Investigation of AI reassessment upon reload

[roguebolo]

To a layman, it is not desirable to have the AI lift sieges and wander off when you were about to sally and break them. It is not desirable for an AI faction to make a ceasefire with you and attack you on the next click of the end of turn button.

I usually sally immediately, but the fact of the matter is that in my midgame tests, wherein the AI alternately relieved and reinstated sieges due to save/loads, that was a better strategy for the AI than if they had maintained the sieges (as they do without save/loads). First, it denied me the use of the castle to protect my flanks while approaching them and to protect my onagers, which can fire over the castle walls.

Second, it allowed them to become the defenders on a realtime map of their choice.

So to the devs, it might be "functioning as designed", but that design is fundamentally flawed. I don't think it's any kind of a reach to say poor design logic is a bug.

Again, you're assuming that everyone agrees with you that the design is fundamentally flawed. You're saying that you have a bug and I don't because of our perceptions and opinions of the game design? Because our expectations are different?

[Old Celt]

Again, you're assuming that everyone agrees with you that the design is fundamentally flawed. You're saying that you have a bug and I don't because of our perceptions and opinions of the game design? Because our expectations are different?

No not at all. What I'm saying is that if the AI would have assaulted without a save/load involved, I should be able to get that assault to happen after a load. The save didn't change anything. This special reassessment makes the AI do illogical things because there is no continuity between what it was doing and what it is doing after a load.

You can say it's conditional, and we can test for it, but it isn't logical, and there's no way it makes better sense for the AI to merely harass me with the threat of a siege when the logical, and much better strategic move is for it to capture the settlement outright. The only logical reasons for dropping a siege are to relieve their own threatened outposts, or because they are hopelessly outmatched by the garrison. This is common sense.

I make no assumptions about who agrees with me, as it is immaterial here. We are talking about simple problems in military strategy which can be solved with just a small modicum of logic. There is only one best move for the AI, in each siege situation. That best move is lost quite often by a reload. I say that is a design flaw, and believe from much experience with users and bug reports, that this would show up on my desk as a bug report.

I must also point to the totally haywired Protectorate behavior and say the same thing: it isn't logical for the AI to behave this way; it is a design flaw, and many users would simply call it a bug. I could say it wasn't a bug all day long, but I'd be in there coding a fix for it, just as sure as death and taxes.

[roguebolo]

As far as the Protectorate issue goes, I've had no luck whatsover duplicating it, although I've only tried it in midgame. I just talked with a friend on the phone last night and he had no luck either.

In the example I gave before, the AI actually was outmatched by the garrison. Also, I've mentioned before that one of my complaints with the load game behavior is that it does not allow me to be the defender in a castle assault.

In a castle assault, the defender has the advantage. So it is to the AI's advantage to taunt me until I attack it. That's not a bad strategy. It's actually a far worse strategy for it to maintain a siege with an inferior force, as it attempts to do without the load game reassessment.

In retrospect, in all of my testing, the only time I've ever seen the AI maintain a siege or perform a castle assault despite successive load games is when it seriously outmatches the garrison. However, I was not the besieged party in any of these instances.

I don't think any of the above behavior is a flaw. If I were to point out some serious flaws, they would include things like how easy it was to bribe your way to victory in previous patches/releases. However, that has been fixed in the latest patch.

[Old Celt]

I've seen the Protectorate bug in action myself, and seen the test results in graphic detail posted by others. I think that's the worst one yet as it can totally unbalance the game as the AI creates whacky Protectorate arrangements willy nilly as it reassesses after loads. I don't know why you can't duplicate results RB, but our purpose here is to analyze demonstrated, reproducible results. Until you give me a test sequence to reproduce your results, I can make no sensible comments about your data.

I would like to know if others here support my conclusion that the reassessment process is performing illogically? Specifically, when the AI has the means and time to execute a capture of a city, it will do so when no loading of game interferes, but deliberately choose not to capture the city ASAP when a load game happens.

[roguebolo]

I can send you the save games in question. Since they are midgame saves, I obviously can't describe each and every move from the start of the game in order to duplicate the situation. But I can let you try to establish a protectorate yourself from my save position. It won't work. And that is duplicatable.

I originally encountered the Protectorate exploit because I was bound and determined to have Gaul submit to Protectorate status after laying siege to their last remaining territory in Celtiberia, so that I wouldn't have to worry about having to keep it garrisoned. They would under no conditions yield to my demands. So I went online to see if anyone had any advice about Protectorates. That's when I encountered the exploit; the person described it as working every single time, without failure, so I figured I'd just do it the quick and easy way. After several tries, I decided it just would not work.

One of the developers had also posted in that forum (I wish they'd do that more), and described a process that was somewhat longer and more arduous. I followed his advice, and a few turns later they finally agreed to a Protectorate for about 3-4,000 Florins.

I had the exact same results with Spain in Lusitania a few turns later.

I have a close friend who's also an avid RTW player, and I asked him to try it as well, in his game. He experienced the same results.

The exploit seems to work well near periods of extrema, in the absence of threats or alliances.

However, I HAVE observed an AI faction submitting to Protectorate status to another AI faction, when it did not seem reasonable. Specifically, in the same game Germany is a Protectorate of Brittania -- yet Germany is still strong, with a number of territories. Although this might seem illogical, it certainly doesn't work in my favor. It creates a situation in which they function almost as a single faction -- their alliance and military access and trade agreements give them the combined strength of a very large faction, which seems to be what people are saying they would like to confront later in the game.

As the first respondent, I will state that I agree with you -- but only partially. My agreement is restricted specifically to rebel territories, in which the AI will illogically abandon the territory for no gain. I think this is an oversight in the game design because in general the rebels seem to be treated as "just another faction".

[Pode]

Blasted work and school are keeping me from being able to do this myself, but here's a test I'd like to see. RB has advanced the hypothesis (if I understood him correctly) that most of the AI flakiness we have observed after loads settles out as you approach midgame, especially with the player being active. However, this is tough to test on other machines since being active produces a unique campaign situation and so we don't have a controlled test. I'd like to see someone post a savegame file where we can all download it easily, one from a ways into a campaign. (I'd like to volunteer RB for this since he somehow seems to not have the bu . . fea. . . issue, and I'd like to dig into that a bit. However, anyone's game will do, so long as everyone is working from the same game file). Run the standard player-passive tests from that mid-game point, 20 turns w/o loading, followed by 20 turns loading every turn, and compare AI province conquests. 20 turns loading at different frequencies would be interesting too, and if we coordinated beforehand who would run what frequency test it wouldn't be massively time consuming for any one of us to do. Thoughts?

[roguebolo]

I think it's a very good idea, and I'm sure I'm going to get the response that people just don't have enough time, but I think multiple people should upload save games so that we also have tests that eliminate other factors. For instance, my tendency to create a huge number of alliances could affect the way that my games are behaving. In general, I'm finding that a large database of save games is allowing me to test different theories, and to challenge them in situations that are contrary.

At the very least, if I'm going to volunteer, I would like to volunteer the most enigmatic of the situations I've encountered. Specifically, this is the Turn 12 and Turn 14 scenario. Both are very close to the period of extrema, which means they should exhibit at least SOME of the AI behavior exhibited by the sanitized 20-turn test. However, turn 12 exhibits it in the purest fashion -- straight lines across the board under territorial rankings with nothing but save/loads and "End Turn". Turn 14 ends up the exact same way as when I was really playing, with a number of territorial acquisitions. The only difference is that I made three alliances in between the two turns. Those are the ones I would like to submit, because they are the ones that I understand the least. They are the reason for some of the theories that I've promoted here.

If you just want to see a save game where the AI alternately relieves and reinstates sieges, I could provide that too. It does give some information, but I don't think it's quite as useful, nor as enigmatic. You're basically going to come to the same conclusion I did -- you gotta kill 'em, whether you do it outside your castle walls or a few miles away.

One thing that would be very useful is the ability to turn OFF fog of war in mid-campaign. Do any modders out there offer this capability?

[*edit*] Actually, in retrospect, I might be able to hack it in the save game file. But I'd prefer to avoid this extra work if someone can just point me to a mod solution.

[*edit*] Actually, heh, now that I think about it even more, it might be possible to change the load game behavior by hacking the save game files. If "state" information is stored as a numerical value, then changing this "state" information could change the way in which the AI moves after a load game...

[Pode]

toggle_fow in the romeshell window works, although when I loaded your turn 19 game you emailed me I had to toggle it, load and toggle it again before it finally took and began truly toggling. Maybe it gets borked by loading too?

[Bhruic]

I think it's a very good idea, and I'm sure I'm going to get the response that people just don't have enough time, but I think multiple people should upload save games so that we also have tests that eliminate other factors. For instance, my tendency to create a huge number of alliances could affect the way that my games are behaving. In general, I'm finding that a large database of save games is allowing me to test different theories, and to challenge them in situations that are contrary.

It may have some utility, but I'm not sure how useful it would be overall. A fair amount of a game's understanding comes from playing the turns to get there. Starting from a set point in would mean that you may have missed a great deal of the give-and-take that goes on. For example, let's say on Siciliy, that Carthage takes the Greek city, but then loses it to the Scipii. If I saw a game after that point, I'd have no idea that Carthage took the city (and fought the Greeks). That could taint the results.

One thing that would be very useful is the ability to turn OFF fog of war in mid-campaign. Do any modders out there offer this capability?

Hit ~
type "toggle_fow"
(type "toggle_fow" again to turn it back on)

Bh

[therother]

The LM has webspace available to host files. PM me and I can arrange for the file to be uploaded.

On the issue of this thread, please look through your previous posts and remove anything that is not directly related to the investigation of this issue. That means discussion of patches, CA, Activision, bugs and so on. This thread was intended to be clean of such discussions, and it is our intention that it will be. One way or the other.

[Kraxis]

Rouge, while the harassment might be better against you, it is only better because your are a much better commander than the AI. You can outsmart it pretty much every time. But since other AI factions fight auto-calc that is not likely to be a good strategy against them.

Result is that the AI does not expand but gains something of a better chance at getting a draw with you. I would rather that it lost its assault on me and gained other cities so it wouldn't be worn down too fast. A war with Dacia as a two province state is no fun when we talk about 40 turns into the game. True that could happen in a no save/load game but at least the Dacians have had the possiblity of expanding correctly but have gotten beaten at it.

And I wouldn't say that harassment is effective. It only gives me more time to bring in reinforcements if my garrison is very small or weak, and if it is strong it means that I will most certainly not suffer much damage to my economy.
I have been half-beaten enough times in sallies for me to believe that a sustained siege is better than a run-around. And it isn't always possible to win a sally. If you sit with 2 Peasants, 3 Militia Hoplites and a unit of Peltasts there isn't much you can do against a large army consisting of archers and/or horse archers plus a bit of other troops.
In such a case a broken siege is very bad for the AI as it will result in it never gaining a relatively weakly defended city.