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

[Ichon]

I'm hopeful that this particular point won't be an issue in EB2. I recall that EB1 placed some serious restrictions on where ships could be produced, and I suspect that they can and will make it so that regions with access to the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman will at least not be able to produce anything more advanced than the most basic ships, which will hopefully save the AI some money.


Though I've heard it many times before, I've actually not seen this happen often at all. My most frequent experience is that generals linger around behind the main lines for most of the battle, occasionally charging my flanks, only to retreat when I send someone to after them. And then sometime after half their men have died, they charge into the center of the already engaged line and eventually get killed. I've rarely seen the kamikaze behavior so often brought up. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I did want to mention it.

I think the solution to the ships is likely very restricted ports but if pirates still spawn there has to be some ability to make ships somewhere. Relatively low replacement rate should be more important than low cost to keep the AI from spamming ships because it can be a huge issue. I've screen shots from 2 different mods that included ports in Red Sea where the AI faction there had built over 30 ships that were filling the sea so much they could barely move. That AI was going bankrupt just from its fleets.

I've experienced the AI general hiding behind its frontlines ONLY when its on the defensive and lacks cavalry. Usually playing on mods where AI has money script it is rare it is on the defensive as the human player is always undermanned and fighting usually 2 AI armies on H or VH difficulty levels. If the AI has even 1 or 2 other cavalry units it usually charges with them and then the general right behind. Plus- when the general hides behind the line it often sits there and ignores HA or other missile units concentrating fire on it and does not move away until all the BG nearly dead.

Honestly the most difficult AI to deal with is usually the super aggressive one which charges everything right at your lines because your army will take some losses no matter what wereas if the AI hesitated even for a few minutes it would give human player ample time to setup flanking maneuvers etc and accomplish nearly bloodless victories.

My hope is that with EB2's stronger focus on infantry melee and less on powerful charges by heavy cavalry there is more tactical importance to lengthy maneuvers then simply eliminating enemy cavalry and charging from the rear whilst using infantry as a distraction meatshield. The numbers in the units might make a large difference as well... most mods follow the vanilla formula of cavalry being half the strength of infantry unit which means that it would be 2,000 infantry vs 1,000 cavalry. Not that such battle were impossible but generally infantry greatly outnumbered cavalry- even horse culture factions which fielded almost all cavalry did so in numbers much smaller than an infantry faction could field. Of course infantry not being as mobile those extra numbers weren't as important but they still mean something. If infantry units are usually 150 men I hope most cavalry is 50 or less. So cavalry used carefully is still decisive but requires some care in use and HA might actually run out of arrows before killing the entire enemy army and have to engage in some melee or have infantry hidden on the field somewhere to mop up the survivors.

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.

I agree animations are as or more important than stats but is that really part of AI? AI is where units move and how they react to your own moves.

I've heard a few people make this claim about H vs VH but I've never seen anyone offer proof why H makes better strategy choices than VH?