Requests for AI improvements

[Psychodabble]

In fact it's the same with all indestructible creatures. AI just ignores this ability and tries to kill them like any other creature.

I can live with that, though. It's dumb, but not actively destructive. With Stuffy Doll, the AI will actually kill itself trying to kill it. That's a problem.

[Megres]

The Ai doesn't "see" infect.

Instead, it thinks that he can sustain any attack, since it has always 20 hp.

Check the savegame for a classic scenario.
Cast Overhelming stampede, attack with the Phyrexian Vatmother, and watch the AI let you pass freely, despite having a Baneslayer angel to block.

[loldotcom]

AI trades with undying creatures way too often, especially mana dorks and stuff like Geist of Saint Traft.

That and they will fall for Deathtouch 1/1's attacking into a sea of large creatures every time, and block those.

[BAgate]

How about checking to see if the AI can pay upkeep before casting something? I just had the computer use a black lotus to cast a Demonic Hordes with the ability to produce only 2 black mana. That's about the stupidest thing you can do.

[Althuna]

AI trades with undying creatures way too often, especially mana dorks and stuff like Geist of Saint Traft.

That and they will fall for Deathtouch 1/1's attacking into a sea of large creatures every time, and block those.

Yeah I have noticed this too. I use the Vampire Nighthawk in almost all of my decks just because it's such an awesome defensive card, but he always attacks with his 3/3 or 4/4 or whatever and loses it.

I also find that his attacking and not attacking choices are a bit weak. It seems to me that he basically plays too aggressively. He always attacks with his crappy little creatures, and then I attack with my huge nasty creatures. Then on the next turn, rather than leaving his creatures so they can block my guys, he just attacks again, leaving himself totally open the next round. But the problem is that his attacks are doing maybe 5 damage total, and my attacks are doing about 10 damage total. So he takes me down to 10 health or something, but next turn he dies. If he just kept his creatures to block, he might have got a board wipe or something on his next draw.

And yet sometimes, he will not attack with a Llanowar Elf even when I have nothing in play.

Also, not sure if this has been mentioned, but the AI does not know how to mulligan? Often I see him accept a hand with 0 or 1 land, and then he spends the next few turns discarding cards because he can't play anything. Usually I just press T to tie the game and I give him another chance.

Also, if he ever plays a land destruction card, his choices are sometimes not very good. He seems to be clever by choosing a card based on its color. So if you have a red white green deck and you only have a couple of plains, he tries to get rid of both of those. I think... But often he misses better targets. For example if you have a special land like an Emeria, or he will miss one of those 2 mana lands like a Dimir Aquaduct. Usually if he killed one of those, he would harm me far more.

Besides that, the only other thing I can think of at the moment, is that he is sometimes a bit too 'trigger happy' with his spells. For example I play a little 1/1 creature or something and he uses his Path to Exile or Terminate, or even worse, he uses a Maelstrom Pulse heh. I find that it is usually better to save these spells at least for another turn or two, until you play something bigger. And sometimes by that point, you might draw a board wipe and you can kill everything in one go, and save your single card removal for later. And sometimes I will have nothing but a Kitchen Finks or something, and he uses Damnation to kill it once, and then after it persists, he uses another Damnation to kill it again

But like I said last time, in general, I find the AI to be awesome There are soooo many cards in this game, and for the AI to even be able to play and put up a good fight, I think is really impressive.

[loldotcom]

AI trades with undying creatures way too often, especially mana dorks and stuff like Geist of Saint Traft.

That and they will fall for Deathtouch 1/1's attacking into a sea of large creatures every time, and block those.

Yeah I have noticed this too. I use the Vampire Nighthawk in almost all of my decks just because it's such an awesome defensive card, but he always attacks with his 3/3 or 4/4 or whatever and loses it.

I also find that his attacking and not attacking choices are a bit weak. It seems to me that he basically plays too aggressively. He always attacks with his crappy little creatures, and then I attack with my huge nasty creatures. Then on the next turn, rather than leaving his creatures so they can block my guys, he just attacks again, leaving himself totally open the next round. But the problem is that his attacks are doing maybe 5 damage total, and my attacks are doing about 10 damage total. So he takes me down to 10 health or something, but next turn he dies. If he just kept his creatures to block, he might have got a board wipe or something on his next draw.

And yet sometimes, he will not attack with a Llanowar Elf even when I have nothing in play.

Also, not sure if this has been mentioned, but the AI does not know how to mulligan? Often I see him accept a hand with 0 or 1 land, and then he spends the next few turns discarding cards because he can't play anything. Usually I just press T to tie the game and I give him another chance.

Also, if he ever plays a land destruction card, his choices are sometimes not very good. He seems to be clever by choosing a card based on its color. So if you have a red white green deck and you only have a couple of plains, he tries to get rid of both of those. I think... But often he misses better targets. For example if you have a special land like an Emeria, or he will miss one of those 2 mana lands like a Dimir Aquaduct. Usually if he killed one of those, he would harm me far more.

Besides that, the only other thing I can think of at the moment, is that he is sometimes a bit too 'trigger happy' with his spells. For example I play a little 1/1 creature or something and he uses his Path to Exile or Terminate, or even worse, he uses a Maelstrom Pulse heh. I find that it is usually better to save these spells at least for another turn or two, until you play something bigger. And sometimes by that point, you might draw a board wipe and you can kill everything in one go, and save your single card removal for later. And sometimes I will have nothing but a Kitchen Finks or something, and he uses Damnation to kill it once, and then after it persists, he uses another Damnation to kill it again

But like I said last time, in general, I find the AI to be awesome There are soooo many cards in this game, and for the AI to even be able to play and put up a good fight, I think is really impressive.

Often times I just help the AI out and +/- their life with debug, and tap the appropriate creatures

No one would block a 1/1 with a Delver Of Secrets or Llanowar Elves, or trade a Strangleroot Geist for a Geist of Saint Traft. So I just minus 2 on their life, and tap my guy with debug, so that the outcome is appropriate to a real life game.

[Althuna]

I just found another little mistake he makes. He made a Ball Lightning but then didn't attack with it because I had a 2/2 creature and he didn't want it to die heh. But it's got trample and it dies at the end of the turn anyway so he should just attack and do some damage. And he also should know to not cast it if there are blockers too.

[Althuna]

Here's another one: Whenever the AI has a deck with Claws of Gix he uses it to eat all of his land

[porphyre]

I'd like to see an internal counter set on activating abilities. Many cards w/ activated abilities, the AI will get locked into a loop toggling them. Cytoplast Root-Kin, Mishra's Factory... many others. I've had a number of games I simply had to ctrl-alt-del magic.exe because it was locked into repeatedly activating the ability, then cancelling it. I kept clicking DONE and it kept activating and cancelling. Frustrating.

[stassy]

Just keep the ESC key down and wait for the spam to finish

The only flaw of this trick is if spam finish too early you will skip of your many phase as ESC key is also considered as next phase.

[stassy]

When AI cast Arcbound Ravager in play in an artifact deck, he will make it eat everything and even itself...

[Aswan jaguar]

Gargaroz I wanted to thank you for the fact that AI has some understanding of the Bushido ability and makes at times the proper defence but not so much offence decisions and that is quite a progress since AI never understood these kind of abilities (Horsemanship,when it blocks it gets +x/+X,when it blocks it gets +x/+X,)apart maybe original microporose cards=AI uses fairly good Giant Badger.=edited (either AI uses it sometimes correctly and others not or I am getting crazy,could be both )
I wanted to report this as you may be close to make AI understand better Bushido and all other similar abilities.
Now for the bad AI decisions when it has creatures with Bushido I found:
1)AI will be more aggressive and makes suicide attacks with 1 or 2 creature that are underpowered (compared to mine)something that AI never did before.That goes for creature with Bushido and without,too=(if there is a creature with Bushido in AI side that is).I can't get if AI considers it will get more power from Bushido or something else.
2)AI will also make bad calls when attacking and won't make the win attack as AI did before (attack with everything for a certain win) in fact I won a game that AI could have won me if he attacked with everything in more than 10 turns!!!AI persisted on attacking with just 1 more or 1-1 creatures.

If you can tell me what did you code AI to do with bushido maybe I can test and help more.

[stassy]

Shouldn't this go into the AI thread?

[Althuna]

I just realised, the AI does not seem to understand "deathtouch" because he will still attack with his 5/5 creature when I have a little 1/1 creature with death touch. BUT, if I play a Cockatrice, he understands the danger and does not attack.

As far as I can tell, the Cockatrice does not have deathtouch but the effect it has works in almost the same way. Maybe the AI could be tweaked to treat deathtouch creatures the same as it treats a Cockatrice.

[stassy]

Fog bank could have a little boost in AI side so it can block anything in combat phase regardless of its life check since it's invulnerable to nearly anything.