Tactical AI (and how it breaks).

**AussieGiant** · 03-05-2009, 07:59

Hi Monk,

From your description it does seem these "New" tactical components are causing a few incoherent choices.

Hopefully it's just a question of rebalancing priorities and reaching a few thresholds earlier or later in the decision making process.

It certainly seems like it is "thinking in the right direction" which is a huge thing in itself.

*fingers crossed*

**Monk** · 03-05-2009, 08:09

Originally Posted by AussieGiant

Hi Monk,

From your description it does seem these "New" tactical components are causing a few incoherent choices.

Hopefully it's just a question of rebalancing priorities and reaching a few thresholds earlier or later in the decision making process.

It certainly seems like it is "thinking in the right direction" which is a huge thing in itself.

*fingers crossed*

Indeed. It's good to see it trying to balance numerous tasks, but not when those task contradict each other's purpose. I read on TWC that CA is already going to release a second patch next week that will deal with many graphical improvements as well as a crash fix.

If they keep up this sort of support, I see no reason why an AI fix cannot be implemented sooner rather than later.

**Polemists** · 03-05-2009, 08:17

Agreed. I have no idea what the release date patch was, but assuming they will get quite a few of the graphical issues hammered out next week, I would assume the next focus would be AI or something similiar (Since they have a whole ai team now, shouldn't take to long.)

I give CA credit where credit is due, the game may not be perfect but it is nice to see them supporting us with a patch every week. One can only hope this keeps up :)

**AussieGiant** · 03-05-2009, 09:22

I'd say we are in good shape guy's.

The thread titled: "Official: Empire - The first 24 hours" has CA committed to ongoing support and patching. I expect the AI to have ongoing time spent on it.

There's nothing quite like 30 000 people play testing for you!!

**Monk** · 03-05-2009, 11:09

Hm.

I bumped the AI up to VERY HARD and gave the campaign another go <H/VH>.

Color me impressed that the AI has not once in my 10 turns and subsequent battles displayed the behavior that I saw on Hard. Its very strange. Perhaps whatever perimeters that lead to its behavior are not present on Very hard. Or maybe I have just yet to put it in the right conditions to lobotomize itself. Time will tell!

It even fought me to a grueling standstill in Western Poland by use of formations and clever adaptions. I won, but barely.

**AussieGiant** · 03-05-2009, 11:43

Well then, perhaps the difficulty setting changes certain aspects and it fights as perfectly as it can on that setting, rather than making mistakes...which could be a deliberate part of the sliding scale of difficulty.

**Oleander Ardens** · 03-05-2009, 11:47

Very good news, Monk.

Perhaps the setting of the difficulty does finally not change stats but the capability of the AI. This would be amazing. It seems more and more that CA did walk the talk and that the team devoted to the AI did do good (or even great) work. I will perhaps buy a need rig to play it.

OA

**TB666** · 03-05-2009, 12:40

The AI isn't very good at sieges I have noticed.
It seems to have a hard time understanding how to best scale the walls and kill those inside.
It never goes for the best wall to scale but always the one at the back, which is a good theory in general however since they pretty much stay within firing range the whole time it kinda renders it pointless.

However on field battles is another story where it behaves far better and really makes you work for a victory.
And this is on VH.