When AI ruins games

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

So total war isn’t known for their good AI, but the lack of AI quality is most evident in their two horse and musket games (empire and Napoleon) by far the worst AI in the series.

Mods can fix somethings, but not the AI.

I was playing a battle using Napoleonic total war 3. I attacked a French army expecting it to be about the same size as mine,  but it had 2000 more men than me. And several units had veterancy. While my army was my secondary army led by William Beresford, it hasn’t seen much action so my units were not of high quality.

So should be a hard fight.  But the French ai started the battle like it always did, send it’s 400 cavalry straight at my infantry.  I just put them in square shot them to pieces and the leftovers were easy game for my cavalry.

The battle could have been very hard, I had to support my infantry with my general.  And I only beat back the veteran units with flanking shots from a 6pdr.

But that was really it, 60% of the army simply clumped in the center getting shot to hell by my portugese,  and flanking fire from the 95th, aswell as getting shelled by 3 howitzers. No attempt by the AI to hit other parts of my line. No attempt at flanking,  and sine they wasted their cav at the start, I could move my infantry and cavalry with no worry to be attacked. When the French started to collapse I sent in a bayonets charge and my cavalry.

The 2nd KGL dragoons killed 1115 frenchmen.  And the 43rd light infantry bayoneted over 800.

In the end the French lost 4300 out of 4500, while I lost 400. Now 400 is so far the biggest loss I have suffered in this campaign. Which just make it even more annoying,  the battle had all the makings of a good hard battle. If the AI has just done some basic tactical stuff the battle would have been awesome.  Hell even just not wasting the cavalry at the start would have ment I would have had to take more care.

[Deleted User]

You should play some of Ubisoft’s games, the AI there are…I can’t even describe it. I’ve lost faith in computer games for a while now.

I can’t imagine how to translate desired behaviors into mathematical formular.

[Northern Monkey]

Try Command Ops 2(its free on Steam, though the additional scenario packs do cost) it will make you think again about AI and its an awesome game!

My attempt at a Blog: http://ablogofwar.blogspot.co.uk/

[Rhoderic]

I’ve accepted that the point of video gaming is only to take in the atmosphere, the pretty audiovisual impressions, the art direction, the worldbuilding, the storytelling (as experienced in a semi-detached way from “outside” the story) and the general inspiration. I still get a great deal of mileage from video games toward those ends, but I can’t really “live the story” with myself in it, at least not when playing strategy games or stealth games (two of my favourite genres). That experience remains on the other side of the impenetrable barrier that is idiot AI behaviour.

My most recent experience (about a month ago) of having a game partially “ruined” by AI behaviour was playing Stellaris. Repeatedly hemming in other empires by rapidly colonising my way to key star systems was far too easy. The AIs didn’t recognise what I was doing, so they never tried to race me to these points of obvious strategic importance. Once their artificial frustration at having nowhere left to expand led to war, their equally inefficient fleet movements made them easy to defeat. In the end I had to dumb down my own playstyle, so that I was basically mimicking their rudimentary rules of behaviour instead of even trying to outsmart them. At least that let me experience the unfolding of an interstellar sci-fi history without my own exploitative predations breaking suspension of disbelief, even if I didn’t feel like I was in the driver’s seat anymore. Having said all that, I’ve still been able to draw massive amounts of space-opera inspiration from that game (thanks to how stylish and atmospheric it is), much of which is helping me stay enthusiastic over my miniatures wargaming projects. So, overall, a net win.

[Darkest Star Games]

Ya, I’ve never really had a challenge tactically with NTW, and to be honest have never had to even make squares.  Usually I can intersperse my canons between infantry units with Cav on the wings and the enemy just charges right in, especially if I have used skirmishers to harass them.  Boom, facefulls of grapeshot and then the cav cleans up.

I have had better battles with Shogun TW2, that AI occasionally does some interesting things.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Darkest Star Games wrote:

Ya, I’ve never really had a challenge tactically with NTW, and to be honest have never had to even make squares. Usually I can intersperse my canons between infantry units with Cav on the wings and the enemy just charges right in, especially if I have used skirmishers to harass them. Boom, facefulls of grapeshot and then the cav cleans up. I have had better battles with Shogun TW2, that AI occasionally does some interesting things.

 

Shogun is the best of the “warscape era” total war game. Because units are less varied they’ve made them decent,  with the darth mod, the game is really good.

The medieval mod for attila is quite good too.

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

I beat the peninsula campaign.  Took a little under 10 hours and that’s with me personally fighting some battles I didn’t have to.

I never had more than 2 armies and a small force of guerrillas. I lost exactly one battle, were I had 400 of “armed citizens ” vs 4000 French regular.

I lost exactly 1 unit on the campaign, a 6pdr battery.  Total losses probably around 1200 men, vs mabye 20 000 French.

 

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Ok, I downloaded a patch for the main 1805 campaign.

 

It drastically improves the AI. It’s still bad, and you wont loose any battles that are even half even. But during the peninsula campaign I could kill off 3000 frenchmen.  And only loose 40 men, were 25 of those were friendly fire.

Literally the ai managed to kill 15 guys,  and this happen time and time again.

 

Now with the patch playing the main campaign, the Austrians manages kill about 400 of my French in most battles. They do try to flank and stop me from flanking. The main problem is the AIs coordination, usually only half the units attack at any one time.

[Author]

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