Bots are one of the two types of non-player countries that spawn in OpenFront; The other being nations. Every (public) game, 400 bots spawn into the map. Bots are used as filler in the game, stopping players from progressing too quickly by taking a lot of unclaimed land really fast.

Behavior

Bots will always send out extremely small-scale attacks to their neighbors, slowly and gradually taking a few pixels of land at a time. This isn’t a real problem though, unless you decide to full-send, or allow nearby bots to build up too many troops. Each bot spawns somewhere random in the map, staying a fair distance away from other bots and never moving from their location until the game starts. Bots will also seem to always have two randomly-generated words in their country name, as well as never having a flag associated with them beside that. Finally, bots never try to build any kind of building, or send out transport boats. If a bot does somehow have a building, then it either isn’t a bot, or a bot simply conquered it from a different country.

Single Player

In single player, you can control how many bots you want to spawn, the max (and also the default) for single player is 400. You can use the slider

to go for a lower bot number, and bringing it down all the way will disable bots in general, only leaving nations and players in the game. There also may or may not be a correlation between the game difficulty and the bot behavior.

Combat Against Bots

Combat against bots has special rules to balance gameplay and provide appropriate challenge levels.

Bot Combat Mechanics

When fighting against bots, several special modifiers apply:

Human vs Bot Advantage

When a human player attacks a bot:

if (attacker.type() == PlayerType.Human && defender.type() == PlayerType.Bot) {
  mag *= 0.8;
}

This means humans get a 20% reduction in troop losses when attacking bots.

Bot Attack Power

Bots use different attack amounts compared to human players:

if (attacker.type() == PlayerType.Bot) {
  return attacker.troops() / 20;  // Bots use 5% of their troops
} else {
  return attacker.troops() / 5;   // Humans use 20% of their troops
}

Bot Population Mechanics

Bots have several limitations on their population and growth:

Maximum Population: Bots are limited to half the normal maximum population

if (player.type() == PlayerType.Bot) {
  return maxPop / 2;
}

Population Growth: Bots grow 30% slower than human players

if (player.type() == PlayerType.Bot) {
  toAdd *= 0.7;
}

Bot Starting Resources

Bots start with different initial resources:

if (playerInfo.playerType == PlayerType.Bot) {
  return 10_000;  // Bots start with 10,000 troops
}

Compare this to human players who start with 25,000 troops (or 1,000,000 if infinite troops is enabled).

Combat Calculation Examples

Example 1: Human Attacking Bot

Let's calculate losses for a human player attacking a bot in highlands:

Scenario:

Human Attacker Troops = 1000
Bot Defender Troops = 2000
Terrain = Highland (mag = 100)
Has Defense Post = false

Calculations:

Base Magnitude = 100
Human vs Bot Bonus = 100 * 0.8 = 80
Troop Ratio = 2000/1000 = 2 (capped at 2)
Base Reduction = 0.8
Size Penalty = 1 (assuming < 100,000 tiles)

Results:

Attacker Troop Loss = 2 * 80 * 0.8 * 1 = 128 troops lost per tick
Defender Troop Loss = 2000/tiles_owned troops lost per tick

Example 2: Bot Attacking Human

When a bot attacks a human player:

The bot will only commit 5% of its troops to the attack (vs 20% for humans)
The bot follows the same combat mechanics as human attackers
The bot has no special attack bonuses against humans

Bot Difficulty Levels

Bots can be configured with different difficulty levels that affect their gameplay:

Easy: 50% of normal maximum population
Medium: Normal maximum population
Hard: 150% of normal maximum population
Impossible: 200% of normal maximum population

Population Growth by Difficulty

Bot population growth also varies by difficulty:

Easy: 90% of normal growth rate
Medium: Normal growth rate
Hard: 110% of normal growth rate
Impossible: 120% of normal growth rate

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