[General] Custom Campaign AI

I haven't actually designed an AI yet, but some missions might give the main player 1 or more AI allies. I want to allow the player to control them, but from past experience, AIs tend to constantly disobey player commands and switch mid command, so I want a 10 sec delay before the AI tries to take over their unit again, even on the Ai hero.

 

No, no not at all! I don't want a dead AI! I just need the AI to obey when you want to intervene with what it's doing, that's all.

 

Also this is false, "neutral hostile" creeps can use spells, that is still in their AI. Or maybe just the autocast ones...

 

Would the AI still res geros, create armies, attack, build, etc?

 

That's not going to be as easy as you think. My best idea for how to do this goes like this:

1. Once you send the computer controlled hero a command, store the order id and the target location\unit whatever.
2. Start a timer for X seconds, during which, if the hero receives an order, send the order you stored again.
3. Once the timer stops/target has been reached, stop overriding methods received.

This is the basic outline. BUT, and you might want to allow some orders because some might be essential for normal unit action. And there are a lot of things to consider, like: aggro range and recurring orders, orders following your own walk order (might create something akin to an infinite loop), non immediate build and spell orders (including mana/resource refunding in case of order interrupts), and the effect of a stray unit on general AI behavior (might cause captains to act funky).

Sounds like an interesting experiment, and something someone probably tried doing already. I really suggest searching the hive for questions about this. If you want to try my way, go here for more info:

Orders repo

Missions (see mission 1 - order tracking)

 

Do you know if AIs ever cancel troop training, cancel building constructions, unsummon already finished buildings, cancel research, or cancel upgrades? These might interfere with the AI or player.

 

Didn't see any of those, except unsummoning building, and even that wasn't automatic.

 

Hmm, maybe you can change the ownership of the unit for 10 second and give back to the original owner after this. Is a posibility...

 

Maybe... just maybe...

 

Why did it unsummon? Did the AI not place it perfectly?

 

No, you can make your AI unsummon on purpose with the

Unsummon

native command. This isn't something you should worry about, AI is not supposed to unsummon by mistake.

 

I was wondering because, if the triggers making this "don't redirect your unit and obey the human player" don't work out right they might unsummon a building you tried building for them after 10 sec.

 

You probably gave the best answer/idea to this.

 

Per ABronzeCross's other post:

• Events
  • Unit - A unit is issued an order targeting an object //"object" may not be the correct term
  • Unit - A unit is issued an order targeting a point
  • Unit - A Unit is issued an order with no target
• Conditions
  • (Owner of (Triggering Unit)) not equal to (Triggering Player) //Triggering Player should work here
• Actions
  • Custom script: local unit udg_Change_Unit
  • Custom script: local player udg_Change_Player
  • Set Change_Unit = (Triggering Unit)
  • Set Change_Player = (Owner of (Triggering Unit))
  • Unit - Change owner of Change_Unit to (Triggering Player) without changing color
  • Wait 10.00 game-time seconds
  • Unit - Change owner of Change_Unit to Change_Player without changing color
  • -------- might not need these lines, but my suspicion is you will: --------
  • Custom script: set udg_Change_Unit = null
  • Custom script: set udg_Change_Player = null

 

That is smart, I didn't think of that one.

I was about to try to say where you went wrong, but I realized I would've been the one who was wrong. Your code might work.

Actually,

Can't this just be:

• Events
  • Unit - A unit is issued an order

or is that not allowed?

 

Unless Blizzard added a generic "any order" event with the recent patches there isn't such an event. You have to check all kinds of orders.

 

You can create local variables with udg then refer to them with gui set variable? What sorcery is this?!
I mean it makes sense, global/local modifiers shouldn't matter when assigning variables but that is a neat trick.

 

What about the orders for begin research, begin cast spell, build, drop item, etc? Where can I find all of the built in events?