Org Mobile Site
Thread: German magazine review
According to another review, it seems the reviewers are trying build 47 of the game and here is Jason's response which is very good news.
Originally Posted by :
Ok guys to be fair to those with concerns……………..
I will give you a slight insight into what we have done with the current AI. In previous titles AI's focus was target acquisition and movement, they would choose appropriate targets and move toward them. M2TW’s AI system adds a preference for maintaining formation.
From a developers point of view a balance has to be found between perceived intelligence and actual intelligence. For example a lone infantry unit guarding a village outnumbered by horse archers may withdraw to the plaza and hold its ground. It will continue to stand there and not move even though its being shot. This is actually intelligent because better to be shot in its plaza than run after horse archers in the open. However the lack of movement was perceived dumb or worse broken. To address this particular example a little movement back and forth was added to give the impression of thought.
As far as I know all you veterans out there should know that the way to beat battle AI in the past is to use a few units to draw off many AI units. You then stack the units that weren’t drawn away, route them and then move on the units now chasing your “bait”. Movement equals perceived intelligence so previously staying as a group was secondary to chasing a target that you knew you could kill.
It would have been very easy and safe to leave the AI in this state, however we took the risk to do what no previous title has done with battle AI. Once all battle mechanics were finalized Iain, Artem and myself worked like crazy to employ logic many multiplayer’s would know and appreciate. For human players it’s all about getting more men to the engagement first and maintaining a formation with the rest of the army. The players that don’t keep their units together loose, those that do keep them in formation win.
When we first introduced the new logic the AI became very cautious, players could not draw any units away from the main army but the army stopped and assessed its next move too slowly. This was then sped up but caused it to digress into not considering army formation any longer. We kept refining this until a good balance was found. Once this was achieved all related exploits had to be addressed. The last of which was that when the AI group moved toward its primary target you could keep charging lone cavalry units into the army’s rear and it wouldn’t respond at all. Unfortunately this last fix generated another exploit that made it into build 52 which is Gold. If you interact with the AI it does fine but if you don’t it will move to charge distance and wait for you to make a move, indefinitely.
This was fixed a few days later with many other fixes that will be available for the first update that as far as I know will be available on release.
I know for many what us developers say maybe seen as lip service so my best advice is listen to Epistolary Richard from the .ORG. We have flown him to our studio for 10 days as a community representative here to help us grasp how we can best support modding. He played build 52 today and while doing custom battle tests found the AI defect in question. I then asked him to try using the build with the update fixes installed, as far as I know he is yet to win a battle.
Anyway I picked him up at the airport at 6:30am today and his head hit the table with fatigue by 2:00pm, so we carried him to his hotel where I am assuming he is sleeping like a baby. Anyway I will ask him if he would like to respond to this thread tomorrow if he finds his way to the studio ;) (man should have given him breadcrumbs or pebbles hey it's Australia at most he will be an hour late drunk wearing shorts, singlet and thongs).
What you will love and ER is yet to see, is that when the AI has more missile strength than you it will ensure that its non-skirmish units all skirmish as a battle group so that it can continue to shoot you to pieces. For those that know TW battle AI you know that this change is major, previously when you lost the shootout you could just charge and the AI would oblige and charge back not using its missile superiority. Anyway tomorrow I will set up a custom battle between a Mongol hit and run army and a slow moving infantry heavy European army, ER can play it and I will ask if he can give you an accurate assessment of where AI is at.
So to conclude build 47 was still in very basic overly defensive form, 48-50 smoothed it out, 51 & 52 fixed exploits and introduced a silly one that you wont notice unless you go answer the phone come back and realize “hey, what’s it waiting for?”. The first update fixes this and smoothes out the movement even further. The battle AI has so much good stuff in it and more importantly it will continue to evolve. Already we are designing shootout phase logic with cavalry skirmishing, and better use of elevation and vegetation. This will continue indefinately untill we have a battle AI system we can say is the best out there.
Man this turned into a long post………… please excuse any lack of clarity its getting late and my Wife will kick my ass soon.
Jason
Ok guys to be fair to those with concerns……………..
I will give you a slight insight into what we have done with the current AI. In previous titles AI's focus was target acquisition and movement, they would choose appropriate targets and move toward them. M2TW’s AI system adds a preference for maintaining formation.
From a developers point of view a balance has to be found between perceived intelligence and actual intelligence. For example a lone infantry unit guarding a village outnumbered by horse archers may withdraw to the plaza and hold its ground. It will continue to stand there and not move even though its being shot. This is actually intelligent because better to be shot in its plaza than run after horse archers in the open. However the lack of movement was perceived dumb or worse broken. To address this particular example a little movement back and forth was added to give the impression of thought.
As far as I know all you veterans out there should know that the way to beat battle AI in the past is to use a few units to draw off many AI units. You then stack the units that weren’t drawn away, route them and then move on the units now chasing your “bait”. Movement equals perceived intelligence so previously staying as a group was secondary to chasing a target that you knew you could kill.
It would have been very easy and safe to leave the AI in this state, however we took the risk to do what no previous title has done with battle AI. Once all battle mechanics were finalized Iain, Artem and myself worked like crazy to employ logic many multiplayer’s would know and appreciate. For human players it’s all about getting more men to the engagement first and maintaining a formation with the rest of the army. The players that don’t keep their units together loose, those that do keep them in formation win.
When we first introduced the new logic the AI became very cautious, players could not draw any units away from the main army but the army stopped and assessed its next move too slowly. This was then sped up but caused it to digress into not considering army formation any longer. We kept refining this until a good balance was found. Once this was achieved all related exploits had to be addressed. The last of which was that when the AI group moved toward its primary target you could keep charging lone cavalry units into the army’s rear and it wouldn’t respond at all. Unfortunately this last fix generated another exploit that made it into build 52 which is Gold. If you interact with the AI it does fine but if you don’t it will move to charge distance and wait for you to make a move, indefinitely.
This was fixed a few days later with many other fixes that will be available for the first update that as far as I know will be available on release.
I know for many what us developers say maybe seen as lip service so my best advice is listen to Epistolary Richard from the .ORG. We have flown him to our studio for 10 days as a community representative here to help us grasp how we can best support modding. He played build 52 today and while doing custom battle tests found the AI defect in question. I then asked him to try using the build with the update fixes installed, as far as I know he is yet to win a battle.
Anyway I picked him up at the airport at 6:30am today and his head hit the table with fatigue by 2:00pm, so we carried him to his hotel where I am assuming he is sleeping like a baby. Anyway I will ask him if he would like to respond to this thread tomorrow if he finds his way to the studio ;) (man should have given him breadcrumbs or pebbles hey it's Australia at most he will be an hour late drunk wearing shorts, singlet and thongs).
What you will love and ER is yet to see, is that when the AI has more missile strength than you it will ensure that its non-skirmish units all skirmish as a battle group so that it can continue to shoot you to pieces. For those that know TW battle AI you know that this change is major, previously when you lost the shootout you could just charge and the AI would oblige and charge back not using its missile superiority. Anyway tomorrow I will set up a custom battle between a Mongol hit and run army and a slow moving infantry heavy European army, ER can play it and I will ask if he can give you an accurate assessment of where AI is at.
So to conclude build 47 was still in very basic overly defensive form, 48-50 smoothed it out, 51 & 52 fixed exploits and introduced a silly one that you wont notice unless you go answer the phone come back and realize “hey, what’s it waiting for?”. The first update fixes this and smoothes out the movement even further. The battle AI has so much good stuff in it and more importantly it will continue to evolve. Already we are designing shootout phase logic with cavalry skirmishing, and better use of elevation and vegetation. This will continue indefinately untill we have a battle AI system we can say is the best out there.
Man this turned into a long post………… please excuse any lack of clarity its getting late and my Wife will kick my ass soon.
Jason
I'm wondering what build the demo is. As the AI in it is shite.
It stands in front of your archers getting shot, it runs into a wall of pikes, and all sorts of these RTW things.
I learned not to trust CA when they came with BI (around the time I joined .com), much stories but the game was shite imo.
It sounds promising, but no more then sounds.
It stands in front of your archers getting shot, it runs into a wall of pikes, and all sorts of these RTW things.
I learned not to trust CA when they came with BI (around the time I joined .com), much stories but the game was shite imo.
It sounds promising, but no more then sounds.
The demo AI was probably finalised two weeks before release so it 47 or 48 but that's just a guess.
Originally Posted by Stig:
I'm wondering what build the demo is. As the AI in it is shite.
It stands in front of your archers getting shot, it runs into a wall of pikes, and all sorts of these RTW things.
I learned not to trust CA when they came with BI (around the time I joined .com), much stories but the game was shite imo.
It sounds promising, but no more then sounds.
The demo was a scripted game, not run entirely by AI.I'm wondering what build the demo is. As the AI in it is shite.
It stands in front of your archers getting shot, it runs into a wall of pikes, and all sorts of these RTW things.
I learned not to trust CA when they came with BI (around the time I joined .com), much stories but the game was shite imo.
It sounds promising, but no more then sounds.
Charging frontally into spears were partly to demonstrate that it is no longer possible to do so and still win (one of the flaw of old RTW engine was to have cav jumping over spears).
It also allows the average player to feel good and not be overwhelmed in first experience with the game. Everyone loves to win, and it is particularly true for newbies :)
Originally Posted by :
The demo was a scripted game, not run entirely by AI.
not when you turn the scripts off.The demo was a scripted game, not run entirely by AI.
Originally Posted by TB666:
According to another review, it seems the reviewers are trying build 47 of the game and here is Jason's response which is very good news.
Thanks for posting that very interesting response from Palamedes. I would have missed it.According to another review, it seems the reviewers are trying build 47 of the game and here is Jason's response which is very good news.
The individual target acqusition system worked well in STW because the RPS was strong and the maps were small. It worked less well in MTW with the slightly weaker RPS, but the addition of cav flanking AI was a nice improvement. In RTW, the RPS was further weakened to the point where the AI breaking the army's formation to target individual units wasn't sufficiently compensated by that individual targetting; especially when it exposed the flanks of phalanx units. This weakening of the RPS is probably inevitable as the battle engine moves toward more of a physics model for melee weapons which 3D allows.
I think this addition of another level of AI where army formation is taken into consideration when entering into melee is an important step. I'm glad to see that CA has taken on the challenge, and that they are putting considerable effort into addressing possible exploits of the new AI system. Hopefully, the AI army will maintain formation when entering into melee, and for loosing matchups along the line, will put those units into guard mode so that they loose more slowly.
One thing I'd really like to see is the men using their shields to protect themselves from projectiles instead of the shield protection always being tied to the direction the unit is facing. For instance, if arrows are coming in from the right, the men should shift the shield to protect their right side eventhough they continue to face forward in the battleline.
Originally Posted by Puzz3D:
One thing I'd really like to see is the men using their shields to protect themselves from projectiles instead of the shield protection always being tied to the direction the unit is facing. For instance, if arrows are coming in from the right, the men should shift the shield to protect their right side even though they continue to face forward in the battleline.
I definitely would like to see this as well, but it seems like it would be a ***** to code correctly. What if the unit was already engaged in melee combat when it was fired upon? Would the men keep their shields facing their current enemy, and just let the arrows strike them? I'm no programmer, so I have no idea how that would work. One thing I'd really like to see is the men using their shields to protect themselves from projectiles instead of the shield protection always being tied to the direction the unit is facing. For instance, if arrows are coming in from the right, the men should shift the shield to protect their right side even though they continue to face forward in the battleline.
I especially like the idea of the AI setting its units to Guard mode, so as to reduce their lossess via attrition. (Plus, that ought to be somewhat easier to code, wouldn't it?)
Originally Posted by Martok:
I definitely would like to see this as well, but it seems like it would be a ***** to code correctly. What if the unit was already engaged in melee combat when it was fired upon? Would the men keep their shields facing their current enemy, and just let the arrows strike them? I'm no programmer, so I have no idea how that would work.
I meant if the infantry unit is otherwise unengaged and not taking fire. Right now in RTW/BI you can send an HA to the flank and shoot into the rightmost unit on the line and that unit will stand there facing front. If the unit has a shield they hold the shield to the front instead of protecting themselves with it from the HA's arrows which are coming in from their right side. I definitely would like to see this as well, but it seems like it would be a ***** to code correctly. What if the unit was already engaged in melee combat when it was fired upon? Would the men keep their shields facing their current enemy, and just let the arrows strike them? I'm no programmer, so I have no idea how that would work.
Originally Posted by Martok:
I especially like the idea of the AI setting its units to Guard mode, so as to reduce their lossess via attrition. (Plus, that ought to be somewhat easier to code, wouldn't it?)
This is easy because the AI can see the enemy's combat stats. All it has to do is compare its unit to the enemy unit. It already does that when it targets a unit for melee in STW and MTW. If the AI unit is weaker, it moves to make a flank attack. If the AI unit is stronger it, makes a frontal attack. I'm assuming from Palamede's statement that the new AI doesn't make individual targetting matchups when it advances a whole battleline, but keeps its line so the individual matchups are going to be however the units in the battleline happen to matchup when they close into melee with the enemy battleline.I especially like the idea of the AI setting its units to Guard mode, so as to reduce their lossess via attrition. (Plus, that ought to be somewhat easier to code, wouldn't it?)
the Stig, is it just me or are you a complete pessimist? Palamedes has just made perhaps the greatest ever post by CA in regards to the ai and your repsonse is very downbeat. I've tried the ai unscripted modded custom battles. I've been the victim of coordinated ai hammer and anvil tactics, the ai using cavalry properly, thinkng well(eg holding back extra units to commit to weak spots). And you say the ai in the demo is shite? its a damn bit better than the RTw ai, and with this further info from CA i am very, very optimistic about the battlefield ai of M2TW.
Originally Posted by Puzz3D:
I meant if the infantry unit is otherwise unengaged and not taking fire. Right now in RTW/BI you can send an HA to the flank and shoot into the rightmost unit on the line and that unit will stand there facing front. If the unit has a shield they hold the shield to the front instead of protecting themselves with it from the HA's arrows which are coming in from their right side.
Ah, I see. Yeah, that was a problem in MTW/VI as well. It would be nice if units would shift their shields when under fire (as long as they weren't actively engaged, anyway). I meant if the infantry unit is otherwise unengaged and not taking fire. Right now in RTW/BI you can send an HA to the flank and shoot into the rightmost unit on the line and that unit will stand there facing front. If the unit has a shield they hold the shield to the front instead of protecting themselves with it from the HA's arrows which are coming in from their right side.
Originally Posted by Puzz3D:
This is easy because the AI can see the enemy's combat stats. All it has to do is compare its unit to the enemy unit. It already does that when it targets a unit for melee in STW and MTW. If the AI unit is weaker, it moves to make a flank attack. If the AI unit is stronger it, makes a frontal attack. I'm assuming from Palamede's statement that the new AI doesn't make individual targetting matchups when it advances a whole battleline, but keeps its line so the individual matchups are going to be however the units in the battleline happen to matchup when they close into melee with the enemy battleline.
But wouldn't that actually make it MORE difficult to program, since the AI must now balance between keeping its men in formation and looking after the individual units comprising the main battle line? Or is looking at specific unit-vs-unit matchups during battle simple enough that knowing when to activate a unit's Guard Mode would be considered a computational "afterthought", regardless of the AI's need to look at the larger tactical picture? (Again, I'm no programmer, so I beg your pardon if these questions are a bit ridiculous to you.)This is easy because the AI can see the enemy's combat stats. All it has to do is compare its unit to the enemy unit. It already does that when it targets a unit for melee in STW and MTW. If the AI unit is weaker, it moves to make a flank attack. If the AI unit is stronger it, makes a frontal attack. I'm assuming from Palamede's statement that the new AI doesn't make individual targetting matchups when it advances a whole battleline, but keeps its line so the individual matchups are going to be however the units in the battleline happen to matchup when they close into melee with the enemy battleline.
Originally Posted by :
the Stig, is it just me or are you a complete pessimist?
No m8, I don't deny the AI isn't better, but as said on .com it could have been better, for all sorts of reasons I'm not going to tell again. I can tell you that I had a pm exchange with someone from CA and he shared me some knowledge about the AI, what I heard from that isn't good.the Stig, is it just me or are you a complete pessimist?
Originally Posted by Stig:
No m8, I don't deny the AI isn't better, but as said on .com it could have been better, for all sorts of reasons I'm not going to tell again. I can tell you that I had a pm exchange with someone from CA and he shared me some knowledge about the AI, what I heard from that isn't good.
No m8, I don't deny the AI isn't better, but as said on .com it could have been better, for all sorts of reasons I'm not going to tell again. I can tell you that I had a pm exchange with someone from CA and he shared me some knowledge about the AI, what I heard from that isn't good.
Ooooh..the secret CA Insider has the real low down and Palemedes just posted to stroke everyone, huh?
For all we know this guy could be mail clerk yanking your chain.Let's wait to see what Epistolery Bob has to say as he was at CA - using his rreal identity I might add - and actually played the Gold code AND the fix code.
Barkhorn.
Thread Ratings provided by
Thread Ratings (Lite) -
vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2025 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2025 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2025 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Single Sign On provided by vBSSO