AI in RTW

[masp_82]

Hi

Whats your opinion about the AI in MTW ? I think it was not a very clever one. For example my enemy in MTW holds his last province with a few soldiers and i have my big elite army on the borders waiting for order to attack. But i want to be a nice guy and send a diplomatic to the enemy leader with the offer to end the war. Every logical thinking leader would happily agree to my offer, but the AI leader thinks hah with my 100 peasants i would defeat your 1000 knights and then conquer your whole empire and denied my offer. AI, where are you ??

On the higher difficulty levels the AI has unrealistic stats and bonusses for his troops. But in RTW when i get defeated i want to say ok i have lost because the AI had made the better strategic and tactical decisions and not have the feeling i have lost because the AI had unlimited ressources and rushes me with elite killing peasants

Iam really hoping that CA not only polish the graphics and dont forget to make a excellent strategic and tactical AI.

Maybe someone can post sth about this topic in the colloseum to remember CA what is REALLY important to make RTW the new RTS blockbuster.

P.S. English is not my native language, but i hope you can understand what i mean :-)

[motorhead]

Check out CAs official site which has a fairly active forum about RTW, with the occasional developer comment.

Personally, I'm not holding my breath for any super, unaided game AI. Look how long it's taken to make a master level chess program. Chess is a game with just 64 positions, with 32 pieces, and 6 unit types. And, throw in liberal funding from various tech companies to finally achieve this goal(IBM being foremost). Now, translate this level of excellence into a TW game, with over a hundred unit types, probably a hundred thousand positions on a map and no outside funding. It's not gonna happen anytime soon.

[masp_82]

ok, i dont want that the AI makes decision like a human mastermind but they should be quite logical. The AI should build many buildings in their provinces as the human player does and armies builded by the AI should not consists only of peasants and militia as it is in MTW.

And whats so difficult about giving the AI a clever diplomatic brain. I mean, in CIV 3 it works quite good.

So far I can say, RTW with the diplomatic and strategic AI from MTW would be catastrophal

[Count Fudgula]

Hi masp_82 I think the problem you're describing is to do with the point at which MTW decides you've got too big and no one will be friends with you no matter what. This certainly happens when you go over 60% dominance in a GA campaign. You'll see all kinds of monster re-emergences of factions and unlikley rebellions.

I think this kind of thing keeps you on your toes and is a good thing, because otherwise you'd just get to steamroller everyone one at a time, which isn't that interesting really. (Although I am a sucker for the odd sledgehammer to a nut moment. 16 units of Lancers against a straggly peasant uprising, anyone?)

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (masp_82 @ Jan. 21 2004,10:04)]But in RTW when i get defeated i want to say ok i have lost because the AI had made the better strategic and tactical decisions and not have the feeling i have lost because the AI had unlimited ressources and rushes me with elite killing peasants

That is impossible. The programmers can either:
1) Pre-program the AI with a number of strategies / tactics. After a while you would know them all and you can then anticipate what it will do.
2) Program the AI to formulate its own strategies and tactics. That is very hard, as proven by the chess-example of Motorhead. You would need real artificial intelligence for that, and perhaps that is somewhat to much to ask from ordinary game-programmers.

Quote[/b] ]P.S. English is not my native language, but i hope you can understand what i mean :-)

Your English is certainly not worse than that of many members. We can all understand you perfectly.

[masp_82]

ok, i understand your arguments but agree you that it is still room for improving the AI or is the AI from MTW the absolut upper line and i can expect nothing better ?

@fudgula
maybe the solution for this phenomen is to make the conquering of new provinces much harder than in MTW. For example when the bulding time for new military units is much longer or when you aren´t able to build unlimited troops in the provinces.

Iam dreaming of a RTW, which is a real challenge but not cause the AI cheats. Thats all what i want

P.S. Thank you Ludens. I will show this to my English teacher when he criticizes my language skill in a test

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (masp_82 @ Jan. 21 2004,19:37)]ok, i understand your arguments but agree you that it is still room for improving the AI or is the AI from MTW the absolut upper line and i can expect nothing better?

Of course you can expect better. You just shouldn't expect the AI to be able to match an human. Creating a computer-intelligence which really does seem intelligent, AND which is without the odd quirk, is a tremendously difficult task. The human mind is a very sophisticated tool that takes into account numerous factors and influences when taking a decision, without the operator (you) being aware of that. Trying to have a computer do that requires a lot of work to program calculations for all the factors, priorities, shifting of priorities and assesment of chances (the latter means that the computer has to guess, something a computer is not good at). MTW is a complex game, so there a lot of factors to take into account. But I admit that MTW-diplomacy seems to depend more on which difficulty-setting you choose, than on any real intelligence. However, CA has promised an elaborate diplomatical system for RTW (see the FAQ at the .com) and it would be stupid to include that if the AI didn't really bother with diplomacy.

Quote[/b] ]P.S. Thank you Ludens. I will show this to my English teacher when he criticizes my language skill in a test

Problem is: English is not my native language I just said your English was understandable, not that it was correct. I wouldn't really know that, because my grammar-skills are not very impressive (but this applies both to English and to my native language ). So Ludens is not responsible for any failed English exams, and you can certainly not sue him for that

[Count Fudgula]

Hi again masp_82.

I think the build time for units is already factored into the amount of time it takes to have the correct buildings to create new troop types.

Limiting the amount of troops you can have is covered by their yearly upkeep costs. I think that to limit their numbers further you would have to set a total limit per faction, or base the limit based on the number of provinces you hold. The first of these options would make it impossible to expand, and the second would still make you unstoppable if you got much bigger than the neighbouring empires.

I understand that RTW will have an enhanced diplomacy system, however, and this has to be a good thing. I think that you will be able to create treaties between yourself and other factions to swap land for money, and demand tribute for not stomping people into mush. (I'm very excited about this).

The AI in MTW is good enough for my level of play in the battles, I think. Making it more human-like might lead to some of the battles in MP where I've seen people make shocking misjudgements and mistakes the like of which you would never see the AI make (I say people, I really mean me).

I do expect to see more interesting manoeuvers from the AI in the Strategy screen in RTW as would be natural with the development through thte Total War series.

I can't wait for RTW to arrive, any word on a demo?

[masp_82]

@Ludens
okay, we will see in eight months how good or bad the AI in RTW is. From now we can only wait and hoping for the best

@fudgula
Yeah, iam really looking forward to crush my enemys in RTW and then request tribute

There are some pages on the net which say they have the RTW Demo, but these downloads are only fakes and in reality its the MTW demo
I expect the official demo in july or august this year. In the end of july i have birthday, so this would be a beautiful present for me

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Count Fudgula @ Jan. 21 2004,21:25)]I understand that RTW will have an enhanced diplomacy system, however, and this has to be a good thing. I think that you will be able to create treaties between yourself and other factions to swap land for money, and demand tribute for not stomping people into mush.

See the www.totalwar.com Latest FAQ.

Quote[/b] ]okay, we will see in eight months how good or bad the AI in RTW is. From now we can only wait and hoping for the best

Agreed