New Developer Blog: AI and Battles

[Ituralde]

http://totalwardev.blogspot.com/

Some major heads-up for all the folks out there complaining about stupid AI, fast kill rates and ridicolous movement rates degenerating the game into a clickfest. The best news I've heard so far regarding Medieval 2: Total War.

Site seems to be down at the moment but hopefully it will be up in a few minutes.

Cheers!

Ituralde

[Stig]

It's down yes, Shogun hopes to get it back online somewhere today

[AussieGiant]

Damnation!! Now I really want to read it

[Wishazu]

well its back up. just scroll down a bit.

Good news then, seeing the ai use a proper tactic :)

I hope they removed the ai behaviour which made it send units under fire to auto attack the units shooting at them, easiest way to break up an ai army in rtw. esp phalanx`s.

[Mount Suribachi]

With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles.

[AussieGiant]

Maybe screwtype and Puzz can shed light on what...

"As a little teaser I must mention unit sizes! For those that have played TW since STW you will know what the magic numbers are and should be really be happy to see them make a return in M2TW."

...means.

[R'as al Ghul]

I must send out a big thank you to all the players that have spent time with me discussing their wants and needs for AI and combat. For the last few months QAOZ has been in contact with a few of the veteran players that have been playing TW games for years.

Now I'm curious. Who might that be?

The bits about speed and battles being more about tactics sound promising.

[R'as al Ghul]

Unit sizes have traditionally been 60 (normal), 80 (large) and 120 (huge).
Rome had smaller units on default and used different steps to large and huge.

I guess that means that a default unit will have 60 soldiers.

[Ironside]

Sounds really, really promising

Maybe screwtype and Puzz can shed light on what...

"As a little teaser I must mention unit sizes! For those that have played TW since STW you will know what the magic numbers are and should be really be happy to see them make a return in M2TW."

...means.

60 men units on normal size. Almost all units had that size (2 had 12 and one had 1 and 2 of those units came in MI).

The cav didn't have a smaller sizes in STW right? Too long since I played it.

[econ21]

I guess that means that a default unit will have 60 soldiers.

Yes, I think you are right. You can see the Portugese and Turkish roster on two of these screenshots:

http://www.g4mers.com/screenshots.as...&type=1&page=5

On normal, it seems you have:

60 - basic infantry
48 - archers + good infantry
32 - cavalry + dismounted cav
16 - general's unit + artillery

The Turks also have a 24 and even a 16 sized infantry unit (the latter maybe naptha?). They lack any 32 sized dismounted cav (their one 32 sized unit does not seem to be dismounted cav whereas the 24 sized one might concievably be).

I can't quite recall how the unit sizes scale up on large, which is my preferred setting.
IIRC, in MTW, you had 100 for basic infantry and 60 for good infantry, cavalry was 40 and I think generals' units did not actually scale up, making them less important in larger scale campaigns.

[Ciaran]

In RTW the higher settings double the unit size for each step, i.e. a unit that has 60 men (officers not included) on default will have 120 on large and 240 on huge. The MTW, and I think the STW system too, are slightly different in their scaling factors. I can´t say I prefer one system over the other, and we´ll see how it´ll turn out in MTW2

[AussieGiant]

Ok, but what does he mean by "Magic numbers".

What do they do? I get the impression it is some type of "balancing" issue, but I really have no idea.

[Soulflame]

Glad to hear about the AI, and it proves that what I experienced at the demo probably wasn't a fluke, but really built into the AI.

Even though I played from Shogun, I'm not sure what he means with the unit sizes and 'magic numbers'. I wasn't really bothered with the changes in unit sizes in Rome.
More important is how hard it is to handle units on the screen, I couldn't play huge and even large sometimes lagged me a bit, so in Rome it's normal for me. But we'll just have to see.

[shifty157]

In STW all types of units had the same number of men (except for yout daimyo).

Well I guess the post is impressive although i have to say that im still very unsure. As far as the AI goes i really wont believe anything until I have the game in my hands and i see it happen. Ill probably play my first game on hardest difficulty and if i am defeated by the computer then ill proceed to laugh out loud and fall in love with the game.

[SpencerH]

It sounds promising but it's still a 'wait and see' for me. Another side of this AI behaviour may be being forced to chase horse archers who wont retreat round and round the map in a futile attempt to catch them.

[shifty157]

Maybe if we're lucky the demo will ship with a limited custom battle feature so we can actually see how well the AI fights without the help of all those historical battle scripts.

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

The ai is improved.

[Zatoichi]

Another good blog - very promising stuff.

"Regarding combat the user must now get more involved, “Ctrl-A’’ double click wont be good enough. It’s back to the days of maintaining lines and issuing orders on the way to battle. Gone are the days of the AI determining what are the best targets and the user having to continually try and drag them out of unwanted combat. With slower combat speeds and greater control, strategy now plays a bigger part in battles."

That just made my day!

[TB666]

M2TW is gonna rock hard.

[Barbarossa82]

Reluctant to get too carried away before playing the actual game, but this is absolutely fantastic news. Now all we need is someone to port RTW to to M2TW engine....or maybe that's the missing RTW 1.7 and 1.8 that sit before Alexander?

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Now all we need is someone to port RTW to to M2TW engine....?

OMG! The hell on earth.

[The Blind Samurai]

yes me likey th ai but lets just see what happens if i charge them forward head on will it be sucdail

[professorspatula]

A developer blog mentioning AI. Remember to take a pinch of salt with you before clicking on the link.

[Jambo]

Bear in mind that a developer's blog is likely to be on the biased side. It's all part of the marketing and they're not exactly going to berate the AI now are they...

Still, at least they're putting their money where their mouth is and being up-front. If the AI doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin when it arrives, then they won't have lived up to their promises.

[Barbarossa82]

I agree caution is needed, but the mere fact that a developer acknowledges that slower and more cohesive combat is a selling feature to be promoted bodes well. They could have slowed down RTW with every patch they brought out but they chose not to. Even if the MTW AI isn't as great as they make it sound at least this time they appear to be aiming at it, rather than writing it off as a niche concern.

[Soulflame]

Bear in mind that a developer's blog is likely to be on the biased side. It's all part of the marketing and they're not exactly going to berate the AI now are they...

Still, at least they're putting their money where their mouth is and being up-front. If the AI doesn't do exactly what it says on the tin when it arrives, then they won't have lived up to their promises.

And they are giving straight examples of situations. It's not a gamble what they mean, they describe in detail a situation (in this case a skirmisher army) where the AI improved. I don't think there is a better way to make clear statements about what's possible.

And like you said, if it isn't in the end game, they'll be branded liars, so chances of it being untrue is very, very small.


I'm still not sure about the 'magic number' units, because like Econ21 pointed out , there are already screenshots that prove that unit sizes won't be one single number. So maybe they changed the ratio's a bit, but that doesn't sound like me as 'magic', but more like 'balancing'. Personally I'd be happier if there was a distinction between unit sizes (like the screenshots prove). Oh well.

[Vlad Tzepes]

"To say I was impressed is an understatement, I think I called the replay “Golly gosh” well to be honest it wasn’t that politically correct but you get the idea."

"Golly gosh"? Vat iz zat? Well if he was impressed, that raises some hope!

And... I might be wrong, but he said something about a... replay? We'll have the option to record battles?

[Nathanael]

Custom battle replays were savable in Rome, weren't they?

The numbers I remember from MTW were 100 for most defensive infantry (spears, pikes) and peasants, 60 for most offensive infantry (swords, axes, polearms, etc) and missile units, 40 for cavalry, 20 for royal cavalry, and 12 for special units like hashishin or naptha throwers. There were obviously a few exceptions (muwahid foot soldiers (an offensive spear unit) and gothic seageants come to mind).

Looking at the Portugeuse units, it looks like the ratios are similar (at a smaller unit size). Respectively, 60, 48, 32, 16, (no special units). Biggest difference is that it looks like the javelin type units are in the large, defensive infantry and peasant category rather than the offensive and missile category. All the 32-men infantry are probably dismounted cavalry (just like foot knights in the first game).

The Turkish units hold up to this theory, with similar unit sizes. Again, there are differences - naffatun are 16 instead of 12, and there's that curious 24-man unit. I doubt they're dismounted anything (as there's no corresponding 24-man cavalry unit). My guess is that they're a new take on hashishin, losing the bows but getting a larger size unit. I imagine they're much like arcani from RTW. It also looks like they have one or two regular javelin units (the guys with their arms up) at the 48-man size like most missile units, and a 32-man size one. I imagine the 32-man unit is dismounted cavalry, and maybe the 60-size javelin unit the Portugeuse have is more of a peasant unit. 48 is probably the standard javelin size.

[Martok]

I agree caution is needed, but the mere fact that a developer acknowledges that slower and more cohesive combat is a selling feature to be promoted bodes well. They could have slowed down RTW with every patch they brought out but they chose not to. Even if the MTW AI isn't as great as they make it sound at least this time they appear to be aiming at it, rather than writing it off as a niche concern.

All good points, Barbarossa. I naturally still have my doubts as to whether the battle speeds have been slowed down enough, but I'm glad they're at least touting slower battles speeds as being a good thing.

As for the AI, we can only wait and hope that it's been vastly improved. It is somewhat encouraging they're actually talking about it, however. It's nice to see them acknowleding its importance to the fans.

And... I might be wrong, but he said something about a... replay? We'll have the option to record battles?

Wow, I totally missed that! I hope that means we can now save our campaign battles like in the original MTW; that would be very happy.

[Dutch_guy]

Wow, I totally missed that! I hope that means we can now save our campaign battles like in the original MTW; that would be very happy.

Same here