Saludos and welcome to the readme file for BSR's attempts at reconstructing
the TA AI to play competently, if not well.  There should be three other files
in this Zip, which are ...

Metal.txt
Default.txt
AirBattle.txt

These represent all of our efforts so far ("us" being myself, and the friends,
relatives, and co-workers who've been kind enough to battle-test these for me) 
towards tweaking the AIs.  First, a few notes on usage, for anyone who's not 
familiar with how to use these files.

1. If you don't already have one, make an "ai" sub-directory beneath your 
   Total Annihilation installation dir.  If, for example, you installed to
   C:\Cavedog\TotalA, then the path would be C:\Cavedog\TotalA\ai

2. Extract the three AI text files from this Zip into that sub-directory.

That's it.  The next time you start a Skirmish or Multiplayer game that uses
these AIs, TA will use these instead of the ones in CCDATA.CCX.  Now ... there
are a few other things that you need to know, both about TA in general and 
about these files in particular.

1. The contents of Metal.txt and Default.txt are, at this time, identical.
   We've found that the same land-map behavior works pretty well for the AIs
   in metal maps, desert maps, green maps, etc.  MOST of our testing has been
   done on metal maps lately because of time constraints (lunch games).

2. The map you play on determines what AI profile will be used.  Great Divide,
   for example, uses Default.  Core Prime Industrial uses Metal.  Be aware that
   most of these profiles were added in TACC, so most (if not all) pre-TACC 
   maps use Default. (including Metal Heck, for example)

3. Important: I have ONLY built profiles for land and air, with a heavy 
   emphasis on land units.  Mostly, this is because of constraints on my time,
   but be aware that NONE of these profiles will build any ships, hovercraft,
   or seaplanes.  I hope to get these done in the days ahead, but I just 
   haven't had time, yet (my day job gets in the way ; ).  Sooo ... if you 
   play one of these AIs on, say, Gods of War, it won't build any shipyards 
   or naval units.

4. The AirBattle.txt profile is one I built nearly a month ago, and it's very
   incomplete.  I only built the Hard profile for Arm before I decided to work
   on Metal/Default for a while.  So, the Hard Arm AI will work pretty well on
   Temblor maps and any other AirBattle maps, but a Core AI, or an Arm AI on 
   anything other than Hard, will be completely brain-dead.  I'll try to get a 
   Core Hard AI written, but there probably won't be Easy or Medium versions 
   of this one.

5. IMPORTANT: If you plan to use these files in multiplayer, be aware of the
   following.  As best we can determine, this is how TA chooses the difficulty
   for the AI controlled by your PC:  if you are Hosting the game, it will use
   Hard.  If you Joined, it will use the last SKIRMISH difficulty setting that
   you used.  So, if you last Skirmished on Hard, your MP AI will use Hard if
   you Join a game.  So, be sure to set your Skirmish difficulty to the MP level
   you want.  The only way I know of to do that is to start a Skirmish and exit
   back to the menu;  otherwise, it won't save.

WHEW!  That's pretty much it, for now.  A few things to keep in mind ... we can
tweak the AI's build emphasis, but we can't change some of its basic behaviors
built into TA.  Sometimes, it'll still make poor decisions ... building a factory
where units can't exit, putting important buildings (Fusions) at the edge of 
its base, no DTs, and so on.  We can cut down on the number of poor decisions
it makes, though.  ; )

Additionally, be aware that the AI simply plays some maps better than others.
It plays best on relatively open maps, where it can't build itself into a corner
by blocking an important route with solar collectors, and so forth. You can also
still trick it by putting a closed Viper in front of your base, set to Hold
Fire.  [chuckles]  Cheesy AI tricks and exploiting its known weaknesses (won't 
build anti-nukes, for example) will always work.

Finally, a good raid/rush player will still always beat the AI easily by 
crippling its production early, partly because human players are much more 
efficient at build assistance and the very-early stages of the game.  If you 
play Arm and send a group of flashes after the AI as soon as you can, you'll 
probably be disappointed.  If you give it a few minutes to build, though, it'll
do much better, and given time it'll build a fairly-hard-to-crack base.

Tha's all I've got to say, for now.  Heh ... sorry for the long, rambling
readme, but most of these things are important in one way or another, and 
[grins] I wanted to cut down on the number of "BSR, your AI sucks!  I can't
get the damn thing to work!" posts.  ; )

Seeya,
BSR 7/14/98
