How's that Passive AI doing?

**Slicendice** · 12-08-2007, 11:51

I stopped playing M2TW awhile ago because of the passive AI. I am wondering if it has been fixed?

If not has it been fixed in Kingdoms? How about a mod?

I love the game but I don't get that thrill of knowing my enemies can crush me if I'm not careful. I've played enough to know the computer is an idiot and despite having overwhelming forces isn't organized to come after me in a purposeful way. And sending troops in to mop up the rebels that remain after I take his undefended cities is booooring.

Anyway--what say ye?

**Shahed** · 12-08-2007, 12:21

It is alive & thriving in Kingdoms, and most other mods as well.
Although the best efforts to kill it are in mods with the best results, not in vanilla Kingdoms.
Some of these mods have reduced passive AI greatly.

Originally Posted by Irishmafia2020

I finally was able to sit down and play the Darth Ages last night, and my first impressions are quite positive. I was only able to play for an hour, but I faced my first battle as France (my first time as France, I usually play Danes/Abassids/Venitians for the unit rosters) and I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the battle. To start off, the a.i. sallyed against my seige at Bruges, and the battle proved to be a lengthy affair. I found that I was not assured of winning through sheer force of numbers and that the a.i. actually flanked me on both sides of my line while their cavalry unit attempted to rear charge my spearmen. the battle turned into a number of smaller skirmishes as I counterflanked their units by having my archers charge the outer edge of the battle. Ultimately, the battle was decided when I killed the enemy general, and their center of Flemish Pikemen broke and fled. By the end of the battle all of my spear militia, Merc Crossbows, and Peasent archers were dead, and the only units that remained capable of further offensive action were three Sergeant Spearmen units. The army that I prepared for an easy three province blitz to begin the game instead lays shattered by a pyhric victory in only their first battle. That battle a.i. definately seems promising, and I will comment more on the campaign a.i. as my game progresses. If you (Naimad, averros) update the game with the new name and resource files from TLR, I will update my game this weekend. You have made me a fan after my first battle, and Gentlemen (I assume) I offer you my sincerest applause all around...

I have'nt tried this mod yet but it sounds interesting so far. This is an evolution of the Darth mod, incorporating The Long Road mod (both excellent mods by themselves). See this thread for details on Darth Ages: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...121944&page=17

**econ21** · 12-08-2007, 12:25

I am not sure how Kingdoms is, but have a good feel for the current core M2TW game. Often passive AI is taken to refer to behaviour on the battlemap, although I don't think you are primarily referring to that.

On the campaign map, the AI is still rather passive. It will not reliably take settlements you leave abandoned - often walking past them for tens of turns. It will often garrison settlements with a single unit. And it will tend to meander round the strategic map - not doing what I think it should, which is form up a killer stack (preferably stacks) and march right at one of your settlements. (The Civ AI does that and it is crude but effective.)

As for AI passivity in the battlemap, the worst version of passive AI was before the 1.1 patch. I gave up an English campaign because the attacking AI would come on with a fantastic army of heavy infantry and stand in front of my longbows. And just die.

It was a game breaker, so I stopped playing M2TW until 1.1.

That was largely fixed with the first patch. There are circumstances in which the AI will sit passively in front of your missiles. But generally, if you have missile superiority - even if it is defending - it will attack.

What is still not completely fixed, IMO, is AI passivity during sally battles. I fought a battle where I attacked to relieve a castle under siege. The AI was lined up in front of the gate and stayed there, as I fired on it from the flank. It sent single units against me piecemeal, but they were cut down. It was pretty sad.

**Shahed** · 12-08-2007, 12:57

I wanted to post on this subject for a few days now. Strat map AI is better, naval invasions, taking rebel settlements, proper garrisons. Battle map AI is better.

All AI aspects are better, but it's not good enough IMO.

I just did a battle the other day in the Britannia campaign and Baron's Alliance AI came at me with a full stack of quality troops. I expected it to attack but it did'nt. Deployed in the middle of the valley facing uphill and just stood there doing nothing at all. I eliminated 50% of the army with arrows alone and then smashed the rest. VH/VH Wales.

I still see stacks of trebs walking around. 10 catapults garrison, ridiculous. I'm really annoyed with this, as much as I hate to be annoyed (UGH!).

The way I see it, the reality is the passive AI is still not fixed. I consider it fixed when I don't see it anymore.

The Darth Mod improves strat AI and battle AI. It is not a perfect mod and has errors and bugs. However you can see many multiple stacks of quality composition in Darth Mod. Usually the AI will use all stacks available to overwhelm you. In battle, there are some bugs, BUT the AI is freaking marvellous in comparion to vanilla. Flanks all the time, uses archers before melee (when at advantage), I've even see an all cavalry army, something which I've never seen the AI do in vanilla.

The biggest problem I found with Darth Mod is also one it's greatest strengths. Far improved movement speeds. No more sprinting across the map, higher heat & fatigue impact. While this makes the game much more realistic, it also means battles can literally take hours. Kill times are slower, and units now take longer to kill. Again this is great but the problem is that it takes a long time to play a decisive battle.

The battles feel much more like MTW: VI or STW: MI, but slower still. It gives you enough time to actually think. The improved batle AI means that you actually DO have to think.

I think Darth Ages looks a lot better than Darth Mod, with The Long Road expanded map, and lots of other features. I have yet to play it but I think it will be better than the Darth Mod.

Screenshots from Darth Ages 0.6:

Screenshot of overwhelming Crusader attack on a Turk amry: