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Civilian AI


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Hey everyone,

I've been playing this game for some time now, and learned quite a lot (figuring out cover mechanics did cost me some trashed games lol). AI is especially charming for me : I'm not sure I've seen any other AI using cover and ( amazingly ) LOS to their advantage so effectively, moving out of sight if they have TU left ( those flying discs are amazing harassers, I was equally impressed and frustrated when I first fought them). But there is one problem with AI that I would like to discuss:

Keeping it short:

Alien AI - absolutely amazing, fighting every species feels entirely different ( Unlike X-COM: EU, where fighting different enemies feels more or less the same to me).

Civilian AI - headless chickens. It is almost physically painful to watch civies doing stupidest s...tuff, including :

- staying in the same area with aliens, despite having LOS with them/being under fire from them. While it's ok if they're suppressed, they often stick around hot areas for no apparent reason.

- refusing to go into/stick around dropship, despite knowing about it ( either having LOS on it or "hearing" it landed)

- armed local forces refuse to fall back after xenonauts arrive. While it's understandable if those are military units from nearby base, seeing policemen and farmers charging aliens is... disturbing (although hilarious)

- etc, I'm sure you can name a couple more situations yourself.

Understanding that development has ended, I wont request some complicated stuff like local forces ( policemen/military) attempting to de-blockade trapped survivors and escort them to dropship, I still somehow believe that something can be done to make civ AI more believable. Because right now it's lacking. While not the most important thing in the world, in a game that invests so much into lore, where pretty much everything is believable and immersive, even that little detail shows and counts.

Thank you for your attention.

P.S

TBH I was inspired to write all that mostly because Gijs-Jan took his time to describe enemy AI in another thread ( http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/11718-The-AI-is-cheating-but-I-guess-that-s-ok/page6 )

Maybe (just maybe) he will be so kind to shred light on Civilian AI, even if it's somewhat simple ( As to me - they seem to be constantly panicking, lol)

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If civilian AI was at least decent, terror mission would be much easier. This way they do their best to make our life miserable and hard to earn our points for saving them. So camping is less of an option. :cool:

Well...there ARE no points for saving them. Regardless of if you save every single one or let them all die, the outcome will be exactly the same except for a different grade on the mission report at the end.

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Well...there ARE no points for saving them. Regardless of if you save every single one or let them all die, the outcome will be exactly the same except for a different grade on the mission report at the end.

Wait a minute..no +relationship with the region for saving their worthless butts? I can take all the time left in the Universe to clear the terror site?? :confused:

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Wait a minute..no +relationship with the region for saving their worthless butts? I can take all the time left in the Universe to clear the terror site?? :confused:

Yep. Waiting longer even gets you the map reveal so you can see where they are.

It used to be even worse. They used to seek out small, enclosed places to hide in...and sadly, the interior of a UFO is a small, enclosed space. You can probably see where I'm going with this.

Uhm...ouch...yeah...:P

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From the AI perspective, there's no real difference between the behaviors applied to the Civilians and the Aliens.

It all comes down to weight balancing, and I focused on the Alien weights instead of Civilian.

It goes to show how much can be gained through altering the weights as well.

(Although the Civilian AI might need some extra weights to make "more sense" of the world, the current weights available to the AI are all constructed to model a world that emphasis on hunting down something.)

I think that XNT Into Darkness mod has Civilian AI weights which are better balanced.

TacticalDragon spent some time on that.

I added it to my shortlist though. :)

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It used to be even worse. They used to seek out small, enclosed places to hide in...and sadly, the interior of a UFO is a small, enclosed space. You can probably see where I'm going with this.

Heh.

Hypothetically (as I haven't seen the source code) would it be possible to re-enable this behaviour but make the UFO a "do not seek" zone?

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Heh.

Hypothetically (as I haven't seen the source code) would it be possible to re-enable this behaviour but make the UFO a "do not seek" zone?

Very easily. It's a switch in the aiprops.xml; so you don't need to alter the source code.

The problematic part is balancing it out, which takes time.

The trepidation to enter the UFO is handled by the Civilian "Goal" attribute in aiprops.xml

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From the AI perspective, there's no real difference between the behaviors applied to the Civilians and the Aliens.

It all comes down to weight balancing, and I focused on the Alien weights instead of Civilian.

It goes to show how much can be gained through altering the weights as well.

(Although the Civilian AI might need some extra weights to make "more sense" of the world, the current weights available to the AI are all constructed to model a world that emphasis on hunting down something.)

I think that XNT Into Darkness mod has Civilian AI weights which are better balanced.

TacticalDragon spent some time on that.

I added it to my shortlist though. :)

:)

Thank you, I learn from the best example.

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I think, ideally?

If you move a Xenonaut next to a civilian, one of two things will happen.

One: If they're an unarmed civilian, they will haul ass to the dropship/drop pod landing site and try to get inside to safety. (Or, I suppose, just exit the map from the dropship's general vicinity, given that you presumably landed somewhere you wouldn't be surrounded.)

Two: If they're an armed civilian (Policeman, soldier, farmer angry enough to take up arms, middle eastern tribesman with a Kalashnikov, etcetera,) they fall in line and take orders, share Squadsight, etcetera. If you manage to have them survive, and have barracks space remaining, they'll fly back to the base with your xenonaut team as a new recruit, already battle-tested against the aliens and ready to do some real damage with some actual gear.

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If they're an armed civilian (Policeman, soldier, farmer angry enough to take up arms, middle eastern tribesman with a Kalashnikov, etcetera,) they fall in line and take orders, share Squadsight, etcetera. If you manage to have them survive, and have barracks space remaining, they'll fly back to the base with your xenonaut team as a new recruit, already battle-tested against the aliens and ready to do some real damage with some actual gear.

But what if I don't want Officer Beer-gut Bob in my squad of crack-shot vixens?

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But what if I don't want Officer Beer-gut Bob in my squad of crack-shot vixens?

Presumably you could veto taking them back, or just dismiss them/transfer them to a remote base's garrison the moment they get back.

I've been in quite a few of those missions where the friendly, armed AI has done something heroic and I've wished to recruit that specific guy into my Xenonaut Squad. There was one middle eastern guy with a Kalashnikov in this huge house (probably his) that we invaded and were looking at the UFO through. He was just lurking in the back while we were setting up our heavy weapons, then all of a sudden, automatic rifle fire. I looked back - some Sebillian was creeping up on my guys and this bearded, turban-wearing hero had gunned the lizard right down.

And another time, in a terror mission, Shotgun Cop evaporated a Reaper at point-blank range, saving one of my guys and probably also a civilian who was nearby, and then advanced on the aliens with my squaddies, laying down suppressive fire like a champ despite the copious amounts of hot SCIENCE being flung to and fro.

A third time, in the early game on a farm map, the first Hidden Movement turn had a couple of good ol' boys with break-action double-barreled shotguns (just like Grandma used ta own*!) took down a couple of Caseans who were hiding in their barn.

*I am not making that up.

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I was struck last night by the thought that I'd like to see "civvies" able to pick up alien weapons from downed invaders, a la (iirc) Syndicate. It would be great if soldiers and cops, at least, had a chance to swap their ballistic weapons for plasmas if they saw a dead alien and, say, had a high enough morale. But that would probably make crash missions a little too easy.

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Presumably you could veto taking them back, or just dismiss them/transfer them to a remote base's garrison the moment they get back.

I've been in quite a few of those missions where the friendly, armed AI has done something heroic and I've wished to recruit that specific guy into my Xenonaut Squad. There was one middle eastern guy with a Kalashnikov in this huge house (probably his) that we invaded and were looking at the UFO through. He was just lurking in the back while we were setting up our heavy weapons, then all of a sudden, automatic rifle fire. I looked back - some Sebillian was creeping up on my guys and this bearded, turban-wearing hero had gunned the lizard right down.

And another time, in a terror mission, Shotgun Cop evaporated a Reaper at point-blank range, saving one of my guys and probably also a civilian who was nearby, and then advanced on the aliens with my squaddies, laying down suppressive fire like a champ despite the copious amounts of hot SCIENCE being flung to and fro.

A third time, in the early game on a farm map, the first Hidden Movement turn had a couple of good ol' boys with break-action double-barreled shotguns (just like Grandma used ta own*!) took down a couple of Caseans who were hiding in their barn.

*I am not making that up.

Shit like this is why Xcom and Xcom-likes are so great.

But yeah, a feature like that would be cool, although obviously it won't be added. The best you can do now is to roleplay.

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I have installed the Jsleezy's Real Fighter Sounds. Yesterday, my team attacked an landed (not downed) corvette, my first mission with my new shiny Shrike. First turn, I'm still deploying my troops and I hear "pew-pew-pew...Enemy down! Bang-bang...sqyssssh..Enemy down!" What? Sounded almost like there was another Xeno team in action. 3 very pixxed rednecks killed 2 sebillians just like that. Sawed-off shotguns. Gotta love them :)

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I've been in quite a few of those missions where the friendly, armed AI has done something heroic and I've wished to recruit that specific guy into my Xenonaut Squad.

Likewise. I mean, you can pretend that you gave him an application form before flying off and he's in the next pool of recruits, but still. :(

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I don't want the civvies to be under my control. I just want them to act semi-intelligently. If they were totally under my control that would be a bit OP IMO. Having them run and fight intelligently is just fine. It's more fun to see what they will or won't do for you than to control them.

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I don't want the civvies to be under my control. I just want them to act semi-intelligently. If they were totally under my control that would be a bit OP IMO. Having them run and fight intelligently is just fine. It's more fun to see what they will or won't do for you than to control them.

I do, at least the armed ones. That bugged me about XCOM: Enemy Unknown, too. There's three specific missions that bug the living bejeezus out of me.

In the "Rescue the VIP" mission, the VIP's bodyguards - ostensibly armed bodyguards who are there to protect him with their lives, stand around like lumps cowering behind a car. FFS, the VIP himself is smart enough to do what we tell him to do, but not his armed bodyguards?!

In the "VIP General rescue" mission, it's worse; the aliens attacked a highway, and besides the General you need to rescue, there's an armed and armored soldier carrying and wearing the same kind of kit that XCOM issued at the start of the game. Why won't that jackhole follow my orders?

And lastly, in the DLC mission where you recruit that Triad guy at the end, the intro itself has him shooting a sectoid with a pistol. It works, and he says it's not so different from killing a man. The guy is already armed, has violent experience, has in fact just demonstrated his ability to kill aliens, after the mission is over he'll join your XCOM squad for realsies... And he throws the pistol away and cowers like a moron?

So, yeah. I'd like to be able to control the armed civilians; get a squaddie next to them, and they presumably give the guy a radio headset and he falls in line. For the unarmed ones, I wish they'd just make a beeline off the map in the direction of safety once a Xenonaut gets next to them, so they'd stop having Hidden Movement turns.

[e]Also, I don't think that being able to recruit armed civilians would be very OP, except in the very early game when the equipment they're using is exactly as good as that of the Xenonauts team... You know, when the squad's size is very limited and their equipment is very limited, which is exactly when being able to luckily recruit an armed policeman, soldier, or local civilian who's taken up arms would be the most helpful. I imagine that recruited civilians would have a morale penalty, because, you know, they weren't expecting to fight aliens today, but if they survive they can shake it and join your operation. Later game, I suppose you could use them in place of suicide squaddies to open doors and draw reaction fire, but that could be discouraged by making them more likely to freak out the longer they're in the UFO.

Edited by ShadowDragon8685
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I do, at least the armed ones.
I don't think that's very realistic or balanced. They wouldn't be able to obey any orders except verbal and universally recognized hand signals (assuming you could even speak their language.) Who's to say they'd recognize your authority? I doubt many would disregard orders from their own commanders to follow orders from a bunch of strangers. It doesn't seem realistic or balanced to me. If anything you'd have better luck telling the unarmed civilians what to do.
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I don't think that's very realistic or balanced. They wouldn't be able to obey any orders except verbal and universally recognized hand signals (assuming you could even speak their language.) Who's to say they'd recognize your authority? I doubt many would disregard orders from their own commanders to follow orders from a bunch of strangers. It doesn't seem realistic or balanced to me. If anything you'd have better luck telling the unarmed civilians what to do.

Who's orders are you going to follow in an alien invasion? Those of the guy whom you're out of contact with and is probably dead, and who might be a mere police chief or armed security guard supervisor anyway, or the guy dressed up like he just beamed down from the Enterprise and clearly has a plan to deal with the copious amounts of ALIENS you find yourself surrounded by?

Also, you're assuming they HAVE a superior to take orders from - Middle Eastern Tribesmen and hicks with shotguns have only themselves to follow, and thus have full prerogative to place themselves under your command.

As for the whole "being able to give them orders," that's why getting an Xenonaut next to him would be required - so the Xenonaut can physically hand that guy a radio tuned in to the Xenonaut frequencies.

And as for balance, well, a few guys with pistols or shotguns aren't going to make much of a difference at all late-game, and early-game, the player needs every "clever" advantage she or he can get, which makes conscripting already on-scene armed members of the public or members of other forces.

Also, I imagine that once the invasion is in full swing and un-hidable, most militaries and civilian armed agencies would issue standing orders that all personnel are to cooperate fully with the Xenonauts. That's why, for instance, Spetznaz GRU and U.S. SEALs won't shoot at you, even if you just landed at what should be an ostensibly top secret army base.

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