Stronghold Crusader AI+

[Zelenium]

Good day. I have finished developing my add-on for the game. I would like my addon to be included in your patch.

My supplement includes:

1. Division into AI levels (4 levels with 4 computer opponents in each).
2. Modified avi files (so far only 1 lock for each computer).
3. Changed aic-characteristics of each computer. However, points 2 and 3 do not destroy the style of each computer opponent.
4. New initial money (only for standard values). Now the easiest option for the player is 2000: 2000, and the heaviest is 1000: 12000.
5. The new initial troops of the player and computers.
6. New powers of the Lords (the player has a standard lord). And much more.

Each computer opponent has his favorite warrior and his level (from 1 to 4). The higher the level, the stronger the lord, the larger the initial army, the better developed the defense, the stronger the attack, etc. Now there will be a list of each computer player, his level and favorite warrior (features).

First level:

1. Rat. Spearman (favorite warrior).
2. Sultan. Slinger.
3. Filipp. Knight.
4. Abbot. Monk.

Second level:

1. Snake. Archer.
2. Emir. Horse archer.
3. Nizar. Assasin.
4. Marshal. None. Marshal has no favorite troops, but he is a great ally. He is always ready to send you his last goods and help his troops in the battle.

Third level:

1. Pig. Maceman.
2. Caliph. Arab archer.
3. Sheriff. Siege weapons.
4. Frederick. Crossbowman.

Final fourth level:

1. Wolf. Swordsman.
2. Saladin. Arab swordsman.
3. Wazir. Flame thrower.
4. Richard. Pikeer.

Each new level of the computer is much stronger than the past.

Warning! It is undesirable to edit .exe files, due to the possibility of damaging certain innovations. Warning 2! The game is in Russian. Warning 3! Before starting the game, be sure to copy, and then delete the entire original folder "aiv". After that, throw the downloaded "aiv" into the game folder.

Files: Stronghold Crusader AI+.zip

[J-T-de]

Its very nice to see that more people get interested in supporting Sh0wdown in developing the patch! The "Stronghold Crusader player.exe" works for me (and the game is not in Russian, as it still uses the correct localization). However, the "Stronghold Crusader spectator.exe" does not start for me (what is this anyway?).

I think be considered to be included into the patch, you have to do some more work, as right now, it is obviously not compatible to the patch (keyword AOB scan with cheat engine, and bring it into the form the patcher can handle it; if you have questions regarding to port it for the patcher, I can help).

Your mod splits into two categories:

1. aiv and aic edit: This is 'nothing new' in the sense, that it could be trivially included, as the patcher can already handle it
2. binary edits: initial troops, initial money and lord powers (meaning you were able to adapt the health of the lords? I could not figure it out yet.). Here it gets more interesting, as this would be something new for the patcher.

However, I guess the goto would be to deliver either an configurable file for all three binary edits, or to include initial troops and lord powers in the aic (this is gonna get awful to implement, but way nicer from a content creator and user perspective) plus a configurable file for the start resources (not only gold). This is something, I guess, everybody will like (worst case: one does not use it).

In my opinion, in the current state of your mod should not be implemented because it has a rather narrow scope. However, this should not discourage you, the opposite is the case: I find the general possibilities with this edits really cool and would love to use it. In any case, you can make your own fork, include your changes and do whatever you want.

[GRhin]

Agree with @J-T-de this is great as your own mod. I am very intrigued by the spectator.exe - it worked fine for me. Is it just the same as the spectator option in the patcher? or something else? I am hoping to find a good multiplayer spectator option, but i havent found anyone doing anything that would be able to be adapted for that yet...

As for your providing the exe's instead of modifying an existing .exe, this could be a violation of copywrite, as you are sharing the majority of firefly's gamecode... however modifying the .exe is also a violation. Just be careful how you do it, dont want you getting in trouble for just contributing to the modding scene.

If that copywrite stuff scares you, the other option is to write another peice of software that modifies the SHC process instead - this is how SHCPlayer mod does it.

[Zelenium]

Now I will answer your questions / suggestions.

1. You're right. Editing aic and aiv files is not new. But I, perhaps, the first who tried to balance the bots and divide them into groups.
2. Yes, I have changed Lords. For a player, the lord remains normal, but for computers it is weaker / stronger depending on the level. For example, in level 4 bots, lords are more than 3 times stronger than ours.
3. No, I'm not going to give everyone these functions (since I'm too lazy to explain to everyone how this all works). I just want this mod introduced into the patch. Roughly speaking, a new checkmark when you click on which all your settings are blocked and my mod turns on.
4. My mod was created solely to improve AI. Now at 90 speeds, players will be much less likely to win 4-tier bots (especially at 1000 : 12000).
5. spectator.exe is a complete copy of the game player.exe only with the monitoring function enabled (taken from your patch).
6. Again. I'm not going to tell everyone where all these things lie and how to change them. My goal is to add my mod to the game so that more players can play with advanced AI. The fact is that I'm essentially a collector. Only I collect not candy wrappers or coins, but games. Converted by me games. I always provide my games to everyone, and in your mod I saw a great opportunity to share my developments with others. If you refuse me, I’m not very upset, in the end I still have a lot of other projects. P.s. sorry for my english.

[Lolasik011]

@Zelenium Спасибо ! Очень буду ждать следующей версии. Новый глоток воздуха! P.S Если надо перевести на Русский пиши. У меня вопрос : Можно ли запускать ваш мод через UnofficialCrusaderPatch, или же екзешники уже настроены ?

[J-T-de]

Okay, I respect your decision. Then there are (I guess) two possible ways.

If you only want to share this mod, it is fine (if we disregard the copyright thing, that's up to the moderators if they keep this link here or not). But I am 100% sure that Sh0wdown won't include the entire .exe in the patcher, as he stated that he will definitely not include any copyrighted material in the patcher.

If you want it to be included/integrated in the patch, I strongly believe you have to do the following:

• make it compatible with 1.41 (it is more or less stated in the project description that the patch is for the 1.41 version)
• adopt it to the patching routine (roughly speaking, keep track of what changes you did to the .exe and write them down in a way, the patcher can process this automatically)
• convince the right people to include it

If you say: "here it is, do whatever you want with it" (this is how your point 6 sounds to me, but again, I respect this decision), I guess you will not find anybody who does the procedure described in the previous paragraph for you, because this will be a lot of work (get an patched 1.3 version, guess the options you have chosen, then compare the binaries to find changed values, and then perform the previous point).

[Zelenium]

У меня вопрос : Можно ли запускать ваш мод через UnofficialCrusaderPatch, или же екзешники уже настроены ?

Уже настроены. Просто качай и юзай.

[Zelenium]

Sorry, J-T-de, i dont understand. In order for my mod to be included in the patch, do I need to do the same thing only for version 1.41? I did not know that such a thing existed, I thought that 1.3 was the last

[J-T-de]

I am not responsible in any way, so take everything I say with a grain of salt ;)

With 1.4.1 I am not 100% sure that this is needed, but the readme.md from this repository suggests it for me. I already heard, that the Russian language version is different to the European version, so maybe there is also no 1.4.1 for the Russian version? The official website http://www.strongholdcrusaderhd.com/patch.html apparently has no update for this version, but this does not mean that it does not exist.

It is more important that your mod is compatible with the patcher: The patcher does not deliver 2000 different .exe files for all different settings, but only "knows" which lines/addresses of the .exe to change.

If you, for example, did this with Cheat Engine and have all addresses you changed for 1.3, one can make the mod version independent (key word: Cheat Engine AOB scan).

[Zelenium]

No, I used hex editor, but okay. I'll think about it

[J-T-de]

Okay, if you have the version 1.3 with your UCP settings before you edited it, your hex editor maybe supports a diff-like function, so it would be easy to find out which lines you changed. But anyway, if you have questions, you can also write me directly.

[Zelenium]

So, I thought it over carefully. I probably won’t do what you tell me. This is a rather long procedure and I do not want to waste time on it. If Sh0wdown wants it, it will include my version in an unofficial patch. In addition, it seems like a patch allows you to change all the settings. For example, change the speed at which AI recruits troops, but the lords, initial troops, and initial money remain the same. Therefore, I believe that adding my version is not difficult, especially since it is compatible with the patch.

[Krarilotus]

Hey guys, i now had the time to read your conversation. I am in the believe, that including the aic + aiv part would be possible. For that you probably just need some kind of listing in the aic description, which essential aspects of the AI's you changed, what values matter the most to improve the by you called 'strength' of the AI.

I am tho curious on what makes you come to the conclusion, that your tier 4 AI's are roughly 3 times stronger than the base AI's? Did you just up the values for attacks and defense? Or did you improve also the setup time of the AI, while making efficient changes to first attack timings and fast adaptive defense values?

I am myself working on the aggressive AI aic, which makes changes to almost all by me known values of all the AI's to improve economical consistancy and setup time, which then results in way earlier aggression by all the AI's, and also in the AI's way less likely to bug out and stack gold, while not attacking at all anymore.

Pair that with an efficiency overhaul of the castles, and you get the idea. Important for me tho is always, that the castles are compatible with the vanilla base game and could also fit on various maps. So that they dont explode in size is especially important. Else the AI might bug out, cuz of space limitations on the vanilla maps and also might have a too long setup time, to be dangeorus in any way. If you want to test your skills in AI development, keep looking for the next AI contest. I have been too busy in december making a christmas calendar for the game and now i am sick, but will soon conclude the last contest. Sorry for that (there were only 2 serious entries this time :( )

What i would like in the patcher ofc, would be the option to set startressources for each player individually, so you could even play sth like 0 gold vs 5000000 gold. But there will probably be an ini file necessary to set those kind of things. Which should then also be able to set start troops in the future. You have prooven that it is possible, i would love to see you making these changes that @J-T-de suggested to make it possible for sh0wdown to implement it into his patch.

[J-T-de]

As far as I understood the point "3 times stronger" refers to the lord hitpoints, i.e. 5 yellow dots above the healthbar for Tier 1 AI up to 5 green dots for the Tier 5 AI. This is an non-aic edit, also see https://github.com/Sh0wdown/UnofficialCrusaderPatch/issues/482 .

[Krarilotus]

Just took a quick peek at your castles, and can give a little bit of an opinion, which you can take as advice or just disregard, if you dont want to change anything anymore:

• your castles have sometimes way too many buildsteps, which then takes ages to build for the AI
• all the castles i saw were not taking enough care if fire spreads. i recommend counting the steps a fireworker has to take before reaching any enflameable building. Then making sure, that the time before a building can be reanflamed, is longer than the time the worker needs to reach all enflameable buildings for his area one after another. Yes houses usually just burn down before they can get distiguished, but for example the unit production buildings burn a long time, when they are set on fire once. same with bad things, so making those accessible definitly helps with fireworkers.
• closing castles too late, makes AI's too easy to rush. When you have super expensive castles, with lots of chapels, and cathedrals, you will have problems, when you then finish your castles walls only in like step 164 for wolf for example. Maybe you want to place some basic structure of castles earlier.
• only having one entrance to the castle, like the vanilla AI, doesnt help at all when sieged. This is already a weak point for vanilla, but you kept things like that (example wolf)
• just one example from second tier i looked at: Nizar: You only need 1 fearfactor building per fearfactor point per 16 population. Example you want fearfactor -3 on 49 population: You would need 3 times 4 (for each 16 population, which is in this case 4, as 48 is too low and you fall into the 64 cathegory) = 12 negative buildings. You place down way too many. That is a common theme. Nizar also has positive fearfactor and bread eco in the base game, wíth beer production and all. If you change that to just 3 inefficiently placed armourers from iron production, you ll end up with an AI that might be able to rush initially, but is then rather useless later. Maybe thats the purpose, but i dont think you can claim, you kept the base character of the AI's that way. I havnt looked at the food income now tho, so maybe you fixed all that by just a huge ressource income due to aic modification?

Take these comments on the castles as my opinion. I am always happy to see people investing time in advancing the AI in the game. Hope you ll stay with us, even tho you have so many other projects :)

[Zelenium]

I am not ready to spend so much time counting the castles of Lords. At first I did aic and chose each opponent his bonus. For example, the Snake has ale and taverns. Marshal has a religion. And Nazir has more extraction of resources. But the Wolf, for example, has a lot. And the wolf pits and the moat and the low wall and religion and ale, etc. If you want, I can take your locks and we will join our efforts and even more effort computers. Only you must not destroy the fragile balance of power. If the Wolf has a religion - this is not equal to the fact that the Marshall has a religion. The wolf must have a cathedral, a church and at least a couple of chapels (the more the better). Marshall has much less.

If you want to do this then write to me. Together we can make bots better and stronger. Your castles and my initial troops, lords and their settings = AI++ :D

[Zelenium]

@Zelenium а твой мод станет на мой мод РС (Russianstory) ?

Думаю да.

[Zelenium]

So what we have. As far as I understand, my mod will not be included in this patch? This means that putting updated versions of my mod does not make sense either.

@Russianstory ну по сути если сильно запотеть то могу все что душе угодно. В рамках разумного.

[Lolasik011]

If you want to do this then write to me. Together we can make bots better and stronger. Your castles and my initial troops, lords and their settings = AI++ :D

I Wait :)

[LordHansCapon]

@Zelenium You can always create your own fork of the repository, implement your changes, then propose a pull request.

[Zelenium]

I Wait :)

Unfortunately he did not answer

[Krarilotus]

If you want to do this then write to me. Together we can make bots better and stronger. Your castles and my initial troops, lords and their settings = AI++ :D

I Wait :)

I think, initial troops and lord strength are just a neat feature but dont necessarily make the AI behave smarter. If you have any characteristic changes in this mod, that are beyond the aic character changes possible with the UCP 1.41., than let us know, and maybe we can find a way to implement them in the aic sheet. Or just make another aic2 sheet or sth. I am pretty confident, that my efficient character design + my version 1.2 aggressive aic are a really good combo for now, with what is possible with the UCP 1.41. If you want to compare with yours or collaborate with me, i ll make a git repository for those, if you like. I guess thats necessary at some point, but i will probably wait until a prototype for each character is complete. And right now i have only 14 prototypes ready, for which 2 are marked as soon to be reworked.

But yeah, if you stick around, i am sure we can collab at some point. I am always up for new features to implement into the AI. What i am wishing for, would be a logic gate pattern, that we could then use to modify the AI character on certain rules, that we implement ourselfs. Just simple if then elses for ingame parameters would be great, which are easy to read. Just getting those values accessable like distances, unit types, and so on, would make a great tool for messuring current danger and strength of AI's and/or humans

[Zelenium]

@Krarilotus In any case, the characters and their characters are ready for me. If you can help me with the creation of more reliable and better fortresses for them (while preserving the style of each of the computers), then we will probably get really strong computers. But the truth also lies in the fact that we can do almost nothing except what has already been provided to us at the moment. Therefore, I think if we supplement my bots with your locks, we will get the highest possible level of bot power (naturally, this is about the 4th level).

[Krarilotus]

That sounds great :) I guess you can just pair your mod with my castles, when they are finished. But i will still provide my own aic for them, in case people like that more? Realistically what exactly did you change for all of the AI's? Maybe it would help if you had like a list of changes for each one in particular, to get an idea.

[Zelenium]

I'm afraid it would be too long. As far as I understand, you can’t build locks specifically for my aic? I just thought that you could do this for my aic and not for yours).

The problem is that I divided computer players at level 4. However, each of them has its own favorite unit and its own tactics of warfare. Take 2 examples.

1. Philip and the Sultan. The Sultan does not use farms, but uses gingerbread. It is possible to put yourself 2 quarries instead of 1, as is the case with other computers. Troops are most often hired for defense; raids are almost never used. I have a very weak defense. His favorite pastime is on the map with his constant raids. His knights broke some important buildings for you. However, he defended his resources rather weakly. Due to the large number of stables (400 gold each)
2. The snake and Nizar. The snake is essentially unique fighters. Having not the best units, he has very good attacks and defense and raids. One of the few who use slaves to set fire to your castle and your backsight. Uses ale. Nizar has poor defense, bad raids and very strong attacks. His main ability is the ability to catch the enemy off guard. Indeed, during the attack, he now uses exclusively assassins, which gives him complete stealth of actions from enemies. Thus, you may not even notice, but 50+ assassins will already be storming you. Uses whips and increased resource extraction.

In total, I came up with 4 bonuses for computers that they can use: ale, religion, increased loot and a healer. Each 2nd level has the right to choose one of these bonuses. Rather, I chose them these bonuses, but we will pretend that it was them. If computers get an el bonus - then I made it possible for them to set hopfarms, digest ale in beer and put restaurants. If religion - then computers could set up temples. If the healer - then they can put the healer + received a slight increase in production, since this bonus in itself is weak. And if the computers received a bonus of increased production, then they received the right to put 2 times more quarry and iron ore. Here are examples of level 2: Snake (ale), Nizar (prey), Emir (healer), Marshall (religion). The computer of the 3rd level, in addition to strengthening the lord, the initial army, attack forces, raids and defense, also received the opportunity to choose 2 out of 4 bonuses. Level 4 computers use all possible bonuses in the game. Saladin and King use gingerbread cookies, Wolf and Vizier whips. Saladin, Wolf, Vizier use small walls to shield their castles from shelling, use oil around the castle. Saladin, Wolf, King use a moat to protect their castles. The same ones use religion. Everyone uses ale. Everyone uses doctors. Everyone uses dogs. Everyone uses wolf pits. Everyone uses combat vehicles around their castle. Add here still huge initial armies, which also grow with an increase in their initial capital (for example, Richard 2000: 2000 has ~ 100 archers, 20 pikemen and 5 swordsmen (for you without swordsmen, I just updated my mod). 1000: 12000 he will receive exactly 2 times more troops). Very strong lords with more than 3 times more HP (+ healers who can heal the lord). Big attacks (and in the case of Richard are really very big), raids and excellent defense. Mangonels and ballistae together on towers, etc. As you know, 4th levels use almost everything that is in the game. This is their undoubted plus, but there is also a minus in this, since their castles are built incredibly long (even 12,000 are not enough).

I suggest you (if you do not want to make locks for me), at least see my locks and edit them a bit. If you know so many different things (for example, I never even thought about how to properly put the wells. I used to stupidly poke them somewhere and that's all), then you could significantly improve the locks of my wards. In any case, at least 4 levels.

[Krarilotus]

I am sorry, but i must say, i dont really share that mindset that you describe. I love the uniqueness of each character and that makes it fun to play with or against them. Cathegorizing them like this doesnt feel right to me. Your bonuses that you picked seem artificial to me, things that characters should have by logic, not by power constrains. I must say that almost all the things you described, besides the lord health and starting troops, are already changed by me/changeable with the aic sheet of the UCP. I also dont think that AI's should have these immense starting troops. They use starting troops only defensively and if their defense limit is reached, they dont recruit other defense units anymore. That is a big problem for adjusting AI values, as that makes them have issues to recruit new troops for defense, which are different from the starting ones! Example: if i want Sultan to have arabic archers in defense, i cannot start a crusader game mode, as his castle will be flooded with slingers and his defense limit is already reached with those. I would prefer personally if players and AI's started for example only with 100 wood, no stone and no gold and maybe 5 archers

I highly suggest, you check out the UCP for now and play with its settings and especially with the aic sheet provided. I bet you havnt really had time for that, and that will result in a better discussion base here. Just spectate some games with different aic's with the vanilla ai's and you ll see what i mean. Give them 2k gold for example. And also read some aic sheet. You can just export any of the ones provided in the UCP and open it with a text editor

[GRhin]

Russianstory, you dont need to bring this up all the time. Once is enough. Besides, the fact that in this thread you have two people with opposite opinions on how the game should be modded should illustrate to you why having only one "super-mod" is not a good idea. There is simply no one "right" way to modify the game, it depends on taste and personal opinion. Unless you are merely wanting to get a single repository for everyone's mods so players can select the mod that suits their wants and needs, in which case I agree.

[Russianstory]

@Zelenium дай пожалста список тех изменений которые ты смог сделать! ТОлько на русском языке пожалста.

[Zelenium]

@Zelenium дай пожалста список тех изменений которые ты смог сделать! ТОлько на русском языке пожалста.

Ну по сути не так уж и много.

1. Сила лордов.
2. Начальные армии.
3. Начальное золото.
4. Коэффициент начальных армий при превосходстве компа/игрока. Я имею ввиду то, когда комп имеет большое преимущество то и начальные армии тоже увеличатся. Все остальное могут сделать все.

@Krarilotus when you can give me your aiv castles? I want to see how you build your castles.

[Lolasik011]

@Krarilotus Give me please a link to all your AI and AIC? Thank you!

[Krarilotus]

Okok, @Zelenium @Lolasik011 i will make a git repository tomorrow, but keep in mind thats its still a work in progress! I ll link it here then. I collab with Heroesflorian on it and will have to ask him first.

[Krarilotus]

https://github.com/Krarilotus/Stronghold-Crusader-efficient-AI here you go. i hope this is good enough for now, but take it with a grain of salt. Any feedback can be put into my issues section obviously :D

[Zelenium]

I looked at your fortresses. And honestly I didn’t like it. The architecture and style of building the castle do not like me at all. But you were inspired to continue the development of my mod, that's why I will release the next version. Here is what the footprint will include. version:

1. Frederick will not use knights and swordsmen. But he will start using spearmen.
2. The initial troops of the players will change. Now for 1000: 12000 the player will have initial troops (a little).
3. I will recycle all level 4 players and their castles. They will not become smaller, but will be more effective.
4. The initial troops of the computers will change. All their initial troops will be improved. This will be the final version of my mod. After which I will release it to the world separately from the patch, if the developers do not want to attach my mod to the patch until this point.

[Krarilotus]

i hope you still can take some inspiration from my castle designs. I recommend you to just run the game with my castles a bit, then you see why i designed them how i designed them. They are not those standart fortresses, as you have made, but more build around the game mechanics, with tricks and AI tactics in mind, where the AI abuses some techniques that are unique to the AI. The AI is weak enough, so i thought, until we have a better modability for the character, and more flexible design, it should take all the advantages it can get. Tho it still should keep its original flare and character.

You can leave feedback in my issues section i guess, then i know why you disliked the design of those castles.

[Lolasik011]

https://github.com/Krarilotus/Stronghold-Crusader-efficient-AI here you go. i hope this is good enough for now, but take it with a grain of salt. Any feedback can be put into my issues section obviously :D

Thank you !

[Lolasik011]

@Zelenium попробуй замки этих авторов: Tatha : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u6hptzvudai7rm5/AAAWmf_kJrvjitIzgD7pvxO5a?dl=0 @Evrey : https://github.com/Evrey/SHC_AIV

[Zelenium]

@Zelenium попробуй замки этих авторов: Tatha : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u6hptzvudai7rm5/AAAWmf_kJrvjitIzgD7pvxO5a?dl=0 @Evrey : https://github.com/Evrey/SHC_AIV

Я уже пробовал. Оба эти автора не сохранили оригинальные стили игроков. К примеру, у Крысы обязательно замок должен быть в виде лабиринта. У обоих авторов у Крысы замок НЕ в виде лабиринта. У Кабана башни должны быть окружены 2-мя слоями высокой стены, а сам замок окружен слоем низкой стены. У обоих авторов это не так. У Змеи часть замка должна быть закрыта небольшим слоем рва, другая часть двойной стеной. У обоих авторов это не так. Примеров можно приводить еще очень много, но суть ясна: авторы даже не попытались сохранить стили каждого НПС. Конечно, вы можете спрсить у меня: а как можно усилить замок змеи, если он часть своего замка оставляет под спокойным обстрелом врага? Все очень просто. Сделайте пару линий обороны. Увеличьте замок, улучшайте некоторые мелкие моменты и т.п.

[Lolasik011]

@Zelenium Гляньте еще тут: Felix Günther http://fguenther.com/level-design/shc-ai-pack @BonnieyTzw https://github.com/BonnieyTzw/Stronghold-Crusader-Mod-Ki @Monsterfisch https://github.com/Monsterfisch/StrongholdsOfConquest_

http://stronghold.heavengames.com/downloads/lister.php?category=crusader_mods а тут много всего

[Krarilotus]

Я уже пробовал. Оба эти автора не сохранили оригинальные стили игроков. К примеру, у Крысы обязательно замок должен быть в виде лабиринта. У обоих авторов у Крысы замок НЕ в виде лабиринта. У Кабана башни должны быть окружены 2-мя слоями высокой стены, а сам замок окружен слоем низкой стены. У обоих авторов это не так. У Змеи часть замка должна быть закрыта небольшим слоем рва, другая часть двойной стеной. У обоих авторов это не так. Примеров можно приводить еще очень много, но суть ясна: авторы даже не попытались сохранить стили каждого НПС. Конечно, вы можете спрсить у меня: а как можно усилить замок змеи, если он часть своего замка оставляет под спокойным обстрелом врага? Все очень просто. Сделайте пару линий обороны. Увеличьте замок, улучшайте некоторые мелкие моменты и т.п.

1. enlarging a castle weakens any AI in the early game, makes it less compatible with the vanilla maps, amkes the castle more vulnurable when attacked, as defenses are not as stacked and bound together as with more compact castles

2. what is the style of an AI? If you think that rat is defined by a maze, you have exactly one vanilla castle, that really fit that theme really. For me the style of an AI is mostly defined by their main focusses. I havnt preserved all of these in my own redesigns, but i d recommend you consider a broader view on this topic, so here they are:

   • economical
   • troops
   • setup time
   • shape and used features
   • aggression and defense

-> just as an example the rat: economical:

• weapon selling from wood production
• apple farms as secondary income
• own quarry and woodcutters
• low eco (has very little population)

troops:

• archers offensive and defensive
• spearman offensive and defensive

setup time:

• fastest
• whole economy fits in any startgold budget possible
• first attack comes short after match starts

shape and used features:

• very small castle
• mostly used: high wall
• uses some distraction walls outside of the castle
• sometimes has an open castle, maze structure or a little tower
• has one gatehouse
• economy mostly outside of the castle

aggression and defense:

• uses spearman and archers in low numbers and high frequency in offense
• uses only little amount of archers on castle walls
• seldomly reinforces wall defenses
• uses archers mostly outside castle for defense as patrols
• uses some spearman tthat seldomly move around in tight spots inside and around the castle

With these criteria i would evaluate aic's and aiv sets to beeing true to vanilla.

When designing castles or aic's myself, that go for strengthening the orignial characters, i would take these criteria and then value how much they contribute to the characters style, contrairy to their inefficiency. If the inefficiency part outweights the contribution to its original style, i would rework that part.

For the rat the features that are most worth to keep in my oppinion are:

• fast setup (fits completely in any start budget)
• very frequent attacks
• uses weapons as primary income
• small castle, that fits almost any spot
• only little population
• uses very few structures: wall, gate, weaponproduction

Features that i d remove cuz of inefficiency:

• sometimes has maze castles
• sometimes has open castles (does not make sense on low defense or no fire defense castles)
• seldomly reinforces wall defenses

What i would enhance for efficiency:

• more weapon production
• less unused space in the castle
• uses one well
• very short pathings for economy buildings

[Krarilotus]

i also plan on making another miniature castle series for all AI's, as i feel like we need one series with very compact, slim and fast setup castles for the AI's to play with. I will create those on the side, as they dont aim to be the most efficient castles ever, but more fit the theme of the original characters and fit more vanilla maps, that otherwise dont have enough space for the vanilla castles. I plan on doing that while still working on the prototypes of the efficient overhaul, they could be my little experimentative testing ground.

[Lolasik011]

@Zelenium Ты можешь дать вместо закрытого Exe , AIC c настройками ?