Your A.I. of choice

[ToranagaSama]

The Battle AI of Shogun and Medieval despite not being *perfect* is effectively better than Rome's; and the improvements of the MedMod caused the AI to be even more effective. Head and Shoulders above Rome. RTW is a step backward.

Yet, to answer the question: Far Cry!

[AntiochusIII]

I'm surprised somebody said Unreal Tournament's AI is cool until I realize I was having fun with these AI so much long ago... Thank you for reminding good old days... and I'm not even 16 yet to have good old days!!

For the answer : Yes, I've played Civ 3. The AI is impressive. I've had hard times getting myself a survival chance in that game thanks to the AI alone.

[Bjorn Bjornson]

OMG Kenshin I was going to mention Operation Flashpoint. But being a long time lurker first time poster I felt it wouldn't matter. But... well... gotta start somewhere I guess!


The CivIII AI isn't all that great. If it's hard, it's only because the AI technically "cheats" (it gets a number of allowances the player does not). Actually I personally hate vanilla Civ3, and only play it after heavy modification (took basically a year or so to make a good mod balanced that the AI can know how to use)... and before anyone jumps to the conclusion I hated it because the AI was "hard" - that wasn't it.
Little stuff like having Longbowmen as the offensive infantry unit of the middle ages was one of the many little things that made me hate that game (of course buying it off the shelf right when it came out for 60 dollars and finding out there was no Viking faction was really up there lol).


Although there is plenty of rants about the AI in Rome... all I have to say about it is this: in Medieval, if the AI was hellbent on just standing there the whole battle (which did occur), they would atleast switch to loose formation if they were under fire... I have not seen an AI unit in RTW do that a single time yet... once I just sat there, my army was two slingers and a lame family member general, and the 3 warbands of the Brigands just sat there at got stoned... not in the good way either.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Little stuff like having Longbowmen as the offensive infantry unit of the middle ages was one of the many little things that made me hate that game (of course buying it off the shelf right when it came out for 60 dollars and finding out there was no Viking faction was really up there lol).

The Viking Faction came in the expansion Play the world. Just like they came in MTW

[Akka]

The CivIII AI isn't all that great. If it's hard, it's only because the AI technically "cheats" (it gets a number of allowances the player does not).

Partially untrue.
The AI does, in fact, get allowances, but NOT BEFORE KING'S LEVEL !
In Chieftain and Warlord, it's in fact the PLAYER who gets advantages against AI. At Prince level, all is totally equal. It's only above that the AI gets bonus (and at Sid, these boni are totally insane).
We've worked a long time at Civfanatics to take the AI red-handed with cheating at Prince, but despite years of close scrutiny, the only "cheats" that was found was the one which was already recognized by the designers : that the AI has a partial knowledge about where are your armies. That's all.

[lgw]

Strat map: Civ. 3

Battlefield: Hands down Civil War Bull Run. New game from Mad Minute games.
The AI is nasty. No scripting! See Shermans colum in the distance on the road next to woods. Lose Sherman . Ya better send some out some one find him, and determine the axis of his advance. Otherwise he might show up with a brigade on your flank or rear. Each commander is different. Each battle is different, no matter how many times ya play it. I break even with the AI on normal difficulty. If ya like ACW you might want to give this one a try. $20, hard to beat that price. Graphics are only a little better than MTW, so if all ya care about is looking pretty then this game won't float your boat.

[th3freakie]

The diplomatic AI of Europa Universalis is prety good too, I'd say. Specialy for the complex system it has to work with.

And Combat Flight Simulator: WWII Pacific Theater dogfighting one is very good also.

[Parmenio]

I get the feeling that with RTW some of STW and MTW battlefield AI had to be streamlined due to the extra weight of rendering 3D models on the CPU.

The RTW stragetic AI of course has to deal with a far more complex map than STW and MTW.

[fret]

Partially untrue.
The AI does, in fact, get allowances, but NOT BEFORE KING'S LEVEL !

There is no 'King' Level in Civ 3, theres no 'Prince' level either

The levels are as follows in increasing difficulty (pre-conquests)...

Chieftan
Warlord
Regent (level playing field)
Monarch
Emporer
Diety


The AI bonus' / penalties are as follows...

Where it takes the human player 100% to build something, it will take the AI....

Chieftan - 200% (estimate(i havent played this level for a while)
Warlord - 160% (estimate again)
Regent - 100% (level playing field)
Monarch - 90%
Emporer - 80%
Diety - 60%

With the release of the Conquests expantion pack, the values of the Diety difficulty level were ameded slightly, and two new more diffiult levels were introduced.

Aside from production bonus, the AI also makes it more difficult as the base cost of technologies is increased as the difficulty level increases, therfore making tech-beating and tech-buying more diffucult.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Gettysburg did have the best AI I think. Though it did get a bonus on the high levels.

Shoguns AI held up fairly well considering how much I played that game. It was only ranged units that it was terrible at.

I thought the thief AI was pretty good...guards scared the heck out of me on more than one occasion.

[Red Harvest]

Civil War Bull Run has good AI. It is aggressive about flanking the player. It has a few tricks up its sleaves. Let's just say that I'm not winning the scenarios on normal difficulty on the first pass most of the time.