A huge thank you to Balint, Derek and Lucy from Creative Assembly who provided their assistance in making this episode as best I can. I hope you enjoy the in-engine footage that the studio provided me. Always fun to see how it works under the hood. If you're a fan of RTS games then stick around. I'll be back next month looking at DeepMind's AlphaStar: how it works and why it's still impractical for use in game development.
I was surprised there was no mention about the actions per minute the AI could perform: if I were to build an rts AI that would be the first thing I would tweak to change the difficulty.
One thing I've noticed in the rts community recently, is that a lot of the information I get seems to be divided between two camps; competitive multiplayer, who see high level play as the crown jewel of the genre, and casual players, who want to relax more and try things out with out worrying about tons of practice. I know you probably have your own opinions, being involved with AI research, but I wondered what you thought of this. It seems to me that the competitive side has an incredibly myopic view of "good" rts games all catering to them. Do you think rts games can develop an AI that, while probably not as good as a human, could keep most levels entertained (hopefully for less than tens of millions of dollars)? Cause, from my view, many on the professional level have broken the game down to the smallest parts and will turn even the most obscure mechanics into an advantage.
So I can't get into specifics, but just last week I had this very same discussion with a programmer and designer from a studio that makes strategy games. They recognise it's a horrible dichotomy: you need the high-level pro players to help maintain enthusiasm and the public perception of the games activity. They're streaming the game all the time and talking about their enjoyment of it. So you want to keep them happy, you want them engaged. But those top players only represent maybe
well having a Ai that wins fair and square is appreciated in my opinion tho it breaks my confidence sometimes when i got beat by easier Ai back in the day but it does feel less cheap
It's interestingn to know the mechanics behind this, and awesome to see some developers not 'cheat' their way into letting the AI be better. I'd love to see this sort of thing for the next civilisation game. Playing against Deity difficulty is a chore because they just get so much for free or very little. Somewhat annoying.
its an inherently huge problem to have cheating AI's in a TBS as well. Ignoring all the other issues it causes, you can take their stuff. So the AI spends the first 20 turns building some mega city you literally could not build, because you don't have that level of income, and then you take it over. Now you have a city that's gained all those benefits, and are clearly good enough to win without them, so the rest is a formality. This is a constant problem in any game with cheating AI, where a player can gain the cheated resources.
I also lose to crackpot AI in WC2 "without cheating" when it micros perfectly. This is not applicable to videogames. this is just grandstanding because people who are dysfunctionally ignorant are in control, and I don't mean the corporate adults developing and creating this dogshit, I mean you people.
BaRKy it was annoying on LOTR: BFME ( lord of the ring battle for middle earth) where bots cheated at the start with their resources, as in starting with 600 instead of 500 which allowed them to build 2 buildings instead of one :(
@@orionl7406 The AI cheats in other dumpy ways too though. It can respond faster than anyone ever possibly could, be in 2 places at once, and a host of other things humans just cannot do but a computer can, because it doesn't have to interact through a medium.
This was extremely fascinating. I wish more 4X/RTS developers would incorporate this into their games. I can't stand when the only way to make an A.I. challenging is for them to cheat. Granted, making an A.I. that can compete with a human player is very difficult I'd imagine.
I’d argue the opposite. Game AI is a machine. A machine built to learn only one thing which is to win. Not how to win then also worry about paying the bills and staying healthy and having a job.
If I, a human, had only one task to complete in life and absolutely nothing else mattered (e.g. breathing, eating, etc.) I would be pretty much perfect at that one thing.
This appears to be how many of the fan made ais for aoe2 work. The strategies and timings used by pro players are lifted wholesale and plugged into the ai so it can perfectly simulate a mechanically optimal version of that strategy. The best fan made ais are almost impossible to beat without cheesing.
One of the only channels that actually thanks you for watching without begging you for subscribes and likes. You genuinely sound happy that I have watched, and I can tell you that I most certainly am. You provide quality content, elevated discussion, and play by play breakdown explanations that make any system easy to understand. I cannot overstate how enjoyable this type of commentary is for a non educated computer system outsider as myself. But my amazement is still one of wonder, every time you break down how in depth each system is, a testament to your skill as a reviewer/detective everytime you make it understandable. Thank you for all that you bring to the forefront of games, singing the unsung heros into the forefront of gaming. Subscriber for life, and a fellow of similar interests!
That's very kind of you, thank you so much. I'm always grateful for every new viewer (and potentially new sub) given this is a niche within a niche and if people resonate with and enjoy the material then I know I'm doing my (self-appointed/self-inflicted) job right.
i was only ever to play the first HaloWars game, back on my 360, but even then it was to 'replace' the Command&Conquer games that i used to play a lot more...sure, there was C&C3, and RedAlert3, but my favorite game was always Yuri'sRevenge...anyway, the point im making with this comment is that RA2/YR had a bit of cheatsy AI in the skirmishes-- my usual strategy was to blow up the ConYard and their WarFactory, and set up elite units around their barracks to slowly bleed them out of their money...but not only would they be able to produce a ridiculous number of units for super-cheap, but they could also build units that they technically werent allowed to build, due to tech-tree limits...for example, the Flak Trooper (Soviet Anti-Air unit) requires the Radar Dish in order to build, but a Soviet Base that ONLY had a Barracks up was still cranking out Flak Troopers (and some Conscripts) to the bitter end-- eventually, the AI would have to sell their barracks to raise enough money to produce a unit, but since the barracks was the last building left, this is when id win...but the game definitely tried cheating its way into a longer fight...
Thanks again for doing what you do Tommy - even though i don't work in games or really don't plan on getting into AI i think it's really interesting to learn how these AI systems work.
I love how, despite the Brutes being depicted as the submissive dumbass minions in the main Halo games with exception to Tartarus, the one successful rebellion we’ve seen in game besides the Elites in Halo 3 is Atriox, a Brute who leads his forces to building a military so powerful they scared the Covenant
This has me really curious about Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, and whether or not they allowed the ai to cheat at all. One of the first things the ai does is deploy its scout and gather resources, but I wonder of this is real or just a ruse.
it's probably a ruse. It's pretty much an aoe2 clone and that game had ai that cheated so wouldn't surprise me to find out that the ai in galactic battlegrounds cheated.
Pretty sure they cheated. As a kid I set up the Gungans on an enemy with overlapping Shield generators, maxed out thrower troops, medics/healers, and catapults on one part of their wall. Got the catapults to alternate fire on the opening as their troops just poured through to kill themselves. Usually with it lasting for a long while. So the AI isn't all that smart.
Honestly the AI in Battlegrounds was always a little wonky. I remember on lower difficulties melee characters like Jedi or Berserkers just... didn’t work when used against players? When the enemy AI builds an Airbase they use their fighters to scout stuff same as the speeder in the beginning, so I guess technically that’s cheating??
AoE 2 DE also has done a great job creating and updating their AI! Employing very specific strategies in game. While it still has its flaws it has made really big leaps in its difficulty :)
Atriox is the most annoying player in Halo Wars 2, when it comes to legendary dificulty. He just seems to always know when to start spamming that Glassing Beam, or that EMP thingy. It's sort of unfair how he seems to be able to use those whenever he wants.
the HW2 campaing always tired me cuz of how often leader powers came for the A.I. finished it after a tiresome playthrough XD I actually never noticed until I played on Heroic for fun..... >,< It became a lot more fun and a lot more interesting cuz my armies were not being killed by leader powers when I barely start to use them
Eradication is so expensive and real weak. UNSC leader powers such as mac or Johnson's EMP mac is much stronger. Dodging eradication and glassing beams are much easier than dodging a mac blast.
Damn, imagine if we had this kinda thing in other RTS or if they start using this in further new ones. Could you imagine games like Supcom with that type of AI? Maybe MOWAS as that game's AI is....kinda simple especially on the macro level.
HW2 AI still does cheat on a micro scale. A good example is if you use a stationary AOE leader power against them. Each individual unit will simultaneously take the shortest path away from the AOE to avoid the damage. A player has zero hope of being able to micro dozens of units in such a fashion. Sometimes though their lightning fast reaction time works against them. If you're playing skirmish vs. multiple AI and one of them is the Arbiter, you can get the enemy to waste their offensive leader power easily. As soon as your doomstack is visible, both AI immediately react to it with their leader powers. Arbiter's just happens to be a large AOE stasis that renders the units immobile, stunned, and most importantly invulnerable. So the other leader's powers bomb essentially nothing.
Fr tho every fucking time I try to use the glassing beam on the ai they always perfectly dodge it moving outward synchronized resulting in me doing little to no dmg
@Adrian Perez Canarte My point still stands as the AI can control they're units while using their leader powers giving them an edge in battle allowing for quick response during an attack or defending
thats a different type of cheat, thats called a mechanical cheat, where the ai is surpassing human mechanical habilitys, but its not exactly breaking the game rules.. its still cheating but its something we should not blame alot for now, lets they solve the rules first.
4/5 of those macro strategies are aggressive early moves...You'd think they might have gone for some more variety. I understand that aggressive early moved are/can be effective, but in the overall experience with a gane that makes it limiting
Yeah, as a player of this game I can confirm the AIs tend to just rush constantly it feels like. (Then again if they don't it's really easy to beat them in the late game since they are pretty terrible at managing resources/upgrades,/coordinated strikes with large armies of powerful units that must be used properly). The AI prefers to build a ton of scout units early game and throw them all at you mindlessly :P
This is one of the reasons why I dont get so many people despise 343 Industries even now. Sure, Halo 5 sucked. But, Halo Wars 2 is such a great game. And many people dont like it because "its made by 343". This video was truly fascinating. Thank you for the great learning experience! ^w^
Is it just me or is there lack of more technical detail of the game. It's more overhead than other videos I've watched on this channel (think hitman video)
Huh. I might have to pick the game up in light of this. Cheater AIs are a pet peeve of mine (despite the fact that I know the reasons they’re used) and fighting a program on genuinely equal terms is always an interesting prospect.
Starcraft 2 has a decent AI without cheating (unless you specifically select the AI that cheats wich i'm not sure if it's available anymore) It can even choose from various builds at random I'm not talking about the deepmind btw, you can only encounter that on the competitive ladder
this was definitely a really awesome video to watch, understanding the hidden mechanics behind the game really shows the efforts that the devs went into to to make a good dame
I thought this was a "single mission where you're expected to lose and game makes it happen through creative use of AI" explained rather than a walk through of the whole Halo Wars 2 AI structure, but pretty good never the less
Something I've noticed with most rts games, is that say I want to 1v3 me vs 3 CPU. The 3 CPU are on the same team, but you are not fighting against 3 different A.I., you're fighting one with control over 3 armies. This is shown in that almost every single time the enemy makes an attack, it's a massive mix of all 3 armies. Often with a good diversity of different kinds of units. This only really changes when difficulty is lowered and even then the only things that change is the size and aggression of the invading army.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm new to RTS. Halo wars 2 on Xbox is my first ever game of the genre. However, I picked up fairly quickly. I can beat the ai with some difficulty on normal, but heroic is where it starts to get tough. The ai are actually really smart, an can pull some surprises
11:43 - It should be noted that Creative Assembly did not actually design this system entirely. The game was built up from the first entry in the series after being ported from the Xbox 360 to the x86 architecture (what PCs and the Xbox One use) and subsequently was released as Halo Wars: Definitive Edition. If you dig into both of the games’ files you will see that much of the two games are identical, down to the scripting language (called Triggerscripts) used for everything including the AI, campaign mission logic, and the leader powers. While CA definitely added to these systems to provide better stability and relevant functions to what they wanted to accomplish, it was actually the work of Ensemble Studios that should be credited for the amazing AI.
CA mentioned in a talk given at Game AI North 2017 (www.gameainorth.com/2017) that they pulled out the triggerscripted AI of HW1 and started from scratch on a C++ AI system. Unless you have someone who worked on either of these AIs saying that the HW2 AI took its ideas from the HW1 AI then I think that its a bit of a stretch to say that "it was actually the work of Ensemble Studios that should be credited for the amazing AI"
Wasn't alpha star not SPECIFICALLY built to emulate players? I thought the idea was to apply human limits to a learning AI, so that its strategical choices were its only advantage over a pro player. Alpha star actually has a hard limit on its amount of action and camera movement per second.
Yes AlphaStar is originally trained to replicate human players. But specifically high ranking players and only as a starting point. After that it learns to beat all but the very best human players through self-play. And yes you're correct that AlphaStar is limited in camera movement and APM, but only now in version 2 announced in November. When it beat TLO and MaNa DeepMind skirted over the fact that both players were at a disadvantage against it.
@@restlessfrager The only version that exists as far as i'm aware is the ladder version (at least that's the one available for the public), the limitations are fairly recent too, it used to even look at the oponent's resources in earlier versions Generally it plays 50 games with each race per version (so 150 games per version)
It is true that the top level gameplay Deepmind strategy would be cost-inneffective and (maybe) hardware inneffective, but that doesn't mean you can't get a DECENT neural network for a fraction of that. Cut way back on network size, and increase the reward frequency by using tested, proven, human knowledge or even a network trained to analyze statistical behaviors of human players who win. As for personality, don't make victory the only reward. Have an AI that cares about its K/D, or ending fights quickly. Or gathering a lot of resources. Or causing bloodshed for you whether it wins or not. All of these things can be combined with neural network training procedures to change how the AI behaves.
Total War AI has used simplistic neural nets from the start, but most people seem to consider the AI in Halo Wars to be much better than the AI in any of the Total War games. I'm not sure why this is. It might be that neural nets don't really take off until you put a tonne of resources into them, but I suspect Total War games are just designed in a less AI-friendly way. Prehaps its a combination of both?
I remember using Suicide grunts back in the beta to just level enemy armies or base in one mass body wave. It would usually crash the game, I’m glad they fixed it so grunt spams no longer did that.
I don't believe spending tens of millions of dollars on AI should be out of the question, when you look at what modern AAA companies are spending on marketing. For example red dead redemption's marketing budget was apparently $265 million according to google.
Trying to imagine this "super AI" being used for RPG and Sim games. Topped to work with the pre-patch AI from the ES:Oblivion and game difficulty would probably skyrocket.
It’s almost like tailoring your system around core tenets is more efficient than dumping a shitload of datasets into a system and crossing your fingers!
It makes no sense that some units such as the marines are shown to look like the 343 art style when the UNSC is supposed to be using halo 1 or 2 technology.
Isabelle has access to blueprints for current UNSC equipment, it's said in the campaign. Plus, they would have manufacture new equipment at some point.
Could you make a video on recent AI developments? You mentionned the google deepmind starcraft training from 2010 but I bet there are tons of new juicy AI developments!
Some time the ia are kinda dumb when they spam (group of 3 ) there power on 1 player when in there other side there is a scarab or condor destroying there base
It's a common online tactic, to reverse the whole.army to challenge you, in which case the base is probably already gone before I get there, instead we trade base for base instead
Wait each commander's AI in skirmish have different personalities or am I getting that wrong? If correct, is there somewhere I can check them out? Would love to see how sergeant johnson AIs normally act since I usually play with that faction.
pfffff, this is BS I remember one time I defeated Atriox, Decimus and Shipmaster all on Legendary on a Skirmish match after they somehow eliminated one of my allies by playing cat and mouse. Nothing beats Anders and her Sentinel spam, Nothing.
You missed the whole point: the objective is not to make an unbeatable AI (otherwise no one would play the game) but to offer an interesting challenge at ALL the level of difficulty
Teehee except using cryo units and locking down points and turtling. Ai completely breaks and gives up while you shell them out with cryo Kodiaks ;) two BUSTED leaders op
Eff this shit, I'm not becoming a game developer, I'm not programming AIs, I'm not going to college, I'll just become a monk or something, this is too complex.
I’d rather they’d put more effort into unit AI, most notably pathfinding, rather than messing about with AI that most players won’t play against outside the campaign
Too bad it all comes down to player "farming a giant army and sending it to the slaughter and win" which is very easy to do (it's only hard because it takes too long, otherwise it's not)
Isn't the idea of dumb, cheating enemies bnb more in line with halo? Like, the covenant are hundreds of years ahead of humanity, but it's cannon they just use brute force
Total annhilation ai was pretty fun and used pretty good stragies.... until you fought a human player and then it was always rush rush rush with Arm..... Fuck Arm , Core forever XD
any game that offer no cheat free AI options lose alot of points to me, i don't mind high difficulty settings cheating, but a cheat free option should exist, some games the ai cheat even on easy (and by cheat i mean its easy to win but they are still breaking the game rules)
Honestly my biggest problem with RTS games is I know that the AI are cheating. I'm not very good at these games and whenever I lose against AI it always feels like they cheated to win.
Not many RTS have cheating AIs, the older games are the ones that cheat the most since simulating human defects was too much at the time, nowadays the AI only takes into account things they should be capable to see, have limited actions per minute, etc
@@rompevuevitos222 I guess the only RTS games I really follow are Total War so that explains it. What other RTS games actually increase the AI capabilities with the difficulty?
@@robertharris6092 well... yes and no. So the issue with the ai in total war is that they have to be both aware of macro and micro in both game world and in the rts battles. Not to mention proper resource management, troop placement, player metas, and so on. Now the unit roster is so diverse in the total war games (For the most part) that having complicated ai systems to adjust their actual intelligence on a game where height and field positioning is important... is very fucking hard. So they cheat and give them stat boosts... very very lame... but it's there. AI on normal mode have minimal cheats and those are only in the over world where they get just enough resources that minor factions can still be interesting to fight against. You won't see any crazy doomstacks on a one minor settlement, like in Rome II, but you will see plenty of minor factions that do have a fieldable army at max size. Their most noticable cheats are confederation cheats but that only keeps them competative with the players so you don't run out of feesible targets after you leave your starting area.
A huge thank you to Balint, Derek and Lucy from Creative Assembly who provided their assistance in making this episode as best I can. I hope you enjoy the in-engine footage that the studio provided me. Always fun to see how it works under the hood. If you're a fan of RTS games then stick around. I'll be back next month looking at DeepMind's AlphaStar: how it works and why it's still impractical for use in game development.
I thought this game was dead
Nice work on the video mate, love to hear a fellow northerner talk about video games.
I was surprised there was no mention about the actions per minute the AI could perform: if I were to build an rts AI that would be the first thing I would tweak to change the difficulty.
One thing I've noticed in the rts community recently, is that a lot of the information I get seems to be divided between two camps; competitive multiplayer, who see high level play as the crown jewel of the genre, and casual players, who want to relax more and try things out with out worrying about tons of practice. I know you probably have your own opinions, being involved with AI research, but I wondered what you thought of this. It seems to me that the competitive side has an incredibly myopic view of "good" rts games all catering to them. Do you think rts games can develop an AI that, while probably not as good as a human, could keep most levels entertained (hopefully for less than tens of millions of dollars)? Cause, from my view, many on the professional level have broken the game down to the smallest parts and will turn even the most obscure mechanics into an advantage.
So I can't get into specifics, but just last week I had this very same discussion with a programmer and designer from a studio that makes strategy games. They recognise it's a horrible dichotomy: you need the high-level pro players to help maintain enthusiasm and the public perception of the games activity. They're streaming the game all the time and talking about their enjoyment of it. So you want to keep them happy, you want them engaged. But those top players only represent maybe
Halo Wars 2 wanted to screw you over so badly they brought in a god-RTS player to help.
I appreciate that.
misled flyer So that’s why I suck at the game
strange the game was really easy to me and my friend. Guess because we play rts games normally.
well having a Ai that wins fair and square is appreciated in my opinion tho it breaks my confidence sometimes when i got beat by easier Ai back in the day
but it does feel less cheap
@@GameDogLeader21 he did say they dumbed it down and campaign is a lot easier then the skirmish was
Atriox using "brute" force... hehheh... pun appreciated regardless of intention
I think Atriox likes puns
It's interestingn to know the mechanics behind this, and awesome to see some developers not 'cheat' their way into letting the AI be better. I'd love to see this sort of thing for the next civilisation game. Playing against Deity difficulty is a chore because they just get so much for free or very little. Somewhat annoying.
its an inherently huge problem to have cheating AI's in a TBS as well. Ignoring all the other issues it causes, you can take their stuff. So the AI spends the first 20 turns building some mega city you literally could not build, because you don't have that level of income, and then you take it over. Now you have a city that's gained all those benefits, and are clearly good enough to win without them, so the rest is a formality. This is a constant problem in any game with cheating AI, where a player can gain the cheated resources.
I also lose to crackpot AI in WC2 "without cheating" when it micros perfectly. This is not applicable to videogames. this is just grandstanding because people who are dysfunctionally ignorant are in control, and I don't mean the corporate adults developing and creating this dogshit, I mean you people.
Wow, didn't expect to see you here!
BaRKy it was annoying on LOTR: BFME ( lord of the ring battle for middle earth) where bots cheated at the start with their resources, as in starting with 600 instead of 500 which allowed them to build 2 buildings instead of one :(
@@orionl7406 The AI cheats in other dumpy ways too though. It can respond faster than anyone ever possibly could, be in 2 places at once, and a host of other things humans just cannot do but a computer can, because it doesn't have to interact through a medium.
This was extremely fascinating. I wish more 4X/RTS developers would incorporate this into their games. I can't stand when the only way to make an A.I. challenging is for them to cheat. Granted, making an A.I. that can compete with a human player is very difficult I'd imagine.
Age of Empires 2: DE also succeeded at making a difficult AI.
I’d argue the opposite. Game AI is a machine. A machine built to learn only one thing which is to win. Not how to win then also worry about paying the bills and staying healthy and having a job.
If I, a human, had only one task to complete in life and absolutely nothing else mattered (e.g. breathing, eating, etc.) I would be pretty much perfect at that one thing.
This appears to be how many of the fan made ais for aoe2 work. The strategies and timings used by pro players are lifted wholesale and plugged into the ai so it can perfectly simulate a mechanically optimal version of that strategy. The best fan made ais are almost impossible to beat without cheesing.
Like a tower rush or TC douche hehe
Gotta fatslob it up
One of the only channels that actually thanks you for watching without begging you for subscribes and likes. You genuinely sound happy that I have watched, and I can tell you that I most certainly am.
You provide quality content, elevated discussion, and play by play breakdown explanations that make any system easy to understand.
I cannot overstate how enjoyable this type of commentary is for a non educated computer system outsider as myself. But my amazement is still one of wonder, every time you break down how in depth each system is, a testament to your skill as a reviewer/detective everytime you make it understandable.
Thank you for all that you bring to the forefront of games, singing the unsung heros into the forefront of gaming.
Subscriber for life, and a fellow of similar interests!
That's very kind of you, thank you so much. I'm always grateful for every new viewer (and potentially new sub) given this is a niche within a niche and if people resonate with and enjoy the material then I know I'm doing my (self-appointed/self-inflicted) job right.
Damn, throwing shade at Warcraft 3, I like it mate.
Good old Atriox. Had many late nights with mates playing this game.
i was only ever to play the first HaloWars game, back on my 360, but even then it was to 'replace' the Command&Conquer games that i used to play a lot more...sure, there was C&C3, and RedAlert3, but my favorite game was always Yuri'sRevenge...anyway, the point im making with this comment is that RA2/YR had a bit of cheatsy AI in the skirmishes-- my usual strategy was to blow up the ConYard and their WarFactory, and set up elite units around their barracks to slowly bleed them out of their money...but not only would they be able to produce a ridiculous number of units for super-cheap, but they could also build units that they technically werent allowed to build, due to tech-tree limits...for example, the Flak Trooper (Soviet Anti-Air unit) requires the Radar Dish in order to build, but a Soviet Base that ONLY had a Barracks up was still cranking out Flak Troopers (and some Conscripts) to the bitter end-- eventually, the AI would have to sell their barracks to raise enough money to produce a unit, but since the barracks was the last building left, this is when id win...but the game definitely tried cheating its way into a longer fight...
Miss you halo wars 2. You are still alive to many of us. Hopeful you'll get support again some day
? I got support response and we had a patch recently? I play everyday
Thanks again for doing what you do Tommy - even though i don't work in games or really don't plan on getting into AI i think it's really interesting to learn how these AI systems work.
Thank you kindly. If you keep watching'em, I'll keep making'em.
I love how, despite the Brutes being depicted as the submissive dumbass minions in the main Halo games with exception to Tartarus, the one successful rebellion we’ve seen in game besides the Elites in Halo 3 is Atriox, a Brute who leads his forces to building a military so powerful they scared the Covenant
I don't think you paid attention if you think the main halo games painted brutes as submissive dumbass minions
This has me really curious about Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, and whether or not they allowed the ai to cheat at all.
One of the first things the ai does is deploy its scout and gather resources, but I wonder of this is real or just a ruse.
You could try asking the former devs of Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds on twitter about that.
it's probably a ruse. It's pretty much an aoe2 clone and that game had ai that cheated so wouldn't surprise me to find out that the ai in galactic battlegrounds cheated.
Pretty sure they cheated. As a kid I set up the Gungans on an enemy with overlapping Shield generators, maxed out thrower troops, medics/healers, and catapults on one part of their wall. Got the catapults to alternate fire on the opening as their troops just poured through to kill themselves. Usually with it lasting for a long while. So the AI isn't all that smart.
Honestly the AI in Battlegrounds was always a little wonky. I remember on lower difficulties melee characters like Jedi or Berserkers just... didn’t work when used against players? When the enemy AI builds an Airbase they use their fighters to scout stuff same as the speeder in the beginning, so I guess technically that’s cheating??
People will never know the satisfaction of anticipating a rush and completely crushing it.
Halo wars 2 is severely underrated.
AoE 2 DE also has done a great job creating and updating their AI! Employing very specific strategies in game. While it still has its flaws it has made really big leaps in its difficulty :)
This was super intresting and broken down in a way someone who sucks at RTS (hi its me) can totally understand. Cheers mate
Awesome. Glad you liked it. It helps that I suck at RTS games too! Or at least according to all the comments I get on my earlier StarCraft episode.
I love it. This game's AI was so good it had to be *nerfed* for playing the game too well.
Atriox is the most annoying player in Halo Wars 2, when it comes to legendary dificulty. He just seems to always know when to start spamming that Glassing Beam, or that EMP thingy. It's sort of unfair how he seems to be able to use those whenever he wants.
A player has the same opportunity to use it
@@adamdesouza6153 Not in the legendary campaign! Also, UNSC leader abilities are way less annoying and frequent.
the HW2 campaing always tired me cuz of how often leader powers came for the A.I.
finished it after a tiresome playthrough XD
I actually never noticed until I played on Heroic for fun..... >,<
It became a lot more fun and a lot more interesting cuz my armies were not being killed by leader powers when I barely start to use them
Eradication is so expensive and real weak. UNSC leader powers such as mac or Johnson's EMP mac is much stronger. Dodging eradication and glassing beams are much easier than dodging a mac blast.
@@shak1797 I agree its just the learning curve of micros and moving many units at once to achieve that experienced "flow"
Damn, imagine if we had this kinda thing in other RTS or if they start using this in further new ones. Could you imagine games like Supcom with that type of AI? Maybe MOWAS as that game's AI is....kinda simple especially on the macro level.
Like updated AoE2 AI's that appeared long before this?:\
HW2 AI still does cheat on a micro scale. A good example is if you use a stationary AOE leader power against them. Each individual unit will simultaneously take the shortest path away from the AOE to avoid the damage. A player has zero hope of being able to micro dozens of units in such a fashion. Sometimes though their lightning fast reaction time works against them. If you're playing skirmish vs. multiple AI and one of them is the Arbiter, you can get the enemy to waste their offensive leader power easily. As soon as your doomstack is visible, both AI immediately react to it with their leader powers. Arbiter's just happens to be a large AOE stasis that renders the units immobile, stunned, and most importantly invulnerable. So the other leader's powers bomb essentially nothing.
SC2 splits are wild, idk what is and isn't possible for humans to do
Fr tho every fucking time I try to use the glassing beam on the ai they always perfectly dodge it moving outward synchronized resulting in me doing little to no dmg
@Adrian Perez Canarte My point still stands as the AI can control they're units while using their leader powers giving them an edge in battle allowing for quick response during an attack or defending
thats a different type of cheat, thats called a mechanical cheat, where the ai is surpassing human mechanical habilitys, but its not exactly breaking the game rules.. its still cheating but its something we should not blame alot for now, lets they solve the rules first.
"Build behaviour that don't require them to have the resources needed"
Cough C&C3 Cough
Meanwhile, Dawn of War Dark Crusade campaign: double you uinit's HPs and reduce ennemy units' HP to a quarter.
You're comparing a 14 year old game to a 3 year old game, I'm just gonna assume you have less than 5 braincells
Jordan Kurtis This vid does the same by throwing shade on a nearly 18 y/o game as well lul
@@sidonex726 yes I do
@@bruhtonbruhkkinson6848 this video is actually educational unlike thw ops comments
@@some_shitposting_idiot3023* Fewer
A video on strategy game ai would be very cool
You should team up with Ahoy and make a mega episode
This. Please.
4/5 of those macro strategies are aggressive early moves...You'd think they might have gone for some more variety.
I understand that aggressive early moved are/can be effective, but in the overall experience with a gane that makes it limiting
Yeah, as a player of this game I can confirm the AIs tend to just rush constantly it feels like. (Then again if they don't it's really easy to beat them in the late game since they are pretty terrible at managing resources/upgrades,/coordinated strikes with large armies of powerful units that must be used properly). The AI prefers to build a ton of scout units early game and throw them all at you mindlessly :P
i'd actually have to disagree. In my experience (I play heroic 3v3 games a lot) the AI aren't as aggressive as often as you make them out to be.
Prehaps a lore side is to blame here?
@@tah-loreoffical2941 I can see that, but I stand by my point that-in my experience- it tends to lack variety
@@elitehonor117 true yeah the leaders should show some personality instead of all having a similar one
@03:02 I see you Arnold! Also great subject
There's CZcams, then there's Tommy Thompson
ngl all I ever wanted from Halo Wars 2 was to be able to play as the flood :/
Pc has mods
This is one of the reasons why I dont get so many people despise 343 Industries even now. Sure, Halo 5 sucked. But, Halo Wars 2 is such a great game. And many people dont like it because "its made by 343". This video was truly fascinating. Thank you for the great learning experience! ^w^
They didn’t make the game it was Creative Assembly who did all the heavy lifting.
Is it just me or is there lack of more technical detail of the game. It's more overhead than other videos I've watched on this channel (think hitman video)
"Brute Force" Sounds like s pun-y codename for a Covenant Special Ops or something like the Orks in 40K's have
Huh. I might have to pick the game up in light of this. Cheater AIs are a pet peeve of mine (despite the fact that I know the reasons they’re used) and fighting a program on genuinely equal terms is always an interesting prospect.
I highly recommend this game as a casual strategy player (very familiar with TW series) and halo fan. Great game IMO.
Starcraft 2 has a decent AI without cheating (unless you specifically select the AI that cheats wich i'm not sure if it's available anymore)
It can even choose from various builds at random
I'm not talking about the deepmind btw, you can only encounter that on the competitive ladder
this was definitely a really awesome video to watch, understanding the hidden mechanics behind the game really shows the efforts that the devs went into to to make a good dame
I thought this was a "single mission where you're expected to lose and game makes it happen through creative use of AI" explained rather than a walk through of the whole Halo Wars 2 AI structure, but pretty good never the less
I thought this was gonna be a video on that old xbox game brute force, but am always happy for more halo and rts content
Really cool video as always! :D
Happy Thanksgiving and this is a great video of a favorite game of mine.
Happy turkey time.
Something I've noticed with most rts games, is that say I want to 1v3 me vs 3 CPU. The 3 CPU are on the same team, but you are not fighting against 3 different A.I., you're fighting one with control over 3 armies. This is shown in that almost every single time the enemy makes an attack, it's a massive mix of all 3 armies. Often with a good diversity of different kinds of units. This only really changes when difficulty is lowered and even then the only things that change is the size and aggression of the invading army.
Canon difficulty is Legendary? Fuck me...
I'm not gonna lie, I'm new to RTS. Halo wars 2 on Xbox is my first ever game of the genre. However, I picked up fairly quickly. I can beat the ai with some difficulty on normal, but heroic is where it starts to get tough. The ai are actually really smart, an can pull some surprises
11:43 - It should be noted that Creative Assembly did not actually design this system entirely. The game was built up from the first entry in the series after being ported from the Xbox 360 to the x86 architecture (what PCs and the Xbox One use) and subsequently was released as Halo Wars: Definitive Edition. If you dig into both of the games’ files you will see that much of the two games are identical, down to the scripting language (called Triggerscripts) used for everything including the AI, campaign mission logic, and the leader powers. While CA definitely added to these systems to provide better stability and relevant functions to what they wanted to accomplish, it was actually the work of Ensemble Studios that should be credited for the amazing AI.
Basically, CA was handed Halo Wars 1’s engine (Phoenix Engine) as a launching point for Halo Wars 2.
CA mentioned in a talk given at Game AI North 2017 (www.gameainorth.com/2017) that they pulled out the triggerscripted AI of HW1 and started from scratch on a C++ AI system. Unless you have someone who worked on either of these AIs saying that the HW2 AI took its ideas from the HW1 AI then I think that its a bit of a stretch to say that "it was actually the work of Ensemble Studios that should be credited for the amazing AI"
I did not know a Halo Wars 2 existed. This is news to me
This video was incredibly insightful. I've never played Halo Wars but this video makes me want to.
Wasn't alpha star not SPECIFICALLY built to emulate players? I thought the idea was to apply human limits to a learning AI, so that its strategical choices were its only advantage over a pro player.
Alpha star actually has a hard limit on its amount of action and camera movement per second.
Yes AlphaStar is originally trained to replicate human players. But specifically high ranking players and only as a starting point. After that it learns to beat all but the very best human players through self-play.
And yes you're correct that AlphaStar is limited in camera movement and APM, but only now in version 2 announced in November. When it beat TLO and MaNa DeepMind skirted over the fact that both players were at a disadvantage against it.
@@AIandGames Oh so it's just the ladder version that's limited then?
@@restlessfrager The only version that exists as far as i'm aware is the ladder version (at least that's the one available for the public), the limitations are fairly recent too, it used to even look at the oponent's resources in earlier versions
Generally it plays 50 games with each race per version (so 150 games per version)
It is true that the top level gameplay Deepmind strategy would be cost-inneffective and (maybe) hardware inneffective, but that doesn't mean you can't get a DECENT neural network for a fraction of that. Cut way back on network size, and increase the reward frequency by using tested, proven, human knowledge or even a network trained to analyze statistical behaviors of human players who win.
As for personality, don't make victory the only reward. Have an AI that cares about its K/D, or ending fights quickly. Or gathering a lot of resources. Or causing bloodshed for you whether it wins or not. All of these things can be combined with neural network training procedures to change how the AI behaves.
Once you get deepmind trained, it really doesn't take a whole lot to run it.
Total War AI has used simplistic neural nets from the start, but most people seem to consider the AI in Halo Wars to be much better than the AI in any of the Total War games.
I'm not sure why this is. It might be that neural nets don't really take off until you put a tonne of resources into them, but I suspect Total War games are just designed in a less AI-friendly way. Prehaps its a combination of both?
Awesome video!
I remember using Suicide grunts back in the beta to just level enemy armies or base in one mass body wave. It would usually crash the game, I’m glad they fixed it so grunt spams no longer did that.
Rest in Peace Halo Wars.
I don't believe spending tens of millions of dollars on AI should be out of the question, when you look at what modern AAA companies are spending on marketing. For example red dead redemption's marketing budget was apparently $265 million according to google.
Try finding a 100M+ budget for a RTS these days ;)
@@adriankoch964 Being fair, there isn't exactly a surplus of RTS games, there's 1 good RTS every 4 years or so
Trying to imagine this "super AI" being used for RPG and Sim games. Topped to work with the pre-patch AI from the ES:Oblivion and game difficulty would probably skyrocket.
I do not know much about AI but this is one fascinating video.
It’s almost like tailoring your system around core tenets is more efficient than dumping a shitload of datasets into a system and crossing your fingers!
Halo Wars 2 needs to be on Steam!
Well then, this was perhaps the best halo wars 2 ad I've seen, now I actually want to buy this game.
9:22
GET TUDA CHOPPA
It makes no sense that some units such as the marines are shown to look like the 343 art style when the UNSC is supposed to be using halo 1 or 2 technology.
343 made halo 1
Isabelle has access to blueprints for current UNSC equipment, it's said in the campaign. Plus, they would have manufacture new equipment at some point.
RTS AIs are the ancestors for Skynet's tactical modules.
Ha! Jokes on you Adriox, I’m a Blood Angels Space Marine.
Claims to be a space marine, yet has the username “The Sword of Gork”
Yeah, Ok greenskin, you can’t trick me, Fifthwit
Could you make a video on recent AI developments? You mentionned the google deepmind starcraft training from 2010 but I bet there are tons of new juicy AI developments!
Great vid. Justs feeding the algorhythm
Love Halo Wars 2!! Seriously underrated IMO.
Strength in numbers works every time
this is amazing
Can you look into the AI for Ultimate General: Civil War? it's one of the best AIs out there... and I want to know why :P
Wasn't that worked on by the person involved with darthmod for empire and Napoleon total war?
You should do a video on the AI for the command and conquer games
Some time the ia are kinda dumb when they spam (group of 3 ) there power on 1 player when in there other side there is a scarab or condor destroying there base
It's a common online tactic, to reverse the whole.army to challenge you, in which case the base is probably already gone before I get there, instead we trade base for base instead
Wait each commander's AI in skirmish have different personalities or am I getting that wrong? If correct, is there somewhere I can check them out? Would love to see how sergeant johnson AIs normally act since I usually play with that faction.
I imagine he meant that each commander plays taking his strengths and weaknesses in mind
can't lose if I already lost
wait a second
pfffff, this is BS I remember one time I defeated Atriox, Decimus and Shipmaster all on Legendary on a Skirmish match after they somehow eliminated one of my allies by playing cat and mouse. Nothing beats Anders and her Sentinel spam, Nothing.
You missed the whole point: the objective is not to make an unbeatable AI (otherwise no one would play the game) but to offer an interesting challenge at ALL the level of difficulty
Teehee except using cryo units and locking down points and turtling. Ai completely breaks and gives up while you shell them out with cryo Kodiaks ;) two BUSTED leaders op
I wonder if it will go on sale
It is easy, through BRUTE FORCE!
A while back I managed to defeat three legendary AI by my lonesome. Does that make me RTS Jesus?
Can you give some details? Sounds like it'd make an entertaining story
Eff this shit, I'm not becoming a game developer, I'm not programming AIs, I'm not going to college, I'll just become a monk or something, this is too complex.
Lol. No wonder I couldn't compete with Legendary Difficulty AI.
Can anybody make Firaxis watch this video so that they can do even a tenth of that in Civilisation ?
I’d rather they’d put more effort into unit AI, most notably pathfinding, rather than messing about with AI that most players won’t play against outside the campaign
I actually beat them pretty easily I just used numbers strengthen numbers as everyone says
Ahh yes, the game I currently hold number one in. Attriox is overpowered but nowhere as effectice as Isabelle's Spartan or Deci air. =b
i preffer to play games like total war on normal the ai doesnt get any bonuses and its a level playing field
Awsome to know it
Was it just me or does the thumbnail not look like it belongs in anthem...
Halo wars 3 plz
Interesting.
Wait. Is alphastar an air or a player? I can't tell anyone.
Can you do a video on Earth 2160?
Too bad it all comes down to player "farming a giant army and sending it to the slaughter and win" which is very easy to do (it's only hard because it takes too long, otherwise it's not)
I'd say something but I only use Commander Jerome so
Please create an video about RDR 2 AI
Have you talked about the Google deepmind ai alphastar for starcraft 2?
Nevermind watched the video lol
Next episode is a complete breakdown on AlphaStar. 😃
@@AIandGames sweet thanks bro
Than we all will fight him at the same time.
Now someone explain how this works to CA so they can make their AI half decent
Isn't the idea of dumb, cheating enemies bnb more in line with halo? Like, the covenant are hundreds of years ahead of humanity, but it's cannon they just use brute force
Having all the Req Packs is a method of cheating.
Total annhilation ai was pretty fun and used pretty good stragies.... until you fought a human player and then it was always rush rush rush with Arm..... Fuck Arm , Core forever XD
I fight AI on legendary. Can't even tell that all this exist.
any game that offer no cheat free AI options lose alot of points to me, i don't mind high difficulty settings cheating, but a cheat free option should exist, some games the ai cheat even on easy (and by cheat i mean its easy to win but they are still breaking the game rules)
AI breaking the game rules mean you can't use strategies that would work on human players, and that sucks. Different game.
Honestly my biggest problem with RTS games is I know that the AI are cheating. I'm not very good at these games and whenever I lose against AI it always feels like they cheated to win.
Not many RTS have cheating AIs, the older games are the ones that cheat the most since simulating human defects was too much at the time, nowadays the AI only takes into account things they should be capable to see, have limited actions per minute, etc
@@rompevuevitos222 I guess the only RTS games I really follow are Total War so that explains it. What other RTS games actually increase the AI capabilities with the difficulty?
He worked on the AI of warhammer 2? Dont the AI get free units and money and in battle extra invisible stats in the game?
Total war ais cheat, yes
@@aickavon so probabaly not something to be seen as a positive.
@@robertharris6092 well... yes and no.
So the issue with the ai in total war is that they have to be both aware of macro and micro in both game world and in the rts battles. Not to mention proper resource management, troop placement, player metas, and so on. Now the unit roster is so diverse in the total war games (For the most part) that having complicated ai systems to adjust their actual intelligence on a game where height and field positioning is important... is very fucking hard. So they cheat and give them stat boosts... very very lame... but it's there.
AI on normal mode have minimal cheats and those are only in the over world where they get just enough resources that minor factions can still be interesting to fight against. You won't see any crazy doomstacks on a one minor settlement, like in Rome II, but you will see plenty of minor factions that do have a fieldable army at max size. Their most noticable cheats are confederation cheats but that only keeps them competative with the players so you don't run out of feesible targets after you leave your starting area.