custom battles: impressions, AI, morale, fatigue

[Cheetah]

So, what are your impressions about custom battles?

1, Is there any improvement in the AI behaviour compared to RTW AI?

2, What are the effects of increasing difficulty on fatigue and morale?

3, Last but not least: can you beat the AI on VH?

[Lusted]

1, Is there any improvement in the AI behaviour compared to RTW AI?

Hell yes, its much better.

2, What are the effects of increasing difficulty on fatigue and morale?

They have more influence on the battle, and affect both the player and ai equally.

3, Last but not least: can you beat the AI on VH?

Not yet, first time i tried i was throuoghly beaten by the Scots.

[Jambo]

Regarding the difficulty levels, if the AI and human are both receiving the same changes to morale and fatigue, how does this make the battles any harder??

As far as I'm aware a human is better at maintaining their units' fatigue levels and protecting morale (protecting flanks, and flanking themselves)...

[maestro]

I guess we'll soon find out

[Lusted]

Heh, you try managing units who rout faster when surrounded, and who tire faster when moving. I think the ai has the edge over the player there.

[Jambo]

I'd disagree with you there. :)

The ability to surround units just depends on who's got the bigger army. Maybe on full 20 vs 20 units the AI would have an advantage because of being able to move all 20 units simultaneously....?

Fatigue on the otherhand was the AI's achilles heel in Rome, particularly during sieges where the AI would run its men to the plaza and would never rest exhausted troops. All one had to do was defend the plaza and AI units would regularly rout on contact. I knew a lot of players who turned fatigue off for this very reason.

Still, it would lovely to be proved wrong.

[Lusted]

Oh i had exactly the same number of units as the ai, it just bloody outsmarted me by rushing me, pushing a hole through my line and then surronding some of my troops. The ai also deals with fatique much better now.

[Wishazu]

This is all good news! Though unfortunately I will not be able to experience it fully myself untill Christmas day :( Unless of course I happen to win the .Org avatar competition :)

Even worse though, I work at GAME in the UK and will have to spend tomorrow probably handing over dozens of copies of this game to all of you :(

[AussieGiant]

This is all good news! Though unfortunately I will not be able to experience it fully myself untill Christmas day :( Unless of course I happen to win the .Org avatar competition :)

Even worse though, I work at GAME in the UK and will have to spend tomorrow probably handing over dozens of copies of this game to all of you :(

Why do you have to wait until Xmas Wishazu?

[Wishazu]

Cos ive been out of work since may and cant afford to buy the game, so someone else is going to buy me it for a xmas pressie.

[RTKBarrett]

Ill make sure i pop down to the Swindon game and rub it in ure face mate lol :D

[AussieGiant]

Cos ive been out of work since may and cant afford to buy the game, so someone else is going to buy me it for a xmas pressie.

Wishazu...now that hurts!! Can't you do a whip round the .or mods or something??!!

[Roy1991]

1, Is there any improvement in the AI behaviour compared to RTW AI?

The AI really is a lot better,

2, What are the effects of increasing difficulty on fatigue and morale?

From what I noticed the main difference is that battles last longer, and that tactics become more important while playing on a higher difficulty setting, because enemy units don't rout so easily.

3, Last but not least: can you beat the AI on VH?

Tried it twice so far, and took 2 bad beatings :(


Some other things I noticed:
-City pathfinding is fixed. Even directing units to go on/off walls goes very smooth.
-Making towers fire only while a unit is close to it was the right thing to do. Because towers have at least 3 arrow slits on every side now, they'd be way too powerful otherwise.
-Cavalry's finally correctly balanced.
-Units now can actually rout while on a wall.
-The AI knows how to properly defend the castles with 2 or 3 layers.

And something I really haden't expected: The performance is better than in RTW

[Puzz3D]

From what I noticed the main difference is that battles last longer, and that tactics become more important while playing on a higher difficulty setting, because enemy units don't rout so easily.

Then it would seem that going to a higher difficulty setting reduces the fatigue rate and increases morale. If that's the case, then the effect of fatigue and morale is being decreased.

[Roy1991]

Then it would seem that going to a higher difficulty setting reduces the fatigue rate and increases morale. If that's the case, then the effect of fatigue and morale is being decreased.

I haven't played a lot yet so I may be wrong, it might just have been like that due to the units I was using.
I'll play some more custom battles later today to try and find out.

[Jambo]

It's funny, the way I imagined it to work would be as follows:

On the easy difficulty level the player has a boost to fatigue and morale, on medium all is even, whilst on hard and very hard the AI gets the boost to fatigue and morale.

I don't see how matching fatigue and morale of the player and AI's units all the way through the difficulty levels makes any sense, particularly if all that's happening is they're getting reduced as it gets harder?!

[Orda Khan]

Hopefully I will get a chance to try out a VH custom battle on the weekend. It will be great news if the AI is now a tough opponent, I hope it is. We will see

......Orda