Warlords III: Fortress Game Working?
drp...@intrex.net
challenging, I have found myself greatly enjoying a more challenging game
against computer players using 'Last Warlord Standing'. In fact, I just
can't seem to win as part of the allies in the 'Hammer and Anvil' game.
At any rate, I thought I would expand my prowess a bit and use the Fortress
winning condition, which means that you win when you capture all Capitol
cities. I tried it with three computer players (warlord setting) on a
middle-sized map. I could see the Capitol cities outlined and I won when I
captured all Capitols, but I am not sure that this is working correctly.
My strategy was to stack big armies in the Capitols I obtained and use my
hero to knock off other Caps. All I had done was take a good Hero stack and
walk it over to each of the Capitols and knock them over. The comp Capitols
were guarded by a ridiculously small force (ie. 1 light infantry kindof
stuff) and were no match for my hero. Even when I did capture these Caps,
not a single unit challenged me. In fact, no one challenged my Capitol
either. I'm scratching my head thinking that I have had some difficulty now
in playing against the computer players using 'Last Warlord Standing' and,
when trying this winning condition, find that the AI was not even following
what I would consider to be an entry-level strategy of stocking up on armies
in Cap cities.
Has anyone else seen this? Is this winning condition working correctly?
Thank you very much for your responses!
Daniel
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Axel Stensrud
I can't remeber this in particular, but if you ask in the Warlords 3
Forum
which you find under:
http://www.webwonderland.com/ubb/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro
There might be some other warlords that have.
Warlords greetings
Trym
drp...@intrex.net wrote:
>
[snip]
Stephen Hand
<snip of stuff about the Fortress victory condition in WIII:DLR>
>
>Has anyone else seen this? Is this winning condition working correctly?
>
>Thank you very much for your responses!
>Daniel
Dear Daniel,
The victory condition is working perfectly. Unfortunately Roger Keating
our AI guru was unable to add any condition specific AI for the fortress
victory condition. Fortress uses the standard AI routines wherein it rates
capital cities only slightly higher than normal cities. Roger was able to
weave his AI magic on Capture the Flags and Utopia, particularly the
former. Everyone here at SSG agrees that Capture the Flags is the most fun
and the toughest of the new victory conditions.
Cheers
Steve Hand
Editor, Master-at-Arms and Chief Gorilla Wrangler
Strategic Studies Group
http://www.ssg.com.au
drp...@intrex.net
> Dear Daniel,
>
> The victory condition is working perfectly. Unfortunately Roger Keating
> our AI guru was unable to add any condition specific AI for the fortress
> victory condition. Fortress uses the standard AI routines wherein it rates
> capital cities only slightly higher than normal cities. Roger was able to
> weave his AI magic on Capture the Flags and Utopia, particularly the
> former. Everyone here at SSG agrees that Capture the Flags is the most fun
> and the toughest of the new victory conditions.
>
> Cheers
> Steve Hand
> Editor, Master-at-Arms and Chief Gorilla Wrangler
> Strategic Studies Group
> http://www.ssg.com.au
>
Steve,
Maybe next time I'll think about all of my questions and write them in one
message. This one again concerns victory conditions. Which victory
conditions does the AI 'support' or participate in? I know it seems OK on
Utopia and Capture the Flag and not in Fortress. Does it play properly for
the other conditions like Most Money and Most Victory Points?
I'd be interested to hear your answer on these latest questions!
Thank you again for your help..
drp...@intrex.net
sh...@ssg.com.au (Stephen Hand) wrote:
> In article <6tlp0m$rlp$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, drp...@intrex.net wrote:
>
> <snip of stuff about the Fortress victory condition in WIII:DLR>
> >
> >Has anyone else seen this? Is this winning condition working correctly?
> >
> >Thank you very much for your responses!
> >Daniel
>
>
> The victory condition is working perfectly. Unfortunately Roger Keating
> our AI guru was unable to add any condition specific AI for the fortress
> victory condition. Fortress uses the standard AI routines wherein it rates
> capital cities only slightly higher than normal cities. Roger was able to
> weave his AI magic on Capture the Flags and Utopia, particularly the
> former. Everyone here at SSG agrees that Capture the Flags is the most fun
> and the toughest of the new victory conditions.
>
> Cheers
> Steve Hand
> Editor, Master-at-Arms and Chief Gorilla Wrangler
> Strategic Studies Group
> http://www.ssg.com.au
>
Thanks, Steve, for the heads up. It looked like the conditions existed, but
I was a bit surprised to see that the AI opponents didn't seem to concerned
about me visiting their Capitols. I've tried the Utopia and found the
computer opponents seemingly eager to get the Utopia city. Unfortunately,
one got it before me! I've tried the Capture the Flag once and won very
quickly (I think mostly by chance) and will revisit that winning condition
soon!
Thank you again for your repsonse..
drp...@intrex.net
> Dear Daniel,
>
> The victory condition is working perfectly. Unfortunately Roger Keating
> our AI guru was unable to add any condition specific AI for the fortress
> victory condition. Fortress uses the standard AI routines wherein it rates
> capital cities only slightly higher than normal cities. Roger was able to
> weave his AI magic on Capture the Flags and Utopia, particularly the
> former. Everyone here at SSG agrees that Capture the Flags is the most fun
> and the toughest of the new victory conditions.
>
> Cheers
> Steve Hand
> Editor, Master-at-Arms and Chief Gorilla Wrangler
> Strategic Studies Group
> http://www.ssg.com.au
>
Steve,
Are there any plans to augment the AI routines to support the Fortess game
specification for upcoming patches/revisions? I've been finding the new AI to
be much better than the old and I would like the opportunity to 'take it on'
using this new victory condition.
Let me know what you think when you have a moment!
to...@ferret.lmh.ox.ac.uk
but also an AI editor. That way, new game types could be added and the AI
would still stand a chance. Maybe Warlords 4? I've noticed a few games have
started to include AI editors in some shape or form, and I think it can add a
lot of fun playing against other peoples AIs. Imagine multi-player games,
where each player has a computer-controlled ally that follows that players
own custom AI rules.
The main problems I see are that it would be quite a lot of work to write a
good editor, and also for it to be effective would probably also mean that it
would not be easy to use due to complexity.
Regards,
Toby
Tom Chick
>Something I would love to see one day is not just a scenario/campaign editor
>but also an AI editor. That way, new game types could be added and the AI
>would still stand a chance.
I believe SSG did just that with the last iteration of Carriers at
War. IIRC, that was one hell of a game. Wish I could find the final
complete edition for less than full price...
-Tom Chick
*** ***
*** No .sig for me, thank you. ***
*** ***
Stephen Hand
>Steve,
>
>Maybe next time I'll think about all of my questions and write them in one
>message. This one again concerns victory conditions. Which victory
>conditions does the AI 'support' or participate in? I know it seems OK on
>Utopia and Capture the Flag and not in Fortress. Does it play properly for
>the other conditions like Most Money and Most Victory Points?
>
>I'd be interested to hear your answer on these latest questions!
>Thank you again for your help..
>Daniel
Dear Daniel,
The game plays Most Victory Points well but is a little weaker in Most
Gold. This is because we retained the standard AI for both these victory
conditions. The computer will just try to take you out. Fiddling around
with this meant that the computer used less than optimum strategies and
usually got crushed so we fell back on the standard AI. In a Most Gold
scenario it will spend gold a little more freely than a human player might
but to paraphrase Napoleon, When I've captured all your cities I can
collect as much gold as I like.
Fortress is the weakest AI because we encountered a deadline and were
slain by it. I don't know whether we're going to beef up the Fortress AI
as it's still not certain we'll need to do a patch. Fortress is a better
game on a hidden map where you can't just send battlegroups to take and
hold each enemy capital because you don't know where they are. It's also a
lot better against human opponents.
Regards
Tom Chick
wrote:
>The game plays Most Victory Points well but is a little weaker in Most
>Gold.
[snip]
>Fortress is the weakest AI because we encountered a deadline and were
>slain by it.
[snip]
In a perfect world, all developers would post to the newsgroup with
this sort of candor. Stephen, don't you have PR folk wrestling you
away from the computer when you talk this way?
Anyway, that's three points to your and SSG's credit: 1) a great game,
2) an excellent newsgroup presence, and 3) an uncharacteristic
honesty. If you're not careful, several of us may come to Australia
to stalk you.
Stephen Hand
tomc...@cutthispartout.primenet.com wrote:
Thanks for the praise Tom. What's a PR person :-) Seriously though, we
write games that you have to be reasonably intelligent to play so I don't
believe in treating our customers as idiots (well at the very least you
get the benefit of the doubt :-)
Some more on the AI. I've been chatting to Roger Keating who does all our
AI. He had completed the AI when the Capture the Flags, King of the Hill
and Fortress victory conditions were put in. Of course we expected Roger
to be able to write extra AI for these victory conditions (Roger is one of
those guys who you just assume can do things that no-one else can). Now it
turns out that most of the improvement in the DLR AI is based around what
we call A-grade stacks. The hero stack AI routines in ROH were a primitive
form of the A-grade stack routines that Roger has implemented in DLR. Now
Roger quite rightly decided that nobody wins at Warlords without
attacking and expanding their empire. So the A-grade stack routines are
100% offensive in nature. There are other routines for garrisoning
captured cities etc. but the AGS routines are designed to destroy the
opponent's ability to fight by targetting his cities and heroes. We think
they do this firly well.
OK, so we have AGS routines and we have the three new victory conditions.
Capture the Flags was the easiest to tailor the AI to (as if writing AI
could ever be called easy). The obvious targets are the enemy heroes
carrying the magical artefacts. It fits the offensive nature of the
routines very well.
King of the Hill is not too bad. There is only one real target, the city
of Utopia. You can't capture it too early or you'll leave yourself open to
a swift counterattack from a sneaky human player, but Roger managed to get
the computer players to target Utopia when they were strong enough to take
AND hold it and he put extra routines in to get the computer to build up a
big defensive force in Utopia.
Fortress is the hardest. In Fortress you have eight specific targets. OK,
the computer will attack them but you then have to defend these targets.
It proved phenomenonally difficult to get the computer to take and then
simultaneously hold eight targets. After some fiddling around Roger came
to the conclusion that he would need a whole new set of AI routines,
unlike any he had previously written, to get Fortress playing better than
it did with the default AI. This was about a week before the game was due
to go to manufacturing. Now we had a choice of totally blowing the
deadline or leaving the AI for one set of victory conditions a little
weaker than we would have liked. You all know what we chose.
All of the above has been a long-winded way of saying that the Fortress
victory condition is a great victory condition for a Human-Human game but
is less challenging when played solely against the computer. Play Capture
the Flags instead.
Cheers
drp...@intrex.net
sh...@ssg.com.au (Stephen Hand) wrote:
> In article <3607d1f0...@news.primenet.com>,
> tomc...@cutthispartout.primenet.com wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 17 Sep 1998 12:47:43 +1000, sh...@ssg.com.au (Stephen Hand)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>The game plays Most Victory Points well but is a little weaker in Most
> >>Gold.
> >
> >[snip]
> >
> >>Fortress is the weakest AI because we encountered a deadline and were
> >>slain by it.
> >
> >[snip]
> >
> >In a perfect world, all developers would post to the newsgroup with
> >this sort of candor. Stephen, don't you have PR folk wrestling you
> >away from the computer when you talk this way?
> >
> >Anyway, that's three points to your and SSG's credit: 1) a great game,
> >2) an excellent newsgroup presence, and 3) an uncharacteristic
> >honesty. If you're not careful, several of us may come to Australia
> >to stalk you.
> >
> > -Tom Chick
>
> Thanks for the praise Tom. What's a PR person :-) Seriously though, we
> write games that you have to be reasonably intelligent to play so I don't
> believe in treating our customers as idiots (well at the very least you
> get the benefit of the doubt :-)
> [Big Snip]
> All of the above has been a long-winded way of saying that the Fortress
> victory condition is a great victory condition for a Human-Human game but
> is less challenging when played solely against the computer. Play Capture
> the Flags instead.
>
> Cheers
> Steve Hand
> Editor, Master-at-Arms and Chief Gorilla Wrangler
> Strategic Studies Group
> http://www.ssg.com.au
>
Steve,
Thank you for the very detailed 'heads-up' on the AI abilities and the
honesty behind it. I feel quite a bit better about playing knowing that the
AI has been strong, however, just didn't know how to best handle that one
winning condition.
I can certainly understand how complicated the process is to write AI. I
have over the past few months started to build a small AI program to handle
similar situations found in Warlords, just for the heck of it. There is
quite a bit of overhead that you just don't think about until you are in the
details. Movement sounds simple, but when you have to move based on the
least costliest route, with any bonuses implied, watching out for dead-ends
or other obstacles.. Yikes! It gets real hairy real fast!
I'm sure I speak for all when I say thanks again for your excellent responses!
Do-Hoon Kim
I bought W3: DLR today, and agree that it is indeed a great game. However,
I must say that the manual, while generally well done, is missing one
important bit of info...
I can only find the description of 15 new spells, not the whole list, in
the manual. Granted, there is on-line description, but they also didn't
give detailed numbers...
What gives? I didn't buy ROH, but I shouldn't be penalized for that.
Please post the missing info, or e-mail me at doh...@hotmail.com
Thank you.
Do-Hoon Kim
Axel Stensrud
http://www.webwonderland.com/warlords/dlrspell.html
More info can be found under:
Warlords 3 Central
http://www.webwonderland.com/warlords/
Warlords greetings
Trym
Stephen Hand
<doh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Um, pardon me jumping in, but I would like to ask some questions....
>
>I bought W3: DLR today, and agree that it is indeed a great game. However,
>I must say that the manual, while generally well done, is missing one
>important bit of info...
>I can only find the description of 15 new spells, not the whole list, in
>the manual. Granted, there is on-line description, but they also didn't
>give detailed numbers...
>What gives? I didn't buy ROH, but I shouldn't be penalized for that.
>Please post the missing info, or e-mail me at doh...@hotmail.com
>Thank you.
>
>Do-Hoon Kim
Hi,
I'm not sure quite how, but sometime between when I handed off the manual
to Red Orb and the finished product one of the tables went walkabout. Here
it is.
APPENDIX 3: SPELLS
The list of spells for Darklords Rising is kept intentionally small to
avoid having dozens of spells which no player will ever use. Of the ten
hero classes included
in the game, only four can cast a lot of spells:
wizards, priests, necromancers, shamans
While 3 further classes get a few spells:
paladins, rangers, vampires
The higher level a spell-caster obtains, the more effect his spell has:
Level Bonus
1-5 + 1
6-8 + 2
9-10 + 3
Note: Some spells such as movement bonuses donąt take effect until the start
of the turn after they are thrown.
Spell Mana Description Wiz Pri Nec Sha Pal Rng Vmp
Fortify 2 Adds +1 to the Fortification bonus in combat
x x x x
Berserker12 Makes a stack of armies fight as if they all had medals
x
Reanimate 5 Creates +1 of the weakest łUndead˛ Regular Troop to accompany
a hero
x x
Strength 4 Adds +2 to the strength of the caster
x x
Bravery 3 Adds +1 Morale to a group
x x
Invisibility 4 Hides a stack from view (unless it attacks)
x x x x
Terror 3 Adds +1 Fear to a group
x
Haste 2 Adds +4 to the movement of a group (+8 & +12 at higher levels)
x x x
Flight 4 Stack can fly x x x
Wall of Force 6 Increases a unitąs morale as well making it harder to
attack.
x
Heroism 8 Turns the caster into a mighty hero, increasing all of his
statąs.
x
Chaos Seed 3 Adds +1 Chaos bonus to a group
x
Phantom Steed 4 Adds flying & +8 movement to the caster (becomes +16 &
+24 at higher levels)
x x x
Mighty Feast 8 Adds +1 hits to each army in the stack & +1 strength to
the caster
x
Dig 4 Grants the caster a +2 Engineering bonus
x
Augury 8 Reveals portions of hidden/fogged map.
x x x
Axel Stensrud
The list you put up would be ROH and Do-Hoon asked for DLR.
The higher level a spell-caster obtains, the more effect his spell
has:
Level Bonus for DLR 1.0
1-6 + 1
7-9 + 2
10 + 3
The overview of the spells for DLR 1.0 can still be foun under:
http://www.webwonderland.com/warlords/dlrspell.html
and the spells for ROH under:
http://www.webwonderland.com/warlords/rohspell.html
A currently unofficial overview of the spells for the upcoming
1.01 patch can be found under:
http://www.webwonderland.com/warlords/dlrspell_101.html
More info on Warlords 3 can be found under:
http://www.webwonderland.com/warlords/
or in the Warlords 3 Forum under:
http://www.webwonderland.com/ubb/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro
Warlords greetings
Trym
Stephen Hand wrote:
>
> In article <01bdde69$6b85b8e0$9df80f82@computopia>, "Do-Hoon Kim"
> <doh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Um, pardon me jumping in, but I would like to ask some questions....
> >
> >I bought W3: DLR today, and agree that it is indeed a great game. However,
> >I must say that the manual, while generally well done, is missing one
> >important bit of info...
[snip]
> >Please post the missing info, or e-mail me at doh...@hotmail.com
> >Thank you.
> >
> >Do-Hoon Kim
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm not sure quite how, but sometime between when I handed off the manual
> to Red Orb and the finished product one of the tables went walkabout. Here
> it is.
>
> APPENDIX 3: SPELLS
> The list of spells for Darklords Rising is kept intentionally small to
> avoid having dozens of spells which no player will ever use. Of the ten
> hero classes included
[snip]
> The higher level a spell-caster obtains, the more effect his spell has:
> Level Bonus
> 1-5 + 1
> 6-8 + 2
> 9-10 + 3
>
[snip]
Stephen Hand
<axel.s...@stud.uni-erlangen.de> wrote:
>Hallo Stephen
>
>The list you put up would be ROH and Do-Hoon asked for DLR.
The table I posted was the missing table that accompanied the new spell
table in the DLR manual as I supplied it to Red Orb.