How does the AI in M2:TW compare to R:TW?

[amritochates]

Well its great enough that EB(RTW+BI+Alex) has been permanentely uninstalled- as the old saw goes "There's no going back"

I won't comment on vanilla which is a disaster, but the mod that I am playing DLV 6.2 (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=309) is amongst the best.

The Tactical AI is competent, no more single units of pike-men doing solo attacks on your entire army thank goodness!

Though some do comment on the AI in MTW-VI being superior, IMHO the battle AI is the same, but the battle mechanics were better in MTW-VI.

The real culprit here is the animations issue, where the unit animations play an equally imp role as its stats, which leads to units with slower stats to severely under perform. Additionally clumping is still an issue. Also units with dual weapons aka RTW under perform severely.

The Strategic AI is miles ahead, if played on H and not VH.

For a better look at that wonders may be done with the AI have a look at this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=637

[amritochates]

Well I am assuming from your post above, that your knowledge of M2TW game mechanics is limited, so I shall explain in greater detail.

In M2TW some genius came up with the idea that units should fight the way they look, which translated into the fact between two units with more or less similar or inferior stats the one with a faster animation will win. So if you to read up the forums on the 2H bug, people were using older slightly inferior units with faster animations over newer units with better stats but slower animations.

But the AI chooses its units purely on the basis of stats leading to unit mis-matches that were detrimental to the AI.

And unit balancing as anyone will tell you is an integral part of the BAI.

And as far as the H v/s VH thing goes, no the AI doesn't make smarter decisions. What it does is cut down on the ridiculous DOW that the AI does on VH, and the AI factions don't surround you screaming Blood! Blood! all the time- so diplomacy actually works.

[Ichon]

But the AI chooses its units purely on the basis of stats leading to unit mis-matches that were detrimental to the AI.

And unit balancing as anyone will tell you is an integral part of the BAI.

I'll agree unit balancing is important but I don't think you'll convince many that its integral to modding BAI. There are too many other variables other than stats and animations that affect how units perform. Cohesion, mass, formation, etc. I follow many of the modding discussions in 3 or 4 MTW2 mods and there are interesting things being done but the AI won't simply be fixed by balancing stats and animations. For instance you can create a 2 handed spear unit with long spears rather than pikes and if give them decent mass and cohesion they will defeat units with much higher attack animation speed and better stats because the longer spear length and decent mass allows more spear animation attacks along the frontline. Now if you take the same spear unit and face it with a unit with identical stats and attack animation as before but give them looser cohesion and mass it tends to spread out around the spear unit and inbetween the spears and more parts of the unit are in contact and then the faster attack animation wins.

[Cambyses]

Yeah, I would agree that the AI in M2 is overall better. It does have significant weaknesses still however. But some of the new features of M2 such as multiple recruitment per turn, recruitment pools and free garrisons do mean that many of the worst flaws of the campaign map AI have been concealed.

As for the BAI, Ichon speaks words of wisdom.

[amritochates]

Sorry about the late response- bit of a series of exciting events in my HRE campaign- don't seem to find time to log on !!

but the AI won't simply be fixed by balancing stats and animations And Pray where did I say so explicitly ?

What I had said that due to the new animation system unit balancing is now infinitely more complex as compared to the RTW engine- and Cohesion, mass, formation are integral to balancing- its just that animations are currently the biggest offender.

For instance you can create a 2 handed spear unit with long spears rather than pikes and if give them decent mass and cohesion they will defeat units with much higher attack animation speed and better stats because the longer spear length and decent mass allows more spear animation attacks along the frontline. Now if you take the same spear unit and face it with a unit with identical stats and attack animation as before but give them looser cohesion and mass it tends to spread out around the spear unit and inbetween the spears and more parts of the unit are in contact and then the faster attack animation wins.

And what about clumping?? your unit with looser cohesion and mass is more likely to have just a couple of men fighting while the remainder sit around admiring their navels.

[antisocialmunky]

I'm surprised that no one has emphasized the fact that given a long enough map distance every AI army eventually morphs into a giant ball of out of formation units. The only really interesting battles are when you deploy in a line in the middle of the deployment screen and move towards the AI and a few rare cases where the BAI works right. Barring very few case, most battles devolve into you sitting there in a nice formed up line and the AI army twice as large with their formation turning into a giant clump as they close....

[Ichon]

And Pray where did I say so explicitly ?

The real culprit here is the animations issue, where the unit animations play an equally imp role as its stats, which leads to units with slower stats to severely under perform. Additionally clumping is still an issue. But the AI chooses its units purely on the basis of stats leading to unit mis-matches that were detrimental to the AI.

And unit balancing as anyone will tell you is an integral part of the BAI.

What I had said that due to the new animation system unit balancing is now infinitely more complex as compared to the RTW engine- and Cohesion, mass, formation are integral to balancing- its just that animations are currently the biggest offender.

And what about clumping?? your unit with looser cohesion and mass is more likely to have just a couple of men fighting while the remainder sit around admiring their navels.

Clumping is an issue but it really only severly impacts during sieges but sieges can be 50% or more of the battles so it is a problem but I haven't seen any good solutions. Certain things are limited due to the engine CA built.

As for looser formation and less mass having only a few men fighting- on offense with several units involved that can happen as parts of the formation get tangled up but if on guard mode and the denser formation with greater mass approaches and attacks it will push the lesser mass formation back and eventually most of the formation comes into play. It does take quite alot of balancingto try and get unit to reflect stats and historical function though but my only point with you is that such balancing is not really part of BAI. You can test 1 vs 1 for a long time and then in some battles still get a different result because of clumping but unless EB team comes up with a novel solution there isn't much you can mod to change that part of the engine so that clumping is never an issue. Just reduce severity of its impact.

I'm surprised that no one has emphasized the fact that given a long enough map distance every AI army eventually morphs into a giant ball of out of formation units. The only really interesting battles are when you deploy in a line in the middle of the deployment screen and move towards the AI and a few rare cases where the BAI works right. Barring very few case, most battles devolve into you sitting there in a nice formed up line and the AI army twice as large with their formation turning into a giant clump as they close....

Some of the better BAI have addressed that a bit but the more aggressive the AI is the more that tends to happen- however the more aggressive AI is usually the one that does the most damage even in clumped formation. The AI does try and straighten its lines out before making contact in most of the modded BAI's I've seen lately but doesn't always succeed. If you could force the AI to move in neat formations that would actually make it easier for the human player to divide and conquer though wouldn't it? I find trying to mess with that giant mass of approaching units is difficult with anything besides ranged units until you commit your forward line. If the AI kept its units nice and separate you can more easily line of charges or draw just 1 unit out etc.

[Blxz]

The Campaign AI is slightly moddable for sure. Broken Crescent has made an AI that will rarely break alliances unless it has bad relations and sees a great opportunity. They also expand very readily into rebel provinces. This had the result in one of my Rum sultanate games where we had world peace with a web of alliances ensuring that there was no war on the whole map for about 40 turns. Then when the mongols invaded and broke the peace, almost every single nation turned their fullstacks on them and beat them back to world peace again.

Obviously bad for gameplay coz it meant I had to fight the entire world when I attacked any nation but I like the idea behind it and hopefully it can be balanced and used for EB so that at least some diplomacy can be attempted.

[antisocialmunky]

I just let them hit me. This is mostly coming from TATW and SS experience so enemy armies are much bigger than yours. I have two lines of units and the AI routs the first one but has absolutely no stamina left over. Then they get charged in the back and mass rout. The main issue is that it will be detrimental to the EBII experience if the AI completely throws realistic formations out of the window.

I will say that the TATW AI will flank and that 20 battle trolls plowing through your lines is not a good experience. Still can be salvaged as the free peoples of Middle Earth has better quality units.