Overview
This guide will describe how you can install and use the Queller AI mod to get an enhanced AI skirmish experience in Planetary Annihilation Titans, as well as pointing you at the resources to help you write your own AI.
Introduction
“Your Queller AI is literally beast teacher there is when it comes to pure learning how to play this game, especially [the] basics” – B13, Uber rank
This guide will walk you through the installation, configuration and use of the Queller AI mod. This mod is a total overhaul of the AI. It covers a wider range of difficulties than vanilla, from easier to harder, all of which play in a more humanlike fashion than their vanilla counterparts. It features complete support for the Legion Expansion[exodusesports.com].
Queller works alongside the vanilla AI so that you can still choose to play with it if you want to, or even just have them fight each other. Want a mix of vanilla and Queller in one game? You can do that.
Once installed, Queller will work in any game you host. Other players do not need the mod installed.
There are a number of reasons why you might be looking to upgrade the vanilla AI:
- You can beat the AI on absurd
- You can’t beat the AI on a single planet, but on multi-planet systems it’s too weak for you
- The difficulty jump from Normal to Hard is too big
- You want something that plays a bit more like online human players would
The Queller AI is designed to resolve all of these issues, be it giving you a larger challenge, smoothing out the difficulty curve, invading more often on multi-planet maps, or just using the units a human would at that skill level.
The Queller AI will be useful to you no matter your level of skill.
Installation
You should download and install this mod via the Planetary Annihilation TITANS in-game Community Mods.
[link]
Choosing A Difficulty
Queller offers a range of difficulties designed to try and mimic the style of human players at particular levels of play. It does not modify the vanilla difficulties.
- Economy first opening
- One army
- Techs as soon as possible
- Goes orbital as soon as possible
- Turtles
- Poor troop selection
- Barely scouts
- Doesn’t adapt to what the enemy is doing
- Loves fabbers
- Loves static defence/offence
- Poor use of fabbers
- Terrible economy handling
- No micro
- Terrible threat assessments
- Factory first opening
- One army
- Techs as soon as possible
- Will go orbital if it can
- Expands slowly
- Poor troop selection
- Barely scouts
- Doesn’t adapt to what the enemy is doing
- Loves fabbers
- Loves static defence/offence
- Poor use of fabbers
- Average economy handling
- No micro
- Terrible threat assessments
- Factory first opening
- Few armies
- Will tech if it can
- Will go orbital if it can
- Expands slowly
- Poor troop selection
- Barely scouts
- Doesn’t adapt to what the enemy is doing
- Likes fabbers
- Likes static defence/offence
- Average economy handling
- Average micro
- Poor threat assessments
- Smart factory first opening
- Some armies
- Will tech if it can
- Will go orbital if it can
- Expands OK
- OK troop selection
- OK scouting
- Some adaption to its opponent’s play
- Dislikes fabbers
- Appropriate use of static defence/offence
- Average economy handling
- Average micro
- Good threat assessments
- Smartest factory first opening
- Numerous armies
- Techs quickly
- Goes orbital smartly
- Expands quickly
- Good troop selection
- Smartly adapts to its opponent’s play
- Good fabber to troop balance
- Appropriate use of static defence/offence
- Good economy handling
- Best micro
- Great threat assessments
- Smartest factory first opening
- Unlimited armies
- Techs smartly
- Goes orbital smartly
- Expands quickly
- Best troop selection
- Smartly adapts to its opponent’s play
- Good fabber to troop balance
- Appropriate use of static defence/offence
- Best economy handling
- Best micro
- Best threat assessments
- Will use eco bonuses better than other levels
- Customise play through subpersonalities
Below are recommendations for the difficulty you may wish to start on based on what you set the vanilla AI to or your ladder ranking.
When you need to increase the challenge, but don’t want to increase the difficulty, give the AI an eco-boost rather than adding more AIs. Not only will this be better for the sim, but will also stop the problem of there being fewer resources to go around for the AI which in turn makes it easier to beat.
Subpersonalities
By default, Queller at Uber level will adapt its play to try and suit the system and the opposition it faces. You can use subpersonalities to customise Queller’s game to your liking or help it play better where it’s making poor strategy choices.
- Optimised for 1v1 play
- Doesn’t build vehicle factories
- More cautious about engaging in battle
- Techs earlier
- Orbital earlier
- Avoids antagonistic scouting raids
- Techs late
- Slower to enter orbital
- Doesn’t build bot factories
- More likely to build defences at its expansions
- More likely to build titans
Spawns
The spawn the AI starts in and the profile used can make a big difference, even for symmetrical 1v1s. If you find the AI too easy on a map, try a different spawn point for it. And don’t use Bedlam, the AI’s forces can’t pathfind on this map.
Be sure to follow the recommended number of players for any map.
Translations
Please help translate Queller AI[poeditor.com] to your local language.
Writing Your Own AI
The AI in Planetary Annihilation Titans is very easy to mod, though there’s a bit of a learning curve. Below are some resources that will be of use:
- AI thread pre-release[forums.uberent.com]
- AI thread for Classic[forums.uberent.com]
- AI thread for Titans[forums.uberent.com]
- Queller AI thread[forums.planetaryannihilation.com]
- Planetary Annihilation Titans & Classic AI Implementation[wiki.palobby.com]
Thanks To
The Queller AI mod wouldn’t be possible without the help of others:
- Sorian of Uber Entertainment for
- making his AI moddable
- answering my questions
- taking on suggestions
- fixing bugs as they come up
- adding cool new features which make the AI increasingly smart
- wondible for his creation of the AI Showdown[github.com] tool
- mikeyh for writing the Javascript for loading Queller’s personalities
- alpha2546 for extensively playtesting Queller during Legion Expansion development
- Everyone who has helped with translations:
- K-Orthic | Gamax
- gmase
- PRoeleert
- R.O.S.S
- DeathByDenim
- River
- Felix Köhler
- tunsel
- omylist
- IPWIW
- Fred
- CmdrEdem
- something more than human
- Linus Petersson
- Spassky
- Craeox
- sevmek
- fera
- PA Inc for including Queller in its professional translation project