AI makes you want to porc.

Yeah that's pretty common knowledge that AI teaches people to overporc and builds bad habits that fail against human opponents. It was especially bad when we only had CAI that responds to porc with non-stop suiciding, so you could win against an arbitrary number as long as you tech2ddm. Circuit seems much better in that regard, but it still seems that people tend towards 4 humans vs 10 AI porcy lagfests.

The answer to how to learn to play without porc and cheesy exploits is to restrict yourself from using them (cf. CCR challenge). Even just 1v1ing CAI while trying to play "fair" builds a pretty solid foundation, and with the new AIs (and 1v2) even more so. Of course eventually you need to move to playing humans if you want to grow.

Circuit produces arty in response to porc, but it doesn't recognize that Gauss & Razor are invincible and wastes most of its shots on these. It also produces assault units and then eventually attacks where it perceives the line to be weakest. I wouldn't say it does a great job of breaking porc fort, but then it doesn't do a great job of other forms of warfare either for the most part. AI is mostly good at macro and eco, which makes it better at large maps than small ones.

Only CAI (and to a lesser extent KGB) still throws its units into porc to die.

1. in my expierience circuit does go around porc. maybe you refer to group-games, where all your teammates porc up as well, like on CCR. As somebody already pointed out, there is also a very good (and flashy) counter to mega-porc, even without silo: it´s called Disco-Rave-Party.

2. If you play against 2 ai, then you play at least against an advatage in starting-ressources and buildpower. this changes the meta ofc, because you are forced to porc or you will be overrun immiediatly. porc in this case gives you enough time to build up before the ai has arty. so practising for even games like 1v1 with 2 or more ai as opponents is somehow fail from the start. also, at least circuit, cai and csi do the same things most of the time, so after 1 or 2 games on a specific map, you will find yourself adapting to their strategies. human opponents will adapt to you as you adapt to the ai and hopefully to them.

The question is more: why should the ai not teach you to porc? because you assume that the role of an ai is to teach you how to play against humans? i am afraid to say that i think this is a false estimation of the capabilities of both humans and ais. At the moment, our ais are simply incapable of imitating humans, and (to a lesser degree) vice versa.

note: i personaly enjoy to play against bots as i do against humans, it´s just like 2 total different game-modes for me.

Hedgehoge can you provide me some replays so I can take a look?

quote: Is there an AI which doesn't teach you to porc/use weird strategies and teaches you to fight on the battlefield?

Have you tried ZKGBAI? Its the strongest 1v1 AI.

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/20617?page=6

quote: but.....is an AI that avoids the player until he can overpower him fun for new players?

You dont design AI to be fun for new players.. thats how you end up with abominations like the Total War campaign AIs. You design AI to beat good player fairly, and then lobotomize it until nubs can beat it.

quote: Does the AI have builtin advantages over the player, namely extra resources?

No.

quote: 1- manage groups of units, even if it's a single attack force, keep cohesion

KGB and circuit both do this.

quote: 2- change composition depending on what the player has. If main threat to AI is porc, build more assault and artillery

Circuit does this more than kgb does, but kgb does build arty in response to porc (and certain other things that arty counters). KGB builds arty relative to the metal value of porc that the enemy has, I have no idea what circuit does.

quote: 3- wait until it has about 3x as much value in their attack group as the defender has in the nearest porcy cluster, then attack

It also depends on what units the player has supporting the porc. Waiting too long to attack can be disadvantageous too. Keep in mind that picking targets is an expensive problem, since a given target may not have much threat in its general vicinity but may be blocked by a porc wall. The only way around that is to pick targets based on the total path threat cost, which is very expensive to calculate.

quote: I think people generally prefer to fight reckless AIs with builtin resource advantage (or more instances). Reckless attacks = more action.

Or it could just raid. A resource advantage is possible, but generally a smarter AI is always better than a cheating AI or more AIs. Being able to beat 4 circuits on CCR doesn't necessarily make you a better player, since the strategies used for that don't really apply to a 1v1 vs a human.

Agree with all the above, except the resource haxx - I don't think anyone prefers an assymetrical cheating opponent.

quote: I don't think anyone prefers an assymetrical cheating opponent.

Except anyone who likes chickens.

circuit and porc. i dunno why people find this amusing. but here it is. porc your way to victory.

you mean like 5 hammers on fight move?

The currently unreleased circuit does at least ignore razkiss and guass with its artillery, but sure - AI is not formidable to for an experienced player yet.