HOMM2 - Dumb AI moves
David Madden
What is the dumbest move that you have seen by the computer
player in this game?
Last night I was playing the Dragon War scenario (xl map). The
Red computer player arrived in my area with a force that included
a stack of 31 Black Dragons. I retreated to a nearby castle
and started gathering forces to at least weaken the beast.
I knew that I would not be able to get enough of a force together
to beat the guy. On the way, I say the hero stop at a Hafling
hole and appear to take troups. When he got near my castle, I
discovered that he had dismissed the 31 black dragons to take
on a force of 130 haflings. With the troups that I had gathered,
this became no fight at all.
I was playing at a normal dificulty level.
--
David Madden
Steve Unruh
In article <5hu2oe$6...@butch.lmsc.lockheed.com>,
i've never seen anything this stupid.
what i typically see is that the last hero will leave his only castle/town and
being so under powered that it has no hopes of taking over another town/castle
in the 7 days.
--
He who laughs last thinks slowest!
Black holes are where God divides by zero.
Windows '95 has all of the properties of a virus, with the sole exception
being it hardly ever installs correctly or without intervention!
Sebastien Patenaude
> David Madden <*dav...@gvls1.vfl.paramax.com> wrote:
> > What is the dumbest move that you have seen by the computer
> > player in this game?
(I missed the original post.. so I'm sorry if I got the wrong names)
Like Steve said, sometimes the enemy hero will drop a big army of
high-level creatures for lousy low-level replacements. That qualifies as
stupid in my book ;-) I use this AI fault all the time leaving halfling
holes, peasant huts,etc free for the taking on the road to my principal
castle. Of course, I take the initial big armies from those structures
on the first week :-)
Another dumb move on the part of the computer is making a beeline for my
10 centaurs while my 40 Griffins are a lot more dangerous. The AI
always goes after missile troops first even if it makes no sense at all.
Sometimes you will see an enemy hero board a boat, then disembark, board
it again, disembark and repeat the same cycle for a long time. This is
probably due to his search radius being too short.
The enemy heroes are awfully fond of spells like Disrupting Ray when
other spells like Blind or Lightning would be far more useful.
--------------)-- The Quebec Dragon
P.S. I will probably post more of those dumb AI moves, if I remember
some more ;-)
George Ruof
Sebastien Patenaude <pa...@total.net> wrote:
>The enemy heroes are awfully fond of spells like Disrupting Ray when
>other spells like Blind or Lightning would be far more useful.
Disrupting Ray is a very powerful spell if you still have troops left to attack
the weakened stack.
George
-----------------------------------------------------------------
George Ruof gr...@pacificnet.net
Senior Programmer gr...@nwcomputing.com
New World Computing http://www.nwcomputing.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Sebastien Patenaude
Sebastien Patenaude wrote:
>
> > David Madden <*dav...@gvls1.vfl.paramax.com> wrote:
> > > What is the dumbest move that you have seen by the computer
> > > player in this game?
>
> (I missed the original post.. so I'm sorry if I got the wrong names)
>
> Like Steve said, sometimes the enemy hero will drop a big army of
> high-level creatures for lousy low-level replacements. That qualifies as
> stupid in my book ;-) I use this AI fault all the time leaving halfling
> holes, peasant huts,etc free for the taking on the road to my principal
> castle. Of course, I take the initial big armies from those structures
> on the first week :-)
>
> Another dumb move on the part of the computer is making a beeline for my
> 10 centaurs while my 40 Griffins are a lot more dangerous. The AI
> always goes after missile troops first even if it makes no sense at all.
>
> Sometimes you will see an enemy hero board a boat, then disembark, board
> it again, disembark and repeat the same cycle for a long time. This is
> probably due to his search radius being too short.
>
> other spells like Blind or Lightning would be far more useful.
>
>
> P.S. I will probably post more of those dumb AI moves, if I remember
> some more ;-)
Hello again, I just finished the Forsaken Lands scenario and I
discovered new dumb AI moves.
The red player stuck on the point will constantly attack a legion of
peasants defending a mine. I don't know how many heroes and troops he
lost that way.. but it was a lot :-)
This happens more often.. The computer enemy will upgrade his Dragon
towers up to black.. but he will not buy them, until it's too late and I
conquer his castle. In my game, I conquered his castle and found 7 black
Dragons free for the taking.
--------------)-- The Quebec Dragon
Charles E. Watkins
David Madden wrote:
>
> What is the dumbest move that you have seen by the computer
> player in this game?
>
lousy
crew of peasants and archers, and then sails back and forth in a
whirlpool until
until all of his crew are dead? Or the Barbarian in the desert who
spends every
turn looking left, looking right, and then passing? Or the Necromancer
with a
group of Power Liches who nuke his own Vampire Lords? Or the Warlock who
takes
your castle, builds a Cathedral (or whatever) and then abandons it
leaving a
garrison of peasants? Or that infuriating wizard who walks out of the
castle,
casts Town Gate to go back, enters the castle, comes back out again,
until he
runs out of moves. Like the Wizard, I could go on and on ...
Cheers,
Charley
Richard Wesson
I'm not terribly surprised the AI leaves high-level monsters lying
around in the castle; it probably just doesn't have enough money to
buy them, and doesn't give the same high priority to getting the
top monsters out into the field that the human does.
George, NWC: does the AI use the markets in the castles?
If it doesn't have enough sulfur, and doesn't trade for it, this
would explain why it leaves dragons lying around.
Also, why oh why does the computer spend so much time going to mines
that it has flagged already?
George, NWC, any word on this? It seems to treat own-flagged mines the
same exact way as it treats other-flagged or unflagged mines.
If you are some distance away from the computer player, you may never
see any of their heroes come your way because they are too busy reflagging
mines that they already own.
-- Rich Wesson
(wes...@cse.ogi.edu)
Ben
Sebastien Patenaude wrote:
> The enemy heroes are awfully fond of spells like Disrupting Ray when
> other spells like Blind or Lightning would be far more useful.
I do not notice the AI using Blind a lot (one of my favorite spells),
but man does it ever use Lightning with a vengeance in my games!
Perhaps your AI is just nicer... ;)
Regards,
Benjamin E. Sones
feld...@sprynet.com
Unknown
wes...@church.cse.ogi.edu (Richard Wesson) wrote:
>-- Rich Wesson
>(wes...@cse.ogi.edu)
The AI does not use the markets. (One of the few game features
ignored by the A.I.)
The revisiting mines bit is a sign that the computer has not
attractive moves open. It's basically a stall, it sometimes goes to
other worthless locations as well when it has nothing to do, but those
moves aren't as noticeable as visiting already owned mines.
Phil Steinmeyer
President - PopTop Software
psteinx (at) anet-stl (dot) com
Address in header altered to avoid spam.
Programmer/Designer - Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2
Nan Wang
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic Richard Wesson <wes...@church.cse.ogi.edu> wrote:
> I'm not terribly surprised the AI leaves high-level monsters lying
> around in the castle; it probably just doesn't have enough money to
> buy them, and doesn't give the same high priority to getting the
> top monsters out into the field that the human does.
Yep, the AI is quite shortsighted.
> If it doesn't have enough sulfur, and doesn't trade for it, this
> would explain why it leaves dragons lying around.
I think another problem is the AI is programmed to buy everything, starting
from the lowest level troop?
> Also, why oh why does the computer spend so much time going to mines
> that it has flagged already?
They probably have no where else to go. It seems computer heroes will
spend as much movement points as it can, with the exception of guarding
castles.
> If you are some distance away from the computer player, you may never
> see any of their heroes come your way because they are too busy reflagging
> mines that they already own.
Yeah, and sometimes they just get stuck behind wondering monsters. Afraid
to attack the zounds of ogre lords guarding the only way out.
Keith Rohrer
Nan Wang wrote:
> Yeah, and sometimes they just get stuck behind wondering monsters. Afraid
> to attack the zounds of ogre lords guarding the only way out.
monsters and, while I lost, whittled them down to about a half dozen.
When I looked at them again, it used the same size qualifier as before.
Was this just a glitch, or are wandering monsters supposed to be
whittle-proof?
Keith
--
Q: What's more dangerous than a room full of angry Narns?
A: One angry Centauri backing them, who has bribed your guards...
Peter Ginsberg
I just wanted to give _BIG_ props to Phil and George for spending their
valuable time here on c.s.i.p.g.s answering our little questions. This
fact, combined with the fact that homm2 has unseated warlords 2 as my fav
strategy game ever, has earned them at least one loyal fan.
So everybody should give them a big round of *appluase*, thanks, and try
not to sound so demanding when you're asking questions... they certainly
dont _have_ to be here.
_P t (Malphig on #HOMM2)
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, it was written:
Richard Wesson
I second that ... applause is merited for their presence here ...
and also for an excellent (nearly 100% bug free) programming job on HOMM1
and HOMM2
(THAT for the Microprose apologists who always say, "software is big
and complex and naturally you get lots of bugs." Pbbbbrrrt!)
AND for the excellent job on the user interface, the best I've seen in
a game yet.
AND a round for the artists who made it so beautiful ... except I must
say that whoever dictated the look of the monsters has a somewhat ... hem ...
UNUSUAL idea of what makes a monster look scary (chubby cheeks and a
frown?)
-- Richard Wesson
George Ruof
Keith Rohrer <kwro...@uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Nan Wang wrote:
>> Yeah, and sometimes they just get stuck behind wondering monsters. Afraid
>> to attack the zounds of ogre lords guarding the only way out.
>Speaking of "zounds of", one time I attacked a group of wandering
>monsters and, while I lost, whittled them down to about a half dozen.
>When I looked at them again, it used the same size qualifier as before.
>Was this just a glitch, or are wandering monsters supposed to be
>whittle-proof?
They were "whittle-proof" in Heroes but I thought we changed that in Heroes 2.
An easy way to check would be to attack the stack, kill a few creatures then
retreat and then attack the same stack again with a different hero and see if
the numbers are right.
Stephen McInerney
George Ruof wrote:
> They were "whittle-proof" in Heroes but I thought we changed that in Heroes 2.
> An easy way to check would be to attack the stack, kill a few creatures then
> retreat and then attack the same stack again with a different hero and see if
> the numbers are right.
FWIW - I've seen the CP's attack a stack and lose - and that stack has
gone from (say) lots to few - made it real easy to come in and get some
nice goodies that we're being guarded.
Steve
--
Steve McInerney (stev...@dsb.mil.adfa.oz.au)
"Why stop now just when I'm hating it?"
- Marvin the Paranoid Android