Quote Originally Posted by mkeogh View Post
Again, we obviously got different versions of the game because I haven't encountered these epic land battles that you describe, and I also play on VH/VH. Instead I feel like General Zod screaming out in exasperation: "I win! I always win!" as I blow through the pathetic little stacks that nearly bankrupt countries send against me. Oh, I do get the occasional "big battle" when I besiege a large garrisoned town, but because I almost ALWAYS iniatiate such "big battles" then I make sure to bring more and better troops so I can't lose. I'm almost never outnumbered or outgunned which is really the ONLY way the TW BAI can win a battle and so I win ALL the time. (Further, if the AI nations are only getting by economically on the higher difficulty levels due to bonuses then give'em bigger ones because they're all broke in my games!) I have NEVER felt threatened with being defeated in this game. Not once. With apologies to General Patton and Vince Lombardi, but winning all the time isn't exactly fun.
Give TROM a try. I'm engaged in an epic struggle against the Mughal Empire which owns all of India. Every turn a new stack shows up (of course I haven't raided their trade, which would certainly help, but I'm enjoying the epic land struggle) and I've only got one understrength army there to fight the hordes, running from province to province to try and stem the tide. The AI is building balanced armies with artillery, cavalry and infantry and I'm actually forced to withdraw from a good number of battles (VH/H) because my army is not at full strength. I'm losing provinces every other turn and gaining them back once my army replenishes.

I can't spare anything else because in Europe as Austria I'm engaged in conflict on three fronts - against the Russians who send a stack (not always full, but at least 14-15 units strong) to my borders to seize Galcia every second or third turn, France who continues to try to seize my protectorate Westphalia (whom I have had to protect with an army because, unfortunately, the AI fails to build settlement defences so it loses to a French full stack everytime) with a seemingly endless number of stacks and against the Ottomans who are desperately trying to expand into the Balkans after I seized most of it from them.

You're right many of the above issues were found in previous TW titles. But that's not entirely true either: the CAI in previous TW titles knew how to use the diplomatic engine, how to use naval transport, and that different regions within the same nation were still part of that nation.
I disagree. I can't tell you how many posts I recall from previous TW games where people are complaining about the lack of AI amphibious assaults. Oh yes, they happened once in a while, just like in ETW. Of course in MTW it was a non-issue mostly because for example England and Flanders were connected by a land bridge - but do you not remember people compalining about the CAI mostly ignoring the fact that a land bridge is there? The diplomacy was horrible in MTW, RTW and M2TW. THe only difference was that it was easier to make peace. And in 1.2 ETW it was relatively easy ot make peace. They changed that for some reason and we might disagree about the reason, but the fact remains that this is not something that was never fixed. Obviously they felt the design needed to be different. The random DOWs were just as bad in previous games of the TW series as they are now.

Additionally, ETW has exacerbated many of these issues and created new ones due to all the added features to the campaign map that the AI doesn't understand. The CAI had a difficult enough time with the far less complex maps of RTW and M2TW. So why then did CA add on even MORE features to the campaign map that its CAI cannot handle? I guess to sell more copies to people who will steamroll through a campaign once or twice, kick the game into the dustbin, and move onto the next big thing. However, they really did a disservice to those strategy gamers who actually play games for the CHALLENGE!
When you embark on a 2-3 year software project, you can not perform a proof of concept on everything. That's just not how software works. I'm sorry you think it should be different, but as someone who manages software projects let me just tell you that thinking is totally detatched from reality.

Further, no where in my post did I allege that I wanted CA to design an AI as intelligent as a human.
You are certainly implying it whether you know it or not. Whenever you make a case that the AI does X when it should do Y (such as why does the AI declare war or not make peace or whatever) you are implicitly comparing it's "irrational" behaviour to what a human would do.

Additionally, as a fan of the strategy games EU3 and Civ4, I know that getting an AI to act in semi-rational way in a PC game diplomatic engine is not an impossiblity. (EU3 has a feature similar to ETW in which the AI is programmed to want certain provinces, but in that game the AI only declares war when it thinks it can win it! How come CA's AI programmers cannot do that?) Further, those games also demonstrated that it is possible for the AI to be effective offensively on the stratmap if you tailor the map to the AI's strengths. In fact, the stratAI's in those games can actually win their games. (If you removed the player from ETW and let the AI nations battle it out for 200 turns would any of them even come close to fulfilling their victory conditions? No.) Quite simply the AIs of those two games, both of which have been on the market for years, put the CAI of ETW to shame. They are not even in the same league. (And, yes, I know the argument that ETW is different due to it having tactical battles, but with each new TW release CA appears to ape more and more of Civ4's and EU3's strategy maps and thus I think comparisons are perfectly fair.)
As a fan of the EU and HOI series, let me just say that the AI there sucks horribly too. Ever seen an amphibious invasion in EU2? Yeah right. You think "mini" raiding armies are a problem in TW? Did you even play EU2? it's funny because mos tof the things you complain about in the TW series have also plagued the EU series. One great thing about the EU series though is the diplomatic model is way ahead of the TW series. Protectorates/vassals all automatically are a part of your alliance and no one can dow them without dowing you, etc. But the AI there is also problematic. Like when your bad boy rating goes up everybody DOWs you even dinky little Savoy that has a tiny army will join in.


Hey, it's great that you're having fun with ETW and find it's campaign improved. However, I truly believe that ETW's campaign AI is the worst one I've experienced in ANY TW game. It's a darn shame because I love this period of history, love the battle engine, but HATE the campaign AI. I truly wish I didn't, but unfortunately I do. It's so inept that it ruins the game- steamrolling a hapless and hopeless AI opponent has never been fun for me. (And I pull my punches in ETW by not blitzing and not using trade nodes. I've always been a big believer in allowing AI nations in the TW series time to build up before I go knocking them down, but in ETW, due to the constant wars and the AI's inability to handle the economic engine, the AI nations actually get weaker as the game goes on. It's just awful.)
You're certainly entitled to your opinion and I can not quesiton the integrity of your feelings. But the arguments and comparisons you're making don't really add up.

If you're angry because you think CA is omnipotent and when they start a 2-3 year software project they knew the CAI would break on certain new campaign map features they added, well yes, I can see why that would frustrate you. But that's rooted in ignorance - that's not how it works and if they halted all progress on the rest of the game until the AI was good enough we'd still be playing Medieval Total War and CA would be bankrupt.