Why not adjust HI instead of AI?

[Kull]

It occurs to me that maybe we're approaching the subject of AI stupidity from the wrong angle. Major fixes to the AI are beyond our control (and probably CA's too, truth be told), so let's consider the root cause of why it's so important: we all want an opponent who offers a real challenge. (This is the very reason why so many people have sworn off SP altogether...and yet I digress.) Now challenging game play results from the interaction of two elements, the AI and the human it opposes....and if we can't do anything about the first, why not the second? If you think about it, RTW and other games of this genre are historical simulations, and in history there is NO SUCH THING as a god-like entity who leads his nation for hundreds of years, relentlessly pursuing the same strategy and tactics. One way to overcome this would be a formal role-playing mechanism.

Lets say we created 6 basic types of leader, and every twenty turns you roll the dice and whichever number comes up, that becomes the style you have to play. As an example, let's say that "Peace Lover" immediately tries to end all ongoing wars involving your faction; disbands armies down to a specific units-to-cities ratio; dismantles military city improvements (or can only build commercial ones), etc. If your leader was a "Lunatic", then truly serious things could ensue, such as killing off your best generals, deliberately driving a certain percentage of cities into revolt, canceling alliances, assassinating allies, etc. And there's nothing magic about the number six, you could even use two dice, and thus increase the number of leader types - as well as the chance of appearance.

Alternatively, we could eliminate chance and do something a bit more complex - tie specific actions to the traits picked up by the faction leader. Thus someone who "hates farming" might disband the more advanced farming improvements (or be prohibited from building new ones), while a "bloodthirsty" type would have to lead all offensive military operations personally, with the result that you could advance militarily only on one front at a time. The possibilities here are almost endless, but it would take some work to come up with a comprehensive list of V&Vs , assign required actions to every one of them, and then playtest to see how things work out. The loadgame/AI bug was so discouraging that I don't even play RTW anymore, but this might be a way to more than offset it.

Thoughts?

[The Stranger]

i don't know, i don't think i would like to be told by the game wich style i have to play. maybe make it optional.

[Kull]

i don't know, i don't think i would like to be told by the game wich style i have to play. maybe make it optional.

That was the whole idea, actually. To develop a set of rules that would limit and/or adjustment each person's native playing style, based on the personality of your current Faction Leader.

The idea isn't so much to add "degree of difficulty" (there's lots of ways to do that) as to get you out of the "same-old-same-old" style of playing that makes the game a bit boring over time.

[Slug For A Butt]

Doesn't sound a bad idea Kudd. Like giving your Faction leader a little independent power to act as he sees fit, rather than how you see fit. You may actually find yourself beating your fists on the floor because you faction heir gets crowned and instantly changes diplomatic stance with your best trading neighbours, because he picked up the "despises trading neighbours" trait 20 years ago. You can repair the damage, but yes, I think something like that would enhance the strategic challenge. You'd certainly have to keep your eye on the cheeky little monkey.

[Ziu]

I like the idea. A bit of random mayhem to keep the game interesting.

[Yun Dog]

I think the general idea is ok, but I like to remain in control of my dominion, why not have an increased number of historical type events some good some bad - a bit like nightmare chess. You play RTW to the best of your ability but game is run with a huge deck of event cards that may help or hinder you.

For example during a seige there may be a number of things that could happen, - your army runs out of water - 50% losses

or your army finds a unit of mercinaries that are loyal to you

or a sandstorm in the desert reduce the movement of your army by 80%

your army is lost in the snow and has frozen to death

I dunno but it needs somethin - *shrugs*

[bodidley]

It's an interesting concept, but without a more intelligent AI I don't think it would be any more fun than the current game.

[screwtype]

I quite like this idea. Though it would take iron discipline not to cheat when things were going badly.

I thought your post was going to be about something else though. I thought you were going to argue again for a multiplayer campaign, which I'm sure a lot of people would like to see. But CA just don't seem interested in implementing it.

I'll tell you one thing I *would* like to see CA implement though, which would require very little change to the code. I'd like to know why there is a limit of only one human player on the same computer? In other words, why can't you turn human control off and on for each and every faction in a game at will?

That way you could play yourself, or play against one of your buddies or flatmates or whatever. For example, if you were playing by yourself and starting to win as one faction, you could switch to another faction that was losing and see if you could retrieve the situation - and then maybe switch back to the previous faction again. You could do this from time to time in a campaign to give the AI a guiding hand. Or you could have a couple of factions that you personally controlled and simply play against yourself.

All you'd really need to implement this would be an option to have each and every faction either human or AI controlled (preferably changeable at any point in the game), and then a random selection concerning which human faction gets control in a battle against another human faction.

It's a feature that would add a great deal of longevity and extra interest to the game IMO. Indeed this used to be a quite popular way of designing games (Lords of the Realm had it for example) until the internet came along, when suddenly it disappeared completely in favour of online multiplay. But I for one really miss this option in games and I'd love to see it implemented in the TW series.

[pezhetairoi]

I agree that the random element would be nice, but it'd not solve the entire problem because we'd still have generals' bodyguards on the field charging into phalanxes. The faction leader's personality wouldn't affect how he fights on the battlefield unless a pacifist faction leader has -5 attack or something to that effect.

[Akka]

The point is, the player like to play the game.
If the game decide what the player have to do, then yes you have removed the "human is too good for AI" part, but in the end you simply have removed the player from the game, which isn't really the point :p

[RabidGibbon]

It sounds a fun idea to me.

On a similar note I've recently been running a campaign to turn into a story for the Mead Hall, and began sketching out basic characters for the major figures in my empire.

This meant that I was always trying to keep characters actions in line with these and any traits they might pick up along the way (ie: Famously Courageous general is going to charge those elephants head on).

The results have been a campaign thats a lot less succesful than normal, and also a lot of fun.

But that said I suppose everyone has their own different playing style, and some will find the above ideas ridiculous in a computer game.

[pezhetairoi]

Not really--anything that seems realistic in one way or another has some credit, one way or another.

[Kull]

It turns out there are 157 VnVs, so developing a set of role-playing rules on a one-for-one basis would be a nightmare. That said, they could probably be grouped into a smaller set of general characteristics. If anyone has any thoughts on what those should be, lets discuss. Here's a link for those who are interested:

http://geraldtan.com/rtw/