How does the AI solving Quests? » Forum Post by Xadie

It does a dice roll to see if it succeeds basically. It does not have to actually do it.

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And where is the success chance defined? How is the reward distributed? - In some quests for instance there is a choice between an item and receiving a new hero - where in the xml files is defined which one will the AI receive?

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The success chance is not known. Likely it is a formula that involves the difficulty of the quest weighted against the combat rating of the AI's army doing the quest.

Quests can specifically have a tag that blocks AI from picking them up.

Each quest has a series of tags that defines what is gained when completing a quest. Amongst these, a particular position in the XML indicates the "general success" reward. I am guessing this is what the AI gets if it wins.

As you can tell, I don't know much about the AI, mostly guessing here.

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Quoting joasoze,

reply 1

It does a dice roll to see if it succeeds basically. It does not have to actually do it.

Ugh, it's stuff like this in 4X games I'm happier not knowing.

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Quoting Cymsdale,

reply 5

Quoting joasoze, reply 1It does a dice roll to see if it succeeds basically. It does not have to actually do it.

Ugh, it's stuff like this in 4X games I'm happier not knowing.

Me 2 , I really hope they learn to do quests at some point, although I do understand the need for the AI not to do them (Would make custom quests a pain for the AI to figure out).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Ignorance is bliss

But I really want to know why Umber is not in the game

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Why doesn't it actually go through the steps though ? Can't be too difficult, most steps are about going from A to B, fighting something and selecting an option.

I just think it would be easier to actually have the AI try and do each step just like the player would be easier than trying to abstract the whole thing behind a roll (if you want that roll to make sense at least, you could always just put some simple roll check and be done with it but that's just not very good imo).

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I suspect the success roll is buggy. The AI often wins quests that involve combat that is simply impossible for the AI's army to win in autoresolve or tactical. Not unlikely, plain impossible, like 0% chance even if the AI rolls the 3% to hit and the enemy rolls the 3% to miss.

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Quoting ruskyandrei,

reply 8

Why doesn't it actually go through the steps though ? Can't be too difficult, most steps are about going from A to B, fighting something and selecting an option.

I just think it would be easier to actually have the AI try and do each step just like the player would be easier than trying to abstract the whole thing behind a roll (if you want that roll to make sense at least, you could always just put some simple roll check and be done with it but that's just not very good imo).

It's because as quest makers we are jerks. We say things like

You come upon a small farm where the inhabitants are all deathly ill from a sickness

Options:

a) Leave the family to die from the plague

spend 200 mana to heal the family

c) search for a cure in the deathly swamps

d) Steal all their food and valuables and then kill them mercifully

Can you imagine the coding involved to make the AI even semi-intelligent at doing this quest. It would be more than it is worth, and to make the quest would be very hard if you had to write "computer code" each time to explain what the option mean to the AI. Don't get me wrong, I'd love the AI to be able to do quests, I just don't see a realistic way to have them do it and to still have quests with open ended text and infinite options.

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Quoting joasoze,

reply 7

But I really want to know why Umber is not in the game

That would break the game, since Umber are so awesome

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Quoting Kongdej,

reply 11

Quoting joasoze, reply 7But I really want to know why Umber is not in the game

That would break the game, since Umber are so awesome

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Umber IS in the game. They have descriptions, and everything all made out. And they were even updated when factions went from 2 faction points to 3, Capitar gaining lucky. The only thing they are missing is a Sov. I create a sov for both Umber and Capitar. Capitar is my main enemy in my current game.

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Quoting Lord Xia,

reply 12

Umber IS in the game.

I know, but they haven't gotten "real" attention.
Anyways...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Quoting Murteas,

reply 10

Quoting ruskyandrei, reply 8Why doesn't it actually go through the steps though ? Can't be too difficult, most steps are about going from A to B, fighting something and selecting an option.

I just think it would be easier to actually have the AI try and do each step just like the player would be easier than trying to abstract the whole thing behind a roll (if you want that roll to make sense at least, you could always just put some simple roll check and be done with it but that's just not very good imo).

It's because as quest makers we are jerks. We say things like

You come upon a small farm where the inhabitants are all deathly ill from a sickness

Options:

a) Leave the family to die from the plague

spend 200 mana to heal the family

c) search for a cure in the deathly swamps

d) Steal all their food and valuables and then kill them mercifully

Can you imagine the coding involved to make the AI even semi-intelligent at doing this quest. It would be more than it is worth, and to make the quest would be very hard if you had to write "computer code" each time to explain what the option mean to the AI. Don't get me wrong, I'd love the AI to be able to do quests, I just don't see a realistic way to have them do it and to still have quests with open ended text and infinite options.

Yeah I thought about that but you could just have the AI randomly select an option. Maybe even make it more faction/sovereign specific, give each choice a flag that shows the type (Evil, Good, Conservative, etc) and then each Sovereign could pick the choices specific to his flavour.

Really, as long as no choice instantly kills you (which shouldn't be the case), just randomly selecting one would be enough.

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Because quests are about adding flavor for human players.

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Quoting ruskyandrei,

reply 14

Quoting Murteas, reply 10
Quoting ruskyandrei, reply 8Why doesn't it actually go through the steps though ? Can't be too difficult, most steps are about going from A to B, fighting something and selecting an option.

I just think it would be easier to actually have the AI try and do each step just like the player would be easier than trying to abstract the whole thing behind a roll (if you want that roll to make sense at least, you could always just put some simple roll check and be done with it but that's just not very good imo).

It's because as quest makers we are jerks. We say things like

You come upon a small farm where the inhabitants are all deathly ill from a sickness

Options:

a) Leave the family to die from the plague

spend 200 mana to heal the family

c) search for a cure in the deathly swamps

d) Steal all their food and valuables and then kill them mercifully

Can you imagine the coding involved to make the AI even semi-intelligent at doing this quest. It would be more than it is worth, and to make the quest would be very hard if you had to write "computer code" each time to explain what the option mean to the AI. Don't get me wrong, I'd love the AI to be able to do quests, I just don't see a realistic way to have them do it and to still have quests with open ended text and infinite options.

Yeah I thought about that but you could just have the AI randomly select an option. Maybe even make it more faction/sovereign specific, give each choice a flag that shows the type (Evil, Good, Conservative, etc) and then each Sovereign could pick the choices specific to his flavour.

Really, as long as no choice instantly kills you (which shouldn't be the case), just randomly selecting one would be enough.

AAAAActually, I have a quest that instantly kills you if you select an option.

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Interesting thoughts. However I'm sceptic about this dice roll thing. According to Brad's principle, that a feature which AI can't handle will be cut off, I would say quests can be followed by AI as well. These kind of quests are only sequences of minor goals which can be defined enough to handle it programmatically, I guess.

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