AI stops building units during long matches? Thread - Ultimate Apocalypse Mod (DOW SS) for Dawn of War

I'm not sure if intentional, hardcoded related algorithm, or warp magic but during an extended match most AI opponents will simply quit. Early and mid matches run fantastically! Each AI has unique attack patterns and strategies. Orks rush hard in the beginning, making a Necron's early game experience a nightmare. The Eldar uses hit and run tactics, and the Tau piss me off with stealth suit spam rush. Each AI plays its strength and weaknesses extremely well, until....silence. The AI simply gives up as I reach Great Pyramid stage, some will continue to fight -- but the rest seem to lock up. I'll see the occasional Titan or two, but regular units are no longer produced. It makes a ROLFSTOMP Necron force feel -- overkill. A good fight is what I am about, not beating up a force who is just there. If you need more information, I can provide. Maybe even replays if you need them. It's noticable on big maps, and I'm not including small maps for obvious reasons.

Here are some of my win conditions and my mod information:

I haven't updated to latest yet, so it was the last latest patch. I haven't gotten around to installing Nids or Daemons yet, so I'm playing "vanilla".

Take and Hold, Control Points, Annihilation, and Heroes. Normal speed, resource gain, Hard difficulty. Teams vary depending on my whims.

Random thought -- could this be due to resource decay?

Edited by: BlackenedSoulFlame

The issue, I've found is either one of two things:

1) The map is small enough so that once upgraded, your army/artillery/defenses will shoot constructions they make, such as LPs which sends the AI (in my experience) into a vicious cycle of trying to rebuild the same shit over amd over.

2) The AI gets units stucks in their base due to building and training units, trying to follow some command parameters, and then does almost nothing because it cant do what it really really wants to do.

The second point seems to happen way less, if at all for me these days. I find players on larger maps is a real all-out war.

A good 2p map is Tainted Pair or whatever its called, or Ares (Eres?) Badlands.

Ergo.. play on large open maps like 5p_Totmachers_Prison pr 4p_Mountain_Trail.

The reason for this on small maps or maps with tight corridors/limited start_pos spaces? If the AI is trying to build something in its master queue BUT cannot as its out of reach of its builder the AI will be screwed.. PERIOD! No way around this as the AI cannot delete buildings AT ALL. To mitigate this we ask players to use larger maps with more room especially since UA has almost no build buffers between buildings HOWEVER it can still happen especially with LPs/relics too close to the edge of a map where it then crowds buildings back there like Gens or anything associated with BaseBack logic.

I find those two maps I mentioned above almost 100% the time work flawlessly.

Will there be a chance to do a pass over these smaller maps to make them more friendly to the AI? i ask, because Im not a fan of team games with the AI, and i simply camt keep up with capping 50 points on a map designed for 2-4 players to split up.

Would it be possible to to make some of these large open maps with significantly fewer strat/critical location points?

Possibly but that isn't remotely my call.

Any chance you could forward that to someone on the team better able to amswer that? I dont know who to ask, or I would. Really, i just want to play these large maps, because i feel thats where UA would/sbould shine, because large scale open warfare.. But i domt wamt to have to rely un oncoordinated (with me) AI. Lol. And i dont wamt to cap 4 players worth of points by myself because it's a 1v1 on a 4v4 map.

Maybe try Scarce resource rates if you don't like the easy/excess requisition.

I have absolutely zero clue why the AI would not be capping that quickly as I've never seen that before in any of my tests ever. In fact, the AI caps points incredibly fast so no idea what's going on there BUT, at a point, the AI concentrates on the Build Order and building an army rather than continuously capping points even on what seems like ubiquitous point maps.

Jesus guys stop twisting my words. The problem isn't that the AI doesnt cap fast enough, the problem is they cap too fast for me to keep up on large maps.

Im asking for less cap points on big maos to make them playable in 1v1's.

Hmmm no what you wrote seemed like the AI wasn't capping fast enough which sorta made no sense as the AI capping system has basically been unchanged in almost 8+ years so it works quite nicely.

I disagree, but it doesnt really matter. My point is i dont like playing large maps because there are too many points for me to try and capture WITHOUT playing team games. In other words, I want to play the larger maps with fewer points in them to capture BECAUSE I'd rather play these large maps as 1v1.

That I agree: I'd love to see massively wide-open grand-expansive maps with some LPs, crits, and relics around.. this would be good for testing purposes.

This happens a lot on standard difficulty, so I've noticed.

Something Ive noticed vs Orks on Harder and Insane, they very rarely build any heavy tanks or heavy infantry. Its almost always spam grot gangs with kannons, and kommandos (commander squad). Ive been playing on large AF maps, small maps, all 1v1, as various races myself, on standard resource rates. In about 50 games, I've seen them built actual tanks (something besides wartrukk amd wartrakk) twice. Ive never seen them build mega armored nobs, etc.

That of course makes absolutely no sense because in a hundred+ games I've never seen once heavier vehicles/units show up. What game modes used? The logic in the Ork AI cannot remotely disallow other more higher units of prestige to be built so I wonder if you have some game constraints running I would understand but no one is reporting Ork issues like that unless its using something like Ork Pop 200 count -- that's a known issue.

Figures that right after I said that, I start noticing heavy tanks. I guess my thing is that theyre still spamming grot gangs and grot tanks non stop the entire game.

I think the map Fraziers demise is the real culprit, because it seems the AI doesnt always like put up the big guns. I havent seen a squiggoth in forever.

I have Medium core, usually restrict aircraft, annihilate, (sometimes i restrict commanders) normal speed, normal resource rates, sometimes restrict grenades. I think the restrict commanders may have something to do with it, or laybe medium core too. Does the AI recognize when its units health are low? Im wondering if they just see their unit health and are like, nope, we wouldnt stand a chance.

I just played a 30 minute match on fraziers demise and only saw one kill busta. Other than that iwas strictly shokta boyz, amd geot gangs w/ kannons.

Maybe i just cut off the ork LPs too fast, or maybe i just dont notice their advanced units, idk. It just feels like the orks get krushed.

As a note, it doesnt make a whole lot of sense for them to spamming grot gangs in a late game, maybe its just me, but i feel theyd be better off spamming their relic arty amd ard boys than grot gangs that break borale in .1 seconds.

Also, do you have any recommendations for dealing with grot cannon teams with SoB without turrets? It seems like SoB get arty way after orks get grot cannons, and those things are super annoying. I think ive tried using the Ordo Hereticus ranged assassins to help counter them, but turret spam is the only reliable way that im familiar with (before getting artillary of my own, that is).

I don't think anyone has reported Ork AI in UA not then using higher tiered units. I have never EVER seen that before nor could I prevent them NOT building higher tiered vehicles because the code logic is there to allow for it. I can only suggest you play only with Apoc Rules+Annihilation ONLY and play on maps like 5p_Totmachers_Prison so the AI has ample amount of space to shine. Otherwise, I have absolutely no solution for you because no one has reported this before and we've had hundreds of battles with Orks and they always build Tanks and higher valued units because that is the logic we coded to a tee.

I feel incredibly stupid because the last 5 games i played vs them, they performed remarkably well.

They still spam the hell out of gun karts n shit, but tjey were also building the tank busta or whatever theyre called, along with other big uniys. I still haven't seen a squiggoth recently, but i refrained from massing turrets and went all purgators/pally's/strike teams, and they were definitely giving me a run for my money late game. It must just be a conbination of wrecking their base from long range, along with not having enough room to build and getting stuck.

Since no one ever reads the forums anymore, I'll just post this here: can we also get a restriction addom to restrict all artillery type units? Thanks in advance.

We're on Discord since November, bro.. all the UA devs are there also including myself.

I tried the map totmachers prison i think its spelled.. I am loving that map. Especially with the Guard. That made works so well with UA, and it feels like im playing an actual campaign style battle by securing segments of the map at a time. I was definately hesitant to try it at first, but you really only need to take and hold your immediate little pie of the map and then wall off the sides while you tech up. Loving the heavy snow fall too.

Yep.. that map is excellent for testing general overall faction strength in open terrain.

For sure. Thats something i wish the SoB were better at. They lack the durability of the SM and Gk and also lack the range of the range heavy factions like the guard and Tau. Their miracles just don't seem to cut it in prolonged engagements.

Has there been any mention of distinguishing the hospitallier from the missionary? I'd love to see her heals become AoE (which is the way she works in the Witch Hunters mod). As it stands she just feels like a less usefull missionary.

Also, will we be able to build her as a separate unit (like we can with the missionary? Also, I'd love to be able to build Imageifiers seperately as well.

What do they even do, specifically? Only morale boosts? Do they increase each models' HP like Imp Guard Sergeants, too? Do they provide damage boosts?

Those would be discussions meant with the UA Devs directly: I only work on their AI, Heroes SCAR, and generically oversee back end quality.

Edited by: thudo

Im all about putting my foot in my mouth today. I was playing the SoB on totmachers again and decided to try something different. The Orkz started rolling out Ard boyz, kommandos and tank bustas, and I shit you not, three squads of Sister Repentia upgraded with missionaries and misstress' wiped the entire map with all the miracles the missionary has.

Granted, this was after i upgraded with the shrine of the Emprah, but still.

You said the UA devs hang out on the discord regularly? I might drop by some time. Might just be easier getting feedback there than waiting for someone to read a forum and dig through posts. Lol

Any other maps you can recommend like totmachers? As a side note, i love the little hills off to the sides of the base that overlook the rear entrance. Lol

4p_Mountain_Trail... also excellent for testing. Yep we're on Discord for the last couple of months: its been a great platform for collaboration.