Best/Worst AI controlled factions

[insolent1]

For best it would have to be the English & Spainish. When the English get going they have a great unit line up they also have excellent sea access which means they can build huge fleets, they are also the only AI controlled faction that I have seen take 2/3rds of map, but they died out http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif
The Spainish have often ended up with teh whole of teh bottom of the map from spain to constantinople.
The HRE & Dainish are the worst AI controlled factions in all of my campaigns, danes never do anything & HRE have never become a decent power on all my campaigns.
The Byzantines are probably one of teh toughest factions as tehy are less likely to have civil wars with the amount of influence they get & they also don't launch the doomed crusades.

[The_Emperor]

The Egyptians and the Byzantines I rank very highly... they have moved across the eastern side of the map quicker than a rabbit with a bumfull of dynamite

Though the Spanish have done similar things themselves.

The Aragonese, and the Danes I rank as the worst. they rarely gain more than two provinces if at all, and they always die out within a few years.

[Balamir]

The factions I find that are controlled too well:

Byzantine

The factions I find that are controlled well:

Almohads
Turks
French
HRE

The factions I find that are controlled bad(these are ones that have the opportunity to spread greatly but never do):

Egypt
England
Spain
Italy

The factions that AI doesnt care:

The rest


*this is only for the medieval world, not included the viking period

[rasoforos]

you can never say that the AI discriminated against a certain faction. In my current campaign( Russians...hate em ) the Aragonese have 4 provinces and the , rarellt appearing and surviving , burgindians have 4-5 as well. And i ve seen the Danes kicking ass before....

[Portuguese Rebel]

Quote[/b] (insolent1 @ June 23 2003,11:34)]For best it would have to be the English & Spainish.
The english? in early? I've yet to see the english defeat the french. In my games the french allways own them... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[sassbarman]

I'm usually in agreement about the danes being poorly handled by the ai but in my current campaign as the hungarians (2.0) I am watching in fascination as the lowely danes having already taken sweden, norway and finland are in the process of conquering england. This is certainly a welcome, if not very surprising sight.

[Mount Suribachi]

Byzantium always seem to end up owning the Black sea to the Baltic in my games. It looks pretty cool seeing half the map in purple http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

And lets not forget the unstoppable killing machine that is Almohad Urban Militia that leads to western europe being Orange every single time in early http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[Westland]

I think that the performance off a faction is heavily influenced by the faction you play. The AI always seems to pay more attention to the player than other AI factions.
Example. When I played the English in early, the Spanish took Navarre. They kept a large army in there to defend against a possible attack from me from Aquitaine. Even when we we´re allied. This left them vulnerable to attacks from the Almohads.
Playing as the Danes I saw the same situation. But this time the Spanish army in Navarre was much smaller. Even though the English had a large force in Aquitaine. with the extra manpower the Spanish defeated the Almohads.
And I never saw the HRE perform well when I played one of their neighbours.

[insolent1]

The reason I said the English is because in all my campaigns I have had the biggest & toughest battles against them this is probably becuase they have such a good unit line up & teh fact that they had mountains of gallowglasses. I did fight one battle in Cordoba 13,000(9 star general in 1 man unit of RK's) v my 1200 turks.
Who becomes powerul is very much based on what faction teh human player is playing. I've noticed that teh smaller factions aragonese, danish & scilians seem to benefit a lot from my actions regardless of what faction I play. The 2 times I have seen the Danish do well where both caused by me eg sinking all teh english ships which led to teh danish invading england & when i smashed a german crusade saxony, brandenburg, pomerania, prussia & a few other provinces rebelled. The Danes scooped all these provinces & ended up all the way to venice.
I have played some campaigns(polish) where it took me a long time to get my fleets going & get ships to every sea zone & on those few campaigns it was not surprising to see egyptian & spainish hordes.

[Z0eL]

I agree with Insolent1, the Danish are always inmobile. Even in early period, they have a good starting position and posibilities. I didn't expect much of these in Late, but...

[cugel]

Using Wes's MedMod the AI Danes can sometimes get rolling. I've seen them invade Great Britian and Ireland and take over Pomerania and the Baltic.

Usually the Egyptians or Almos or Spanish control much of the map in my games. The Egyptians have the biggest fleet, and I always laugh at the Almos when they invade Wales and Scotland (it's never a good move for them).

That mod makes things much more interesting.

But I've NEVER in many campaigns seen the Byzantine AI do anything much. Sometimes they invade Venice for some reason, but usually they lose Constantinople early and then it's syonarra. The HRE usually gets eliminated fast for some reason too.

[DrHaphazard]

One of the things i like about MTW is that each game turns out different. Sure the Danes most often do poorly, but look at what they have to work with, and I have seen on a friend's game the Danes control almost the entire northern part of the map.

The Byzantines are always pretty strong, but then again they have some good provinces. Either the Almohads or the Spanish play well depending on who prevails early on in the game.

The general point is i havent noticed the ai playing favorites at all.

[Brutal DLX]

I think Westland is right on. A lot of times Ai factions doing well or badly depends on which faction you chose for the campaign.

[Balamir]

No matter which faction I choose, I have found out that byzantines always gets the northeast of the map, except one time when I controlled egypt, turks simply ran over the byzis. I neever saw the spanish taking over africa and anatolia except in my own campaigns. I have seen almohads create a lot of trouble and saw them take oveer spain a lot. English never defeate the french because the french fries are the rich side with all that wealth on ile de france and flanders etc.. HRE never seems to expand because its simply stuck in a lot of factions.

[Dogmeat]

hmm in all my games, only occassionally have i seen the French actually defeat the English. Usually the frenchies get pounded by the Spanish and HRE, allowing the English an easy victory.
I must admit i do intervene quite often though, as the byzans i couldn't resist sending a good sized army to relieve the English from sieges and destroying other French lands to allow the English to finish them off. I usually have quite a few allied victories against the blues, and i usually leave the province to the glory of England. Maybe i should leave them to their own devices next time.
Darn, i must have a soft spot for my own nation... oh well http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Mechstra]

The Danes tend to be very inactive, but after I modded the game to make new units available, they actually started attacking other provinces This was a big shock, as I was used to them sitting in Denmark until a rebellion took them out, or similar.

Also, I modded the Papacy to allow them to train Religious Fanatics in the Papal States. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif This made the Papacy actually produce units, and take over all of Spain, North Africa, and Russia in one of the games I played.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Biggest shock I ever had was when I was playing an English peasants only campaign and the Golden Horde, when they turned up, actually did well. Probably because I kept harassing them so they never did their famous 40k men in one big group moving back and forth between two provinces trick. They spread out nicely and won the game, pretty much.

Difficult to fight them with just peasants. The same cannot be said of the other factions.

EEUURAAH.

[insolent1]

In my latest Swiss campaign, the english & spainish where everywhere it got ridiculous. The AI is takin nearly 2 mins to think before it makes its moves & its also stopping winamp which i normally have running in the background. The english have 15+ stacks surrounding me & the spainish are comin up through constantinople with 30+ stacks. The Spainish had all africa, middle east, russia & now the balkans. There was a big sea war between me & the Spainish for about 15 years but I have cleared the seas & taken the Iberian pennisula as a prize. The English joined in on my side & stated sinking & attacking Spainish ships/land. Now the English are huge & I have to got to war with them as they are slowing down the game with the amount of troop movment that they are doing when they have ships everywhere so its time to sink some ships. I've never had so many carracks. When I went to war with Spain they had more than half the map & I only had 6 provinces(only 3 able to produce ships) yet I was able to beat them quite easily apart from the end where I had to chase barques that where blocking my trade routes. The papacy also joined in & stated sinkin spainish ships & they even attacked greece http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

[Hamhock2]

The AI seems to control the French somewhat inaccurately as the French do not give up at the sight of another army coming towards them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[a_ver_est]

The Aragoneses are always defeated ... I have made a mod ( my first one ) to play them, I think that their starting position is too weak if we compare with its neighbors ( spain & french ). In fact, in my mod, I had to reforce them or I always were devastated.

So I think that faction performance is very influenced of starting position.

Uhm ... I have to be very intelligent to do this conclusion :lol: http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Apart from in early,the Byzantines usually get destroyed and are left with Rhodes. The Mongols get beaten,and usually only have Khazar left,usually thanks to aggresive attacks by the Hungarians and russians,who always do well,especially in late. The HRE are attacked on all sides in high and late. Swiss carve out an empire in Germany and England after a civil war mostly recover quite well.
If i would pick a faction for each period it would be Byzantines or Novgorod in early,either the Almohads or Egyptians in high and in late the English,Turks or Spain are pretty good all round factions.

[ham&bacon]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif In spite of great variations from game to game certain events occur frequently in my SP capmaings: -the English get kicked by the French, -the HRE starts a war with everyone, looses on all sides and self-destructs in civil war, leaving the French and Swiss to fill the gap, -the Spanish crusade massively on the Almos, the Almos counter attack and roll over Spain only to be held down by the French hordes, -the Italians fight the Byz for no gain letting the Pope sweep them up after endless civil wars, as happens also with the Sicilians, - the Polish and the Hungarians make love not war, -the Russians kick the Byz out of Slavic provinces, -and finally the Byz are cornered in Crete by the Egyptian hordes (and the Turks die out heroically in Edessa, after invading and occupying for 10 or so years Antioch)It must be something with the AI's set attitude.

[A.Saturnus]

I had a campaign where HRE has conquered the Holy Land by crusades and was buidling an empire in Europe. They can get quiet strong, but I think the AI usually can`t handle the difficult position.
The Spanish usually take over the world. In my Hungarian campaign, they are just unstoppable. I`ve sunk all their ships during our war but since we have peace they built up their trade routes quiet fast and move armies from Novgorod to Palestine now. They had also two civil wars and lost most of their provinces but thanks to their trade, they build armies like hell and took everything back in a decade. They have build a lot of citadels and it`s also the first time I`ve seen the AI using cogs. I`ve beaten them once but they`re stronger than ever before now and I`m somewhat glad that it`s 1440 and another great war won`t come.
They worst AI faction is for me Egypt. They have been defeated pretty early most of the time, despite their very strong position.

[Crash]

I agree with ham&bacon that there are always some typical events that always happen in my SP games. This is what I usually see:

1. The English dominate the French, or vice-versa
2. The Italians get into a suicidal sea war with the Byz or the Sicilians
3. Poland and Hungary sit there forever, until the human player or HRE runs over them
4. Spain dominates the Almohads, or vice versa
5. Russia sits in it's corner for the whole game
6. Danes sit in Denmark for the whole game
7. HRE either gets crushed, or crushes all it's Eastern neighbors
8. Byz conquer all the steppe provinces, the gets blindsided by the GH
9. Egyptians crush Turks, or vice versa
10. Sicilians take Naples early, then sit forever

If there is ever a variation to this theme, it is very refreshing. In my current campaign the Sicilians and the Turks crushed the Byz between them, but haven't tried to finish them off in the steppe - do they know the GH is coming?

TW battles are the greatest, but I would like to see the strategic game AI get a lot better, then TW would be the total package.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[ShadesPanther]

I got Wes's latest Med mod for VI and it is brilliant

the starting positions are now accurate and has some nice ideas like cutting off wessex from flanders(not very original i know), cutting of Nicaea from Constantinople and having the border between Constantinople and Trebizond a river. some sea areas have been deleted to stop bugs happening. Also the kievians get Khazar to stop Byans getting the steepe provinces and leaving Asia minor weakly defended.

I have played it a few times and have seen what happens (cause i used .matteosartori. to see how ai would act)

Russia get the Steepes and the GH appear and push them back quite far then Russia ounterattack with their Rus Spearmen and their Druzhina cav (which open the GH heavies like tin cans)

The Turks have alot of land now and there is an epic battle between them and the byzantines with the Egyptians joining one side and they usually lose. If the Egytians join with the byzans then the Turks get sandwiched and drive the Egyptians back a bit but lose to the byzantines.

The French usually win because England isnt joined with France but in Late the Burgundians have Flanders which leads to France never rejoining. Spain or the HRE if they beat theSwiss)then come in and finish France off.

Russia usually expands into Eastern Europe after defeating the GH.

Overall i think the AI is slightly better and more diversity occurs

[bighairyman]

my vote for worst goes to the Danes. they don't conquer anything, they just sit in denmark all day mating w/ their sisters and breding like rabbits.(the rabbit part comes from somebody else).


and the best is the spanish or the elmo. always have a hard time killing them in late.

i play as mongols so............

[Crash]

Some of the earlier posts suggest the AI factions strategies are based on which faction is controlled by the human player. I wonder if the factions that are the furthest from human player get more active, or perhaps the ones closest? Is there a pattern or formula to the AI grand strategies for AI factions that depends on which faction the human player controls, or does the AI always calculate it's actions based on the current strategic situation?

Does anyone have a clue about this?
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

[Westland]

I don´t think the AI strategy is really changed by the players choice of faction. I just think that the AI pays more attention to the player then to the other AI-factions. The border provinces will be better defended at the cost of other provinces. This will give factions further away from the player more changes to expand.