How's that Passive AI doing?
I stopped playing M2TW awhile ago because of the passive AI. I am wondering if it has been fixed?
If not has it been fixed in Kingdoms? How about a mod?
I love the game but I don't get that thrill of knowing my enemies can crush me if I'm not careful. I've played enough to know the computer is an idiot and despite having overwhelming forces isn't organized to come after me in a purposeful way. And sending troops in to mop up the rebels that remain after I take his undefended cities is booooring.
Anyway--what say ye?
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
It is alive & thriving in Kingdoms, and most other mods as well.
Although the best efforts to kill it are in mods with the best results, not in vanilla Kingdoms.
Some of these mods have reduced passive AI greatly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irishmafia2020
I finally was able to sit down and play the Darth Ages last night, and my first impressions are quite positive. I was only able to play for an hour, but I faced my first battle as France (my first time as France, I usually play Danes/Abassids/Venitians for the unit rosters) and I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the battle. To start off, the a.i. sallyed against my seige at Bruges, and the battle proved to be a lengthy affair. I found that I was not assured of winning through sheer force of numbers and that the a.i. actually flanked me on both sides of my line while their cavalry unit attempted to rear charge my spearmen. the battle turned into a number of smaller skirmishes as I counterflanked their units by having my archers charge the outer edge of the battle. Ultimately, the battle was decided when I killed the enemy general, and their center of Flemish Pikemen broke and fled. By the end of the battle all of my spear militia, Merc Crossbows, and Peasent archers were dead, and the only units that remained capable of further offensive action were three Sergeant Spearmen units. The army that I prepared for an easy three province blitz to begin the game instead lays shattered by a pyhric victory in only their first battle. That battle a.i. definately seems promising, and I will comment more on the campaign a.i. as my game progresses. If you (Naimad, averros) update the game with the new name and resource files from TLR, I will update my game this weekend. You have made me a fan after my first battle, and Gentlemen (I assume) I offer you my sincerest applause all around...
I have'nt tried this mod yet but it sounds interesting so far. This is an evolution of the Darth mod, incorporating The Long Road mod (both excellent mods by themselves). See this thread for details on Darth Ages: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...121944&page=17
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
I am not sure how Kingdoms is, but have a good feel for the current core M2TW game. Often passive AI is taken to refer to behaviour on the battlemap, although I don't think you are primarily referring to that.
On the campaign map, the AI is still rather passive. It will not reliably take settlements you leave abandoned - often walking past them for tens of turns. It will often garrison settlements with a single unit. And it will tend to meander round the strategic map - not doing what I think it should, which is form up a killer stack (preferably stacks) and march right at one of your settlements. (The Civ AI does that and it is crude but effective.)
As for AI passivity in the battlemap, the worst version of passive AI was before the 1.1 patch. I gave up an English campaign because the attacking AI would come on with a fantastic army of heavy infantry and stand in front of my longbows. And just die. :wall: It was a game breaker, so I stopped playing M2TW until 1.1.
That was largely fixed with the first patch. There are circumstances in which the AI will sit passively in front of your missiles. But generally, if you have missile superiority - even if it is defending - it will attack.
What is still not completely fixed, IMO, is AI passivity during sally battles. I fought a battle where I attacked to relieve a castle under siege. The AI was lined up in front of the gate and stayed there, as I fired on it from the flank. It sent single units against me piecemeal, but they were cut down. It was pretty sad.
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
I wanted to post on this subject for a few days now. Strat map AI is better, naval invasions, taking rebel settlements, proper garrisons. Battle map AI is better.
All AI aspects are better, but it's not good enough IMO.
I just did a battle the other day in the Britannia campaign and Baron's Alliance AI came at me with a full stack of quality troops. I expected it to attack but it did'nt. Deployed in the middle of the valley facing uphill and just stood there doing nothing at all. I eliminated 50% of the army with arrows alone and then smashed the rest. VH/VH Wales.
I still see stacks of trebs walking around. 10 catapults garrison, ridiculous. I'm really annoyed with this, as much as I hate to be annoyed (UGH!).
The way I see it, the reality is the passive AI is still not fixed. I consider it fixed when I don't see it anymore.
The Darth Mod improves strat AI and battle AI. It is not a perfect mod and has errors and bugs. However you can see many multiple stacks of quality composition in Darth Mod. Usually the AI will use all stacks available to overwhelm you. In battle, there are some bugs, BUT the AI is freaking marvellous in comparion to vanilla. Flanks all the time, uses archers before melee (when at advantage), I've even see an all cavalry army, something which I've never seen the AI do in vanilla.
The biggest problem I found with Darth Mod is also one it's greatest strengths. Far improved movement speeds. No more sprinting across the map, higher heat & fatigue impact. While this makes the game much more realistic, it also means battles can literally take hours. Kill times are slower, and units now take longer to kill. Again this is great but the problem is that it takes a long time to play a decisive battle.
The battles feel much more like MTW: VI or STW: MI, but slower still. It gives you enough time to actually think. The improved batle AI means that you actually DO have to think.
I think Darth Ages looks a lot better than Darth Mod, with The Long Road expanded map, and lots of other features. I have yet to play it but I think it will be better than the Darth Mod.
Screenshots from Darth Ages 0.6:
Screenshot of overwhelming Crusader attack on a Turk amry:
Byzantine armies moving for rebel settlement:
Different rebel army arrives to reinforce besieged rebel army:
Byzantine AI fortifies it's Western border to help deal with turkish threat from the East:
Seljuk Turks trying to retake the Holy Land:
All image courtesy of Naimad, from this thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=121944
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
I find the AI is rarely passive on V/H in Kingdoms. Even when outclassed the AI will advance upon you in field battle. It will still be somewhat passive when you are shooting it to ribbons across a bridge but will sometimes try and charge but then retreat. It sure is aggressive on the strategic map. I think that it is too aggressive on the battle map and is easier to exploit than when it would just sit on a hill and I'd have to charge up.
Sometimes when I'd think the AI was being stupidly passive, it may have just been being smart. I noticed that the AI often retreats to the town center once the gate is broken down. I played one battle as a defender and was clearly outclassed. I tried defending at the breach and got beaten several times because my men routed (no family general present). So, I then tried what the "passive" AI often does and ran for the town center. I won an heroic victory. Maybe I need to study the stupid AI actions more closely.
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
I will look into the Darth Mod and some of the others you suggested.
I've been playing Lands to Conquer and while I like the difference in the game I don't like the AI sitting around on the Campaign Map doing nothing. I agree that it is a game breaker.
I do not have Kingdoms yet. I see that it does not actually fix the game which is what I think everyone was hoping it would do. I won't buy it until it's super cheap if ever.
Thanks for the info.
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
Does LTC incorporate Darth formations? Darth saved RTW as far as I'm concerned. Just started an LTC campaign and the battle AI seems better. Not very far along though so I can't make a fair assessment yet. The campaign AI seems much improved so far. Breaking it down into Early/High/Late as per MTW is a BIG improvement too IMO.
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
Passive AI seems to be a rare occassion when I play Kingdoms, In the Americas campaign the tribes love to do full out assualts and attack with with large armies. In my Britainnian campaign the Danes actually managed to beat me in several battles, that was due to their grand flanking manuevers. So yeah I can say that the AI has improved but in some areas still lacking.
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
The best mod i've seen as far as AI passivity and difficulty i've found so far has been the Ultimate AI mod by GrandViz. Hes been testing various tweaks to the AI and it plays out really well on the campaign map. I haven't lost a major battle yet, but i've had quite a few I won just barely. As far as AI passivity is concerned, i've seen none on the battlefield. The only thing i've seen is the old bug where the AI seems to forget a small army somewhere and it sits there rotting eternally.
That aside i've seen the AI applying its forces well, and not just out of suicidal rage. After I kicked Venice out of their capital about a hundred turns in they didn't just start throwing crap armies at me. Instead they signed a ceasefire with me and turned on the crippled Byzatines, expanding into what was left of their empire.
I've been impressed with what i've seen in the couple games i've played using the mod. Reminds me of the MedMod with its focus on a strong AI rather than huge campaign maps or cpu hogging scripts. Its even got the troops limited by era, though I think thats not GrandViz's creation but another modders he incorporated. Anyway, if anyone is interested you can check the mod out here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=124751
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Discoman
Passive AI seems to be a rare occassion when I play Kingdoms, In the Americas campaign the tribes love to do full out assualts and attack with with large armies. In my Britainnian campaign the Danes actually managed to beat me in several battles, that was due to their grand flanking manuevers. So yeah I can say that the AI has improved but in some areas still lacking.
There aren't any Danes (people from Denmark) in the Britianic Campaign, though there are some Norwegians (people from Norway). Though the Danes are in the Teutonic Campaign.
Re: How's that Passive AI doing?
Quote:
Does LTC incorporate Darth formations?
Nope i've edited the battle AI myself.
