No Shoggy 2 until the AI is "perfect"

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Courtesy of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, this link:

http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games...k-on-Shogun-2/

Mike Simpson, our creative director, has basically said 'this game is not going out the door until the AI is perfect'. AI really has been a bit of an issue for us in the past. But even Napoleon was better than Empire. I mean, one of our goals for Napoleon was to fix the issues we had in Empire, and I think to an extent we did that really well. But in terms of Shogun 2 we're not going to release it until it's perfect. There's the line-of-sight stuff we're introducing - basically, if any of our designers are playing the game and see something stupid, it's like everyone stops. Everyone gets around the PC to have a look at it, and see what can we do to fix it. We want to get it so there's nothing stupid happening in the game. We don't want to see stupid AI. It is a big thorn in our side, and it's something we've really had to work on. We're pretty confident about Shogun 2.

Really sticking your foot in it now. Not only is perfect impossible but "acceptable" has been elusive for a long bloody time. Either CA has achieved revolutionary success in AI design or they need to stop talking to the press.

But we'll forget all about this with a shiny new cutscene reveal. Then the reviewers will 9/10 it without playing it, and we'll all buy DLC uniforms.

[AggonyKing]

screw the AI! Until MP is perfect I say!

[tibilicus]

So the cycle begins.... Again...

[Gregoshi]

Of course you will be disappointed when you insist on taking the (ill chosen) words literally. There is no talk of "brilliant" AI, just "not stupid" - which will be a challenge in itself.

Edit: And I agree with the comment about stop talking to the press. As much as I want to know about the game, sometimes I feel it works against them when things said early in the development cycle don't pan out. All it does is fuel the "they lied to us!!!" crowd.

[pevergreen]

Even if the AI is 'good' by their standards, they can't say it until we, the fanbase, agree. As Alexander said, they'll all 9/10 it without seeing half the game because they don't understand it.

[Kagemusha]

Well i hope CA will stick to their word and keep honing the game until all the rough edges are gone before releasing it.

[hoom]

Big words & I really hope they can actually release a product that lives up to them.

[Husar]

I don't believe anything, first off they probably win more customers by saying this than they lose from those who are disappointed if it doesn't meet their expectations.
Secondly it's always the same, if the devs say nothing, there is a lack of communication to the community and their marketing is bad, if they say something, they said the wrong things and they're liars and their marketing is evil etc.
That's not to say I'm happy with all TW products or the things they say but maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite myself sometimes as well.
A big AI improvement would be very welcomed, if the demo will have a scripted battle, we can draw our own conclusions.

[Andres]

What did you expect them to say?

"Hi, we're spending millions on creating this big title and we can already tell you the AI will be rubbish not live up to the absurdly high expectations of some of our fans" ? The AI won't be able to play extremely well and at the same time do your homework, cook a delicious meal and write an elaborate essay about the criticism of Popper on the dialectical methods of Hegel.

Customers and people in general having extremely high expectations and demands on about everything is an illness of our time. Imho, it's not possible (and it won't be for a long time) to create an AI for this type of game that'll be as intelligent as an above average TW player.

And you can't hold it against game developpers that they'll say stuff to sell their games. The second hand car salesman will also tell you that the 6 year old car he's selling you is as good as new. You know it isn't true.

[caravel]

It's called "marketing". It doesn't really matter what CA, or anyone else, say about the game, now. It's probably more prudent to wait until it's actually released, read the previews, reviews and opinions of those that do play it, then decide. Filtering through all of the usual pre-release hype searching for "promises" to hold the developer to, is a pretty pointless exercise.

[A Nerd]

A perfect AI is impossible, I don't think it should be described as such. An AI with somewhat of a challange that performs better than in past games would be acceptable to me, depite a few inevitable flaws. It is nice to hear that the game will be withheld somewhat to polish it however. Hopefully the extra time (if it is indeed taken) will be worthwhile to those who end up purchasing the game upon release.

[Magyar Khan]

Im willingly to travel to london and spent a day behind their computer and check if its perfect...... i personnally can accept small failures..... i would say the game is not released untill MP is smooth, crispyclear and stable

[Swoosh So]

Yes i agree perfect is a strong word (did they really use that!?) if so this thread should be called simply No shoggy 2.
If they said AI that plays like swoosh when heavily intoxicated playing with 1 hand at 5 frames per second on a turn time limit while doing my nails then i still wouldent think they could manage it..
And i dont mean that to dis ca but the fact is in a game like this with so many variables the AI will always be mediocre its just a fact they can make improvements here and there for sure but it will never be "perfect" or on par with a heavily intoxicated swoosh playing with 1 hand at 5 frames per second on a turn time limit while doing my nails

Eignar gudminiinunson already made a crazy statement in that battle video, the ai wont notice what your doing with your cav behind the the archer cause its off doing other things? Come on! a good player wouldent miss it... So the ai has to be handicapped to look like a bad player? oh please just be honest! This is just one statement dont want to slate the guy for it i hope he brings a better ai than we have seen so far and good luck to him its a tough job he has!

[Magyar Khan]

well swoosh i think i have the solution of teh way they are heading hahhahahah

the best AI is provided by a human enemy, so in making the MP part perfect they en passant (tthats french and a chess term) have a perfect "AI".... get online et voila (french again for its there) ;)

[Swoosh So]

Maybe theyre planning to clone AMP and have him play as the ai in a huge cloning factory in every single player shogun 2 game ever played?

[Gregoshi]

Maybe theyre planning to clone AMP and have him play as the ai in a huge cloning factory in every single player shogun 2 game ever played?

And that is how the machines took over the world...

[hoom]

Eignar gudminiinunson already made a crazy statement in that battle video, the ai wont notice what your doing with your cav behind the the archer cause its off doing other things?

This is the challenge of the 'believable AI' discussed in an earlier thread.

Its easy to make a bot that will know exactly what you are doing several million times per second and which in a simple game like a FPS will be able to hit you every shot from across the map.

What is hard is simulating the AI having a limited observation/response capacity that 'feels' like a real person who might get distracted & not notice you moving some units behind terrain to flank but isn't completely retarded.

I'm very happy with the suggestion that they are re-implementing LoS for the AI (& hopefully for the player too!)
In Shogun you often wouldn't know where the enemy was as you advanced.
eg your lead unit crests a ridge-line then suddenly the enemy appears formed up en-masse right behind the ridge-line & is immediately charging at you before your army has time to form ranks.
This could leave you fighting with gaps in the line, key units in the wrong place & with the disadvantage of a significant morale penalty for being attacked by recently hidden enemies that could turn this situation into a chain rout despite your army being stronger.

[Swoosh So]

Hoom enjoy beating your easy ai then... Its nothing to do with line of sight... the archer unit could see the cav unit running behind the hill also the ai army left an entire flank of its army wide open. Anyway the point is theyre not implimenting LOS for the ai where did you read that? Let me say this if they do impliment true los for the ai it will be the worst ever seen in a totalwar game bar none.. Take a minute and think about it this would give the player a huge advantage over an already poor ai that struggles to cope with even making a battle line let alone cover flanking or anything else.

You cant hope for a believable ai and a good ai with the state the ai has been in the past years. You could have an ai thats got a monkey in command that would be believable. Did you play shogun? there was no true LOS there the enemy wouldent suddenly appear behind the ridgeline what are you talking about? and in shogun missles could even fire through hills thats not true los either.

[Kagemusha]

I think they should just give LOS for the human player. Tie up the players vision to what the general can actually see and running battles would turn out lot more complicated instantly. As AI hardly can beat human brain to begin with.Why do we have an edge over it with a bird eye view?

[Swoosh So]

I dont think we have with the bird eye view kage. Player says that was easy i rolled that flank and the ai dident even respond! ai programmer says yes in order to make the ai believable it was off doing other things ahem *cough* LOS for the player would be a welcome handicap ofc but im telling you if they do give this los to the ai its gonna be laughably easy. The only way a player is going to feel like theyre facing a real general is to play a drop in battle the AI is so far off the mark here its unbelivable.

[Kagemusha]

I agree that further handicapping the AI is definetely not a good idea.

[hoom]

There's the line-of-sight stuff we're introducing

Did you play shogun? there was no true LOS there the enemy wouldent suddenly appear behind the ridgeline what are you talking about? and in shogun missles could even fire through hills thats not true los either.

are you talking about? You seem to have forgotten I think.

Archers most certainly did not shoot through hills.

The Radar map represents the LoS model in Shogun.
If you were hiding in trees, behind a ridge or the battle day was foggy, the AI had to go search for you because your army didn't show up on its radar map.
Likewise the player couldn't see the enemy on radar unless he has LoS.

With unrestricted camera & in some circumstances with the restricted camera you could see enemy moving in the distance in the actual battle screen but not on radar.
For that reason I always played Shogun on restricted camera because it mostly prevented the LoS advantage from having unrestricted.

In later games everything shows up on radar unless its hidden in trees & regardless of the intervening terrain.

[Kagemusha]

hoom you are making a solid point there.Lets just keep the language at nice level.

[Magyar Khan]

i see no need in handicapping the PC-AI much more, its hard enough for it to beat a human....

[Revolting Friendship]

There are so many things the player can do at this point to get an edge over the AI. Unrestricted vision and birds-eye view is just two of them. He can also pause the game to micromanage his units and respond to critical changes in the situation.

I think to make the battles harder, CA could at least implement optional difficulty-features that would prevent the player from exploiting the game so much. We can already choose to have restricted camera, but truly hardcore players should have the option to restrict camera to their general. Thus, he would be forced to leave command of some units to the AI since he cannot be at all places at once.

Moreover, one should be able to check off the ability to issue orders on paused, which would further limit the players advantage.

A final touch that would be neat to have is order latency. If you issue an order to a unit that is far away from your general it would take some time for it to go through. In worse cases it could even come out wrong or fail to get through at all.

Touches like these would put the player in a more realistic situation and would also give the AI some reprive.
I think a big part of the AI's flaws is not due to it being awfully bad, it's largely due to the great advantages the player has on his side, and the fact that these allow him to orchestrate his battles in very difficult and intricate ways. Then it comes as no surprise that the AI cannot adapt.

Historically, generals could not play it like this. They had predefined army formations that they largely stuck to, unless lining up the army along a defensible position. They didn't do this out of preference but pure nessecity, since it was the only way for them to control their armies with any semblance of cohesion. These formations were also sluggish to reform and once an avenue of approach was taken it was exceedingly difficult to just suddenly change it in response to unexpected turns. Moreover they had to delegate the leadership of the army's units to vassals/generals who were entrusted to carry out their part of the strategy, and did ofcourse not always comply to the satisfaction of the overall commander. They might have different ideas or motivations, which often caused problems in the execution of a plan.

I can assure you that if we got the chance to face any of the great generals of previous ages with the same advantages we are given in this game we could confidently beat any one of them, Napoleon, Alexander, Hannibal, Gustavus, Hideyoshi, you name him. Because the things they had to struggle with the most wasn't the battleplan at any given moment, but the execution of it. If they could with as much ease as us, form and reform their army and move all units in cohesion and exact formations with such perfect timing, they could've overcome any challenges with rediculous ease, in the same way that we do.

[Intrepid Sidekick]

Hi Guys

Please see this official thread:
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...8019#post38019

I.S

[Swoosh So]

LOL hume changing the statement are we? the statement was "your lead unit crests a ridge-line then suddenly the enemy appears formed up en-masse right behind the ridge-line & is immediately charging at you before your army has time to form ranks." I can say without a doubt that would never happen in shogun unless you played with camera on the ground. I remember perfectly shogun1 and who said arrows of course the arrow arced through the sky but guns did not ie LOS was not functional.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Hi Guys

Please see this official thread:
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...8019#post38019

I.S

It's not a rumor when the developers say it (twice in one interview, no less).

[AggonyGrudge]

And that is how the machines took over the world...

This is really getting entertaining.

[Veho Nex]

There are so many things the player can do at this point to get an edge over the AI. Unrestricted vision and birds-eye view is just two of them. He can also pause the game to micromanage his units and respond to critical changes in the situation.

I think to make the battles harder, CA could at least implement optional difficulty-features that would prevent the player from exploiting the game so much. We can already choose to have restricted camera, but truly hardcore players should have the option to restrict camera to their general. Thus, he would be forced to leave command of some units to the AI since he cannot be at all places at once.

Moreover, one should be able to check off the ability to issue orders on paused, which would further limit the players advantage.

A final touch that would be neat to have is order latency. If you issue an order to a unit that is far away from your general it would take some time for it to go through. In worse cases it could even come out wrong or fail to get through at all.

Touches like these would put the player in a more realistic situation and would also give the AI some reprive.
I think a big part of the AI's flaws is not due to it being awfully bad, it's largely due to the great advantages the player has on his side, and the fact that these allow him to orchestrate his battles in very difficult and intricate ways. Then it comes as no surprise that the AI cannot adapt.

Historically, generals could not play it like this. They had predefined army formations that they largely stuck to, unless lining up the army along a defensible position. They didn't do this out of preference but pure nessecity, since it was the only way for them to control their armies with any semblance of cohesion. These formations were also sluggish to reform and once an avenue of approach was taken it was exceedingly difficult to just suddenly change it in response to unexpected turns. Moreover they had to delegate the leadership of the army's units to vassals/generals who were entrusted to carry out their part of the strategy, and did ofcourse not always comply to the satisfaction of the overall commander. They might have different ideas or motivations, which often caused problems in the execution of a plan.

I can assure you that if we got the chance to face any of the great generals of previous ages with the same advantages we are given in this game we could confidently beat any one of them, Napoleon, Alexander, Hannibal, Gustavus, Hideyoshi, you name him. Because the things they had to struggle with the most wasn't the battleplan at any given moment, but the execution of it. If they could with as much ease as us, form and reform their army and move all units in cohesion and exact formations with such perfect timing, they could've overcome any challenges with rediculous ease, in the same way that we do.

I like that idea.