something the EB team will have to look into.... i think

[Ibrahim]

that would be interesting. is there a way of making this idea faction specific (out of curiosity). It woiuld work for all of them, but I want to see if diferent tactics can be implemented according to style of fighting.

[phonicsmonkey]

Now I'm no modder so I wouldn't be able to point you to the files or anything, but there's something different about the way the Mongols (in vanilla M2TW) fight on the battlemap

They hang back and try to provoke you into a fight by sending small groups of horsearchers forward to pepper you with arrow fire and then retreat

If you chase them and get too close, all the Mongol heavy lancers charge you en-masse

It's not too difficult to defeat them once you've worked out their (only) tactic, but it certainly seems to suggest that there is the possibility to have faction-specific battle AI. I haven't seen this behaviour from other horse-archer / cav heavy factions like Turks or Egyptians..

[Aemilius Paulus]

Does the Darth Formations mod work for M2TW or can it be modified to work for it? From my experience, the Darth Mod improves the battle AI to the point where you might actually believe that there is an "I" in the "AI".

[Ludens]

Probably not. However, he and other modders have created formation/A.I. mods for M2:TW as well.

[/Bean\]

I am no good at modding so I dont know the reasons or how to change this, but I used to play Imperial Glory, which is a basic (in comparison) game which is much like Shogun or Medieval 1.

The AI seems to handle battle tactics in this game much better than in Total War, for instance the cavalry pretty much always heads around the infantry and attacks the artillery behind the lines, and infantry will often deploy into defensive square formations if a cavalry charge seems likely.

Like i said I dont understand why or how any of these things work, but would a skilled modder be able to spot differences in the code or whatever makes this games AI better, and impliment it into the code of Total War?

[Foot]

The code won't even look the same. There isn't some code that is used for AI in every game, it depends on the base engine for each game.

Foot

[Ludens]

In addition to what Foot said, modders don't change the program itself. The program files are generally encrypted and distributing altered program files is illegal. What modders do is change the data files. Now in the TW series it is possible to change A.I. battlefield behaviour by altering their formations and priorities. However, you cannot reprogram the battle A.I. itself (well, technically you can, but that is very, very difficult, and it still would be illegal to distribute altered .exe files).