¶ Overview of custom AI
FAF features several advanced AI that offers significant improvements over the default AI. In particular, depending on the AI these can include:
- Adaptive playstyle, responding to player actions
- Player tactics/unit microing
- FAF balance and meta focus
- Better CPU performance
- Greater challenge
- Unit mod compatibility
- Campaign compatibility
- Unique gamemodes / settings
For example, by one measure the fastest custom AI was more than twice as fast as the default Adaptive AI (August 2022), while the Adaptive AI could lose to the most competitive custom AI even with a 100% boost to its resource generation and build speed (although as the base Adaptive AI is under active development this may change).
Further details on the custom AI available in FAF, and how to play using them, are given below.
¶ FAF Custom AI
Each AI has a different style of playing, so be sure to try different AI to see the ones that you like the most.
¶ Actively developed AI
These AI are being actively developed with recent updates. If you have feedback on these AI contact the authors via discord (preferably with a replay highlighting the feedback point)
¶ M28AI
Author: maudlin27
Other mods required: None
Adaptive AI, intended for both 1v1 and team games. Provides a competitive experience, with an estimated rank of 900-1200 (i.e. better than the average FAF player). M28AI uses advanced micro tactics coupled with strong macro decisions, applying a a decentralised 'hive-mind' type approach to AI decisions and a special AI memory system to work effectively on larger maps and in teamgames (while still being a deadly 1v1 opponent). It is compatible with a wide range of mods, maps, and unusual game settings (including unit restrictions), and also has a wide range of configuration options to refine your experience as well as an alternative M28Easy version that disables its microing capabilities.
Examples of custom options include an 'AIx overwhelm' option that can make the AI get harder or weaker over the course of a game, and a unique hybrid AI mode that allows you to have M28AI manage some of your units while you manage others (including, at the extreme, a MOBA setting that turns FAF into a MOBA game).
A unique hybrid AI mode is also provided where you can choose M28AI to manage some of your units while you manage others.
M28AI also supports the FA and SC campaign missions, both as an AI teammate, and (via game settings) as the hostile campaign AI - see the campaign section for further details.
Further details on M28AI are available on its forum thread, including a detailed devlog of the AI's progress.
¶ RNGAI
Author: Relent0r
Other mods required: None (earlier versions required AI-Uveso)
AI is aimed at players wanting to learn 1v1 gameplay. It provides an avenue to play against something that emulates some of the methods ladder players use!
AI Variants: RNG Standard, RNG Standard Experimental. RNG Standard is suggested as the more competitive of these variants.
AI Variants: M28AI, M28AI Easy
¶ AI not under active development
Although no longer receiving updates, the following AI should still work in FAF.
¶ M27AI
Author: maudlin27
Last updated: May 2024
Other mods required: None
Adaptive AI, intended for both 1v1 and team games. Provides a competitive player-like experience, with an estimated rank of 800-1100 (i.e. better than the average FAF player). While largely superceded by M28AI, it will play differently and can beat M28AI on some maps. Although not actively developed it is still occasionally updated to ensure it remains compatible with the latest FAF releases.
Further details on M27AI are available on its forum thread, including a detailed devlog of the AI's progress.
¶ Marlo's Sorian Edit
Author: Degulum/!MarLo
Other mods required: AI-Uveso
Last updated: February 2024
Based on the Sorian AI, this mod looks to make improvements to the logic to provide a more competitive experience.
¶ AI-Uveso
Author: Uveso
Last updated: August 2023
Other mods required: None
This AI is a turtle-focused AI that is designed mainly for 10km maps. It supports Nomads and other unit mods.
The AI-Uveso mod also allows for the generation of 'map markers', which are used by the default AI and certain another custom AI (as of writing, March 2023, AI-Swarm, Marlo's Sorian Edit, Sorian AI, and RNGAI, although RNGAI is expected to be updated to use separate map markers in the near future). I.e. enabling AI-Uveso with these other AI mods can improve their performance.
AI Variants: Easy, Rush, Adaptive, Experimentals, Overwhelm. Uveso Rush is suggested as the more competitive of these variants.
¶ SCTA AI
Author: Dragun101
Last updated: July 2023
Other mods required: SCTABalance, SCTAFix, and AI-Uveso
Note that this AI is part of the wider SCTA conversion mod, and requires both the SCTABalance and SCTAFix modes to work (which result in the two total annihilation-based factions as playable options for humans and the SCTA AI). The AI comes as part of these two mods.
¶ AI-Swarm
Author: Azraeel
Other mods required: AI-Uveso
Last updated: October 2022 (June 2024 - fixed version uploaded)
Other mods required: AI-Uveso
This AI is a multi-use AI that is designed mainly for 10km maps. It provides an additional (optional) 'Eternal' game setting that provides the AI with a steadily increasing resource and builds a modifier to make it more challenging as the game progresses.
Note that this AI may have compatibility issues with RNGAI.
Variants: Terror, Eternal.
Further details on SwarmAI are provided in its forum thread, including suggested maps to play it on.
¶ DilliDalli
Author: Softles
Last updated: July 2021
Other mods required: None
Aggressive land-focused AI is particularly effective at the T1-T2 stages of the game.
See also the forum thread for DilliDalli
¶ Dalli
Author: Softles
Last updated: May 2021
Other mods required: None
Functioning AI that was a predecessor to DilliDalli - considered inferior to DilliDalli.
¶ Nutcracker
Author: much stuff
Last updated: September 2021
Other mods required: AI-Uveso
Designed to battle against turtle human players on 20x20+ maps with lots of mass points. Best in a 1v1 environment.
¶ SACUAI
Author: Skouby
Last updated: June 2021
SACUAI was entered in the 2021 computer cup, placing 4th out of the 8 AI entered.
¶ Dilli
Author: Softles
Last updated: Jun 2018
Other mods required: None
Functioning AI that was a predecessor to Dalli and DilliDalli - considered inferior to DilliDalli.
¶ Sorian AI
Author: Sorian
Last updated: Unknown
Other mods required: None
When released Sorian AI represented an improvement to the base AI in FAF. Note though that the base adaptive AI has been updated more recently and is more likely to provide a greater competitive experience than the Sorian AI.
AI variants: Sorian, Rush, Air, Water, Turtle, Adaptive
¶ Playing with custom AIs
¶ Installing AI mods
Most custom AIs for FAF can be accessed from the mod vault in the client. You can either search for the name of a specific AI or search for mods containing the name "AI" (although note this will also bring up several irrelevant results).
As of writing, popular AI mods have also been included in the M&M Team top pics section of the mod vault.
Once you have found the custom AI that you want to try, click on the blue download button to download the mod.
¶ Enabling AI mods
You should then be able to enable the mod from the mods section when hosting a game. You can either do this when creating a game through the client (by looking for the AI mod in the SIM section):
Alternatively, you can enable the mod from the game lobby itself by selecting "Options", and then "Mods":
Browse to the relevant AI mod you want to use, and make sure it is selected (i.e. it should be highlighted in blue):
¶ Selecting AI opponents
Once enabled, you can select the custom AI as one or more of the players in a game via the drop-down menu. You can either select the 'normal' (non-cheating) AI version of the mod, or the "AIx" (cheating) version of the mod.
Typically the AIx version of an AI will receive a bonus to its resources and build speed (by default a 50% bonus but this can be adjusted via the game options), and by default receives map-wide omni vision (again this can be turned off via the game options).
Certain AI mods may provide multiple options/AI variants.
Note that some AI mods may recommend or require other mods to be enabled, so please check the mod description for the particular AI you want to use if there are any special requirements noted.
¶ AI game settings
The following are general suggestions for creating games with AI - note that depending on specific comments/descriptions made for the AI you are using these may not apply.
- Only enable the AI mods that you intend to use the AI for in a game unless you're using an AI mod that requires/recommends AI-Uveso. This is because AI mods can still run some logic in the background even if not acting as a player, so could impact game speed and/or provide a risk of incompatibility.
- Maps of 20km or smaller are generally recommended for AI games - larger maps than this are unlikely to have been tested as much, while FAF balance is also more focused on 20km and smaller maps.
- Unit restrictions may have unexpected consequences for the AI, as AI is generally developed without unit restrictions in mind. Some AI will handle unit restrictions better than others, but as a general rule if applying unit restrictions try to use them as sparingly as possible
- Less conventional game settings such as a no rush radius/timer may not be supported by some AI - if the AI hasn't been specifically developed with no rush in mind, it could attempt to expand outside the norush radius, and build units to attack/defend even if under no immediate threat due to the norush timer
- You can adjust the challenge provided by an AI by fighting against the AIx variant and changing the AIx Cheat Multiplier (affects the bonus resources the AI generates), the AIx Build Multiplier (affects the bonus to build speed the AI gets) and the AIx Omni Setting (gives map-wide omni vision for the AI if enabled).
- Certain AI mods provide additional settings for changing how their AI behaves - these will depend on the AI in question and are likely to only affect that particular AI.
- As a general rule, AI are most likely to perform as intended in a 1v1 scenario on a land-focused map. The extent to which AI handle other scenarios (e.g. naval-based maps; games with 3+ teams on them; maps with less conventional features such as a massive amount of reclaim in one location to be fought over, or a strong civilian base) will vary significantly between the AI.
- Some AI will not work properly if given a start position that can't reach the enemy by land, and/or a start position that is in the water.
- Avoid using a low unit cap - AI will struggle to manage their unit counts, and depending on the AI may not have the logic to stop building or self-destruct lower-tech units to free up space for higher-tech ones.
- Games with AI run slower than games with human players - try to avoid using large numbers of AI in a game, particularly on larger (20km+) sized maps unless you have a very good CPU or don't mind the game speed dropping. If you're seeking more of a challenge, try a smaller number of the harder AI, making use of the AIx version of an AI, and/or one of the AI that runs significantly faster (see the AI tournament thread linked in the below section for further details). As a rough guide, having 5+ AI players in a game is likely to make the game speed noticeably slower late-game. However, the total number of units in a game is still likely to be the biggest factor in how fast the game runs.
- Try to limit how many different AI you have in a game at once due to the risk of incompatibilities and the increased strain on the computer (since different AI are likely to take different approaches to analyse the map and storing certain data, which could lead to high RAM usage and slower CPU speed). There was previously a cap of 2GB on the amount of RAM that could be used by Forged Alliance (which could lead to crashes for certain AI late-game), but this RAM limit has been increased by FAF recently so such crashes are less likely (although in theory still possible, with the risk increasing based on both the number of different AI in a game, the number of AI players in a game, the map size, and the likely number of units featuring in the game).
¶ Feedback
You can provide feedback on particular AI in the FAF discord, through the ai-feedback channel. To view this channel, go to the roles selection channel on the FAF discord and indicate a preference for AI games in the "What Are Your Game Preferences? Part 2 section.
Alternatively, you can join the AI developers discord.
Note that there is less likely to be a response regarding AI that are not under active development.
If reporting a bug with an AI, the following will be helpful for the AI developer to investigate it further:
- Include the replay ID number and time stamp of the issue, along with a description of the issue
- Specify whether you have any other mods active (and ideally if you get the same bug with just the AI mod in question active) - i.e. the more SIM mods that are active, the greater the chance of an error, which may be unrelated to the AI itself
¶ AI comparisons and tournaments
¶ AI vs Human tournaments
¶ Rainbow Cup
Rainbow Cup tournaments have been held every 6-12 months, the most recent of which, Rainbow Cup VI, is linked below:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/5400/rainbow-cup-vi-3v3-1-500
These tournaments typically pit 2 human teams against each other, with the AI featuring as a 3rd (and/or 4th) team in the game. When one human team loses, the other human team wins the match.
¶ Rainbow Cup VII (February-March 2024)
This version of the tournament featured 1-2 AI as teammates with 4 human players on each team. Casts of almost all games in the tournament are available on the FAFLive youtube channel:
Rainbow Cup VII
¶ Rainbow Cup VI (March 2023)
A number of the games in the tournament are cast, and links to the first 2 (out of 3) days of the Rainbow Cup VI casts are below:
Day 1 - Rainbow Cup VI
Day 2 - Rainbow Cup VI
¶ Rainbow Cup V (September 2022)
Casted games of the 5th Rainbow Cup are unavailable, but the RCV forum post contains more details of how the tournament was run.
¶ Rainbow Cup IV (March 2022)
Casted games from the 4th Rainbow Cup are available on youtube, with further details on the tournament available on the forum.
¶ AI vs AI tournaments
¶ Weekly/Monthly tournaments
Many AI tournaments have been held highlighting:
- How well AI perform against each other (competitively)
- How fast does AI run
- What maps different AI work best on
- What unit mixes different AI favour
Details of the AI tournaments that were run and a summary of their results are available on the forum.
Note however that these AI tournaments would only show a snapshot at a particular time, and a number of the AI featured have received significant updates since then.
¶ Computer cup
A computer cup tournament was held in June 2021, which includes the results of the AI vs AI component of this.
¶ Creating AI-friendly maps
A separate page outlines various tips for making maps more AI-friendly.
¶ Creating your AI
Interested in getting into AI development? Check out the separate page on AI modding.