AI stupidity

[Armchair Athlete]

In almost EVERY ONE of my games the computer opponents always to stupid suicidal things such as;

Germans wasting all their troops launching suicide attacks against you instead of defending their homelands against the invading French

The Byzantines being determined to expand into the steppes and giving up Asia minor (sometimes even Constantinople) usually without a fight to the Turks

The Almohads always getting beaten by the Spanish no matter what, even if I am attacking the Spanish to try to help them out, they still always manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Is there any way to mod the AI behaviour to attach importance on keeping their homelands? I have tried changing the factions stances such as Peaceful, Expansionist, Trader, Crusader and so on, but it seems to have very little effect at all.

[Gregoshi]

You might want to scan the Dungeon forums. I believe the MedMod has modified AI behaviour, so there must be a way to do this.

[Armchair Athlete]

Apart from changing the default AI stance (which does not do much) the only other option I could find was to remove the land bridges. Apparently this has a fairly large effect on the game. I guess this will stop the French conquering the English in the first 30 years at least. Maybe it will give the Almos a chance too.

[Nowake]

Also, focus more on GA. The AI is a whole lot more all-rounded as it's forced to keep his lands and usualy create an economic base for his goals.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ June 03 2004,08:05)]You might want to scan the Dungeon forums. I believe the MedMod has modified AI behaviour, so there must be a way to do this.

AFAIK medmod only changes computer building priorities: the computer builds more farms and ships so it will be able to afford more powerful units. The strategical AI is not affected.

[Accounting Troll]

There's several things I've done to mod the game to sort this problem out. Do a search for info on how to edit the startpos.txt files

Scrapping some of the land bridges and province borders can make things easier for weaker factions. If you scrap the Wessex/Flanders land bridge, France cannot invade England without building up a navy. I also scrapped the Saxony/Denmark border to stop the Danes from conquering northern Germany within 20 turns. Also, try scrapping the Constantinople/Asia Minor border so the Turks need to either build up a strong navy or conquer the steppes, eastern Europe and the Balkans to get at Constantinople.

If you change the AI behaviour of all the catholic factions to Catholic_defensive, they will concentrate more on building up their defences and economy than launching half-assed attacks on their neighbours.

[Armchair Athlete]

OK thanks for the help all

[katank]

I dont' know about removing landbridges as that changes the game a lot.

artificial shielding of Byz isn't great as the AI rarely even builds a navy in case of Turks unless they conquer Const.

also, this can also hinder internal movement for Byz or Almos if landbridges are removed.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (katank @ June 03 2004,20:01)]I dont' know about removing landbridges as that changes the game a lot.
also, this can also hinder internal movement for Byz or Almos if landbridges are removed.

You might try this Katank:
I´ve removed all landbridges in my game and given the English, Danish, Almohads and Byzantine a ship from the start and it works great. The English who always got hammered by the French now pose as a serious threat to them instead. The only drawback is that the Almos isn´t as strong as it should be so I added a few buildings and troops in Cordoba which makes them harder to conquer.
To avoid an early superpower and focus more on defending all factions are changed to defensive. The HRE lasts longer, French and English are at each others throats in France and the Spaniards are busy with the strong Almos. The only expanisonists I alow in my game is the Turks to pose a serious threat to the Byz and ofcourse the Horde. The Eggys are changed to devout which means they almost never attack another muslim faction but are usually strong enough to fend off the Turks. Goood thing the AI hasn´t read up on your blitz-capturing-Eggy-sultan-tactic heh?