Best AI, please.

[paleologos]

How can I get the best AI, with BI or with Alexander?
I suspect this has been discussed but I am still relatively new to EB.
Thanks.

[lionhard]

Iv tried both, Alexander for over a year and BI for the last month. I personally prefere BI because the AI is more aggressive. Ill give you a short list of what each BI and Alex will offer you

BI:
Better AI campaign movement
Better use of ships
Units can swim
Units can use sheild wall
Night fight

Alex:
AI retrains its units
AI acts more sensible in battle (Not sure if i would agree)
Night fight


As a whole what we say is, if you want better AI movement and a better campaign experience go for BI

If you want a better battle experience, go for alex.

Im not deadly sure if BI retrains units, im sure iv seen the AI in my seleucid campaign retrain units. If they do its definetely not as excessive as what alex does.

[Ludens]

I have never seen a difference in campaign A.I. between BI and vanilla R:TW, so unless Alex actually has worse campaign A.I. I don't think this would be an advantage of BI. The only strategic advantage of BI I know of are the navel invasions, which I consider a mixed blessing. Sometimes you get a serious invasion by a serious rival, but I've also seen small, undermanned, pointless attacks by factions that otherwise would have been at peace with me.

[paleologos]

I 've never played Alx but I had an inconclusive campaign in BI vanilla with the Saxons. I remember I could keep West RE (and everyone else for all that matters) from attaking me by simply placing troops at river crossings and/or bridges. The AI would obstinatelly avoid fighting at those locations (who can blame them?). All provinces along the Baltic coast were mine plus Britain and Ireland and I discontinued before destroying the Romano-Brittish who had just emerged. I played that at medium difficulty for battles and very hard for campaign. I remember reading somewere that the Saxons were supposed to be a hard to play with faction but that was not my impression. If I play EB on BI will I be abble to stop the movement of AI armies by placing mine at bridges?

[anubis88]

You will stop armies on bridges even if you play with Vanilla RTW... An army can't pass if another army guards the bridge...

Like Ludens said, BI gives mostly naval invasions... Hovewer they are without sense sometimes. I remember in my Pontos campaign, Epeiros, with whom i shared no border by a longshot, kept invading Sinope whit full stacks... It was just wierd.

It adds a new dimension however, if you play with factions who have islands. It's a must practicaly. Without EB, you could always keep your fleet and Island army to a minimum, with no fear of them attacking you. With BI.exe on the other hand, you must always have a strong navy, and a respectible force on islands

[lionhard]

The biggest problem i had with using vanilla and Alex with EB is that the romans never launched naval invasions against corsica and sardin, or north africa for that matter. That simple fact turns me away because, i am now playing a seleucid campaign and it would be nice if the romans actually got their reforms, but they dont in vanilla or alex cas they dont use naval invasions which the first reform requires the capture of sardin or corsica.

So far in my campaign iv had so many naval battles iv lost count, the romans invaded greece with 2 fleets, drove me back to the east and returned to italy. I personally have not experienced nothing like that when it comes to aggressive AI, fingers crossed my BI campaign will bring more fun to come :)

[paleologos]

Could I have a link to that map depicting all the coastal provinces that can build fleets? I intend to misbehave :leer:.

[Mediolanicus]

Could I have a link to that map depicting all the coastal provinces that can build fleets? I intend to misbehave :leer:.

Odd place to ask. Try looking at the odd place you'd expect it least, like the stickied thread titled EB maps.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?102719-EB-1.1-Maps

[Ionotkoiamor Not Suelisabmys]

The AI in Alex.exe also perform Naval Invasions. The Koine Hellenon Faction Leader on Krete sailed to the Lesbos and slaughtered my Lesbians on my Makedonia Campaign, after I took Athens and Sparta.

[lionhard]

Yeh koinon hellion performs naval invasions on all the mods and vanilla. Sorry to break ya trumpet :(

[paleologos]

Ok, guys
I remember in my second campaign with vanilla RTW I was Greek Cities and when I kicked the Romans and the Carthaginians out of Sicely they were both trying to invade it. Repeatedly that is.
Since I did not have the strenght to immediately ivade both Italy and Africa -while I already had two fronts in the balkans and Asia Minor- I would need either a fleet around, or a standing army on Sicely, so I opted for a naval defence.
What I'm saying is that if it hadn't been for the posts in this thread, I would suppose the AI takes to the sea regularly in all versions provided it is after a particular objective.
The problem with the AI is that it doesn't match the strength of it's fleets with the naval strenght of it's enemies and many times the Romans and a fewer the Carthaginians lost a five to seven unit army because my three bireme fleet would destroy their one bireme fleet.
Ergo my original question. So, if one choses KH in EB which AI will be the greatest challenge, or at least the least stupid?
Thanks.

[lionhard]

Hard to say becasue it depends on each factions start. I.e in greece its a coin toss between which factions have the best amries and generals and usually the faction that loses greece in my campaigns is the faction that trys to take corinth first, because they lose the battle and then get beat by the opposing faction they are already fighting. Id say if you were KH the epeirotes or the romans are the biggest worry. You can rush mac and drive them into lydia at the start easily enough.

Edit: in my BI campaign, pontus are the biggest threat. When it comes to random invasions. They took thodes off me, invaded dacia and even reached as far as italy with random full stacks. This is all whilst they are still only Still counquering modern day turkey

[Zarax]

Personally I'm partial to the BI exe, although it really shines in situations where far more specific modding is allowed...

[oudysseos]

Uh, lionhard, the signature bars that say "Member" on them are reserved for team members. You will have to change that ASAP.

[Cute Wolf]

Uh, lionhard, the signature bars that say "Member" on them are reserved for team members. You will have to change that ASAP.

lol.... poor lionhard... maybe you better ask for a first before using the signature pikkie... as we are only regular visitor here... :grin:

[Ludens]

In my experience: playing the KH with BI.exe will give you both proper and pointless naval invasions. The pointless ones are when the Romani send a few crappy units to siege Corinth (this occurs even when they still haven't taken Taras). The proper ones happen when your alliance with the Ptolemaioi is broken (which happens inevitably when they take Halicarnassos: they never garrison it properly and it rebels to you) and they land a huge stack on Rhodos.

[paleologos]

So, generally speaking BI is somewhat smarter than Alx?
In the big picture is it the most challenging?

[Zarax]

I wouldn't call it smarter, it just has bias on different functions.

[paleologos]

Does BI get to be more challenging?

[Ludens]

Does BI get to be more challenging?

Yes, but not always in a good way. As I wrote, the A.I. can do strong naval invasions, but they will also start wars by making stupid, undermanned attacks, like the Romani on Corinth in my campaigns. Since we had no land borders and the Romani weren't in a position to hold Corinth, the war was over as soon as I wiped out their petty forces, and the attack was essentially pointless. However, it did mean I had to patch up relations or lose a trade-partner, and a few dozen turns down the line they would try it again. For me, that's frustrating rather than challenging.

I am sorry that I can't give you a clear yes or no: it depends on your tolerance for such things. I switched back to vanilla R:TW. I imagine, though, that when playing a faction that would require naval invasions (Carthage and Rome for the Punic wars, Casse and nearby factions), BI could be an improvement. I maintain, though, that there is no other difference between the A.I. of R:TW and BI.

[Mediolanicus]

Yes, but not always in a good way. As I wrote, the A.I. can do strong naval invasions, but they will also start wars by making stupid, undermanned attacks, like the Romani on Corinth in my campaigns. Since we had no land borders and the Romani weren't in a position to hold Corinth, the war was over as soon as I wiped out their petty forces, and the attack was essentially pointless. However, it did mean I had to patch up relations or lose a trade-partner, and a few dozen turns down the line they would try it again. For me, that's frustrating rather than challenging.

I am sorry that I can't give you a clear yes or no: it depends on your tolerance for such things. I switched back to vanilla R:TW. I imagine, though, that when playing a faction that would require naval invasions (Carthage and Rome for the Punic wars, Casse and nearby factions), BI could be an improvement. I maintain, though, that there is no other difference between the A.I. of R:TW and BI.

I play mostly play with M campaign difficulty and with BI. All I got are fullstacks of factions I'm at war with on my coasts.

I did play some campaign on H or VH and even my allies constantly shipped over 2-3 unit stacks...

[lionhard]

lol.... poor lionhard... maybe you better ask for a first before using the signature pikkie... as we are only regular visitor here... :grin:

sulk :(

[oudysseos]

Well, sorry, but "Member" means member of the Team - and that is pretty well known everywhere. But no biggie as I'm sure it was an honest mistake. There are lots of legitimate signature bars for you to choose from on the EB website.

[paleologos]

I play mostly play with M campaign difficulty and with BI. All I got are fullstacks of factions I'm at war with on my coasts.

I did play some campaign on H or VH and even my allies constantly shipped over 2-3 unit stacks...

I suspect that a higher campaign difficulty level does something to the default "personality" of AI factions. You know, transforming a "comfortable Napoleon" into an "unpatient Hitler" or something. I don't know how to confirm or disconfirm this.
I wonder what the more experienced programmers/scripters would have to say about this, perhaps conjure up a solution.

[Ludens]

It's possible. Personally, I think it has something to do with auto-deteriorating relations. A CA programmer mentioned that in M2:TW the relations between an A.I. faction and the player automatically deteriorate over time, and that this goes faster at higher difficulty levels. So unless positive interactions take place, the A.I. will eventually hate the player. I think the same applies to R:TW, and it would explain why I didn't see any differences between diplomacy at H and VH difficulty. I always pay neighbouring factions a small, regular tribute, so the deterioration does not occur. Not everyone has reported success with my method, however (and the diplomatic A.I. remains stupid).

This is, BTW, not an area of the game-engine that is accessible to modders, so I am afraid there won't be any solution.

[paleologos]

This is, BTW, not an area of the game-engine that is accessible to modders, so I am afraid there won't be any solution.

Yes, but isn't the original personality affecting the strategic behaviour, like how much the A.I. faction will built up before attacking and isn't that modifiable?

[Zarax]

Personality affects building and training bias, which are more useful for balancing what a faction will be more likely to train rather than it's overall behavior.

[paleologos]

Personality affects building and training bias, which are more useful for balancing what a faction will be more likely to train rather than it's overall behavior.

Even so, if all A.I. factions build up their infrastucture and then begin training good quality units and then attack it won't be as easy to hold them back with garisson quality troops. I suspect that would be more of a challenge, what do you say?

[Zarax]

Of course, but take into account that most mods will already have tuned the training bias to the faction's roster, so that's most likely a given.
In the end AI will still build most if not all infrastructure, what you change is their priority.

[paleologos]

Of course, but take into account that most mods will already have tuned the training bias to the faction's roster, so that's most likely a given.
In the end AI will still build most if not all infrastructure, what you change is their priority.

I would suppose so. I would also suppose that stuctures already built affect ability to wage war, the sustainability of aggressiveness on their behalf, although I would suppose that Alx ability to retrain would more effectivelly sustain aggression.
Have we reached any conclusions yet? What is the margin to gear up challenge by modifying A.I. behaviour?

[Zarax]

On EB there aren't large margins as gearing up AI even more would require extensive redesign.
If you made a mod from scratch you could use a combination of religion and the senate mechanism to make some factions more bloodthirsty towards each other, with a moderate use of factional objectives to focus it better.

You might also want to take a look at the XGM mod family (XGM, XC and DTW) to see their use of special buildings to give faction-wide bonuses rather than using cash infusions from the script.
As for choice of exe I'll always stay partial to the BI one as I worked for years on its features and it allowed me to pull off some pretty good tricks.

[Cute Wolf]

On EB there aren't large margins as gearing up AI even more would require extensive redesign.
If you made a mod from scratch you could use a combination of religion and the senate mechanism to make some factions more bloodthirsty towards each other, with a moderate use of factional objectives to focus it better.

You might also want to take a look at the XGM mod family (XGM, XC and DTW) to see their use of special buildings to give faction-wide bonuses rather than using cash infusions from the script.
As for choice of exe I'll always stay partial to the BI one as I worked for years on its features and it allowed me to pull off some pretty good tricks.

very much true, but I think EB is allready pushed everything to the limit, adding XGM-ish features will made us forced to remove some unique EB features.

[Zarax]

Yes, such a redesign of EB would be mind-boggingly complex and could have been even just conceived only if there wasn't an EB2 on a different engine.

I'm pretty sure you'll be more satisfied by EB2 on that side, the team is pulling off some pretty amazing scripts for certain factions which I think will be considered true gems of modding once released.

[Ludens]

Also, we are limited by the fact that the A.I. is stupid. People like Darth and Zarax (:bow:) have done amazing things with the options at their disposal, but no matter how much you fiddle with A.I. preferences the actual decision-making routines remain inadequate.

[Zarax]

My achievements are limited compared to those of Darth, I merely took what was started in XGM and brought it to the BI engine limits.

[lionhard]

My achievements are limited compared to those of Darth, I merely took what was started in XGM and brought it to the BI engine limits.

I didnt think much of the darth mod for rtw, but hes made AI mods for med 2 and empire hasnt he? Opinions people?

[Cute Wolf]

I didnt think much of the darth mod for rtw, but hes made AI mods for med 2 and empire hasnt he? Opinions people?

Darth mod is the reason why I keep my Empire TW :insert some ALL HAIL DARTHVADER icon here:

[seienchin]

i would never bother to ask a Question about the KI in this Forum. ;)
Everybody just pretends to know something and follows trends like: Alex.exe and Bi.exe have more naval invasions and better KI etc.
So Im going to pretend a little bit myself. These are the only things I think everybody can experience for themselves and agree with me.
Fact is:
The only things we know are:
Alex.exes units retrain!
BI.exe has more unit traits like swimming and that only indicates the battlefield KI might be slightly altered to aknowledge water has crossable terain. But on the other hand Rome.exe units also tended to drown in water. ^^

That is everything you can know for sure about the KI in EB.

Now. In the Vanilla games:
Rome.exe has plenty of naval invasions. In fact the Ki spawns ships like crazy and atacks relentlesly via Naval invasion, if they are targetting one of your Towns. Still for some reasons people feel, that there are next to no naval invasions in EB with Rome.exe. Some argue its because the map is too big for the Campain map KI other say its because of the high price for ships, but I guess we will never know.
Alex.exe in its own campain has an incredible passive Ki that would never ever atack your homeland and only uses their ships for blocking the sea. Still I dont think that indicates that it has to be the same in the EB Campain.
One thing people feel, that has improved from rome.exe to Alex.exe is the stack size, which seems to be higher in Alex, while Rome has a lot of small stacks, which is really annoying. Again, I am not sure if that is really true, because Rome Vanilla saw a lot! of huge stacks. Maybe again the pricing of the units.
For BI I guess there are no facts we know at all. Maybe its 100% like Vanillas KI. I had the feeling, that the units always tend to make a long line, to avoid beeing flanked, but then again I played Vanilla Rome and Alex and the Ki does the same.^^

Anyway. What we know about all exes is that the AI always has you as their priority. In EB I gave the seleuks huge amounts of money to stop the parthian invasion and even bought parthian cities and gave them to AS. I only neighboured them in Minor Asia and still... 5 turns later the AS atacks me, 30 Turns later the parthian had conquered 12 AS cities without any resistance, because all of their stacks went to atack me.
And that was with force Diplomacy, Alex.exe and hard difficulty. In medium its hard to tell the AI strategy, because they are extremly passive.

[lionhard]

KH masses ships in all the mods and vanilla, its what they do with them that counts. Iv experienced in my current BI campaign in 3 weeks of playing more excitement when it comes to AI movement and agression than 2 years of vanilla with countless campaigns of always (The same happenings) and 6 months of Alex which iv gotta say was a small improvement to vanilla. You said it best (try it yourself) Just makes me laugh, when all the people who are asking for better AI have already tried it and have converted to Alex and BI, Their are hundreds of peoples feedback on this subject. Iv never heard of any 1 say they prefere vanilla to Alex and BI.

[seienchin]

Maybe everyone believes its better,which makes everybody will feel that way. Placebo effect. Anyway, I think I summarized it pretty well. I did write about, what people are writing in this forum. But still there are no facts.
And frankly spoken: 3 weeks of BI might not be long enough to judge it. ;)

[Cute Wolf]

Maybe everyone believes its better,which makes everybody will feel that way. Placebo effect. Anyway, I think I summarized it pretty well. I did write about, what people are writing in this forum. But still there are no facts.
And frankly spoken: 3 weeks of BI might not be long enough to judge it. ;)

and almost a year playing with Alex, made me knows why BI had little more worth in terms of campaign "un-predictability" as well as stopping bridge battle from become drowning contests

[paleologos]

Is the defensive bonus of the "shield wall" hard coded? No way of transfering that to Alexander?

[Cute Wolf]

Is the defensive bonus of the "shield wall" hard coded? No way of transfering that to Alexander?

I don't know exact values for sure, but shield_wall units made a really defensive hell against frontal attacks, in expense of flanking vulnerability

[vartan]

i would never bother to ask a Question about the KI in this Forum. ;)
Everybody just pretends to know something and follows trends like: Alex.exe and Bi.exe have more naval invasions and better KI etc.
So Im going to pretend a little bit myself. These are the only things I think everybody can experience for themselves and agree with me.
Fact is:
The only things we know are:
Alex.exes units retrain!
BI.exe has more unit traits like swimming and that only indicates the battlefield KI might be slightly altered to aknowledge water has crossable terain. But on the other hand Rome.exe units also tended to drown in water. ^^

That is everything you can know for sure about the KI in EB.

Now. In the Vanilla games:
Rome.exe has plenty of naval invasions. In fact the Ki spawns ships like crazy and atacks relentlesly via Naval invasion, if they are targetting one of your Towns. Still for some reasons people feel, that there are next to no naval invasions in EB with Rome.exe. Some argue its because the map is too big for the Campain map KI other say its because of the high price for ships, but I guess we will never know.
Alex.exe in its own campain has an incredible passive Ki that would never ever atack your homeland and only uses their ships for blocking the sea. Still I dont think that indicates that it has to be the same in the EB Campain.
One thing people feel, that has improved from rome.exe to Alex.exe is the stack size, which seems to be higher in Alex, while Rome has a lot of small stacks, which is really annoying. Again, I am not sure if that is really true, because Rome Vanilla saw a lot! of huge stacks. Maybe again the pricing of the units.
For BI I guess there are no facts we know at all. Maybe its 100% like Vanillas KI. I had the feeling, that the units always tend to make a long line, to avoid beeing flanked, but then again I played Vanilla Rome and Alex and the Ki does the same.^^

Anyway. What we know about all exes is that the AI always has you as their priority. In EB I gave the seleuks huge amounts of money to stop the parthian invasion and even bought parthian cities and gave them to AS. I only neighboured them in Minor Asia and still... 5 turns later the AS atacks me, 30 Turns later the parthian had conquered 12 AS cities without any resistance, because all of their stacks went to atack me.
And that was with force Diplomacy, Alex.exe and hard difficulty. In medium its hard to tell the AI strategy, because they are extremly passive.
Best post. :shame: Acknowledging lack of knowledge is key to moving forward. As for why everything is so? Consider this. Rome, BI, and Alex are all the same engine. They are several steps in the development of the same engine. They are known in development by the version number of the engine: 1.5 (rome), 1.6 (bi) or 1.9 (alex). Presumably, Alex is the best of all as it is the latest in the development series. But as you all know, the latest trend isn't always the best! But this IS a game engine, and almost always new releases = better. But you have 1.9 and that's all. Engine doesn't go past 1.9. Must deal with it.

[seienchin]

Simple answer:
MTWII... Is the newest version of the rome enginge and obviously the KI isnt really better.

[Ludens]

They are known in development by the version number of the engine: 1.5 (rome), 1.6 (bi) or 1.9 (alex). Presumably, Alex is the best of all as it is the latest in the development series. But as you all know, the latest trend isn't always the best! But this IS a game engine, and almost always new releases = better.

To put this in perspective: when BI came out it was 1.4, and at the same time the developers released the 1.3 patch for R:TW. Similarly, rtw.exe v1.5 and BI.exe v1.6 were released at the same time. These numbers indicate nothing but the sequence of release. My guess is that v1.5/v1.6 are the same engine, but v1.6 has the BI-only features enabled.

[Rahl]

Simple answer:
MTWII... Is the newest version of the rome enginge and obviously the KI isnt really better.
I didn't play Mtw2 much, but the AI is slightly better in Kingdoms. Exploits are extremely reduced. They often attack and don't just stay arround. That's a step forward...
Also i didn't test this XAI that is said to be much better, but after playing a other Mod (SuS) i noticed that the campaign AI and the diplomacy is much better (modded). The "we share a border lets go to war my friend and long-time ally" is gone and thats really great. Don't be so pessimistic be happy about every little step forward, you know that will make you a much better general, moral bonus for beeing positiv instead a mali because you are depressed...

[vartan]

To put this in perspective: when BI came out it was 1.4, and at the same time the developers released the 1.3 patch for R:TW. Similarly, rtw.exe v1.5 and BI.exe v1.6 were released at the same time. These numbers indicate nothing but the sequence of release. My guess is that v1.5/v1.6 are the same engine, but v1.6 has the BI-only features enabled.
That's correct.

As for M2TW, I wish I had the source. Perhaps others have read up on it, but M2TW was not built completely from scratch (it's engine, that is). Rather, it took the code from Rome and built upon it, bettering it. I'd say it's a better engine. All that time and effort, and our joy playing the games, and to say it's equal or worse to its predecessor, Rome? I don't know. Things like these are opinions, not facts. But I like to think M2TW was an improvement, not a regression.