Investigation of AI reassessment upon reload

[roguebolo]

I think it is a confirmed fact that loading a saved game causes RTW to regenerate (or recalculate) random events and often changes the behavior of the AI, especially regarding sieges, and that it is supported by empirical and repeatable data.

My own tests were identical to the one that was proposed here, except that I started at various midgame points wherein alliances, declarations of war, and faction targets and strategies were clearly established to see what kind of impact this actually had on the game. I would have reverted to an earlier patch if it had turned out to be significant. However, I'm pretty convinced that this is not the case.

The problem with testing the phenomenon when no moves have been made by the player at the opening of the game is that it is testing an extrema which generally only happens once in a game -- at the first move. That is the point in the game where no alliances have been established, no warfare, no movement, and no building. Many computer algorithms exhibit awkward behavior with various extrema -- for instance, the quicksort (which is the fastest sorting algorithm on the average for most data types) exhibits its worst-case (slowest) behavior with data which is already sorted. That's not really a concern when the programmer expects the program to be working with unsorted data. Extrema can be very useful in determining actual bugs in a program such as integer overflow or divide-by-zero errors. But what's being analyzed here, the AI, is a complex network of heurisms and algorithms. The truth be told, the AI is probably playing a better game than the human player during this test, because it's undoubtedly building an economic infrastructure for each faction and moving its diplomats. It might be possible to force some military stagnation at the most extreme moment in the game through save/loads and nonactivity, but under more realistic conditions I found that it was not as easy to accomplish. Even in the first 20 moves, with multiple save/loads per turn I was unable to recreate that kind of stagnation. In midgame the proposition is even more difficult.

Knowledge of the fact that this reassessment logic is tied to the load game feature is surely something that I can exploit if I wish, but I am summarily unconcerned with any other ramifications of gameplay.

Finally, I'm not sure that it's really such a good idea to have the objective of just a few large AI factions in endgame, as was always the case with MTW. In the early stages of MTW, the AI was geared to force the player into situations modeled after historical realities. The historical reality is that Rome conquered each of these rivals individually, and ultimately become entangled in civil war.