The stupid AI and the map

[Strike For The South]

Ive been doing some thinking lately and was wonsering if the map would have anything to do with the inept AI (talking campagin desicons) in MTW the map was set in RTW its sorta freebased and IMO one of the reasons the AI failed was becuase of this What do yall think

[Puzz3D]

I think the AI is slow to react and it forgets stuff. It improperly assesses the strength of the human's armies because it bases that on the auto-resolve odds which are skewed in favor of the AI. It doesn't seem to understand that a good general should stay with a large army rather than be used as a scout. There also might be too much randomization in its decision making.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Deleted.

[Azi Tohak]

The AI on the map is not great, but the load-save bug is the biggest single problem. Keeps opposing empires from expanding, which means yours can just gobble up ground while your foe just sits there.

Azi

[Kekvit Irae]

Do NOT post anything related to politics here (unless, of course, it's about the Senate in the game)

[Garvanko]

I think the AI is slow to react and it forgets stuff. It improperly assesses the strength of the human's armies because it bases that on the auto-resolve odds which are skewed in favor of the AI. .

Then if thats the case, why have the option of different levels of difficulty on both the campaign and battle maps?

IMO, the AI simply attacks with its strongest troops first. A shock tactic.

[ShellShock]

Even without the load/save bug, I think the RTW map makes the AI's job ten times harder compared to MTW and STW. There are so many more variables at play, that it must make it very difficult for the AI to find its best move.

Hopefully BI will finally fix the load/save bug, and we'll get a better idea of how good or bad the campaign AI is.

[Puzz3D]

Then if thats the case, why have the option of different levels of difficulty on both the campaign and battle maps?

The reasoning CA gives for using campaign difficulty to auto-resolve battles is in the FAQ, and I quote it here.

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Q. Why is Campaign Difficulty used for auto-resolved battles? It doesn't make sense. Let me explain: If we have a player that is good strategist and poor tactician (former Civilization player?), he could play Very Hard campaign and Easy battles. But then, it would force him to not auto-resolve any battle in the game, because if auto-resolved, they would lead to terrible losses due to Very Hard Campaign difficulty, making it micromanagement nightmare (battling every single rebel out there). Wouldn't it made more sense to have Battle Difficulty used for auto-resolved battles, since if battles are made easy, then auto-resolving them should be easy. If battles are hard, then auto-resolving should be hard. Anyway, it would be great if this got changed in patch or expansion, or least added a switch to give players a choice what type of difficulty is used when autoresolving battles.

A. Using campaign difficulty for auto-resolve does make sense if you consider that auto-resolve is part of the campaign game, not the battle engine. The original purpose of the campaign game in all TW titles was to generate battles for the player to fight - the fact that the campaign games also turned out to be good games in their own right is a bonus! Therefore, auto-resolve uses campaign difficulty because the whole idea of a battle is abstracted and fought out quickly *as part of a campaign*.

Auto-resolve is included because some battles are not going to be all that interesting - hunting down a bunch of rebellious peasants is not always what you want to do, for example. Battles like this are an inevitable consequence of the open-ended campaign system, because if lots of different battles are possible, some will be less interesting than others.

Your example of a very hard campaign and easy battles is a good one, though, but not for the reasons you give. This would be a superb way for your notional Civilization player to come to grips with the way that TW games work. He’s challenged on the kind of game he knows, and has an easier ride while learning battlefield command skills.
This also explains why auto-resolve never does quite as well as a human player - you always have the chance to influence a battle in your favour by committing troops when they will do the most good, making sure terrain is used, suckering the enemy into fighting in the wrong place, and so forth. Auto-resolve has none of this acquired human finesse; it’s there as a shortcut for play.

[Yukon Cornelius]

"Using campaign difficulty for auto-resolve does make sense if you consider that auto-resolve is part of the campaign game, not the battle engine."

I hadn't read that entry in the FAQ. Interesting.

The programmers let their programming show through. They construct the battle engine as a separate unit from the campaign game and try to keep such things as difficulty settings separate. To the designers, auto-calculated battles are considered part of the campaign and thus completely unrelated to the battle engine.

However, from the perspective of an end user who knows nothing about the game's code base and only cares about how it plays, it doesn't necessarily make sense for battle difficulty not to apply in auto-calculated battles. The player is more inclined to view battle, auto-calculated or not, as one thing: battle. So, from that point of view, the player expects battle difficulty to apply to, as the name implies, battle (and thus auto-calculated battles as well as manual ones).

Ultimately, part of the game doesn't work the way many players intuitively think it should. However, the designers think it makes more sense for campaign difficulty to affect auto-resolved battles based on the way they structured the code. In my opinion (and presumably the opinions of most players), features like this should be made intuitive for the player, not the designer. After all, the player is the target audience, not the designer (in the case of commercially developed games, anyway).



It took me about eight times as long to write this as it should have. I think that's my cue to get some sleep.

[Papewaio]

I have used autoresolve in the past for an entire game to get to grips with the strategic side when going from one TW title to another as the strat side makes the biggest changes. As the battles are relatively easy as they don't really change as much as the campaign side.

The original purpose of the campaign game in all TW titles was to generate battles for the player to fight - the fact that the campaign games also turned out to be good games in their own right is a bonus!

If they actually listened to fans who want a MP campaign game they might actually have figured out that the RTS side of TW is not as important to the long term strat players as the campaign side.

MP fails in my opinion because the battles do not have a campaign context. They are once off and have no impact apart from the actual game. In which case there are many RTS out there such as Dawn of War which can be more engaging. Particulary as the amount of fantasy units has increased to the point that fantasty RTS games are not that different anymore.

Campaigns are the key to why people play TW, it is the bit that keeps SP engaging. Which if you consider the ratio of SP to MP kind of clearly indicates the import of campaigns.

[Puzz3D]

MP fails in my opinion because the battles do not have a campaign context.

I played chess for 40 years, and there is no campaign context. I played Total War multiplayer for 4 years, and there is no campaign context. Changing the battles into RTS is just what I don't want to see, but you are right that the battles are so bad right now that there is no reason to play the battles in the campaign and there is no reason to play RTW multiplayer. Just as Total War battles don't top standard RTS games, Total War campaigns don't top standard strategy games like Civilization.