Tag Archives: bugs

To Luxor, everything now grew clear

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Clumping together...I’ve spent some more time looking at the AI for Doomdark’s Revenge, trying to work out why it doesn’t quite appear to be playing like the original. One thing I noticed is that I have completely misunderstood the recruiting logic when it comes to Loyalty and Treachery. I made changes in the last version, but I am going to need to revert them.

The approach algorithm

  • compare the the attributes of the lords and looking for matches gain +1 for each match.
  • If the character being approached is not loyal then +1
  • If the character being approached is treacherous then * 2
  • if the recruiting character is the liege of the character being approached then +3
  • If the recruiting character carries a crown of persuasion then +2
  • If the score is greater than 3 then the approach will succeed.

The basic concept that I have misunderstood is: Loyal characters are less likely to be recruited away form their current liege and un-loyal characters are more likely, therefore the algorithm gets a +1 for none loyal characters. And that treacherous characters are more likely to leave and thus the *2

The next thing I have missed is the lords following the objectives of their lieges.

It works like this.

If the lord has a liege and that liege is following their liege or their foe, then we must follow our liege. Otherwise pick a new objective.

There is a 32% chance that we will pick a new objective. Although that should be 25% because we could pick the objective we already have. That leaves a 68%/75% chance that we continue doing what they were already doing.

The problem for me is the first check. If we use Shareth as an example. She has a 12.5% chance that she will choose to follow either her foe or leader. As she has no leader she reverts to Luxor, which is her foe. So she has a 12.5% chance that she will follow Luxor. All the lords that follow her now have a 100% chance of following Shareth, and this ripples all the way down the stack of lords. Which at the start of the game means that 47 Icelords will disregard what they are doing and follow her.

The mistake I had made is that I had made the following lords take the objectives of their liege when their liege was following their liege or foe. What this means is that when the liege is following their foe the lord follows their own foe. So using Shareth again as the example, when she is following her liege ( Luxor by default ) then all her minions will head to her location, but when she is following her foe ( Luxor ), then all her minions are heading to their foe and not to her location. So as an example, Imgaril the Icelord would be heading to Imgorthand the Fey, who, is likely the the other direction of Shareth.

Hopefully this fix should make the game more like the original, but it bothers me that it is a flawed AI. I ran the game for the first ten days, up until the first battle took place, I ran it on the emulator too to compare notes. Here is what Shareth did over those days.

  1. Head Home
  2. Head Home
  3. Head Home
  4. Follow Luxor
  5. Head Home
  6. Follow Luxor
  7. Follow Luxor
  8. Follow Luxor
  9. Search for object
  10. Head home

Now Talormane does this

  1. Head Home
  2. Head Home
  3. Search for object
  4. Search for object
  5. Follow Lorelorn
  6. Follow Lorelorn
  7. Follow Lorelorn
  8. Follow Lorelorn
  9. Follow Lorelorn
  10. Follow Asorthane

The reason for the delayed follow on day 4 is because Talormane is following Lorelorn who is following Shareth, but Lorelorn is lower in the processing order than Talormane, and thus Talormane doesn’t know that Lorelorn is going to follow Shareth in that turn.

The final thing that I changed was that there is a 6.25% chance that the change of objective will be DO NOTHING. This is especially important for being in a battle with someone who is not the lords foe, because it means that without this the lord will always leave the battlefield. The mistake I had made was that I persisted the do nothing as an objective, i.e.. The lords objective becomes do nothing. But it shouldn’t, it should stay the same as the previous objective, and this turn that objective is ignored.

Going back to Shareth. If she chose to DO NOTHING then her objective would no longer be follow liege or foe, which means that her followers would be able to perform whichever objective they chose. However, if her previous objective had have been follow liege or foe, then her followers should still be heading towards her when she chooses to do nothing. This would have the affect of allowing them to catch up on her.

Update for Doomdark’s Revenge released

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ddr_icon_iosI have just pushed a new version of Doomdark’s Revenge out for ALL platforms. This brings all platforms in line with each other. The previous update was only released for Android and iOS. I apologiss for the delay in getting the last two versions out, but my heart and mind has just not been in it for the last couple of months.

Hopefully this will fix the remaining issues with the gameplay, and will also be the last of the 1.3 changes. The intention is that any update to follow will include some new features.

The Windows and Mac version should be showing up on your main menu now. Android/Amazon version should be ready now, or very soon. Mac App Store and iOS version will take a week in Apple Clearance, and Blackberry version usually takes a couple of days.

The changes are..

v1.3.6
1. Fix recruitment check. Loyalty of character being approached now correctly gives +1 and when the lord is treacherous the chance of recruitment is halved – This fix should mean that treacherous lords are no harder to recruit for AI lords, which should stop lords swapping allegiance so much. They should therefore be able to focus on the task at hand.

v1.3.5
1. Morkin’s AI attribute is reset once recruited. Stops him moving and allows him to move in tunnels. Previously Morkin’s AI attribute remained set after Tarithel recruited him. This mean that he didn’t work in tunnels very well, and had a habit of wandering off at night.
2. Tarithel can no longer be recruited away. Tarithel was incorrectly being recruited by AI lords.
3. Spell of Carudrium now works correctly. Previously this was bringing ALL characters to the location of the caster, and not just the the lords loyal to the Moonprince.

If the AI characters are still not behaving like the original, I am going to have to spend a lot more time analysing why. I can’t see any reason why the logic should not play out the same as the original ( other than the difference in random numbers ). This will involved a lot of debugging. But hopefully this version should just nudge everything in the right direction.

 

I follow no road, I simply ride.

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I’ve had a torrid few days with the updates. Only myself to blame really. I managed to release, not one, but two updates with debug code left in. Rookie mistakes! I must be more strict with the regression testing and debug development. But it’s difficult when you are working alone and trying to react as quick as possible to issues raised. This has not been made any easier by working in a Hotel where the internet access doesn’t really get going until after Midnight. Pushing out an update involves building ten different versions, and uploading ~300mb – tethering on my phone has taken a battering and my Data Plan has been boosted once already.

For the record, and just in case you have updated during that time, the two issues are; Approach will always succeed, no matter who you are or who you approach, and after attacking a stronghold, the next morning your lords will seem to have scattered. If you see this happen, you need the latest update.

iOS and OSX App Store will not have these issues as the releases had not made their way through the original update process. If you have updated Windows or Mac through the game menu, you might want to check again.

Anyway I am hoping that the latest update 1.3.4 will settle and I can take a break.