The AI cheats financially in Kingdoms

[Rumpole]

I have been playing as the Chichimecs in America and decided to start by wiping out the Apaches. I played with fog of war off and noticed two strange things:

1. The Apaches conquer rebel villages with almost no losses.

2. True, maintenance for Apache troops is low, but they cost mony to build and income is small. When I wiped out the Apaches after 17 turns, they had over 50,000 florins. Pursuing the same strategy as the Apaches, I had been almost broke after 17 turns.

[Matty]

You don't want a challenging AI?? I would love it if it cheats - it would save me having to give the AI loads of cash each turn

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I have been playing as the Chichimecs in America and decided to start by wiping out the Apaches. I played with fog of war off and noticed two strange things:

2. True, maintenance for Apache troops is low, but they cost mony to build and income is small. When I wiped out the Apaches after 17 turns, they had over 50,000 florins. Pursuing the same strategy as the Apaches, I had been almost broke after 17 turns.

Correct. In the campaign_script you can read that the AI gets extra money because the AI doesn't get any missions with which it can earn some money. The script also adds some extra money for higher difficulty levels to make the game more ah.... yes indeed difficult.

[lars573]

I have been playing as the Chichimecs in America and decided to start by wiping out the Apaches. I played with fog of war off and noticed two strange things:

1. The Apaches conquer rebel villages with almost no losses.

2. True, maintenance for Apache troops is low, but they cost mony to build and income is small. When I wiped out the Apaches after 17 turns, they had over 50,000 florins. Pursuing the same strategy as the Apaches, I had been almost broke after 17 turns.

The AI in every video game out there cheats to one degree or other. I can't see how you'd be surprised the TW AI cheats?

[Moah]

Yes - It's fantastic!

I'm playing the Welsh in britannia and now have built up to 1/4 the map with irish, scots and english remnants controlling 1/4 each. I am totally bankrupt and average around 5th (sometimes 4th if norway having a bad day) militarily with 42-59% of the top military (varies between above 3).

Capturing English cities they make me hardly any money. So it appears the AI cheats, gives them more money to maintain troops and lets teh English build entire stacks of armoured swordsmen and fuedal knights vs my crappy spears, skirmishers and saefwyr.

Fantastic! I'm forced to regularly win with half the army. I have to fight canny, defensively and skirmish. I count every man and count it as a disaster when I lose 1/3rd as many men as the english.

In normal TW I would be swimming in cash and beginning to bulldoze the enemy now. As it is I'm not even winning and live in fear ogf the scvots or irish turning on me.

It seems CA are listening. I, for one, am happy.


p.s. Ok so there's still no chance of me losing really and the Ai still fights like a girl but it seems to be as good as they could make it....

p.p.s. And Teulu Skirmishers are fantastic!

[MStumm]

Same in the Teutonic order campaign. As landlocked Novgorod I am stealing candies from babies to feed my troops, yet Teutons keep sending more and more armies. I am not outnumbered but definitely outclassed by their heavily armored soldiers. I think in the first 20 turns I had more heroic victories than in whole vanilla Grand Campaign. Good thing Mongols are duking it out with Poland.

Also in the campaign script I see that in addition to bonus income factions get a "last stand" bonus of $10000 if they have only a few settlements left, and the "debt bail-out" bonus of $10000 if they go in the red, finally they all are supposed to turn on the player if he is close to winning.

[Schyzzo]

I have been playing as the Chichimecs in America and decided to start by wiping out the Apaches. I played with fog of war off and noticed two strange things:

1. The Apaches conquer rebel villages with almost no losses.

2. True, maintenance for Apache troops is low, but they cost mony to build and income is small. When I wiped out the Apaches after 17 turns, they had over 50,000 florins. Pursuing the same strategy as the Apaches, I had been almost broke after 17 turns.

Well, me and my wife are playing with maya and apaches... I can say that she never gets under 40.000!! Even when I need some 10.000 to stop those damn english!!!!!! And when I talk 10.000, I talk 3 or 4 times!!!!
lol!

[Per Ole]

Good thing Mongols are duking it out with Poland.

Goddamnit are the goddamn annoying mongols in kingdoms as well?!! ugh, that just ruined my day :(

[MStumm]

No the Mongols are just a regular faction now.

[NagatsukaShumi]

Correct. In the campaign_script you can read that the AI gets extra money because the AI doesn't get any missions with which it can earn some money. The script also adds some extra money for higher difficulty levels to make the game more ah.... yes indeed difficult.

You are indeed correct, the AI is programmed to gain money should they hit the red, which is clearly making them more of a challenge to just stomp on, I also belive its available to get them to declare war should you grow to a certain extent.

[nameless]

You can still cripple the AI though. THe Lithuanians have been smashed down to two villages and they can no longer retaliate.

[DVX BELLORVM]

You are indeed correct, the AI is programmed to gain money should they hit the red, which is clearly making them more of a challenge to just stomp on,

That makes economic warfare pretty much useless. But then again provides more challenge.

Is it known how much money the AI gets, and under what circumstances ?

[alpaca]

That makes economic warfare pretty much useless. But then again provides more challenge.

Is it known how much money the AI gets, and under what circumstances ?

Yeah, you can check the campaign_scripts for the different campaigns.
It differs from campaign to campaign and faction to faction.
If the AI has less than 0, they get 2000 and if they have less than -5000 they get another 6000, in addition to that they get an increase for their king's purse depending on your difficulty setting.

In crusades for example, the KOJ gets +500 on easy (while the player would get 1000 extra playing it), +2000 on medium (no play bonus), +3500 on hard and +5500 on vh.
In addition the Turks get a 15k extra per turn in that campaign when not played by a human.

[DVX BELLORVM]

Yeah, you can check the campaign_scripts for the different campaigns.

I don't have the Kingdoms yet
But I've checked campaign_script for the vanilla, and didn't find anything. Does that mean that in vanilla AI doesn't receive financial bonuses, or have I missed something?

[Rumpole]

In the American campaign script, each faction is given a "King's Purse" that varies from 500 to 6500 per turn. In addition, the Tarascans, Chichimecans, and Aztecs get an extra 10000 florins per turn.

The effect is that AI factions can build and support all the forces that they can recruit. That explains why they have multiple stacks per city sitting around.

It will be interesting to see whether any human can win with a faction other then the Apaches, given this misguided code in campaign_script.

[Rumpole]

I checked campaign_script for the original MTW2 and found no special code to give money to AI factions. This is a new feature(bug) in Kingdoms, and it wrecks the economic foundation of the game, since you are watching your finances and the AI effectively has infinite cash. I cannot imagine how this made it through beta testing.

[MStumm]

I checked campaign_script for the original MTW2 and found no special code to give money to AI factions. This is a new feature(bug) in Kingdoms, and it wrecks the economic foundation of the game, since you are watching your finances and the AI effectively has infinite cash. I cannot imagine how this made it through beta testing.

This is actually a feature. I believe in the original campaign the AI (with a few exceptions) was almost always broke, so you were fighting mostly militias. Now at least they can afford the brawn to fight back. Too bad they still lack the brains. In the Teutonic campaign all factions have lots of pretty large armies, much larger than in the vanilla. Since they have armies they can actually attack me now, and with expensive units too. Like Teutonic armored spearmen which are about 700 each.

[alpaca]

Yeah it's a poor way to make the game challenging but it's better than the ease in which you can beat vanilla I guess (if it actually makes the game considerably harder). I'd like to see some reports about how this stuff plays.

[TB666]

This is actually a feature. I believe in the original campaign the AI (with a few exceptions) was almost always broke, so you were fighting mostly militias.

Indeed, the same problem in RTW I remember.
That and that the AI had no population to build troops with.
Hence why the most challenging mods have money scripts for the AI since it obviously can't handle the economy part.
Personally I don't care if the AI cheats, as long as it's reasonable and makes the game challenging.
Giving them alot of money seems reasonable to me.

[Red Spot]

Yeah it's a poor way to make the game challenging but it's better than the ease in which you can beat vanilla I guess (if it actually makes the game considerably harder). I'd like to see some reports about how this stuff plays.

dont know if you just want to know about kingdoms, but I have some pretty longterm games in a modded vanilla game of Rome wich basicly changes their unit-roster a bit so better units are by default more costly and their economie always in the 10.000s of credits they become a heck of a lot harder on the "campaign" map, ofcourse they still remain the tactics-less idiot in battle ..

they seem to swarm around with clusters of armies and really lay siege to a settlement and even react to you attacking them
(I once launched an assault on Carthage with 3 full stacks of post-marian troops, ofcourse was victorious in taking the settlement, but failed to notice their 3 full stacks of men laying around the country-side now being redirected to their new enemy ..
so in the end I took a settlement with 3 armies and lost one to 3 armies, later on whiped Carthage's 3 army behind on an open battlefield ..)

comparing like vanilla Rome and modded Rome in a Julii campaign means basicly that you dont get swarmed by 1/2 to 2/3 full Gaul/German/Briton armies, but you get swarmed by 2full stack armies of Gaul/German/Briton men.
Not to forget they gain the ability to react/counterattack cause they actually have a spare-army.
differnce in gameplay is also that you actually get more decent goals, dont need to go for that large_village as that large_village now in a modded game has grown to large_city, something worth taking...

generally it just plays better if the AI isnt "also" having to deal with a bad economie to wich they can not adapt, gving of an impression they can actually compeat with you, of even beter make you somewhat feel like the underdog


G

[Didz]

The AI in every video game out there cheats to one degree or other. I can't see how you'd be surprised the TW AI cheats?

Personally, I'd rather the AI was actually programmed to play a challenging game rather than given unjustifiable advantages. So, I'm a bit dissapointed that this was the best that CA could come up with to give players more of a challenge.

In my opinion it should have been an option at least, not a mandatory feature.

[Noir]

I agree with Didz and the dissapointment is all the more so since the TW AI has always cheated in pretty much the same way since day immemorial.

Not that i was expecting Kingdoms to fix this in any case though.

[Lusted]

It will be interesting to see whether any human can win with a faction other then the Apaches, given this misguided code in campaign_script.

Yup, i've won with New Spain, though i did lose 39 battles in the process.

I checked campaign_script for the original MTW2 and found no special code to give money to AI factions. This is a new feature(bug) in Kingdoms, and it wrecks the economic foundation of the game, since you are watching your finances and the AI effectively has infinite cash. I cannot imagine how this made it through beta testing.

It's not a bug, it's designed that way so to provide more of a challenge on harder difficulty settings.

[Jambo]

If a game provides a challenge to succeed, it retains its interest. Ideally, if the AI can be programmed to provide this challenge without a dearth of cheats, this is clearly the best option. Civ 4 BtS has gone a long way to accomplishing this. If however, this is a problem, as it has been throughout TW games, then I'd always take a cheating AI that provides a challenge over a walk in the park. If they go on to differentiate this through difficulty levels then everyone wins.

Kingdoms is far better in terms of campaign AI and battle AI than patch 1.2/1.3 vanilla. As a result, it goes a long way to restoring some of the challenge without the cheats. Having said that, it is by no means perfect and it's still a far cry away from the level of AI in Civ 4 BtS (not surprising given that Civ 4 is a turn based strategy game).

[NagatsukaShumi]

Everyone who seems a bit disappointed with this way of making the AI more difficult baffles me somewhat. CA were NEVER going to revolutionise the way the MTWII AI worked, its an expansion pack, they don't do that, the work into making a new AI is solely going into the next two next gen games.

CA could have released the new campaigns with no AI bonuses, then we'd be complaining that it was far too easy. I am glad they get bonuses and get to cheat to provide a longer campaign.

[lars573]

Personally, I'd rather the AI was actually programmed to play a challenging game rather than given unjustifiable advantages. So, I'm a bit dissapointed that this was the best that CA could come up with to give players more of a challenge.

In my opinion it should have been an option at least, not a mandatory feature.

That's not possible. It might be possible if PC's came equipped with a specific AI CPU.

[Mad Mac]

This explains a lot, especially with the Americas campaign. I just might have to step back from VH to Hard, and see if that can get me past my little problem of not being able to even attack the Tarascans with the Aztecs, because they literally have this non-step stream of units coming out of their cities towards mine. I'm swatting them down as they come, but I can't build up enough momentum to win the 10 consecutive battles just to siege a city. I suppose that's how Very Hard should, be though.

[alpaca]

If a game provides a challenge to succeed, it retains its interest. Ideally, if the AI can be programmed to provide this challenge without a dearth of cheats, this is clearly the best option. Civ 4 BtS has gone a long way to accomplishing this. If however, this is a problem, as it has been throughout TW games, then I'd always take a cheating AI that provides a challenge over a walk in the park. If they go on to differentiate this through difficulty levels then everyone wins.

Kingdoms is far better in terms of campaign AI and battle AI than patch 1.2/1.3 vanilla. As a result, it goes a long way to restoring some of the challenge without the cheats. Having said that, it is by no means perfect and it's still a far cry away from the level of AI in Civ 4 BtS (not surprising given that Civ 4 is a turn based strategy game).

Sorry for going OT but BtS does exactly the same on the difficulty settings where it becomes challenging (for argument's sake let's say Prince and above, although it depends on the player's skill level), AI builds cheaper, researches faster, has less maintenance and pays a lot less for upgrading units.
The AI is actually so easily exploitable by gifting them, giving them tributes and paying them to attack other people that I can win about 2/3 of the games with a decent starting position on Emperor difficulty. Most through domination, admittedly, where it's very hard for the AI to keep even (on the tactical level I mean - a lot of times I have K:D ratios of 3:1 and more) but still.

All in all it's as I said on a thread on civfanatics: The AI is very much shorthanded in the brains department so consider handicaps as a way to partially make up for the unfair advantage you have over the AI.

[econ21]

All in all it's as I said on a thread on civfanatics: The AI is very much shorthanded in the brains department so consider handicaps as a way to partially make up for the unfair advantage you have over the AI.

This is true. I think Civ has always had one of the best AIs in the strategy genre, but it also has cheated outrageously at higher difficulty levels. The cheating is what makes it challenging in a way that most TW games have not been.

I think vanilla TW could cheat more in favour of the AI - a money top up is the obvious route; mods like EB use it successfully. Over in the Throne Room, we've been making sure AI factions have 50k or so in the bank in our M2TW HRE PBM. This, together with limits on player expansion, has meant that that AI has gone from fielding virtually no significant armies to fielding forces that can match our own (and indeed sometime out-tech us).

However, Civ does have some better AI behaviour than TW (as well as some limitations). Having played Civ4 recently, the two obvious ones to me are:
(a) In Civ, when an AI goes to war, it usually does so very seriously - it may mass several scarey stacks and slowly march halfway across the world to get at you. It can be quite frightening to see those looming out of the fog of war reading to take down a border town (and keep going). By contrast, TW still tends to go for penny packets, not just ruthlessly compiling a stack of doom and not going for the jugular, being content to just snatch the odd settlement.
(b) The Civ diplomatic programming is great fun - dealing with the varied personalities of the different factions (Ghandhi vs Shaka etc) makes that side of the game rather rewarding. In TW, AI diplomatic behaviour is often hard to make sense out of and almost never pulls off the trick of feeling "human" (e.g. you don't feel you have annoyed a faction or that they are your friends, etc).

[Jambo]

As a long term modder of campaign scripts in Med II, I'm rather perplexed at the code entries for the CA-inserted AI money scripts in Kingdoms...

	monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType england
		and IsFactionAIControlled
		and Treasury < -5000
		
			add_money england 10000

During our testing of money scripts in vanilla we discovered that there had to be a comma after the faction's name but before the money award. Well, looking at the various new money scripts in the Britannia campaign, they look like they're not going to work! Based on my knowledge the one above should be:

	monitor_event FactionTurnStart FactionType england
		and IsFactionAIControlled
		and Treasury < -5000
		
			add_money england, 10000

Anyone confirm to the contrary?