AI army contribution

I am a supporter of the instrument of the AI armies to help the balancing.
As every major change in the game, i believe it is needed a constant verify though, to make things improving in an armonic way.
The history of the ranged units boost is a good example: since that, the ranged units rule the battlefields, kiting and shooting at will. This is not yet fixed, even with many requests.
About the AI armies, i hope the path will be different. I believe the use of them is great, and now the war is very challenging. What i ask though is that the power of them and their impact on the war result would be a little decreased.
Idk if increasing the cp container or lowering their cp gain, but when a hex is hit by an AI army his shape is totally changed. This could be fine, but not at the price of eclipsing the players efforts, for this is not so good imo.
So, i vote for a minor calibration, absolutely keeping the contribution of the AI armies but with a (slightly) minor effect on the war map.

The AI armies are not supposed to be balancing agents, but something to plan a strategic level strategy around. Both armies have the ability to inflict hex altering damage, and should continue to do so to maintain their general purpose.

My vote is to slightly increase the CP max damage that an army can do over the current cap of around 30% of a region container. This so that there is no question that a victorious army is a threat.

The balancing mechanism in the AI armies is the distance travelled/time required to do an attack.

Simply put, I think they need to be less powerful, as they (especially dark army right now) contribute comparable CPs to an entire faction. As container size is linked to global population, a small tweak down (say 20-25% instead of the current 30?) will reduce the effectiveness of the AI armies now, but as population grows they will do more.

I argue this should be the case, as I prefer active, fighting players to have more influence on the map than the AI armies, and I currently consider them too much of a factor.

I think that capital armies should be replaced with guild capital armies. Spawning should occur at the same time and the CPs be proportional to the contribution of the guild to the faction total CPs and modified by the proportion of light to dark average attacks. Guilds would determine their own targets, more powerful guilds would have more influence, players would be encouraged to join a guild and guilds would further be encouraged to have a region under their control at all times.

I like the AI armies and I think they are super helpful and a good idea.

I do not like that they suddenly become gods of war when a faction is losing, or essentially useless if your faction is winning (back when we were pushing South but not North, Tony the Pony essentially did nothing to help us while Booger was taking out tons of hexes easily)

IMO, the amount of damage they do is perfect. I could even support an idea to raise the damage they do per hit. What needs changed, again in my opinion, is the modifier to how often they hit based on distance.

If we raise the damage the armies do, we need to reduce the massive defensive bonus of the shorter launch/battle times. Otherwise, we could very well end up with OP armies yet again

Let me elaborate on my previous post.

There are two main issues with the Capital armies, in my eyes. Firstly, the ability to control where they attack, often resulting in a poor destination. Secondly, the disparity in net power resulting from the difference in distance that the armies must travel. To a lesser, but important, extent is the inability to combat their attacks.

So, I offered that guild capitals be the starting points of AI armies.

I will now give an example of how this would work and some of the nuances that would result if it were incorporated.

---

The potential combined attack power that AI armies could have remains unchanged, it is just divided between guilds and spawning from their capital regions.

For simplicity, let us assume that every player is either in Dark Guild A (DGA), Dark Guild B (DGB), Light Guild A (LGA), or Light Guild B (LGB).

DGA and LGA create 30% of their Factions' CPs and DGB and LGB create 70% of their Factions' CPs.

As a result, their Guild armies would attack for either 30% or 70% of the total what the Capital armies now attack.

With that basic idea, we now turn to the 3 problems:


1. The ability to control the attack:
Guilds (generals, chancellors, VL, L's) will now be able to place a target icon for their guild army. They target may be switched at any time, except while the army is en route to the target or engaged in an attack. The army spawns from their guild capital, thus they must have a capital. If no target is placed or the target is inaccessible when the army would spawn, the target is defaulted to the guild's own capital.

2. The disparity in net power resulting from the difference in distance that the armies must travel
Armies spawn from guild capitals. Therefore, they will USUALLY travel shorter distances than they would from the faction capital. Guild Capitals do not need to be permanent, so the guilds can now shorten the distance greatly. However, see #3 below...

3. The inability to combat their attacks
The conquest/loss/abandonment/change (should be implemented) of a guild capital puts that guild's AI army out of commission for X cycles. So, conquering a guild capital has added incentive as it reduces the power of the opposing faction for at least a time. (This in addition to the infrequent "loss" of a Capital army that has no way to return back home.)


There are 2 modifiers/notes that everyone should be aware of:

A. The power of the AI armies for the Faction that is fighting more/player will be boosted by the percentage that they are fighting more (ONLY FIGHTING MEMBERS COUNT). So, if your Faction is fighting 10% more, each guild army will have 10% more power/attack.

B. The current capital armies can do X CPs damage, this is being given to each individual guild in proportion to their contribution for which to conduct their own guild army attacks. Since that X CPs for Capital armies includes unguilded players...whatever proportion such players may contribute to X would be "lost". If X were 10K, and unguilded players accounted for 1K of the 10K, the guild armies could only do a maximum of 9K damage when totaled.

Maybe change it to several AI armies attacking at once, maybe 2-3 regions with lower cp gained.

Ysosad, what about make guild armies in this way:

The guild armies will be maked by the guild players own units, 10 players should be able to put 10 of his/her units as volunteers to go in the capital army (the guild leader/vice leader/chancellor decide what players allow to put their units in capital armies), (maximum size for a guild army can be 100 minimal 50), the success chance and the cp hit of a capital army will depend in the ap, gear, units type and levels that players settled in that army.

The second thing is that this army should not just be a cp grinder I would add some guild warfare options.

Siege: The guild army focus on destroying enemy walls and generate low cp (recommended target heavily walled regions, recommended units to have maximum efficiency "Arty") only against enemy faction walled regions

Conquer: Deal low damage to walls but focus on getting many cp (recommended targets, "non-walled" regions, recommended units "any") can use only against enemy faction regions.

Sabotage: Don´t generate cp but deal low damage to enemy guild walls and greatly reduce their influence (recommended targets "enemy guild capitals", recommended units "any") can use only against guild regions of the same faction.

Block: Intercept other guild capital armies and block a region from enemy attacks but every time an enemy attack the blocked region he/she don´t gain cp but he/she will deal damage to the capital army based on his/her kills (even is he/she win or lose but obviously winning cause more damage to the guild army) and it is destroyed the region will be released from the block (can be used on regions owned by the guild faction, recommended units "GL HI")

Defend/ambush: Like block this one will intercept enemy capital armies but this one will not block enemy player attacks, but when a player attack a defended region the defender capital army will send reinforcements to the AI army to help defending it from enemy attacks making solos/coops much harder in these regions but better rewarded, every time a enemy attack and kill something the guild army will sustain damage but not as many as blocking (recommended units "LIA,CAV" can be used in regions owned by the guild faction) note: is a player use CAV or LIA instead of defending these units will appear from flanks ambushing enemy units after the charge, is the owner guild use HI,LI,ranged,arty these will appear from defender lines.

Notes:

-The efficient of these armies will depend on their gear, level, heroes, units kind, number of units in army etc. so try gear well units and try set a good bunch of soldiers to guild armies or your capital armies will be just a waste of recourses and easily can be slaughtered by enemy attacks.

- Units, heroes and gear sent in guild armies can´t be used until the capital army finish it mission.

- Morale, the capital armies should have a morale bar, is they got heavily damage and don´t success in anything they will retreat to the guild capital with hurt units, the guild leader can decide anytime is he/she want retreat the capital army is it necessary to prevent casualties (guild armies can still be intercepted during the way back).

- The guild armies will cost recourses based on their size and ap, and they won´t give any recourses when they come back so be careful while using them or you may waste lots of guild resources for nothing, and players that damage and destroy guild armies will receive extra rewards, hurt units only can be healed after the return or destroy of a guild army, the items will lose certain amount of durability based on the kind of mission and is the army survive or got destroyed, is the leader decide retreat armies before touch the enemy no healing repairing will be needed and items won´t lose durability but recourses for sending armies will be lost.

- Capital armies can generate influence for the owner guild while sabotaging, only 1 army can occupy a region at the same time, is an enemy army attack that region a fight will start and chance of winning will be based on ap, units numbers, gear, heroes, units levels, kind of units etc. Is an ally army attack that region will be retreated automatically so try coordinate with other guilds to prevent that.

- Destroyed armies will greatly damage items geared (to prevent people sending items with 1 durability players must send gear that have 10+ durability or they won´t be able to send their armies), and will need some time (probably 12 hours 1 cycle or 1 day) to be available to use again).

- Guilds can only have 1 guild army at the same time, player attacks will influence on capital armies attacking or defending, but I think only suicidals should affect capital armies, and the difficult of the suicidal will be increased as well, I think am not sure is pvp should affect capital armies, coops may be but need to be harder.

- ¿Did 2 or more armies should be able to engage 1 enemy army at the same time?

The thread is becoming far more interesting than i planned =) thanks all!

Revolutioning the AI army mechanics is exciting indeed. Idk if devs are ready for that, but i like a lot the idea.
I like yso ad jugger ideas, with a warning: the AI army should not reflect the power of the faction, or it will increase the gap between them when they are unbalanced. But making it a nit customized is very cool. This add more strategy to the game, ever a great thing.

Remaining on actual mechanics, i think that the contribution of the AI armies became preponderant near the players one. This is a problem, for we don t want a war between the 2 AI armies, but between the 2 factions.
About the container, what about if instead of generating cps they would influence only the % of an hex? This could limit their power a bit, with a fork between a min and a max % gainable. I don t think that 30% or more (if an hex has few cp in they can raise hugely the %, i guess, when they collect over than 12k cp per strike).
I guess they should not gain more than a 15-20% max. So, influencing the % and not the cp (or better: influencing the % and putting the correspondant cp in) could be a solution. The variable won t be the % but the cp put into the hex by the AI attack.
This will act for balancing (for the distance helps more the defending faction) but not overwhelming the both faction contributions.

An example: the light army Tony the Pony hits an hex.The random outcome between the min and the max is 16%. So, that hex at the end of its strike will be pushed +16% for the blues, and -16% for the reds. The cp amount is corrected accordingly to justify that % change. Being the container full, the 16% in influence for the light will be the 8% of the total cps added to the light and the 8 % subtracted to the darkness (if i don t wrong) Anyway, the cp amount DEPENDS by the % amount changed.

Another example: the Dark Army, the Booger, hits another hex. The random outcome at the end of the strike is the maximum, 20%. This will influence the % in the hex. That hex was not filled by cp, so the % will be changed by 20% but the cp put in will be low.



No more than 20% will be gained by the AI armies tough, surely not the actual 40% and more that sometimes happens.

If it is needed some catastrophic event, we can add it, like earthquakes or floods or bugs or whatever we want.  Rarely though, it cant be possible to see an hex totally reversed by any AI strike. This is what i think about.

To add some interface with the AI armies, we could add the possibility to lower the random outcome between min and max (i suggest min 15 max 20 but can be different) or to raise it based on the cp put by players during the AI attack.


So: YES to a tough contribution by AI armies, YES to their balancing effect, but NO to a AI total power eclipsing who fight there. The % limitation is my suggestion for that.

@ Ulises:  If the guild armies were made of guild player's units, would that mean that a Faction with more players/guilds would have more armies and, if so, would they also have more CP potential?

You say that these units cannot be used while the attack is underway. Currently, the attack itself is 2 hours, then you add travel time. Would that be the same and the units be unusable that entire time?

If an army is "lost" (when the army gets stuck with no return path) would the units be unusable for yet more time?


@Ulf: So, reduce the attack power AS WELL as possibly implementing the ideas in some way? I can see how that makes sense, I made a big deal of how much power they had a while back, then they increased their power....twice. Currently, the max % that a Capital Army could do is 35% of the Global Regional Container (GRC) or about 58% on a middle region. I thought 25% of the GRC was too much, I was looking for 20% of the GRC, which would put the maximum damage to a middle region at about 33%.

The reason why in my idea I divided power between guilds is to keep a balance. If each AI army has a set potential, more guilds means more power which means an imbalance in power. So I divided it based on guild contributions, giving representative power to guilds. If that 20% of GRC were to be divied up (because we almost always hit the cap) and given that attacks are usually closer to the target in my scenario, I think we'd have an interesting use for AI armies that is also not too overpowering.But I don't think that this is ever going to happen, sadly. )':

ysosad wrote:

@ Ulises:  If the guild armies were made of guild player's units, would that mean that a Faction with more players/guilds would have more armies and, if so, would they also have more CP potential?

You say that these units cannot be used while the attack is underway. Currently, the attack itself is 2 hours, then you add travel time. Would that be the same and the units be unusable that entire time?

If an army is "lost" (when the army gets stuck with no return path) would the units be unusable for yet more time?


@Ulf: So, reduce the attack power AS WELL as possibly implementing the ideas in some way? I can see how that makes sense, I made a big deal of how much power they had a while back, then they increased their power....twice. Currently, the max % that a Capital Army could do is 35% of the Global Regional Container (GRC) or about 58% on a middle region. I thought 25% of the GRC was too much, I was looking for 20% of the GRC, which would put the maximum damage to a middle region at about 33%.

The reason why in my idea I divided power between guilds is to keep a balance. If each AI army has a set potential, more guilds means more power which means an imbalance in power. So I divided it based on guild contributions, giving representative power to guilds. If that 20% of GRC were to be divied up (because we almost always hit the cap) and given that attacks are usually closer to the target in my scenario, I think we'd have an interesting use for AI armies that is also not too overpowering.But I don't think that this is ever going to happen, sadly. )':

Is a guild army got trapped it will be destroyed, and units will be available immediately a guild army return or get destroyed but they will need healing and is the guild army got destroyed equipped items suffer more damage, but is a guild army got destroyed the guild can`t send another for certain amount of time as a penalty for don`t being careful.

Forget something in notes, the 30% LI/LIA/ranged must be applied to guild armies as well to prevent 100 GL HI coming to you.

And about the population issues is you think that a faction can send more and more powerful guild armies then the cp bonus can be applied to the guild armies of the faction that have less players and to prevent noobs sending rare/uncommon armies (that will be destroyed very easily) guilds should reach certain high level and certain amount of players to be able to send guild armies, another thing is that when you reach the minimal level you can only send 50 units in a guild army, for example a level 5 guild can send guild armies but can only put 50 units in it (probably a ap limitation can be done as well) and a level 10 guild can send max units (100) and without ap restrictions, the cp generation (when send conquer army type) of the guild army should be based in guild army ap, and possibly apply to they the cp bonus, (remember that armies can be destroyed and players will get extra rewards from killing guild armies so I don`t think many guilds will overrun the entire map with they without risking nothing and for that I put all those limitations to prevent the explotation of this new function)

From other topic

RuneSlayer wrote:

The Capital Army will never generate more CP than the 25% of the Regional CP container. If for example the Regional CP container is 32k, a Capital Army will never generate more than 8k CP.

Why CAs generate 12,3 k cp?
Why they drop faction influence on a hax by more than 40%?
Why they hit hexes that have no connection to front-line?
Why they hit hexes few times in a row?
Why they hit hexes with more than 90% faction influence? I mean DCA hit dark hex with 90% influence, same with LCA.

Mmm, is is just happened:
hex #73, full of cp due we are fighting there since ages, was hit by the dark army. Just before its attack finished, it was at 64% for the light faction. As soon its attack ended, the hex dropped to 18%.
Now my question is: how can be that 12197 cp , the max gainable by the AI army, influenced for the 46% an hex?

12k cp added to the dark faction should count around 1/3 of the 35k contained by an hex. NOT THE 1/2!!!

Is it a bug? This could explain more the problem, at this point.
Again, i strongly suggest that the amount gained by the dark army would be NOT a cp amount but a PERCENTAGE AMOUNT.

The Light Army stroke the 73, then the Dark one did. Devs, please don t let the game only in the hands of the AI. Lower soon their power. I still believe the route is the right one, but u cannot do a change without check how does it work...

It is the time to do something imo =)
46% in a cp filled hex can t be acceptable, isn t it?

Ulfriden wrote:

Mmm, is is just happened:
hex #73, full of cp due we are fighting there since ages, was hit by the dark army. Just before its attack finished, it was at 64% for the light faction. As soon its attack ended, the hex dropped to 18%.
Now my question is: how can be that 12197 cp , the max gainable by the AI army, influenced for the 46% an hex?

12k cp added to the dark faction should count around 1/3 of the 35k contained by an hex. NOT THE 1/2!!!

Is it a bug? This could explain more the problem, at this point.
Again, i strongly suggest that the amount gained by the dark army would be NOT a cp amount but a PERCENTAGE AMOUNT.

The Light Army stroke the 73, then the Dark one did. Devs, please don t let the game only in the hands of the AI. Lower soon their power. I still believe the route is the right one, but u cannot do a change without check how does it work...

It is the time to do something imo =)
46% in a cp filled hex can t be acceptable, isn t it?

It is not a bug in all likelihood. The regions in the center of the map are not 34851 CPs in size (the size of the Global Regional Containers). 12197 is 35% of the GRC, both of which represent the current cap for AI armies.

A region that is right in the middle of the map is only 60% the size of a GRC, or 20910 CPs. A 12197 CP attack on such a region would do 58.33% damage.

If the AI army did 46% of the total container size that would mean the size of that regions container is approximately 26515...or approximately 76% the size of the GRC.

Thanks Yso for the explanation. Another good reason then to cap the % for the AI armies contribution, and not their cp, in my point of view

Another posts from topic Capital Armies Decision Making and CP Generation

RuneSlayer wrote:

ysosad wrote:

I have no idea how large the containers are on each region, nor the Global Regional Container size. However...this amounts to allowing up to 41.67% influence damage on a 'middle' region if a CA hits with enough force. If that is the way it is, I suppose we'll have to adapt...but it does seem rather high.

The Global Regional Container is 32k at the moment. The Regions in the middle are at around 60% of that, so approximately 19k.

RuneSlayer wrote:

As you well know, some Regional Containers are 60% (the ones in the middle) of the Global Regional Container and some are 140% (close to the Capitals). No matter what the Regional Container is, the Capital Army will never generate more than the 25% of the "Global Regional Container".

As we know GRC is 32 k cp
25%*32000 = 8000 k
12197/32000%=38,12 %
for me its no OK, during to inf. above CA should not generate more than 8 k cp,

Strachu wrote:

Another posts from topic Capital Armies Decision Making and CP Generation

RuneSlayer wrote:

ysosad wrote:

I have no idea how large the containers are on each region, nor the Global Regional Container size. However...this amounts to allowing up to 41.67% influence damage on a 'middle' region if a CA hits with enough force. If that is the way it is, I suppose we'll have to adapt...but it does seem rather high.

The Global Regional Container is 32k at the moment. The Regions in the middle are at around 60% of that, so approximately 19k.

RuneSlayer wrote:

As you well know, some Regional Containers are 60% (the ones in the middle) of the Global Regional Container and some are 140% (close to the Capitals). No matter what the Regional Container is, the Capital Army will never generate more than the 25% of the "Global Regional Container".

As we know GRC is 32 k cp
25%*32000 = 8000 k
12197/32000%=38,12 %
for me its no OK, during to inf. above CA should not generate more than 8 k cp,  

Hey Strachu,

A few things:
1. The Global Regional Container changes from week to week.
2. Rune's post about never generating more than 25% is outdated. http://www.battleconforum.com/t2555-update-25-7-2014
3. Here is the current GRC size from the war report: http://prntscr.com/4dxf9b

12197 is 35% of the GRC (12197/34851).

When Rune comes back, or any of the Dev's, we should probably have the whole system explained in a post. Way too many people have questions about how the region containers actually function when it comes to AI armies or total CP required to take a region based on location.

ysosad wrote:

Strachu wrote:

Another posts from topic Capital Armies Decision Making and CP Generation

RuneSlayer wrote:

ysosad wrote:

I have no idea how large the containers are on each region, nor the Global Regional Container size. However...this amounts to allowing up to 41.67% influence damage on a 'middle' region if a CA hits with enough force. If that is the way it is, I suppose we'll have to adapt...but it does seem rather high.

The Global Regional Container is 32k at the moment. The Regions in the middle are at around 60% of that, so approximately 19k.

RuneSlayer wrote:

As you well know, some Regional Containers are 60% (the ones in the middle) of the Global Regional Container and some are 140% (close to the Capitals). No matter what the Regional Container is, the Capital Army will never generate more than the 25% of the "Global Regional Container".

As we know GRC is 32 k cp
25%*32000 = 8000 k
12197/32000%=38,12 %
for me its no OK, during to inf. above CA should not generate more than 8 k cp,  

Hey Strachu,

A few things:
1. The Global Regional Container changes from week to week.
2. Rune's post about never generating more than 25% is outdated. http://www.battleconforum.com/t2555-update-25-7-2014
3. Here is the current GRC size from the war report: http://prntscr.com/4dxf9b

12197 is 35% of the GRC (12197/34851).

Thx Yso
it looks that the more we fight the stronger is CA, i don't like it but have to get use to this

I think we lost some players and other are less active because Capital Armies was/is to strong. Now dark faction get cp bonus and DCA is still closer to front line and light faction is really dis-motivated.
Few inf., i counted it few days ago
I.
DCA distance to south front line 12 hexes – traveling time 120 min, + battle time 120 min, than comeback 120 min and 1 h rest that’s 29,3 cp/min
LCA distance 20 hexes – traveling time 200 min + battle, comeback, rest gives 21,1 cp/min
DCA 42,2 k cp /day
LCA 30,5 k cp/day

II. while we were 2 hexes from DC and LCA was hitting north
DCA distance to south front line 2 hexes, traveling time 20 min, + battle, comeback, rest gave 38,4 cp/min,
LCA distance to south front line 30 hexes, 18,1 cp/min,
DCA 55,4 k cp/day
LCA 26 k cp /day
now when light faction lost some players (again) we should wait how CA affect dark faction

Strachu wrote:

I think we lost some players and other are less active because Capital Armies was/is to strong. Now dark faction get cp bonus and DCA is still closer to front line and light faction is really dis-motivated.
Few inf., i counted it few days ago
I.
DCA distance to south front line 12 hexes – traveling time 120 min, + battle time 120 min, than comeback 120 min and 1 h rest that’s 29,3 cp/min
LCA distance 20 hexes – traveling time 200 min + battle, comeback, rest gives 21,1 cp/min
DCA 42,2 k cp /day
LCA 30,5 k cp/day

II. while we were 2 hexes from DC and LCA was hitting north
DCA distance to south front line 2 hexes, traveling time 20 min, + battle, comeback, rest gave 38,4 cp/min,
LCA distance to south front line 30 hexes, 18,1 cp/min,
DCA 55,4 k cp/day
LCA  26 k cp /day
now when light faction lost some players (again) we should wait how CA affect dark faction

Now capital armies are just like drows and dvergars hitting most the winning side, clearly seems that lighties morale is getting lower, yesterday report showed that darkies generated more cp than ligthies, please just reduce the capital armies strength a little and the bonus is enough to balance things, nobody wants that the AI fight our war and it´s demoralizing how a full cycle effort is totally destroyed by a troll pony that we can´t fight or destroy