Im new to Empires, when I found out about it just now I went crazy because this has to be the best mod ever. Anyways... Is there bots? if not, are there going to be AI units put into the mod for lets say LAN play or something because that would be a really cool feature.
There are some bots, but all they do is wander around and get stuck. Bot support is a looong ways off. You could always try human opponents though.
Remember pong? Give that bouncing square a weapon and you have an empires bot. But the fact that there ARE bots is promising. Just don't start counting down untill it is released.
Spawn bot in barracks -> watch bot run around bumping into the walls -> watch as bot somehow makes it out 20% of the time.
um not sure if this helps but im a fan of mods in general and i also have the isotx mod IronGrip which is a rts/ffs hybrid like empire but based around a resistance composed of human players vs on human caommanding a stander rts side. isotx is a source mod like empires they have a resonable if dumb bot ai for there grunts would it be possible to contact them and ask to use there bot code and ai? i would think that having the bots tagged to a sqaud leader say 2-4 class dependet on the leader eg rilfeman leader= 3 rilfeman bots + one healer engie bot. i do not think isotx would allow a simply code transplant if they gave permission you would probably have to adapt it so it would not infringe upon ther mod idea. its just a thought
They're just using HL2's AI from what I've seen. When I get around to adding bots, I want to do them justice and not have dumb bots.
I think there is a fair amount of bot/AI code that comes with the SDK. After planes/larger maps, intelligent bots are the obvious direction for this mod to go in.
bots would be bloody fantastic. wasn't there some thread about bots a while back? http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=819 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=1765 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=1481 http://forums.empiresmod.com/showthread.php?t=414 OH MY GUD TOO MUCH TOO READ.
Who needs a navy when you can get hundreds of bots to clamp together to form a raft? It's the future, I tells you.
Bots would be interesting. But I think it would be easier to just make infantry units that fallow a infantry player around. Like the guys that fallow around Gordan in HL2. You could actually make infantry, and they would come out as a squad linked to who every made them, or to who ever they were assigned to by the commander. Players could then command them around with some basic controls (Hold Fire, Attack, Guard ect). Killing off a Squad Leader would cause them to be less aggressive and less accurate. This could lead to some interesting new ideas. Like, Player exp and level gaining. The actual players could act like basic hero units that would effect the infantry there with. I guess being a Squad Leader would be an option though. I'm sure some people would rather just be part of a normal infantry squad.
I have to say I highly agree with this statement. I have to say I disagree with morale influence (any better name for it?). It's just that it doesn't make much sense to me, but I am open to explanations. I don't believe Empires should go in the direction of an RPG. I believe players should just be the grunts, tankers, etc. I don't like centering things around the player that much, even if it is multiplayer when making the player a special unit. Yes, I ignored your last sentence ^_^ But, please, whatever AI bots are in the game, make them have the same exact physical abilities as the player and somehow work from there. I must admit, I don't know how hard programming AI is, but I imagine it's hard and tedious.
Well I'm pulling a lot of ideas here from other RTS games. Like, in Dawn of War you can create units that are then attached to a squad, the squad then preforms better then any other normal squad. You could limit that to one of each type, much like they do in DoW. I also believe that this could help pull infantry in to the late game (though I have vary little experience with how this game plays out in full, so I could be wrong about infantries usefulness in this game.) I think squad based combat would add to the overall feel of the game. For just about every player (unless there a solo class, like a Sniper class or in a tank) would have a squad of NPC infantry units that would fallow them around on the battle field. Making if feel like a much larger fight. Savage (a game not unlike this one) had a leveling system in it. All it did was make your character stronger (more damage, more HP). Something like this would also help out infantry in the late game. Then again, Savage was mainly based on infantry combat, and there were vary little siege weapons for you to use. I can see how you might not want a leveling system in a game like this though, and I'm not demanding that it be done. But I do feel that having specialized hero type infantry units could allow for more options when in battle. Allowing a player to command a squad around would also bring some more diversity to the play experience.
