Experiment to see how hard game is...

[Jambo]

All TW games are easy. The only way to lose a TW game is if the objective is to lose. You see, TW games are unique in that it's actually harder to lose a game than to win.

I now have my game modded through scripts to give the AI money and city garrisons upon being besieged by the human, and even now I still win 95% of my battles; the ones I lose tend to be from the odd unexpected naval skirmish.

The problem is incurable. One can endeavour to make the campaign as hard as you can through modding, but ultimately you still win every tactical battle you play. In effect all you're doing is giving yourself twice the number of dough-ball AI stacks to fight. Remember the Hojo "Stack of DOom" from Shogun? The only way to nullify a human player is to bore it into submission through sheer weight of AI numbers and the enormity of time it then takes to complete each turn. ;)

I remember when CA removed the AI's ability to outspend its money in Shogun. With the Hojo hoarde removed the challenge disappeared immediately. I actually preferred Shogun with the cheating horde, and so did many others once they realised their complaints of "AI cheating" resulted in an easy game.

On the battlefield there's only ever one winner. The reason for this is the formula for winning on the battlefield is so simple. Shoot missiles as the AI approaches, engage infantry, then once engaged use cavalry to flank and initiate the chain rout. This could be made more difficult to achieve if the AI acted in a similar way. Unfortunately, it doesn't. It likes to charge its cavalry first!

So, make mental note everybody - don't buy a TW game for a challenge. Buy it for immersion (sometimes), graphics and ... um... fun...

Edit: It would seem that CA's way of introducing the challenge for Med II revolves around the greatly reduced timescale to complete the campaign. 225 turns instead of 400+ in Rome.

[John_Longarrow]

Jambo,

You could also mod the game so that all AI factions are Mongol hordes. They seem to know how to shoot first and charge later!

[Jambo]

John,

I think one of the best ways to make the harder might be to use a script that spawns a Generals unit for the AI every 5 turns or so as long as they're underneath a certain amount cf to their city number. The AI using captains to lead big armies does a lot of harm.

[Didz]

So, make mental note everybody - don't buy a TW game for a challenge. Buy it for immersion (sometimes), graphics and ... um... fun...

Whilst I don't deny that what you say is true, do you really think that its inevitable and can't be fixed?

[Jambo]

Whilst I don't deny that what you say is true, do you really think that its inevitable and can't be fixed?

I'd love to say no Didz, but I really believe the current format of TW games makes them impossible to make difficult per sé. They're just too complex with too many variables to enable competent AI to be designed. Maybe under the "Risk" style of campaign map, as seen in Shogun and Med I, the campaign element could have been made more difficult?

However, the Battle AI hasn't improved one iota from the days of Shogun and Med I so it's difficult to believe it's going to improve drastically in subsequent titles as the maps, units, etc, get more complicated in design and function.... What I'm alluding to here with respect to Med II is that the complexity of siege warfare has far surpassed the ability to program competent AI to deal with it.

Where did they go wrong? Well, for starters I believe the more advanced campaign map was a bad move. While there's no doubting that it adds to immersion and realism, I'd argue it's far too complex for the AI. I'd have much preferred a more traditional and simplified boardgame style of map layout; one which has less freedom and the AI can utilise choke points, river crossings, high ground, etc to its full potential. Secondly, the idea of captains... urgh. Why o' why captains? They're the bane of any AI army. All armies should automatically contain a general unit thereby eliminating this particular AI weakness in a oner.

[John_Longarrow]

Jambo,

I do think the AI can be improved to the point that it will challenge any player. Half of the problem is that they don't have any way to push updates for the AI scripts on a regular basis.

If you take a couple hundred players who like to mod and let them regularly update the campaign AI to counter existing player tactics and strategies, you will eventually get an AI that can be a challenge. I'm not sure how long it would take to do so, but I'm pretty confident in the abilities of the players to come up with continual tweaks to make the game better.

One behavior that I personally think needs to be changed is the predictability of the AI. I personally think there should be multiple different AI scripts to reflect different leadership styles. One for an isolationist AI, one for an expansive AI, etc. By having varied responses to a given player generated situation you will find out that the player has a hard time coming up with a "Best solution", especially if two scripts behave radically different to the same player actions.

Think of how a player would react to an AI that follows AskThePizzaGuy's blitzing strategy. That could result in just enough of a stalemate for the player to allow several other AI factions to really get ahead.

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

Why everyone is complaining about the AI.Just don't play this game if you don't like it,go and play Bomberman and Packman.

[Didz]

@Jambo

Well I would like to say your wrong but I have yet to play any strategy game other than chess and backgammon where the AI managed to provide a challenge without using the standard 'mass unit production' and 'universal knowledge' cheats.

I do think that the AI could be improved though, particularly at the strategic level where it does make a lot of really dumb mistakes. Battlefield AI is much more of a problem as its difficult to isolate the poor how much of the poor performance is down to the strategic AI and how much just to poor tactical handling.

In my current 0.5 years per turn game, I've noticed that the biggest problem the AI has is in army composition. With all its cities and castles fully developed one would have expected it to have a full choice of troops. But instead of using this to generate balanced armies that are engineered to maximise its performance against mine, it has developed a fetish for Venetian and Hungarian armies heavy in pavise crossbowmen, trebuchet's and hussars. The result is usually a turkey shoot for my horse archers against the hussars followed by a mounted raid to wipe out their exposed trebuchets and then a mass charge to overrun their crossbows.

However, Egypt did manage to pull off one surprise victory last night when an army heavy in Royal Marmalukes destroy my fully stacked Turkish army on its way to beseige Gaza. That army still had far too many trebuchets wasting units slots, but the combination of heavy infantry and elite mounted archers was enough to wear down my battleline and eventually cause it to rout. Lots of flanking by the marmalukes too, which is something I've not noticed since RTW.

Certainly, good army composition (e.g. Armies designed to counter the strengths of their opponent) by the strategic AI would make a big difference to battlefield performance as would a clear strategic goal that avoided wandering army syndrome.

[Kadagar_AV]

Why everyone is complaining about the AI.Just don't play this game if you don't like it,go and play Bomberman and Packman.

Very constructive...

If we wouldnt like the game we wouldnt be here, what we are trying to do is make a good game better.

Basicly, the biggest frustration the game has is how good it COULD be if it functioned correctly compared to the current state of the game.

If the games functions all worked correctly this would be an outstanding game of the century, but in the current state you will have to be very forgiving to enjoy the game.