after going back to rome, i see how bad M2 AI is

[redriver]

Factionheir, in RTW the enemy would seriously outnumber me, but dont have any missles but would still remain stationary. That was the only way I captured Sparta as Thracians. I killed a garrison of 8 or 9 spartans and 5-6 armoured hoplites with only 2 generals, 9 cretan archers, and 3 normal cav

in RTW 1.5 AI doesn't do that anymore.. they always respond to a missile attack with a counter attack.. they stand their ground when on defencive and only charge when ya get too close.. same goes for KOTH.. when the odds are against it the AI will always assume a higher ground from the start.. it will not charge and lose the adantage like ya see in mtw2.

buttomline, so far it sounds like RTW AI is overall better than that of mtw2.. though to be completely fair one has to wait for the final patch and compare mtw2 AI to mtw instead :)

[zaher]

Hi , I noticed something, but not sure if i am right: AI tied to command rank of general too. When you fight vs army with high ranked general, such as mongol generals, you can easy lose in open battle. there is no difference if your army dont have general or have 10 stars general, cause you are commander. Get army with negative morale penalty general , and you will also see difference.
Also, only the cool fights in M2tw are in very early period or vs Mongols or Timurids, if they dont get assassinated before.
Last thing - it is true that campaign difficulty affects all aspects, including battles. I will try H/VH from now. May be i am mistaken, but it may be harder then VH/VH.

[todorp]

I will separate the MTW2 v1.1 engine with the MTW2 vanilla game running on the engine. This separation is very important, because the abilities of the MTW2 engine should be measured by the MTW2 vanilla game plus the best mods.

So far for MTW2 v1.1 we have out the small to mid size mods such as Darth, "Lands to Conquer", UltimateAI and etc. Hosted Mods They significantly improve the game play of the vanilla, but still we still don't have a finished big mod for MTW2 such as RTR Gold or RTR Platinum. The big mods really test the limits of the MTW2 engine. There are a few MTW2 promising big mods in development such as "Mediaeval Auctoriso", "Anno Domini", "Medieval:Total Realism - Age of Ambition" and etc. All the big mods work stopped waiting for the MTW2 v1.2 release.

CA announced that MTW2 v1.2 would fix a long list of errors and game play issues. I can only guess what will be the improvements in the MTW2 v1.2 engine, which is the key. A few weks after v1.2 release we will have the small to mid size mods ported and we will have a big mod a few months latter. Then we can come to this thread with new impressions.

[Callahan9119]

i dont plan on returning to M2 till a rtr or eb type mod is produced, till then i'll enjoy the EB mod....its lovely

[Yun Dog]

i dont plan on returning to M2 till a rtr or eb type mod is produced, till then i'll enjoy the EB mod....its lovely

Me too dude... I have been playing EB solid for the last 3 months, and I am loving it M2 hasnt even got a look in when compared to that sort of quality... finally playing RTW as it should have been.

You cant compare playing these mods to playing vanilla M2TW, if anything RTR and EB give me hope that one day I will be rediscovering M2TW as it should have been. But till then theres plenty of EB to keep this littleblack duck content for a good portion of that waiting.

[sapi]

I might have actually got into eb if it had any support at all for modern computers.

As it is, every time I load it up I just stare at the little pixelated unit and building cards and quit :(

[Jambo]

RTw AI was awful to begin with. By the time Patch 1.5/1.6 rolled around the game had significantly improved however. M2Tw's AI is better from the start (imho), but it's still a bit short of the final RTw patch. Both games suffer from terrible siege AI, particularly when attacking, and the new 3 tier castles certainly don't make life easier for the AI. I can only hope 1.2 delivers in this respect.

[DukeKent]

I play on H for Campaign M2TW (remember all that extra cash RTW threw at the AI on H and VH), and VH for battle AI in M2TW. It appears that M2TW throws extra cash at the AI factions to make the game tougher also on H and VH for campaign AI? But this seams to only translate into larger armies, not better quality armies. The last version of RTW/BI (version 1.6 of BI I believe?) had tougher battles than the current version (1.01) of M2TW for me. Some of this is the poor economics and troop selection of the M2TW campaign engine. Which translates to sub par armies on the battlefield. This is not the whole problem though. As has been mentioned in earlier posts in this thread. The M2TW AI makes worse starting choices for its army position than I remember the AI in RTW doing. I recall having to trick the RTW AI out of its hilltop position much more often than I have to in M2TW. As to tactics, it is much easier to flank and beat all factions except the Mongols ( & maybe the Timurids). The Mongols with a good general actually put up a decent fight. I have always finished the games before the timurids arrive so far. Victory conditions satisfied, and the game got way to easy, so I can't comment on the Timurids AI. I only recall losing one battle to the M2TW AI. After defeating the Mongols in two full stack battles at a river ford as the Turks. A third Mongol stack managed to finish off the remnants of the army that had just beaten the two other Mongol stacks. It was at least a year ago in RTW since I last a battle early in the game as the Carthaginians against an Elite Britons stack? To get a real challenge in the TW series you have to play one of the RTW mods.

I believe that I actually lost a battle or two playing XGM last year?

It is obvious that the suits rushed M2TW out the door for the Christmas buying season last year. We got awesome eye candy with M2TW. My hope is that the 1.2 patch brings the battlefield experience up to at least the same level as the last version of RTW. Most importantly I hope that the tools provided in the latest version of M2TW allow the modders to craft a more challenging, and less arcade playing experience. The arcade game faction balancing, etc, etc is great for the buying masses. It is all about the money first, that is reality. Lets hope the developers with a true love for history and their craft get to finish their checklists on the 1.2 patch.

[zaher]

As to tactics, it is much easier to flank and beat all factions except the Mongols ( & maybe the Timurids). The Mongols with a good general actually put up a decent fight. I have always finished the games before the timurids arrive so far. Victory conditions satisfied, and the game got way to easy, so I can't comment on the Timurids AI. I only recall losing one battle to the M2TW AI. After defeating the Mongols in two full stack battles at a river ford as the Turks. A third Mongol stack managed to finish off the remnants of the army that had just beaten the two other Mongol stacks. It was at least a year ago in RTW since I last a battle early in the game as the Carthaginians against an Elite Britons stack? To get a real challenge in the TW series you have to play one of the RTW mods.

Actually AI on battlefield totally depends on generals rank and traits he have.
Now i am sure. Today i fought as Portugal vs El Cid in Valencia, he got 10 stars too and got good traits , so i got identical army ( 2 jinnetes, 2 spears, 2 javelins),just 1 or 2 units less, and AI defeated me in a way which i rarely can see on MP battles lol. It was real pressing, spears persued my general unit, i got flanked and smashed to pieces. Same was when i first met with mongol or timurids armies with 10 stars generals. Just ridiculous that they move like covards on strategy map, because they really can get half of world if they will move in different directions at same time in 10-15 turns.
So the problem i can see is more like strategic AI is not developing good generals together with puting good armies under their command.

[Slaists]

Actually AI on battlefield totally depends on generals rank and traits he have.
Now i am sure. Today i fought as Portugal vs El Cid in Valencia, he got 10 stars too and got good traits , so i got identical army ( 2 jinnetes, 2 spears, 2 javelins),just 1 or 2 units less, and AI defeated me in a way which i rarely can see on MP battles lol. It was real pressing, spears persued my general unit, i got flanked and smashed to pieces. Same was when i first met with mongol or timurids armies with 10 stars generals. Just ridiculous that they move like covards on strategy map, because they really can get half of world if they will move in different directions at same time in 10-15 turns.
So the problem i can see is more like strategic AI is not developing good generals together with puting good armies under their command.

hmmm. interesting. i have fought el cid several times on the campaign map and always it ended with him being charged by my troops (usually, mercenary spearmen) as he was trying to get his army out through the gates. i guess, i did not give him much room for tactical manouvering.

maybe they (CA) should take him and his gang out of the castle (leave some garrison behind) and let him bring havoc to the countryside.