So How has the AI improved ??

[Didz]

I'm certain that the tactical AI in STW is better in that respect and that the same test would have played out differently. I may post some results if I find the time to test that theory.

Thats my recollection too.

I can recall that the AI in STW was very good at identifying beneficial terrain and pretty difficult to prize off it once it had established itself. Likewise the matching of units in close combat was also pretty effective, much more so than in MTW2.

However, I wonder how much of this is down to the sheer complexity of MTW2 combat as opposed to STW. STW after all had compartively few units types and all armies had the same whereas MTW2 has much more variety to cope with. Like wise I wonder how many of the current problems are due to the gradual introduction of more and more 'do something' triggers to the mix, which overrides the AI to force units to respond to specific situations. The one thing which is definately possible in MTW2 which was never the case in STW is the ability to 'kite' computer controlled units into suicidal attacks. In STW the AI simply stuck its nose in the air and refused to be suckered but in MTW2 the 'taking excessive missile casualties' trigger alone can be used to 'kite' specific individual units into traps by triggering a foolish attack move.

Random factors would certainly explain a lot but I shudder to think that's purely random.

By random I didn't mean totally random, but rather a random selection from a pre-determined set of actions the programmer/designer considered appropriate under those conditions.

So, for example if a unit is hit by missile fire and takes an excessive amount of casualties there is a pretty good chance that the 'do something' code will kick in and override its current action with an order to 'attack the missile unit'. That seems to be an almost standard response for all except missile units with ammo.

However, sometimes the attack of the first unit with trigger a more general advance, which suggests that there is a secodnary 'do something' trigger that says something like 'if the unit next to you attacks, then you attack'. However, this is not consistent, sometimes it happens sometimes it doesn't suggesting that it is only one of at least two random actions available when that 'do something' trigger is activated.

I suspect that over the course of the series more and more of these triggers have been incorporated into the code in an attempt to combat specific complaints about the performance of the AI. After all the easiest way to deal with complaints about a 'passive AI' is to code enforced actions into the battle enegine that make units do something.

However, the problem is that because they are triggered by specific events they do not take into account the wider tactical situation and so not only can they be explioted by human players but they frequently produce 'dumb' results.