation of another post of mine but have gone with a different twist.
(other post: viewtopic.php?t=27777)

I have been working on a short, 4 scenarios campaign. Actually I only have 2 and a half of them completed. Not sure if I should continue on if I can’t figure a way to get the AI to understand the Victory Conditions. What I want to do doesn’t seem to sit well with the AI. One scenario it will work fine, but the next one… not so much. Mainly because the Victory Conditions are not too intuitive to the AI. Switch sides and play the campaign from that direction and all that changes is which scenarios the AI gets confused on.

The Victory Conditions are mostly base on destroying units (or preventing units from being destroyed).

Thinking about it; they might not be too bad of scenarios to play in MP… not sure on the balancing though and would need to make some other changes to get it to that point.

But has anyone made a single player scenario that has to deal with these types of Victory Conditions; and how did you get the AI to understand that?

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:53 am

Using triggers guide: viewtopic.php?t=26952

My Red Dawn campaign uses almost all the victory conditions (I wanted to understand them!). If you set a unit's name to something, anything e.g. HQ and then have a victory condition based on a trigger that looks for a condition on a unit with "HQ" in its name, that sounds like what you want to do.

Can you give specifics of what you are trying to achieve?

Razz1 · Post by **Razz1** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:20 am

That doesn't work as player like to rename their own units.

The AI is only good for VH's.

Believe me it needs allot of work.

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:38 am

The game only sees the designer name of units - the notes in the editor specify that if the player changes the unit name it still sees the designer's name for it. I can guarantee you it does work, but the AI does need a bit of work, too - something that the devs had said is an ongoing task for them.

Xerkis · Post by **Xerkis** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:40 am

For this particular one that I am trying to get the AI to understand, has to do with it trying to knock out Radar stations. I first made the hexes that they sit in as Primary Objectives and the AI half heartedly went after them. Changing the names on the radar units and the Victory Conditions to match has put a bit more focus in the AI’s attacks.

But now if I can just get the AI to stop letting its planes run out of fuel and crash in to the sea.

Might have to take some historical license and give the AI an aircraft carrier or two.

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:56 am

The AI has obviously been delivered faulty fuel gauges! Never seen it do that before - a new low for it. You don't have to give an aircraft carrier - just place a sea tile over an airfield hex that the AI can use. It will need a flag, too, but it will work as long as it doesn't interfere with other things.

Xerkis · Post by **Xerkis** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:00 pm

What an excellent idea! Thanks

I guess no way to hide the flag that I need to put there?

El_Condoro · Post by **El_Condoro** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:01 pm

Not that I know of.

rezaf · Post by **rezaf** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 12:13 pm

I haven't tried it, but you could define a dummy nation (and assign it as allied with the AI in the scenario) and create an empty (i.e. transparent) flag for it.
As long as friendly troops don't capture it to change the flag to something else, it should work and be invisible.

Btw., AI planes crashing because of no fuel is a common sight, I've seen it happen often. I was hoping for a fix in the patch...
_____
rezaf

Xerkis · Post by **Xerkis** » Wed Sep 14, 2011 6:25 pm

rezaf wrote:I haven't tried it, but you could define a dummy nation (and assign it as allied with the AI in the scenario) and create an empty (i.e. transparent) flag for it.
As long as friendly troops don't capture it to change the flag to something else, it should work and be invisible.

Btw., AI planes crashing because of no fuel is a common sight, I've seen it happen often. I was hoping for a fix in the patch...
_____
rezaf

That certainly sounds like it will work. But it also sounds like a lot of work at this point in time… mainly because of the nations being hardcoded in many places.