Was M:TW's AI really better?

[Zharakov]

Why do people keep saying the AI in M:TW is better then the AI of R:TE and S:TW?

[BrutalDictatorship]

Why do people keep saying the AI in M:TW is better then the AI of R:TE and S:TW?

Bush rocks...

"we're gonna track down these cave-dwellars and smoke em outta whatever cave they think they can hide in!!"

you know when your leader says that, he means business...

[sapi]

Bush rocks...

Leave that to the Backroom.....he doesn't

Why do people keep saying the AI in M:TW is better then the AI of R:TE and S:TW?

Because, in the eyes of many people here, it is!

[IliaDN]

So maybe it really was , I think comp was more agressive on the camp. map.

[IrishMike]

Yes, It actually beat me sometimes, and reacted to the situation and sometimes with missle troops it handled itself very well. Also it countroled calv much better.

[Mongoose]

I can't really imagine a worse AI...

[professorspatula]

Yes the MTW AI was better.

The MTW AI could co-ordinate its forces much better and would often spend much of the battle trying to force you to cede the higher ground. It wasn't perfect, but it outshines the RTW AI by a mile. And when it was defending a bridge and it had superior units, damn it would make you frustrated. Always it moved its units out of missile range so you had to come across the bridge, and then, and only then, when you tried to move across the bridge, it would block the way with a tough spearman/pike unit and cause your cavalry to die horribly, all whilst its own missile units relentlessly rained down their arrows on your men stuck on the bridge. Evil. It also seemed better at using missile cavalry. It would deliberately flank your army and make you nervous so that you wanted to break up your defensive wall and pursue them. The poor old RTW AI has less confidence and conviction with missile cavalry and flanking units in particular.

[NimbleNota]

Was M:TW's AI really better?

Yes

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

In men experience Medievil Total War's AI sucks. I've only actually lost the game twice, once was with the Mercians and the other was when I had a chronic attack of girl babies. About a month ago I wasted an entire Mongol Army with Arbelasters and Pronai Alegion. They just stood there and got shot down. Only on Expert have I ever had any problems and that was simply because by battle line routed first. In Rome I have lost Generals and hole armies in about a minute.

Maybe I have the computer-which-changes-all-games.

[bodidley]

RTW's AI has never provided a serious challenge to me. Most of the time the AI just breaks up its formation and attacks in multiple direction in an attempt to exploit your "mere human" ability to only look at and respond to one place at a time. The inevitable result is that you destroy the entire AI army in detail, a few pieces at a time, and then spend most of your time chasing down helplesss routers.

[Red Harvest]

In men experience Medievil Total War's AI sucks. I've only actually lost the game twice, once was with the Mercians and the other was when I had a chronic attack of girl babies. About a month ago I wasted an entire Mongol Army with Arbelasters and Pronai Alegion. They just stood there and got shot down. Only on Expert have I ever had any problems and that was simply because by battle line routed first. In Rome I have lost Generals and hole armies in about a minute.

Maybe I have the computer-which-changes-all-games.

On expert the AI could and did put up a good fight in MTW. They would sweep over my line at times. Facing an army of the same size and same general quality on expert was a tough fight in MTW. On contrast with RTW's VH (very hard) I rarely lost battles. Typically only 1 out of 50 or 100. Often I took the field with half as many men or even a third or fourth and still won. Not only that but most wins were so lopsided as to be entirely unchallenging.

Did MTW's AI do stupid things? Most assuredly. It's siege attacks on certain castle types were terrible. Unfortunately, I can't say that RTW handles things all that much better. It does better on smaller wooden walls but its handling of larger fortifications is not a challenge.

RTW has a massive fundamental flaw in its AI: It tends to rearrange its line at a distance of 50 to 80 yards. This destroys its cohesion. It also likes to charge skirmishers into infantry. It charges its cavalry and the general/captain into pikes. It fails to use skirmisher lines as skirmishers.

The RTW AI seems to be largely ignorant of terrain and elevation. It is child's play to take the high ground away from RTW's AI, even if it is sitting on it at the star.

[Quietus]

Why do people keep saying the AI in M:TW is better then the AI of R:TE and S:TW?

The answer to this is a big, fat NO!! The battles are all the time in MTW. Just create a spearwall and flank.

Cavalry? No problem. Shoot them with archers in front until they come over and kiss the spears (retreat the archers behind the spears). Same battles....

[Shambles]

Well STW has the best ai in my oppinion.
But still isnt as good as a human.

MTW was Quite good, But they did tend to stand in 1 place as you hit em with huge bolders,
and even piled up their people in to one group underneath where the rocs were being aimed at.

RTW ai is pathetic,
You can virtualy stand you archers atop of a hill.
with a poxy single file of spear men to defend them.
Leave the room,
and come back to a Victory.
Just becous the AI decided to march 1/2 way up the hill.
changed its mind.
walked back down,
changed its mind again and walked back up again.

and then just did that over and over.

RTW ai holds no chalange Even from day 1 I could easily beat it,

some say this is becous i played the other games for so long and there fore im better,
But the other 2 games are still chalanging.
So that theory is noncense.

Both MTW and STW ai are much better than RTW.
And STW is slightly better than MTW
atleast IMO.

ShambleS

[caesar44]

there is no AI in RTW , just machine with fixed orders
the machine dos not have an understanding of the strategic or military situations , it just act with its fixed orders
something like that -
human sends its missile units to attack
machine wont response until xxx of its unit is dead
human sends its cavalry to flanks
machine wont response until your cavalry is xxx meters from its units

thats it !

[econ21]

I haven't noticed that big a difference in the battlefield AI. The strategic AI is weaker, I think because the map allows more possibilities and the AI can't cope.

The biggest problem I've seen with RTWs battlefield AI is the tendency for AI phalanx attacks to break up and meander at the last minute. Not sure if there was a MTW counterpart, as I never fought pikes in that game.

I agree with Quietus about MTW SP battles seeming to be mainly about archers and shieldwalls, followed by flanking. Same stuff works in RTW too, although archers and cav are now strangely overpowered IMO.

I was a little despondant about RTWs AI until I tried the RTR mod. I think a lot of the gloom about vanilla RTW is that you don't face very big enemy stacks but a deadening sequence of small stacks that you can over-run. In RTR, a full AI Gaulish army gave my full Roman stack a heck of a fight, over 1000 dead each side. This was partly due to the last minute meandering that dooms phalanxes, but allowed the barbarians to hit weak spots in my static line. And partly due to an admirable AI flanking manoeuvre, nicely supported by repeated cavalry charges. I now realise that RTR has not changed the inferiority of the Gaulish units too much, so the close run thing was entirely due to the AI fighting the battle better than me!

[Franconicus]

In MTW the battles were always like this:
If you defend, find yourself a good hill; if you attack, try to get the enemy off the hill before you attack.
Battles with castles were bad, same with bridges.

In RTW the story goes like this:
Make a big line and engage the enemy. Then flank with your cav and hit the enemy from behind. Battles with bridges are still annoying but attacking villages is much funnier now.

May all this is just due to my own bad skills!

[xemitg]

Well STW has the best ai in my oppinion.
But still isnt as good as a human

STW is a much simpler game then RTW and MTW. It was more of a "rock paper scissors" battle set up with cav, inf, and missile units. It’s because of this that the AI appears superior in that game. In essence STW is like teaching a dog (or the software) to sit while RTW is like trying to teach a dog to do a backwards summersault through a burning hoop while barking the star spangle banner.

[Mongoose]

RTW battles are boring, IMHO, because you start so close to the enemy that you don't have any room to do any actual maneuvering. Just walk forword...charge...*yawn* Every battle is the same.
My point is that the part of he reason the AI never really does anything is because the battle maps are so small.

I wish the Battle maps were not so tiny

[derF]

The AI in MTW is undoubtedly better in many aspects including the following:

- Bridge battles.
- Reaction to missile fire.
- Reaction to movement.
- Defending/Attacking high ground.
- General aggression of attacks.
- Not suicide-charging the generals unit.
- Ambushes.

Need i say more?

[econ21]

I wish the Battle maps were not so tiny

Also, I get the feeling that terrain matters less in RTW than MTW and STW. In the earlier games being on a hill was a massive advantage and worth maneouvring for. In RTW, I confess I don't bother trying to shift the AI from a hill.

However, I also feel less constrained by the map edge in RTW. I seldom notice it. Whether this is just because I don't feel the need to camp in a map corner, I don't know.

[Slaists]

definitely, terrain and fatigue have no apparent effect in RTW whereas these factors were very important in MTW... i am especially uneasy about the dumbed down effect of fatigue... in MTW, units came to crawl exhausted whereas in RTW they still run like gaselles...

in general, the MTW tactical AI was able to pull a trick or two and seemed more organized. nonetheless, i am not sure whether the decisive factor in MTW was not uber generals... i.e., try killing a Kata Prince charging into your troops... practically impossible without concentrated missile fire... in RTW, they still charge. however, in RTW they charge and die...

a whole different issue is the economic/strategy map AI... in MTW, it was hopeless... i used to explore AI faction's there using the "switch-a-faction-cheat". i could leave a healthy empire with several K in the treasury to the AI to control to find it deeply in red with unattended trade routes just a few turns later... hopeless, absolutely hopeless... :) haven't done such a test in RTW though...

[Divine Wind]

I wish the Battle maps were not so tiny

I actually remember a statement from CA saying how much larger the battlefield maps were going to be compared to MTW.

What a load of tosh..

[Mongoose]

Well, they said "take this with a grain of salt because the game is still in development"

But still...