The Complete Game

[Didz]

Did you complete any building construction on that turn such as market or port upgrade as this can open new routes?

Couldn't say for sure as I wasn't really monitoring the events in anticipation of this subject becoming an issue.

My normal investment sequence is farms, mines, port, market. So, assuming I had the funds I would have gone onto building a market next. Its possible that completion of the market coincided with the arrival of my diplomat at the Danish Court.

I still find it hard to beleive that Trade Rights have no real impact on trade.

[Yun Dog]

Well personally, I think a 'Get off my land' function would be a sensible solution to this problem, plus the obvious increase in the diplomatic and political penalties imposed for breaching another factions soveriegnty.

The problem with instantly creating a battle scenario is that it would merely increase the level of aggression within the game.

I like the idea of this type of Civ4 diplomacy the addition of defensive pacts would be nice too

but as said the AI doesnt pay heed to consequences now - the excommunication and reputation are suposed to be the mechanisms controlling the AI - it wants to avid excom so it makes peace - the next turn however it declares war again - and them makes peace - it would be the same with getoffmilanddude - it would get off - but then back again the next turn

Also people saying the AI more readily accepts ceasefires when its in a bad way in 1.2 - not in VH anyway - Poland down to 2 provinces, few family members left - war with me the whole game - peace - nah dont think so

One thing I have noticed is the AI is continually switrching beteen citys and castles in it provinces obviously as it goes broke it changes to citys - this also seems flawed to me - switching back and forth - and kills the immersion again - and its rediculous really

I have also noticed the small stacks AI against big rebel stacks

As said the failing strat AI is noticable now because of the change from the risk map - and because of this fact alone - the strat game now needs to become more than it was... and it could be great... it is the great timeless game of medevil warfare.. and it can be made great, and the strategy came be made to be complex and appear devious and many layered, it just needs development within the confines of the progamming.

think about this

instead of citys vs castles - we go back to MTW - each province has a castle - with a surrounding network of small towns like a web throughout the province, when attacking you can choose to scorch the earth and burn the towns (if your try to economically starve the enemy) - eg. poland has good cav, it could have all cav armies roaming the countryside burning towns but never seiging - you would be forced to attack them in the field to stop them. Alternately if your planning of taking the province you wont want to burn the towns but will want to head straight for the castle and seige it - taking the province and the town intact, at this point the enemy could abandon the castle and burn as they retreat.

the towns would be attached by little road networks like an spiders web

then add in some nation specific programmed behaviours

some goal oriented objectives

tweak some of the provinces to give them some differing characters and build lists eg +1 to bowyers built in this province

add the re-emergence and titles

and the hardest of all attempt to progrem some type of scaled priority model for the AI - ie it wants to expand, not be excommunicated, have a good or bad rep depending on what nation it is. It want to make itself stronger by defensive pacts, and a set of scaled factors for declaring war (at this point should the human declare war then its all out war the AI and whatever allies it has against the human) otherwise it should try and avoid war at least with its own religeous group.

looking at that big mass of text posted on the previous page - looks to me like all the necessary parameters are there - the numbers just need tweaking and some will need scaling factors applied

we'd need to look at how those parameters 'fill out' as far as numbers generated during a game - then look at the numbers when the AI does something silly and tweak the numbers

frontline_balance="0.0":: ratio of factions frontline military strength vs the target
military_balance="0.0":: ratio of factions overall military strength vs the target
production_balance="0.0":: ratio of factions overall production strength vs the target

for the AI looking at a human these values need to have a *3 multiplier for the target ratio


strongest_neighbour="false" :: is the target the factions strongest neighbour (if this is true the AI nation should seek alliance with this neighbour)

the more I look at it the more I think its all there - the numbers just arnt working the way they should

[crpcarrot]

at VH difficulty the diplomacy is screwed up cos of the attack human override so dont expect any sort of rational decisions in diplomacy if u r playing on VH

[anders]

someone said the game isnt tactical, because in a battle, anything works anyway. that is pretty much true, but not in all battles, and it always works a bit better when proper tactics are used. also, the mere fact that you can implement tactics, and that they make a differnce to battle outcomes make this a tactical game.

as for making the strategy game work, maybe they should just ditch the whole current strat game and make it anew, I mean if games like EU and Civ. can work why cant TW work out a functioning strat game.

there are things like supply lines and living of the land, working diplomatics that actually bind you and rational AI behaviour that would make the game that much funnier as a wargame and more imersive.

[Didz]

but as said the AI doesnt pay heed to consequences now - the excommunication and reputation are suposed to be the mechanisms controlling the AI - it wants to avid excom so it makes peace - the next turn however it declares war again - and them makes peace - it would be the same with getoffmilanddude - it would get off - but then back again the next turn

Well, it shouldn’t do, and if it does then it needs to be fixed. Ex-coms in particular have a count-down usually of about 7 turns which should prevent the AI re-initiating a conflict immediately. The ‘Get off my land’ option would need something similar if only to allow time for the AI to collect its troops and comply with the demand.

As already stated I think the penalties for non-compliance and breach of diplomatic and Papal demands needs to be reviewed. At present these are too easily ignored both by the AI and the players undermining this entire aspect of the game.

Also people saying the AI more readily accepts ceasefires when its in a bad way in 1.2 - not in VH anyway - Poland down to 2 provinces, few family members left - war with me the whole game - peace - nah dont think so

This is the main reason I stopped playing VH. To be honest I couldn’t see any difference in the tactical game play at all, and the impact upon the strategic game play was to make all the AI controlled factions ‘dumber’, at least in terms of self-preservation and diplomacy.

In normal mode, the AI does ‘usually’ offer ceasefires when it makes sense. I say ‘usually’ because interestingly this behaviour seems to vary from faction to faction. In my Moorish game the English and Papacy seem quite quick to recognise when a ceasefire would be in their best interests and offer it almost immediately. The Sicilian’s on the other hand are reluctant to back down even when their city is about to fall, which might be because they just hate the Moors more, or simply because they haven’t got a resident diplomat in Cordoba.

[Foz]

My experiences on VH have not seen any worsening of the AI's likelihood to offer ceasefires, and in fact quite the opposite: it actually offers them pretty regularly to me. Certainly much more so and more sensibly than it did in 1.1 and earlier. In my one England campaign Scotland had tried to end our war peacefully twice, France declared war and has since asked for a ceasefire, and Spain which has been trying naval landings in Rennes has a cycle of attack->ceasefire->recover->attack going on. Denmark has been dropping stacks on the British Isles, but has not seen the need to call a ceasefire since I don't actually threaten it at all. Not sure what I might be doing to get the AI to behave better like this, but it may be related to local strength (both its and mine), and also the proximity of a diplomacy-capable agent of the given faction. I suspect a bit of both, as the conditions for the AI wanting peace often require 2:1 or higher advantages for the player, and the AI does seem to love to send its diplomats to the far corners of the world too. In the first case, I may be benefiting via my heavily garrisoned settlements, which would bulk up my local forces that are counted for the equation. It certainly wouldn't be the first way that I've found more heavily garrisoning my settlements to benefit the campaign AI - it also has seemed to help stave off the insane aggressiveness of the AI a great deal.

[Lusted]

there are things like supply lines and living of the land, working diplomatics that actually bind you and rational AI behaviour that would make the game that much funnier as a wargame and more imersive.

But that's not really Total War though is it? The series strategy side has always been an abstraction, and i for one hate all the micro management and supply line stuff in the EU series. Yea i'd like to see more depth to the campaign map, but this is Total War, i want lots of wars.