Appears I'm the only one dissapointed in the A.I

My first post, but I've been a player and follower of Total War since the initial release of the original Shogun.

Overall Medieval 2 is a good game. Certainly a step or two above Rome, in all departments. My only complaint, and it's a pretty big complaint, is about the A.I during battles. Once the armies are joined in battle it's actually decent, although the kill rates and speed of the units needs to be lowered (come on modders) My complaint is about the way the A.I, when attacking you, will line up its army in front of your line of defence and just stand there not moving. It will place its archers at the front and there will be a long sequence where both armies will trade arrows. Once the arrows are exhausted the A.I will still not attack, it will just wait, and wait, and wait. The only way to get the enemy to attack is to attack him first, which seems to trigger the A.I into action.

Now, this is not too bad when facing a single army, although it is pretty stupid and gets boring quick. This problem becomes extremely annoying when the A.I is attacking you with multiple smaller armies all coming from different directions (which happens way too often). The main enemy force will do as above, while the reinforcements will march a little way into the battlefield towards you, then stop way out of arrow range and barely even in sight of your army.

Triggering the main enemy force to attack usually gets the rest of the A.I moving, but it's predictable and boring. I'm honestly bored already on only the second day I've owned the game. I've only conquered all of Britain and Ireland, the northern French territories and Belgium. Already I'm sick of the battles, which have always been my favourite part of the series.

This problem not only happens in the campaign. I noticed the same happening in custom battles too.

I can't believe they let this in the release, it's a game killer for me (or at least killing any longevity that was in the original medieval)

bleh.

It's a known bug, there is going to be a release day patch for it. It wasn't picked up in testing as the testers were all playing aggressively so the ai would react.

If you dont have missile units in the ai/your army it behaves much more aggressively.

Yep, CA is releasing a patch on the game's official release which will fix this issue.

Im really quite dissapointed with the AI.

Even of the hardest setting the enemy AI is really poor when its forces are split, failing quickly when their allies are attcked. It also seems to sometimes ignore cavalary units Im using to flank, or if it does do anything it seems to react really slowly. Siege battle have been a real let down in general as far as the AI is concerned.

AI needs alot of improvment, but, still a fantastic game and one Ive been waiting for ever since MTW I.

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Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax

Yep, CA is releasing a patch on the game's official release which will fix this issue.

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There you go fella's...have some patience.

CA seem to have an excellent initial release and there will be patches and if they do them as quickly as this then we will have some very fast "back and forth" tweaking it.

What difficulty are you playing at?

Well as for the AI not responding to flanking units I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve totally missed an AI’s unit outflank and attack me from behind because I’ve been busy else where but I’ve not once seen the AI complain about my lack of attention. :sweatdrop:

I hope the AI is better than in Rome though, I think just not having the entire enemy army route because solider_456 stubs his toe on a rock before they get half way across the battlefield will help enormously though.

That's good news about the patch. I'm surprised they let that issue into release though considering much of the game is spent defending and not aggressively attacking the A.I.

The battle A.I is definitely better than any Rome version (modded or official). I liked the way the A.I left mounted knights with a row of balistas to guard against my flanking knights.

It's not perfect, but I think it's going to present far more of a challenge than any other Total War game. Once the patch is released, of course.

I'll also enjoy the game more when we see the likes of Medieval 2 Total Realism, or other such mods. I prefer slower kill rates, hating to see entire units become decimated within seconds. Gives more tactical options for the player and the A.I.

So far I'm impressed by the AI.
Yes the passive bug is slightly annoying but luckily it doesn't happen all the time.
What I'm most impressed about is how it handle itself in seiges.
They switch troops to counter the threat properly(They use archers at the beginning but when you get close they switch and send up melee troops to counter your troops scaling the walls).
They fall back to the different rings when the previous one has been over run.
So much better then the seige AI in RTW.

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Originally Posted by Cos3

My first post, but I've been a player and follower of Total War since the initial release of the original Shogun.

Overall Medieval 2 is a good game. Certainly a step or two above Rome, in all departments. My only complaint, and it's a pretty big complaint, is about the A.I during battles. Once the armies are joined in battle it's actually decent, although the kill rates and speed of the units needs to be lowered (come on modders) My complaint is about the way the A.I, when attacking you, will line up its army in front of your line of defence and just stand there not moving. It will place its archers at the front and there will be a long sequence where both armies will trade arrows. Once the arrows are exhausted the A.I will still not attack, it will just wait, and wait, and wait. The only way to get the enemy to attack is to attack him first, which seems to trigger the A.I into action.

Now, this is not too bad when facing a single army, although it is pretty stupid and gets boring quick. This problem becomes extremely annoying when the A.I is attacking you with multiple smaller armies all coming from different directions (which happens way too often). The main enemy force will do as above, while the reinforcements will march a little way into the battlefield towards you, then stop way out of arrow range and barely even in sight of your army.

Triggering the main enemy force to attack usually gets the rest of the A.I moving, but it's predictable and boring. I'm honestly bored already on only the second day I've owned the game. I've only conquered all of Britain and Ireland, the northern French territories and Belgium. Already I'm sick of the battles, which have always been my favourite part of the series.

This problem not only happens in the campaign. I noticed the same happening in custom battles too.

I can't believe they let this in the release, it's a game killer for me (or at least killing any longevity that was in the original medieval)

bleh.

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Maybe the way they designed the AI to react is not as smooth. But it would be also stupid if the AI always initiate the attack especially if they are on the defensive (you initiated the battle). Of course, unless they are receiving arrow fire, then they shouldn't stand around but move back to escape the range or move forward and attack if they cannot fire back.

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Originally Posted by Lusted

It's a known bug, there is going to be a release day patch for it. It wasn't picked up in testing as the testers were all playing aggressively so the ai would react.

If you dont have missile units in the ai/your army it behaves much more aggressively.

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ROFL, you are kidding me right? The testers didnt notice cuz they where attackign. I guess CA should look for some people that have actually worked QA before rather then hiring any pimple faced teenager from the street.

Seriously though that excuse cant stick, worked QA for over 8 years as a team lead and chances are I would lose my job if this werent reported.

Then again, Its probally actually Sega which pushed a early release but yah if it was the testers they should all be shot.

The devs said it was late in the development process, and changes to ake the ai more agressive results in the complete opposite in some occasions. SEGA probably wanted them to get the game out by now, so when it was found they decided to fix it in a patch instead of delay the game.

It's one thing to complain about actual bugs (like the passive AI issue) but keep in mind that AI isn't like graphics or gameplay where you can make lots of incremental changes. As a science, AI is an order of magnitude more complex and difficult than any other part of software development. Even in games with simple rules, like Chess, it takes quite a lot of computer power to outwit a capable opponent.

It's not going to be able to identify every permutation of every strategy you can think of, particularly if you've split your forces. It's an unreasonable expectation that it would. I want a good challenge, and I hope MTW2 delivers that, but there will always be those moments where you know that, had a human player been up against you, there's no way you would have pulled off that heroic victory.

The only real question we have to answer is whether we're satisfied that CA has made significant progress. I don't have an answer for that yet, but it's important to distinguish between consistent bugs (siege/passive AI) and general architectural difficulties with artifical intelligence. How else can you explain that Shogun and Medieval's AI were, in many ways, better than Rome's? Because the rules in Shogun and MTW were infinitely more simple than they are here. The more ways you have of outsmarting your opponent, the more features you add, the more challenging task you have to teach the computer how to take advantage of those features.

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Originally Posted by Aquitaine

It's one thing to complain about actual bugs (like the passive AI issue) but keep in mind that AI isn't like graphics or gameplay where you can make lots of incremental changes. As a science, AI is an order of magnitude more complex and difficult than any other part of software development. Even in games with simple rules, like Chess, it takes quite a lot of computer power to outwit a capable opponent.

It's not going to be able to identify every permutation of every strategy you can think of, particularly if you've split your forces. It's an unreasonable expectation that it would. I want a good challenge, and I hope MTW2 delivers that, but there will always be those moments where you know that, had a human player been up against you, there's no way you would have pulled off that heroic victory.

The only real question we have to answer is whether we're satisfied that CA has made significant progress. I don't have an answer for that yet, but it's important to distinguish between consistent bugs (siege/passive AI) and general architectural difficulties with artifical intelligence. How else can you explain that Shogun and Medieval's AI were, in many ways, better than Rome's? Because the rules in Shogun and MTW were infinitely more simple than they are here. The more ways you have of outsmarting your opponent, the more features you add, the more challenging task you have to teach the computer how to take advantage of those features.

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Well said. I agree completly. And from my observations the AI is improved. Look at the sieges for example. It methodically destroys walls and towers with artillery. It keeps ladders and rams in reserve to use them at the inner walls. That it still fails to beat the defenders most of the time is a problem of the odds calculation of the campaign AI, which attacks with too little units. Also the AI should try to starve out (English?) cities at least sometimes. As it is now the AI always attacks.