Reaper without a team...

AI discussion, ideas, and SDK help.
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my wife hates me
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Reaper without a team...

Post by my wife hates me » Tue May 01, 2007 7:48 am

I don't know if this is fixable, when by himself on a larger map (castle usa in this instance) Reaper had his hands full with too many fronts. He kept trying to pop Brainiac in the East and me in the South all the while a pixie was hammering him in the North. Neither me nor Brain were any super threat and were keeping pretty even on our boarder, but Reap kept trying for us.

Long story short, does Reap recognize that he has no "teammates" and would be better of fending vs the most iminent danger in order to keep his income...

Settings were; Castle USA / 4,6,8,10,15,20 / 5%
by 10th round, I held Texas, Brainiac South East, Reaper and Pixie fighting for the 2 Northern Castles (2 trotsky bots also in the west but were a non factor that pixie was keeping in check)

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Re: Reaper without a team...

Post by BDF » Tue May 01, 2007 12:43 pm

my wife hates me wrote:himself
Reaper is still refered to as "it", not quite human yet :D

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Re: Reaper without a team...

Post by Bertrand » Tue May 01, 2007 8:17 pm

my wife hates me wrote:I don't know if this is fixable
Everything is fixable. The right question is rather "is is worth the effort to fix it". And, "Does a problem really exist".
my wife hates me wrote:Long story short....

Reaper had his hands full with too many fronts. He kept trying to pop Brainiac in the East and me in the South all the while a pixie was hammering him in the North. Neither me nor Brain were any super threat and were keeping pretty even on our boarder, but Reap kept trying for us.
Short question, long answer. Actually, your observation is very pertinent, and goes to the core of what we bot-designers have to do to make an AI. Everything is a compromise, and I had to decide how aggressively Reaper was to play. Do I go for a better average position, or do I go for the win? I chose to always try to win at all costs. In my mind finishing second is losing. Sometimes, trying for the win results in a spectacular failure, and you end up losing badly. I think this is what happened in the game you describe.

Reaper tries to be a good neighbor. He is not interested in popping continents until the end-game, when people start dying. Of course, if you tempt him with a very weak border, he will be unable to resist popping it, but if you maintain a reasonable defense force he will not touch it.

By your description, you seem to imply that Reaper tried to pop your borders, and it was early in the game. What probably happened is that he was trying to invade your continent and take it over, and he failed because of bad dice. It just *looks* like a border pop. Reaper only tries to invade a continent when he knows that he has a good probability of succeeding, and having enough forces left over to defend it.

You mentioned a Pixie bot. Was it an EvilPixie? This bot is a pain, always popping borders for dubious reasons. If there was one close to Reaper's castle, then it was bad luck for him. That, combined with the failed continent invasions, was probably fatal.

That brings me to another thing. Reaper treats all his opponents equally. He does not alter his strategy when, for example, a EvilPixie is near him. He should be able to recognize that EvilPixie is a border popper, and exterminate any forces near his continents. In other words, Reaper should characterize his opponents according to their playing style, and adapt. This is not easily programmed, however.
my wife hates me wrote:does Reap recognize that he has no "teammates" and would be better of fending vs the most iminent danger in order to keep his income...
Actually, he does. Or at least he should. When he is alone he plays less aggressively then when he his teaming.

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Post by BDF » Tue May 01, 2007 9:01 pm

betrand, you know the code used for bots.
I have a theory that there is probably a code in EvilPixie which makes him target humans, simply because i find EvilPixie even more annoying than reaper. I tend to take out the pixie bot before reaper in games. Can you just tell me so i have no doubts if there IS a code in EvilPixie to target human players mostly

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Post by Bertrand » Tue May 01, 2007 9:42 pm

There is no special targeting of humans in EvilPixie, and, to my knowledge, in any other bot. Reaper only does it if you annoy him with bots first.

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Post by Sylocat » Tue May 01, 2007 10:08 pm

oh, and EvilPixie is a she. :wink:

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Post by my wife hates me » Wed May 02, 2007 6:07 am

Dude with the sharp thing wrote:blah blah reaper eats your children...
Thanx for the feedback. It makes a little more sense and I think it was an Evil Pix now that you mention it. I would love to learn scripting if for no other reason then to try a bot. Till then I guess I have to be satisfied with applescripting mass mailers (ugh, i have enough problems with that).
Same bot daddy wrote:yes, reaper is less aggressive without teammates...
I'm sure you'd like us all to believe this one!!! :lol:

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Post by octobclrnts » Thu May 03, 2007 12:13 am

Bertrand wrote:yes, reaper is less aggressive without teammates...
Yeah, where less aggressive = reaper still kicks you in the nuts. :D

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Post by Zogu » Sat May 05, 2007 12:31 am

EvilPixie likes to shatter your dreams. If you have control over a complete continent but keep your defenses too weak, she will break through and then retreat. This has the effect of preventing you from getting a bonus. She is very stubborn.

In contrast Reaper is much more dangerous. He builds up a stack of armies at one location, waiting to have enough armies to (statistically) wipe out a whole continent in a single turn. Sometimes even 2 continents at once (it has happened a few times in my Lebanon map, which should be available any time soon to Luxers).

Addendum: I've just played a game and now i'm confused. Are both EvilPixie and Nefarious playing with that "break your enemy's continents" strategy?

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Post by coppro » Tue May 15, 2007 6:17 pm

Bertrand wrote:There is no special targeting of humans in EvilPixie, and, to my knowledge, in any other bot. Reaper only does it if you annoy him with bots first.
There is the HumanFriendly example bot, but I don't think that any other bot will.

Although I think that a bot that could be told to go BotsFirst would be funny.

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Post by BDF » Tue May 15, 2007 6:27 pm

coppro wrote:
Bertrand wrote:There is no special targeting of humans in EvilPixie, and, to my knowledge, in any other bot. Reaper only does it if you annoy him with bots first.
There is the HumanFriendly example bot, but I don't think that any other bot will.

Although I think that a bot that could be told to go BotsFirst would be funny.
Self-termination, the computer would freeze and the blow up.

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Post by Bertrand » Tue May 15, 2007 7:22 pm

coppro wrote:Although I think that a bot that could be told to go BotsFirst would be funny.
BotOMatic can do that. Just tell him to team with humans.

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