Smarter soldiers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MrkSjr

1 • How do they get... "smarter"?
2 • if troops were smarter and they could 'control' themselves, then the game would be a power contest, not a strategy game.

---

>How do they get... "smarter"?

That's a question for the developers, and could be quite complicated. We in the forums area talking about the emergent behaviours. For example, the AQ would be smarter if she didn't so readily become obsessed with breaking a non-strategic wall.

> if troops were smarter and they could 'control' themselves, then the game would be a power contest, not a strategy game

I think we all envision the AI improvement to be small. For example, an improvement might be for archers to occasionally rethink their prior decision to shoot at that wall (it was made when there were buildings on the other side, now there are none). This would not be archers controlling themselves much differently to current behaviour. They will still be dependent on where they are placed by the player, and will still attack buildings according to proximity regardless of importance.

I think, at some point some time ago, SC dramatically improved troop behaviour when it came to defending themselves from CC troops. These AI improvements have been happening for a long time.

It is your job to direct them. If they fail to move how you wanted them to, it is your fault as the deployer.

you deployed them knowing full well their target preference, the responsibility is all yours.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by George1971

Fixing AI will make that troop more powerful. This is a good reason to fix AI on useless troops like goblin and healer.

For archers and AQs shooting at walls that they don't want go go through, that's so stupid and frustrating it should be fixed even if it does make them more powerful.

---

'Fix' and 'improve' are two different things, but it can be hard to tell at what point a which is which. Also, unless you put down some definable terms, you can never 'fix' AI behavior, as it becomes a progressive effort to achieve an ambitious goal that can't fully be meet.

Supercell does have a defined goal, and will not improve AI too much to have CoC play on it's own. Also, if they are to make sure things happen the way they should, there is a copy of the AI the client app, and the server. Since it is on the server, that means they can't make it too complex, because millions of instances and behavior checks have to be done at any given time, magnifying performance flaws tremendously.

I admit, I have no solid idea what SC really does, but given what I've seen in CoC, and what I know about computer operations, I've came up with several logically guesses as to why things the way they are. (One key thing being that if it is 'obvious' and should be easy to fix, but isn't fixed for a long time, likely it isn't as ease as it first seems, rather than people at SC being stupid. There are too many things in this game to make me think they are anything but stupid :p)

I've played a few games that actually require you to program some AI behaviors, and making an elegant and simple looking fix that takes care of the issue, does not cause any new issues, and not require an excess amount of processing power is actually very damn hard! You are literally trying to out do yourself (or in SC's case, the programing team has to out do themselves), since the AI was already as good as you could make it, at that time, when you started. So now, you have to do better than what you have done before to fix an issue.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WarrenJames

'Fix' and 'improve' are two different things, but it can be hard to tell at what point a which is which. Also, unless you put down some definable terms, you can never 'fix' AI behavior, as it becomes a progressive effort to achieve an ambitious goal that can't fully be meet.

Supercell does have a defined goal, and will not improve AI too much to have CoC play on it's own. Also, if they are to make sure things happen the way they should, there is a copy of the AI the client app, and the server. Since it is on the server, that means they can't make it too complex, because millions of instances and behavior checks have to be done at any given time, magnifying performance flaws tremendously.

I admit, I have no solid idea what SC really does, but given what I've seen in CoC, and what I know about computer operations, I've came up with several logically guesses as to why things the way they are. (One key thing being that if it is 'obvious' and should be easy to fix, but isn't fixed for a long time, likely it isn't as ease as it first seems, rather than people at SC being stupid. There are too many things in this game to make me think they are anything but stupid :p)

I've played a few games that actually require you to program some AI behaviors, and making an elegant and simple looking fix that takes care of the issue, does not cause any new issues, and not require an excess amount of processing power is actually very damn hard! You are literally trying to out do yourself (or in SC's case, the programing team has to out do themselves), since the AI was already as good as you could make it, at that time, when you started. So now, you have to do better than what you have done before to fix an issue.

---

All more or less agree.

Fix effectively means improve.

In urgent and obvious need of AI improvement is archers and AQs with respect to targetting walls, and a desirable new feature would be untargetting of walls based on building destruction, untargetting that already occurs when the wall is broken nearby, and when CC defense troops arrive. Would this improvement make these archers OP? I think probably not.

In need of enhancement, possibly through AI improvement, are goblins and healers

I haven't seen any other AI improvements suggested that I would support. Hogs are stupid with respect to the AQ, that's a feature. PEKKAs and dragons are prone to wandering, that's a behaviour feature important to strategies. WBs have already received a lot of work and I think they are now good, pretty smart but still expoitable by clever wall designs.