Dev Journal #33: The Mother of All AI Updates

When we made Elemental: War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress, the hardware, by today's standards was very modest. Combine that with very tight memory restrictions and a general trend in gaming that AI players should be "good losers" and you end up with computer opponents that are not always satisfying once you have mastered the game.
When we went and make what became Elemental: Reforged one of the requirements I had to work on it was that I would get to go in and "redo" the entire AI top to bottom.
I am happy to say, version 1.5 of Elemental: Reforged has a new AI. Top to bottom. While I was at it, I found cases where the AI was basically "cheating" in the sense that it would always roll the very best score when it came to getting loot.

So what does "redo" mean?

It means exactly, and probably more than you might be thinking. Here are a few things:

1. AI Players now see the world more like you do. Parts of the world they care about, about, parts that don't and plan accordingly.
2. The AI can design and plan out field armies along with support armies. In essence, army groups and coordinate them to take out targets.
3. The military forces are assigned territories to control which means building up armies big enough to take out monsters and their lairs in areas the AI players want to control.
4. The AI will use "cannon fodder" to soften up cities while keeping their best units in reserve near the target city they want.
5. AI diplomacy is much more sophisticated.
6. AI will build out outposts, including level them up and create multiple outposts within a short distance to reinforce other outposts.
7. AI players will recognize a player that are taking over and will organize alliances against them.
8. AI players in tactical battles are able to prioritize who they go after.

These 8 points really just understate the amount of work involved but you will notice the difference. The only real question is whether we need to tone it down more at lower levels.
We hope you notice and like what you see! Don't forget to like and subscribe...er I mean follow and review!