econ21
10-17-2007, 15:55
Now I have had about a year to play around with M2TW, I'm starting to get a feel for AI weaknesses and am wondering what could be done to improve it for ETW.
Before M2TW came out, I made a thread in the Colosseum on possible AI improvements for RTW:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=52465
Looking back on it, M2TW did make some of the improvements suggested in my first post in that thread but some could still use more work. It might be useful to discuss how M2TW advanced over RTW and how ETW could make further progress.
*****
STRATEGIC AI:
(1) Do not attack when outnumbered. I regularly get attacked by AI armies that are weaker than my own and there seems no strategic reason for a desperate assault.
Fixed? This does seem to happen less in M2TW than RTW.
(2) "Double team" armies. Sometimes the AI will have three full stacks and attack me with them sequentially, losing one each time. Instead, they should put two in "contact" and then attacked with the third, so that the first two could reinforce. That would be a challenge (even if only one army was on the field at a time, I would have lost my ammo by the time the second arrived).
Partially fixed Double team armies are a more common sight in M2TW than RTW, but arguably not common enough. I would like to see the AI form a kind of "grande armee" of multiple mutually supporting stacks. The hordes (e.g. Mongols) do this, but they often break up and the more sedentary factions almost never do it.
(3) Stack fleets. The naval war is a joke - unlike MTW, the AI builds enough ships but loses now them piecemeal because they seldom stack.
Fixed :2thumbsup:
(4) Keep armies out of reach of stronger armies (ie keep inferior armies out of the movement range of stronger armies). The AI in Heroes of Might and Magic III did this very well - it makes it frustrating to bring the AI to battle, but greatly increases the challenge.
Not fixed: I think perhaps the biggest strategic AI failure in M2TW is that it lets the human attack at advantageous odds. For example, this table from the beginning of a VH/VH English AAR I did shows that nearly all the encounters are me attacking an inferior AI.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1515423&postcount=10
Given that a human can outfight an AI 1:1, these kind of encounters just make the game dull. (Perhaps part of the solution could be a defensive bonus? Such a thing seems more plausible in the age of gunpowder - the attacker has to move into range and expose themselves to more fire.)
(5) Put good generals in command of large armies. Most large AI armies are led by strutting fools and mewling infants (captains), yet there is the occaisional high starred AI generals sometimes left alone in towns.
Not fixed: In M2TW, I've even used the console to add units to a general's stack to max it out and then observed him transfer the whole stack to a captain, so he can go off on his lonesome. :wall:
After playing with M2TW, I would also add:
(6) Pick up dollars on the sidewalk: if I deliberately abandon a province in the middle of nowhere, the AI can often march armies past it and completely fail to take it, turn after turn. There seems no reason for this (e.g. it may be a castle with no risk of rebellion).
(7) Escalate attacks after failure: if an AI invasion is defeated, make sure the next invasion has significantly more men. Don't just send the same sized army to meet the same fate. I swear STW/MTW had this feature. But in M2TW, the AI does not seem to "learn" in the same way.
(8) If you are going to war, mean it. If the AI declares war, it should have a large, superior, army ready to march on you. Civ does this. By contrast, in RTW and M2TW, wars can often be declared when the AI has neither the ability nor the desire to seriously attack you (other than blockade or take a menace a border settlement). It simply has not got itself on a war footing when it choose to declare war.
*****
TACTICAL AI:
(1) Do not attack piecemeal. It is fun to fight Seleucids in RTR v6.0, as they combine phalanxes with fiercesome sword units. But what happens is that the non-phalanx stuff charges in, gets defeated and then the phalanxes arrive. If the phalanxes hit at the same time as the other stuff flanked me, I'd be in trouble.
Partially fixed. The AI does keep together more on the attack. It still may fragment when trying to counter-attack in a defensive situation. (One unit may run at you, get shot to pieces, then run back to its stationary friends. Repeat and rinse till there are no more friends.)
(2) Keep phalanxes in a line and march forward into combat - stop them veering off to make piecemeal unit to unit match ups. In vanilla, a phalanx can crush most other infantry if kept in a solid wall (my German spears could overrun massed armies of hastati with virtually no loss). But the AI can't pull this off and so phalanxes become very weak units for the AI.
Haven't experienced pikes enough to say. The scarcity of phalanxes in M2TW makes it less of an issue, anyway.
(3) Do not open combat by charging in missile or skirmisher units! (Really bizarre behaviour). When attacking the AI does not seem to use ranged superiority if it has it.
Partiall fixed: The M2TW AI has a tendency to let its archers get ahead of their supports when attacking, making them vulnerable to a cavalry charge.
(4) Do not open combat by charging generals into battle (suicide Daimyos are sometimes back in RTW).
Partially fixed. In field battles, the general often does stay further back and in reserve. However, in AI siege defenses with a fullish AI garrison, it is often the general (ok, only a captain) who is the first to ride into my spears.
(5) Do not stand on the defence if getting shot to death. Better try to take some of the enemy with you, than just step into the position of a unit wiped out to enemy missile fire.
Partially fixed. Mainly seems a problem now in sallies?
(6) Do not parade up and down in front of missile fire when defending wooden walls. (Again very wierd behaviour).
Fixed. A lesser problem with AI siege defence in M2TW is that it often only deploys in the town centre if you have artillery (and no siege engines). It might be better on the walls. This could be a feature - without having to build siege engines, you can suprise the garrison - but it handicaps the AI.
(7) Do not reposition to lower ground when the player tries to maneouvre you off a hill. (This refers to Puzz3Ds observation in the recent MTW AI vs RTW AI thread.
Fixed?: I think, not sure.
After playing M2TW for a year, I'd add another problem:
(8) Don't ignore massive flanking movements. It seems alarmingly easy to send your cavalry behind the AI while it fixates on some other point in your line. Getting the AI to assign some men to cover your flanking movement seems required.
*****
Anyone got any other views on how the TW AI could be improved?
I am posting this in the ETW forum - despite the focus being on comparisons between M2TW and RTW - as apparently there will be no more work done on M2TW. So the discussion would be a little pointless in the Citadel.
Before M2TW came out, I made a thread in the Colosseum on possible AI improvements for RTW:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=52465
Looking back on it, M2TW did make some of the improvements suggested in my first post in that thread but some could still use more work. It might be useful to discuss how M2TW advanced over RTW and how ETW could make further progress.
*****
STRATEGIC AI:
(1) Do not attack when outnumbered. I regularly get attacked by AI armies that are weaker than my own and there seems no strategic reason for a desperate assault.
Fixed? This does seem to happen less in M2TW than RTW.
(2) "Double team" armies. Sometimes the AI will have three full stacks and attack me with them sequentially, losing one each time. Instead, they should put two in "contact" and then attacked with the third, so that the first two could reinforce. That would be a challenge (even if only one army was on the field at a time, I would have lost my ammo by the time the second arrived).
Partially fixed Double team armies are a more common sight in M2TW than RTW, but arguably not common enough. I would like to see the AI form a kind of "grande armee" of multiple mutually supporting stacks. The hordes (e.g. Mongols) do this, but they often break up and the more sedentary factions almost never do it.
(3) Stack fleets. The naval war is a joke - unlike MTW, the AI builds enough ships but loses now them piecemeal because they seldom stack.
Fixed :2thumbsup:
(4) Keep armies out of reach of stronger armies (ie keep inferior armies out of the movement range of stronger armies). The AI in Heroes of Might and Magic III did this very well - it makes it frustrating to bring the AI to battle, but greatly increases the challenge.
Not fixed: I think perhaps the biggest strategic AI failure in M2TW is that it lets the human attack at advantageous odds. For example, this table from the beginning of a VH/VH English AAR I did shows that nearly all the encounters are me attacking an inferior AI.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showpost.php?p=1515423&postcount=10
Given that a human can outfight an AI 1:1, these kind of encounters just make the game dull. (Perhaps part of the solution could be a defensive bonus? Such a thing seems more plausible in the age of gunpowder - the attacker has to move into range and expose themselves to more fire.)
(5) Put good generals in command of large armies. Most large AI armies are led by strutting fools and mewling infants (captains), yet there is the occaisional high starred AI generals sometimes left alone in towns.
Not fixed: In M2TW, I've even used the console to add units to a general's stack to max it out and then observed him transfer the whole stack to a captain, so he can go off on his lonesome. :wall:
After playing with M2TW, I would also add:
(6) Pick up dollars on the sidewalk: if I deliberately abandon a province in the middle of nowhere, the AI can often march armies past it and completely fail to take it, turn after turn. There seems no reason for this (e.g. it may be a castle with no risk of rebellion).
(7) Escalate attacks after failure: if an AI invasion is defeated, make sure the next invasion has significantly more men. Don't just send the same sized army to meet the same fate. I swear STW/MTW had this feature. But in M2TW, the AI does not seem to "learn" in the same way.
(8) If you are going to war, mean it. If the AI declares war, it should have a large, superior, army ready to march on you. Civ does this. By contrast, in RTW and M2TW, wars can often be declared when the AI has neither the ability nor the desire to seriously attack you (other than blockade or take a menace a border settlement). It simply has not got itself on a war footing when it choose to declare war.
*****
TACTICAL AI:
(1) Do not attack piecemeal. It is fun to fight Seleucids in RTR v6.0, as they combine phalanxes with fiercesome sword units. But what happens is that the non-phalanx stuff charges in, gets defeated and then the phalanxes arrive. If the phalanxes hit at the same time as the other stuff flanked me, I'd be in trouble.
Partially fixed. The AI does keep together more on the attack. It still may fragment when trying to counter-attack in a defensive situation. (One unit may run at you, get shot to pieces, then run back to its stationary friends. Repeat and rinse till there are no more friends.)
(2) Keep phalanxes in a line and march forward into combat - stop them veering off to make piecemeal unit to unit match ups. In vanilla, a phalanx can crush most other infantry if kept in a solid wall (my German spears could overrun massed armies of hastati with virtually no loss). But the AI can't pull this off and so phalanxes become very weak units for the AI.
Haven't experienced pikes enough to say. The scarcity of phalanxes in M2TW makes it less of an issue, anyway.
(3) Do not open combat by charging in missile or skirmisher units! (Really bizarre behaviour). When attacking the AI does not seem to use ranged superiority if it has it.
Partiall fixed: The M2TW AI has a tendency to let its archers get ahead of their supports when attacking, making them vulnerable to a cavalry charge.
(4) Do not open combat by charging generals into battle (suicide Daimyos are sometimes back in RTW).
Partially fixed. In field battles, the general often does stay further back and in reserve. However, in AI siege defenses with a fullish AI garrison, it is often the general (ok, only a captain) who is the first to ride into my spears.
(5) Do not stand on the defence if getting shot to death. Better try to take some of the enemy with you, than just step into the position of a unit wiped out to enemy missile fire.
Partially fixed. Mainly seems a problem now in sallies?
(6) Do not parade up and down in front of missile fire when defending wooden walls. (Again very wierd behaviour).
Fixed. A lesser problem with AI siege defence in M2TW is that it often only deploys in the town centre if you have artillery (and no siege engines). It might be better on the walls. This could be a feature - without having to build siege engines, you can suprise the garrison - but it handicaps the AI.
(7) Do not reposition to lower ground when the player tries to maneouvre you off a hill. (This refers to Puzz3Ds observation in the recent MTW AI vs RTW AI thread.
Fixed?: I think, not sure.
After playing M2TW for a year, I'd add another problem:
(8) Don't ignore massive flanking movements. It seems alarmingly easy to send your cavalry behind the AI while it fixates on some other point in your line. Getting the AI to assign some men to cover your flanking movement seems required.
*****
Anyone got any other views on how the TW AI could be improved?
I am posting this in the ETW forum - despite the focus being on comparisons between M2TW and RTW - as apparently there will be no more work done on M2TW. So the discussion would be a little pointless in the Citadel.