Has anything really changed from CA?

[loony]

I must admit I am just as willing to rant as anyone about stupid AI and idiotic diplomacy. However, this weekend I did some testing regarding the AI and, well.. the results actually are in favor of CA.

I had my cousin visiting me so I showed him my new shiny PC and my nice-to-look-at Empire TW. The guy has never played a TW game before, but he's had his share of red-eyed nights playing other games.
I let him try out a few (actually - 4) battles from my VH/H french campaign.... and he got trashed every time.
Once he misjudged the threat of flanking cavalry; wanted to counter 3units of cavalry with 3 units of line infantry. The cavalry went right past the squares and hit the cannon. Then hit the general. He forgot the squares while trying to save the general and his squares were decimated by enmy line... then the enemy cavalry charged to the back of those wavering squares. Toast.

Second time, he attacked Iroquis and, despite my warnings, got into a nasty ambush (some indian units are invisible), meleed and charged by the lancers. He was completeley swarmed in the centre, managed to kill the enemy general but lost the battle completely.

Third time, after some practice he got throunced by the pope. Italian states had numerical superiority (1,75 stack vs 1) with a lot of arty. He had the quality troops though and was defending. He suffered very heavy losses and lost all his cav (guard units!!!). The italians were left with 3 units of cav, 4 units of sakers and a bodyguard unit. My cousin could not get to the arty without getting some canister and cav charges. His infantry routed, his general was killed. Valiant defeat.

The fourth battle was somewht unfair - a fleet battle. Equal forces with the british. His ships got intermingled with the british and in 15 minutes of utter chaos they routed or were sunk.

Now I tried all those battles yesterday and won WITH EASE!!!
1. you can't easily flank me; I put my line into a line and let the running cav eat a lot of musketballs.i form square in the last possible moment
2. I keep a decent reserve near my arty and my general
3. I don't let infantry stand in squares and get shot at
4. I know there are ambushes with those indians, i scout with cavalry or my indians.
5. I know how to flank arty, and how not to lose my guard cavalry figting an infantry square.
6. I know to keep enemy fleets downwind and to avoid getting too close to them. I also know how ) ships move upwind and how often they can fire a broadside.

Essentially, I would say the AI is doing a decent job. It can defeat a human novice on Hard in an open field battle; however, it hardly poses any threat to an experienced player. Bear that in mind.

The really stupid and annoying part is when the AI is defending against a siege. One-unit charges make me sick...

[AussieGiant]

I must admit I am just as willing to rant as anyone about stupid AI and idiotic diplomacy. However, this weekend I did some testing regarding the AI and, well.. the results actually are in favor of CA.

I had my cousin visiting me so I showed him my new shiny PC and my nice-to-look-at Empire TW. The guy has never played a TW game before, but he's had his share of red-eyed nights playing other games.
I let him try out a few (actually - 4) battles from my VH/H french campaign.... and he got trashed every time.
Once he misjudged the threat of flanking cavalry; wanted to counter 3units of cavalry with 3 units of line infantry. The cavalry went right past the squares and hit the cannon. Then hit the general. He forgot the squares while trying to save the general and his squares were decimated by enmy line... then the enemy cavalry charged to the back of those wavering squares. Toast.

Second time, he attacked Iroquis and, despite my warnings, got into a nasty ambush (some indian units are invisible), meleed and charged by the lancers. He was completeley swarmed in the centre, managed to kill the enemy general but lost the battle completely.

Third time, after some practice he got throunced by the pope. Italian states had numerical superiority (1,75 stack vs 1) with a lot of arty. He had the quality troops though and was defending. He suffered very heavy losses and lost all his cav (guard units!!!). The italians were left with 3 units of cav, 4 units of sakers and a bodyguard unit. My cousin could not get to the arty without getting some canister and cav charges. His infantry routed, his general was killed. Valiant defeat.

The fourth battle was somewht unfair - a fleet battle. Equal forces with the british. His ships got intermingled with the british and in 15 minutes of utter chaos they routed or were sunk.

Now I tried all those battles yesterday and won WITH EASE!!!
1. you can't easily flank me; I put my line into a line and let the running cav eat a lot of musketballs.i form square in the last possible moment
2. I keep a decent reserve near my arty and my general
3. I don't let infantry stand in squares and get shot at
4. I know there are ambushes with those indians, i scout with cavalry or my indians.
5. I know how to flank arty, and how not to lose my guard cavalry figting an infantry square.
6. I know to keep enemy fleets downwind and to avoid getting too close to them. I also know how ) ships move upwind and how often they can fire a broadside.

Essentially, I would say the AI is doing a decent job. It can defeat a human novice on Hard in an open field battle; however, it hardly poses any threat to an experienced player. Bear that in mind.

The really stupid and annoying part is when the AI is defending against a siege. One-unit charges make me sick...

Good post loony, and I guess something for everyone to consider.

I wrote in another post to Slaists that he was probably a top 5% player on the economic side of things. Most here are veteran players who know the tactics and would like to see an extremely intelligent AI.

At the moment it seems to be very hard to code this. And as I mentioned before...if they could...they wouldn't be making PC games for the general public. They'd be making far more impressive things for MNC who would pay them a bucket of cash.

[GFX707]

I don't remember having any real problems with the tactical AI in the game, apart from how it always sneaks around and attacks your general or blows them up with artillery (hey, I'm the only one that gets to do that), it's never really seemed broken to me.

What I mention in my first post is the strategic AI. That is, the AI on the campaign map.

[loony]

I don't remember having any real problems with the tactical AI in the game, apart from how it always sneaks around and attacks your general or blows them up with artillery (hey, I'm the only one that gets to do that), it's never really seemed broken to me.

What I mention in my first post is the strategic AI. That is, the AI on the campaign map.

I agree that the strategic AI is sometimes plain stupid, mostly due to poor economy/recruitment management. I think the AI does not understand what a "useless" unit is and where to find the "disband" button.

Im my late French campaign I keep giving conquered regions to Luisiana and giving them cash in addition to that. My "protectorate" owned Netherlands, Flanders, Genoa and Savoy in europe as well as 4 or 5 regions in NA. They get cash infusions and I have MY ARMIES keeping the stupid indians, austrians and other bad guys at bay; my protectorate cleans up the raiding parties.

They should have become a powerhouse in sth like 15 turns. However, they werefeeble and destitute; recently, I figured out why. I completed the mission (it was 1750 and I need to annex them to win) and saw they never bothered to upgrade their industry. Even the developed regions like Netherlands had apparently seen no iprovements.... OK, maybe they built armies? - NO!
They built navies, brigs and sixth rates, I found several stacks of those sitting in awkward spaces on the map (like a little west of Iceland?!)

Had the AI ignored the navies, it would have had a decent econ and at least 2 stacks of troops in NA (where we were constatnly at war with the indians). It could have also joined my conquests in Europe; it did have all the prerequisities to become a powerhouse and maybe even challenge me, but it did not.

[GFX707]

Had the AI ignored the navies, it would have had a decent econ and at least 2 stacks of troops in NA (where we were constatnly at war with the indians). It could have also joined my conquests in Europe; it did have all the prerequisities to become a powerhouse and maybe even challenge me, but it did not.

The AI wasting all its money on building immense navies for no reason has been a problem on and off since RTW.

[antisocialmunky]

Anyone make a money script for the AI yet? It would seem like a nice bandage until the next patch.

[Dayve]

Whew, I've been waiting a week for my ban to be lifted so i could post this.

No. Nothing from CA has changed. I haven't played Empire for more than 20 minutes per session in about a month now. I see my neighbours declaring war on me simply because we share a border, and i see them sending army after army, despite them being thoroughly destroyed each time. I see enemies accepting peace and trade, only to declare war by occupying one of my towns or farms with a unit of militia the very next turn. I see allies, who my nation has been the best of friends with, has given gifts to, has helped them in their time of need (which is always, because the AI is dumb, and when they're your allies it seems to be even dumber), declare war on me for no apparent reason, and absolutely refuse peace, no matter what.

I see my enemy throwing its cavalry at the front of my line, or sacrificing every single unit of cavalry it has, including its general, trying to take out a single unit of useless Sakers or Demi-Cannons that don't even have canister shot, i see my enemies sending single units of infantry at my line to be ripped to shreds from a volley from 4 units, then sending another single unit when that one runs away decimated, i see it wasting all its money on gigantic navies of trash ships like sloops and building high level shipyards but never having the money to build decent ships because it doesn't know how disband the crap ones now it no longer needs them, good heavens, i could sit here all day and whine.

Honeymoon period with this game has well and truly wore off for me, and I'm 100% dissatisfied. I'm absolutely convinced they have ported the abysmal AI over from Rome and Medieval II and thrown it into this games code, because it's absolutely no improvement whatsoever over those games, and in many cases mimics the AI of those games, as even you die hard fans of this game will have to admit.

I honest to god hope that 6 months, or 10 months, or 1 year from now, this game will be patched and will resemble what we were promised we would be given, but I'm going to say it won't. And now they're trying to buy people off with adding new units. There are more pressing issues than new units. At this point i wouldn't give a damn if each faction had totally identical units wearing the same colour uniforms and speaking in the same accent if CA would just fix the ******* game!

[AussieGiant]

Thanks for sharing Dayve.

[Beskar]

Guys don't be so critical, as they said, they worked a full two years on the AI, to make it the perfect experience for us.

The problem is, the definition of what the customers wanted and what they thought we wanted.

[Didz]

As in we wanted an AI that worked, and they thought we wanted a 'rabid lemming'. I can see how that might cause a problem.