Comparison Bot AI

[gitgordon]

Hello everyone, is there an overview somewhere in which the different bot AIs are compared? For example, the Brutal AI automatically receives resources every x seconds or the APCs are equipped directly with soldiers after construction. A tabular overview of the special features or differences of the 6 AIs would be very useful. Thank you very much. Grondon

[darkademic]

I think this covers everything:

Brutal:

• Ground units cost 50% less
• Air units cost 10% less
• Buildings cost 10% less
• Defenses cost 15% less
• Aims to expand twice
• Builds more excess power than Hard
• Attacks with larger squads than Hard
• Will attempt to maintain air superiority with no limit
• Aircraft will prioritise targets more effectively than Hard
• Will create larger bases than Hard
• Will create commando units more frequently than Hard
• APCs have a squad of infantry inside

Very Hard:

• Ground units cost 30% less
• Air units cost 5% less
• Buildings cost 5% less
• Defenses cost 10% less
• Aims to expand once
• Builds more excess power than Hard
• Attacks with larger squads than Hard
• Will attempt to maintain air superiority with no limit
• Aircraft will prioritise targets more effectively than Hard
• Will create larger bases than Hard
• Will create commando units frequently than Hard
• APCs have a squad of infantry inside

Hard:

• Ground units cost 10% less
• Defenses cost 5% less
• Aims to expand once
• Builds more excess power than Normal
• Attacks with larger squads than Normal
• Will attempt to maintain air superiority up to a limit
• Aircraft will prioritise targets more effectively than Normal
• Will create larger bases than Normal
• Will create commando units frequently than Normal
• APCs have a squad of infantry inside

Normal:

• Does not expand
• Cap on number of aircraft
• Early game artillery is delayed

Easy:

• Does not expand
• Attacks with smaller squads than Normal
• Will build fewer aircraft than Normal
• Early game artillery is delayed

[gitgordon]

Thank you for the overview. As spectator is saw that the Brutal AI automatically earns money/resources also if the AI has no refinery. Is this behavior the same over all differnet AIs and how much is it?

And a second question is the behavior of the Naval AI.

Thank you very much. Grondon

[darkademic]

No probs.

Ah yea I missed that off the list. Normal and above get a bit of money if they have less than $2500 in the bank.

Every 18 seconds:

• Normal gets $500
• Hard gets $750
• Very Hard gets $1000
• Brutal gets $1250

For comparison a single harvester averages around $650 in the same amount of time.

The Naval AI gets no bonuses at all, and was really just a workaround for playing island maps with no bridges (to stop the AI building ground forces that would just be stuck forever), but it probably needs a rework. I'd just avoid playing those maps.

[gitgordon]

Thank you. Here is an tabular overview.

Criterion\AI	Brutal	Very Hard	Hard	Normal	Easy
Cost ground units	-50%	-30%	-10%	-/-	-/-
Cost air units	-10%	-5%	0%	-/-	-/-
Cost buildings	-10%	-5%	0%	-/-	-/-
Cost defendes	-15%	-10%	-5%	-/-	-/-
Max MCV expansion	2	1	1	0	0
Power management	Builds more excess power than Hard	Builds more excess power than Hard	Builds more excess power than Normal	-/-	-/-
Attack size	Attacks with larger squads than Hard	Attacks with larger squads than Hard	Attacks with larger squads than Normal	-/-	Attacks with smaller squads than Normal
Air superiority	Will attempt to maintain air superiority with no limit	Will attempt to maintain air superiority with no limit	Will attempt to maintain air superiority up to a limit	Cap on number of aircraft	Will build fewer aircraft than Normal
Air effectiveness	Aircraft will prioritise targets more effectively than Hard	Aircraft will prioritise targets more effectively than Hard	Aircraft will prioritise targets more effectively than Normal	-/-	-/-
Base size	Will create larger bases than Hard	Will create larger bases than Hard	Will create larger bases than Normal	-/-	-/-
Commando units	Will create commando units more frequently than Hard	Will create commando units frequently than Hard	Will create commando units frequently than Normal	-/-	-/-
APCs	APCs have a squad of infantry inside	APCs have a squad of infantry inside	APCs have a squad of infantry inside	-/-	-/-
Start income every 18 sec till $2.500	$1.250	$1.000	$750	$500	-/-
Misc	-/-	-/-	-/-	Early game artillery is delayed	Early game artillery is delayed

[amoskopp]

Is it possible to turn off the AI money/cost cheating while keeping the rest?

Both of those features make it quite difficult to starve enemies of resources.

[GraionDilach]

For money/cost AI-only cheats, the game should limit itself to strictly relying on Mods.Cnc.ResourcePurifier traits anyway. That would still ensurte that players can successfully deny the AI economy.

[amoskopp]

For money/cost AI-only cheats, the game should limit itself to strictly relying on Mods.Cnc.ResourcePurifier traits anyway.

Excuse me, what does this mean in practical terms?

[GraionDilach]

Red Alert 2 has the Ore Purifier building, which provided 25% bonus for every harvester dropoff while it's active. The designers also relied on "virtual purifiers" for it's AI, basically granting additional offmap instances of this building, depending on difficulty level.

The aforementioned OpenRA trait just reimplements this feature.

Also see https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/17312#issuecomment-554047001