Something's wrong: campaign AI and dodgy battles in Rise of the Samurai

[frogbeastegg]

I managed to raise a five thousand or so koku seasonal revenue by occupying two foreign trading posts (Chinese Texts and Incense), secure the allegiance of Shinmen of Tamba and of Ochi of Wakasa (why is the Clan destroyed? should it not be presented simply as Clan subdued? especially when the Clan was favoring you out of its own free will),

I had a mission to secure the allegiance of a clan which had 100%. my family's (Minamoto) influence. On successfully acquiring the province with my 'sushi I was informed that the mission had failed because I conquered the province by force. The 'sushi's mission is called 'request allegiance', so surely that's the right way to handle that mission? I can't find any other way to do it in the encyclopaedia. There may be a few minor bugs in the mission system, as I had another mission which gave me 2 years to kill a specific enemy general. It failed on the very next turn, claiming to be out of time. The target was still alive so it didn't fail for that reason.

Oh, by the by, do not think all those you shoulds were directed towards you in particular, I was writing for the generic topic reader.

I was attempting to be funny. If the AI were capable of asking I'd deny paying someone else to stab it in the back.

And I just don't understand, is there any historical precedent for these type of maneuvers?

In the Gempei war the Minamoto landed a force on one of the islands, I think it was Awaji, and fought a long, messy battle which lead to the Taira presence on the island being destroyed. Shortly after that, the Taira were destroyed completely during a naval battle which took place in the narrow inland sea between Shikoku and Honshu. I don't remember the specifics, it was a while ago that I read about it. There were a few others at the end of the Sengoku period, such as Hideyoshi's invasion of Kyushu. All the same, it looks like a rare strategy rather than a common one.

[Nowake]

I had a mission to secure the allegiance of a clan which had 100%. my family's (Minamoto) influence. On successfully acquiring the province with my 'sushi I was informed that the mission had failed because I conquered the province by force. The 'sushi's mission is called 'request allegiance', so surely that's the right way to handle that mission? I can't find any other way to do it in the encyclopaedia. There may be a few minor bugs in the mission system, as I had another mission which gave me 2 years to kill a specific enemy general. It failed on the very next turn, claiming to be out of time. The target was still alive so it didn't fail for that reason.

As I've not experienced it directly, my best bet would be a bug as well. The way gaining allegiance worked for me until now was through the peaceful transfer of the province while the entire army of the ruling clan was away (it dissappeared completely upon my taking over of their homeland, did not linger as rebels or anything of the sort). Now, while I was attempting to subdue Kagawa in Awa, their army being headquartered in their fortress, I had a few "succesful" attempts, i.e. attempts in which I was being told I may not secure the allegiance of the entire garisson, thus going ahead with the attempt would entail me declaring war (formally) first -- and the Declare war panel was appearing. This was happening while the clan was ruling only that one province, as when holding multiple regions it seems declaring war is a sine qua non for securing the allegiance of your target province anyway so that would not have surprised me. I've declined every time, as the clan was allied with three clans, the clan of my relatives among them, thus I could not risk it.

I was attempting to be funny.

I know. And you were. Though me writing it this dryly doesn't look like I appreciated the jest sigh. Anyway, I typed the caveat because I was unsure if your humour was not also attempting to transmit that I should not try to teach you to suck eggs -- I believe that's the british expression which may cover it? I get them mixed up sometimes /shrug. Plus I was told quite a few times now I can sound condescending in cases when it was so not my intention, thus currently I am probably overcompensating all over the place. But humour is not wasted on me!

In the Gempei war the Minamoto landed a force on one of the islands, I think it was Awaji, and fought a long, messy battle which lead to the Taira presence on the island being destroyed. Shortly after that, the Taira were destroyed completely during a naval battle which took place in the narrow inland sea between Shikoku and Honshu. I don't remember the specifics, it was a while ago that I read about it. There were a few others at the end of the Sengoku period, such as Hideyoshi's invasion of Kyushu. All the same, it looks like a rare strategy rather than a common one.

Oh, was not aware of the first trivia bit. But yeah, still, see, the maneuver was part of an on-going war with both sides having vast strategic interests across Japan. And Hideyoshi's invasion of Kyushu was again a campaign against a last remaining stronghold. Yet what the AI is doing seems to me more as if Uesugi Kenshin would send an expedition against Chosokabe in Shikoku sometime between the fourth and fifth battles of Kawanakajima -- we're in the presence of a total lack of arguments for it I think.

I'd rather have the AI genuinely fight me for those foreign trade posts. Least I believe the Kyushu-based clans should be scripted to declare war for their ownership. As the situation stands right now, it feels a tad like exploiting a mechanic. Yes, the AI will occupy them, but with only a token fleet of trade ships which more often than not gets chased away by wakos, opening the opportunity for you. The revenue gained is so huge it is really a game changer, it's inadmissible the AI lets you get away with it, don't you think?

[econ21]

I'd rather have the AI genuinely fight me for those foreign trade posts. Least I believe the Kyushu-based clans should be scripted to declare war for their ownership. As the situation stands right now, it feels a tad like exploiting a mechanic.

Yes, that's one of the few criticisms I have of the STW2 AI. I feel, after all the patches, the ETW AI did a better job of challenging you for trade posts. In STW2, it reminds me a little of MTW, where you could have a unmolested pan-European sea trade network that put your income far above that of the landlocked AI.

[andrewt]

I think a part of the problem may have been that 28MB file which was missing from my original install. Since steam recovered that file the game has been better. I'm not ready to declare a total fix or a continuing issue yet; I haven't had time to play the game for several days so I have 6-7 hours experience without the 28MB file and only 2 with. Should finally have time to play more this afternoon.


Gasp! All of those broken agreements and new wars have nothing to do with me or the 5,000 koku I happened to accidentally leave on the table while visiting! Clan frog is entirely honourable, honest and reliable. We would never consider meddling in others' diplomacy! I resent the accusation!

Yes, the odd little touch to third party diplomacy can yield nice results. It takes some delicacy though; it's easy to accidentally get a clan wiped out instead of weakened, and then there's a whole new problem to deal with. Fun!

I wonder if they made the game using Empire's stupid AI and then changed it midway through development. That file that was missing must have contained the AI's modifiers and it was corrupted somehow during your installation or patching.

[Monk]

I wonder if they made the game using Empire's stupid AI and then changed it midway through development. That file that was missing must have contained the AI's modifiers and it was corrupted somehow during your installation or patching.

It was corrupted for me also. Froggy and I both bought the DLC from gamersgate, and we seemed to be the only ones having this problem. In both our cases, verifying and downloading the 23mb file fixed the AI issues.

[Abokasee]

Early game the AI can be extremely scary, particularly the Taira with white (not gold... Fukuhara?) as they can expand west where there are virtually no opposing clans of any significance to stop them.

However later on in the game the AI does some riduculous things... like armies made up mainly of Bow Monks... why? It just seems the AI has been done very roughly as it doesnt seem to have the ability to build a balanced list.
Aside from the AI I really like Rise of the Samurai.

[frogbeastegg]

Phew, it's been a busy few days.

I'm going to edit a comment about the 28MB file into the top of the first post so that anyone new reading it will know it's fixed and not normal RotS behaviour.

Trade nodes: I find that the current setup works for me. If we are at war the AI is ruthless at hunting down ships I try to send to the nodes (or elsewhere on the map for that matter!), sometimes to the point where I can't manage to get any ships through even if I send them in a decently sized navy. The AI is happy to blockade my trade ports and pirate my trade lines. I have had trade nodes taken off me by clans and pirates, however this is the least frequent behaviour. If it were more active then, for me at least, it would begin to impinge on my enjoyment of the land game. I dislike the naval side, and I really do not enjoy building fleets and painstakingly shuffling them around the map.

I wonder if they made the game using Empire's stupid AI and then changed it midway through development. That file that was missing must have contained the AI's modifiers and it was corrupted somehow during your installation or patching.

If I were forced to guess at what the file does, I'd suggest it was some kind of priority control for buildings, diplomacy and army movements. That's a layman's guess though; I have no idea how to code an AI. I suppose it might have some relation to ETW, as that AI's major problem was its inability to prioritise successfully. It's the same game engine, so I wouldn't be surprised if many AI basics were carried over to S2. One old CA interview did say that the AI problems were related to the original coder leaving and no one else being able to pick the work up and finish it as originally envisioned. The description they gave of the planned ETW AI is remarkably similar to what we have in S2.

[Kurisu]

If you run Steam's integrity checker, it will always download a new copy of shogun2.dll. The file always has a different hash value, but it's functionally equivalent and the same size (a little under 24MB currently). This isn't due to corruption and may be a red herring as far as diagnosing a wonky installation with regard to the perceived AI issue.

Just sayin'

[frogbeastegg]

If you run Steam's integrity checker, it will always download a new copy of shogun2.dll. The file always has a different hash value, but it's functionally equivalent and the same size (a little under 24MB currently). This isn't due to corruption and may be a red herring as far as diagnosing a wonky installation with regard to the perceived AI issue.

Just sayin'

Curiouser and curiouser. I checked the size of my shogun2.dll to see if it's the same size as the one steam downloaded. It's 23.6MB. If I run the verification now I get a 23.6MB file downloaded. That's a clear match. But the file which fixed my problems was definitely reported as being 28MB. So either shogun2.dll has changed in size since, or it downloaded a different file, or it two files and lied about getting one, or it reported the size incorrectly. I'd love to know what happened; the difference to my game before and after that file is like night and day.

Shogun II: when you're not playing with its samurai, it's playing with your mind.

[Kurisu]

Curiouser and curiouser. I checked the size of my shogun2.dll to see if it's the same size as the one steam downloaded. It's 23.6MB. If I run the verification now I get a 23.6MB file downloaded. That's a clear match. But the file which fixed my problems was definitely reported as being 28MB. So either shogun2.dll has changed in size since, or it downloaded a different file, or it two files and lied about getting one, or it reported the size incorrectly. I'd love to know what happened; the difference to my game before and after that file is like night and day.

Shogun II: when you're not playing with its samurai, it's playing with your mind.

Heh, yes. Though that's Steam's doing here. Other games have the same issue when you verify them via that process. There's typically one file that it will replace every time with a new copy that has a different hash value (mathematical ID). I would speculate it's a DRM feature. In any case, the closing dialog box that says "All files verified" or whatever, doesn't take that particular mismatch into consideration, so it's inconsistent with the reported download size. Technically it's correct, since the file is legit, but it could be more verbose about what it's actually doing. You're forced to inspect the date stamps or checksums of the game files themselves to learn more.

I'm somewhat skeptical that the whole Steam verification thing has anything to do with suspect AI behavior. The reason for that is the way all Shogun's data is packed together in relatively large pack files. The contents are read and aggregated at game launch. The RotS content is mainly in patch9.pack (along with packs for movies, shaders etc). Then there's the main executable and the main dll file. If either of the latter were missing, corrupt or incorrect versions, I suspect you'd have much less subtle and specific issues (like instant crashing). Patch9.pack is nearly 1.4 GB, so if that was somehow compromised you'd be seeing a huge re-download.

I know you feel strongly about some sort of correlation, but perhaps it's just a coincidence. I still occasionally see much of the behavior you described in the OP both in RotS and in the S2 campaign. That includes armies running repeatedly back and forth between two points on the campaign map, seemingly bizarre decisions regarding attack opportunities, agents sitting around for years etc. I think that the game's AI is a complex beast (much more so than it's sometimes given credit) and it's simply prone to logical hiccups given rare circumstances. When it's good, it's great, but it certainly stands out when it isn't. Perhaps your first experience was simply a bad day for the AI. How many games did you play while it still seemed funky?

[frogbeastegg]

Perhaps your first experience was simply a bad day for the AI. How many games did you play while it still seemed funky?

With the bad AI I had 37 turns in one game, which at the speed I play is around 10 hours. I also restarted to make sure that I hadn't selected easy by accident, so that's another few hours. Both games used the same clan, the Kamakura Minamoto. I exited and reloaded the game several times. I was fortunate enough to have a lot of time to sink into the game those first two days.

With the good AI I have around 15 hours in a fresh Kamakura game, which is only about 45 turns as I've been spending a lot of time fighting battles. I also have maybe 4 hours in a second campaign with the Taira clan which gets the naginata bonuses. Most of that took place over a single week; I haven't had time to play in the last couple of weeks. The good AI is counted as beginning when I verified the cache and started another new game, as it was noticeably better within the first turns.

(I mention that I mostly played in long blocks as a matter of reference, because at one point RTW had a proven bug which caused the AI to break each time you reloaded. Anyone playing for several turns per session experienced an extremely passive AI.)

[Kurisu]

With the bad AI I had 37 turns in one game, which at the speed I play is around 10 hours. I also restarted to make sure that I hadn't selected easy by accident, so that's another few hours. Both games used the same clan, the Kamakura Minamoto. I exited and reloaded the game several times. I was fortunate enough to have a lot of time to sink into the game those first two days.

That would be odd then. Ah well, the important thing is you're enjoying it now. I had an OCD moment reading this thread and felt compelled to investigate