XAI V3.4 for Pro Deo Et Rege Very Soon!

[Hunter_PT]

Hi xeryx ,i have played 73 turns now with portugal VH/VH he he my contry.So first of all the invasions by sea are ok now ,the enemy now close all your trade routs by sea and if you do navy to counter atack they will try to sunk them which is very good congratulations for this amazing thing .Now the ai ataking on land have only one problem or two to be perfect, the ai sometimes hesitate to atack with all the armies near the enemy for ex:i had one army and i laid siege to Chaca, then in the end turn the arogonese had 2 medium staks and one small near Chaca, instead of ataking whith all the armies to gather they just send one medium stack to help the castle so it was 1v1 power and i wan the battle and the city ,the other medium stack and small didnt atack ,they had the movement to do so i saw .And this hapens in more places becouse i saw in toggle _fow . Second thing the ai when atacks a settlement most of the time they atack with a medium stack instead of waiting for the renforcements that arrives most of the time on the next turn but then is to late becouse the rebeles or my self sally out and kill them all ,then his reforcements are useful .Sorry if my feedback is not better but i did my best,i analized the ai movements very carfuly to write this down i hope this will help you to make this better . But the ai is more agressive now.Here is a SC of the ex:

[Hunter_PT]

Yes it is Agistournas.

[Agis Tournas]

Yes it is Agistournas.

Thank you Hunter_PT
I suppose it is compatible with vanilla Medieval II, too - right?

[Hunter_PT]

No only whith mods that use kingdoms exe.

[Thorn]

Thank you Hunter_PT
I suppose it is compatible with vanilla Medieval II, too - right?

Kingdoms has some attributes that helps the AI performance.., so XAI wont work without it..

[xeryx]

Hi xeryx ,i have played 73 turns now with portugal VH/VH he he my contry.So first of all the invasions by sea are ok now ,the enemy now close all your trade routs by sea and if you do navy to counter atack they will try to sunk them which is very good congratulations for this amazing thing .Now the ai ataking on land have only one problem or two to be perfect, the ai sometimes hesitate to atack with all the armies near the enemy for ex:i had one army and i laid siege to Chaca, then in the end turn the arogonese had 2 medium staks and one small near Chaca, instead of ataking whith all the armies to gather they just send one medium stack to help the castle so it was 1v1 power and i wan the battle and the city ,the other medium stack and small didnt atack ,they had the movement to do so i saw .And this hapens in more places becouse i saw in toggle _fow . Second thing the ai when atacks a settlement most of the time they atack with a medium stack instead of waiting for the renforcements that arrives most of the time on the next turn but then is to late becouse the rebeles or my self sally out and kill them all ,then his reforcements are useful .Sorry if my feedback is not better but i did my best,i analized the ai movements very carfuly to write this down i hope this will help you to make this better . But the ai is more agressive now.Here is a SC of the ex:

I know that you would prefer that there are more troops in stacks attacking you. However, you need to consider the big picture. If I have tons of huge stacks running around, you need to understand the costs associated with them. The Ai cannot handle money that well, no matter what kind of scripts you write, to give them money. Fortunately, the amount of troops the AI does use, has increased, compared to last revision. I have seen the Ai on numerous occasions use a full stack against a half garrisoned city. You need to also remember this, in PDER the troops in the cities are very well garrisoned, with experienced troops. it is going to take many turns of sieging to wear them down. It will also take multiple attempts to do so. In order to get the AI aggressive against rebels, it was needed in many cases to get them to attack immediately. The AI can handle the losses, if needed. it also gives more randomness to the game because another faction maybe able to take advantage of that opportunity.

This is something that you will just have to accept for now. In my opinion the AI works more realistically this way. Because of the numbers I play with affect many things, it is very difficult to just skew the numbers to meet one need, then find that it unbalances the game somewhere else. I made the CAI universally compatible, it is not specialized to PDER. I am talking straight AI file.

XAI is for KINGDOMS BASED MODS Only, and it is NOT save game compatible

[Agis Tournas]

XAI is for KINGDOMS BASED MODS Only, and it is NOT save game compatible

Thank you for the answer.
Is there a XAI compatible to both medieval2.exe & kingdoms.exe?

[Hunter_PT]

Turn 83 ,The big clash of nations is coming the Hre are out of control they are crushing poland ,Hungary and france ,they are near my boarders its time to face them he he i have 4 stacks ready to go to war .Final test is coming, to face this threat i will have to live my home lands only whith small garrinsons lets see if my enemies will take advantage of this ,im at war whith Engald ,Sicily ,moors, aragon and Spain lets see what is going to hapend ha ha here is a screen.Defenetly the ai is much better thanks Xeryx
sorry wrong screens

[Hunter_PT]

Its this one wow i forgot some thing they have the double of my armies

[Beagler]

Still early going in my HRE campaign but I already like the new initial deployments for besieging armies. I hated the old setup with everyone in a long line, especially when facing a sally by the defenders.

In my only large open battle so far, the Sicilians were very aware of their own flanks. The battlefield had a large building in the middle of the map and the AI deployed with its left flank covered by the obstacle. I sent my knights swinging around the building to take the enemy in the rear, and the AI detached two spear units from its main body and met my knights on the back side of the building.

So far I am very pleased.

[Praetor1981]

Great work

Loving the initial deployment's really helpful to keeping an army organised

[an_do_89]

All I can say is that you made a very good work. All has started to work properly.

This is the world at 1131 in my campaign:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...gYVRfeoOw6zkGQ

It's a hard world with wars everywhere...

[Socal_infidel]

First off, hats off to xeryx et al. for their stupendous work on this! Thanks for keeping PDER alive in my "absence"!

Second I just tried a custom battle to test some other things and had 3.2 installed! Wow! Impressed to say the least!

Third, nice pic, an_do_89. Initial thoughts on it

1] Scotland too strong
2] How the heck is Portugal still around?
3] Looks like wars 'a brewin' between the Holy Roman and Eastern Roman Empires, eh? How'd they get so big? And what's the ERE doing in North Africa?
4] I like Sicily's little mediterranean empire. But it looks like the ERE took back Bari, eh?
5] How'd France end up with Barcelona?

[xeryx]

Hey Socal Infidel, just wanted to let you know. That there were no changes to units other than the Byzantine pike man, and no changes to starting troops. The only changes I made were starting and long lasting relationships. I did include my settlement file to ensure proper flow of money, but other than that there were only changes made to the missiles, fortifications, and other balancing tweaks. We did increase the mass of horses, to get better penetration in charges.

I am glad you played a battle, you should play some turns as well. No problem on the mod help. I appreciate your support as well.

You can never under-estimate the power of the Scotsman, For I am half that, and of course the other half is Germanian!! Notice how powerful they are!

We are not done yet, this is only baseline performance. We still have much to do and have many plans to improve the BAI and CAI even further. It is now finally at a point, I consider good enough for a baseline.

I am very glad you guys are liking it, just remember where we used to be with the game..then look at where we are now! If that doesn't put a smile on your face, then nothing will.

All I can say is that you made a very good work. All has started to work properly.

This is the world at 1131 in my campaign:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...gYVRfeoOw6zkGQ

It's a hard world with wars everywhere...

Yes, it is a hard world..we want many wars as this is Total war!! Good screen shots!! BTW. How have the alliances been working out?

[Hunter_PT]

Hi people, im on turn 96 I went to war whith germany like i said in the post above whith 4 full stacks ,the result is that i win all the battles and i conquered 6 german settlements why i won so easely? It was not becouse of the ai,the ai is superbly good and agressive ,it was becouse of the full stacks of Hre were whith out a general and i killed 4 generals one in each settlement almost alone,if they were in the armies ill be in trouble ,the other problem is that in this mod the catholic factions almost dont have any horses becouse they are hard to get so whith out cav. and general you easely flank them whit your cav and they run way .Another thing the ledders and towers are to tall for the walls sometimes they fight in the air . I almost forgot its inpressive how the ai is now i conquered this 6 settlements to Hre but they also conquered other settlements in the same turns to England and Hungary.Here is a screen. Good work Xeryx

[Tudor]

Hi everybody!

I have recently downloaded PDER and the XAI, and started a new campaign with Armenia. I haven't been able to play many turns, because of some time constraints, but so far, I am very pleased about this mod. So, congratulations and a big thank you to the team for turning Medieval into the addictive game it should have been from the very release.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to play enough open field battles (only 2 minor ones so far), but I am very happy with the way the AI defends in sieges. They no longer make stupid mistakes. And that has tremendously increased the challenge of taking a city by storm. I guess it only goes to reinforce the idea that battles are more often won on the enemy's mistakes than as a result of best laid plans. So far I have assaulted three cities, one Turkish and two rebel ones. I took the two rebel settlements, but I had to withdraw from the assault on the Turkish city. I also lost two generals during these sieges. The AI is finally making me cautious, and I will probably start treating it like a human opponent in the future...

The diplomacy is also a huge improvement. It's the first time I'm playing this game and getting the feeling that what I do on a strategic level actually matters in the least in shaping my relationships with my neighbours. I have also noticed that the Turks actually focus their forces on the main front against Byzantium, and leave only moderate garisons on my side of the map. No more full stack garisons all around the place.

By the way, am I right in assuming that at least half the ai problem in sieges has been fixed by properly tweaking the pathfinding parameters? I can't help thinking about how the AI had to work in the old days, with units getting stuck all around the walls and narrow streets all the time. Those units were treated as moving by the engine, and sometimes had an inaccurate center defined because of the occasional stragglers stuck miles away under some ladder or on some ledge of a wall. The BAI works with the engine supplied data, not by visual interpretation like a human would. So I think it would have worked with a completely eroneus picture most of the time!

[an_do_89]

Hello! You see a problem is with the stacks near palermo they hadn't moved for about 6-8 turns , there are also near ajacio from the same faction sitting. Also in the second picture , the hre army near ancona hasn't moved also , only when they got a crusade , after 2 turns of sitting , they disbanded from crusade, and moved.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...mj6aIqGlVi-AUw

Also a problem is with crusades , a lot of them are going towards cairo , and you will see in the picture that when norway is near jerusalem, spain is in the north of italy , also the Hre is very late with too armyes ( he would had the strenght to send an army before norway ).
When norway reaches cairo , it stands there for 2 turns and it doesn't attack beeing consumed by the egyptian stacks, meanwile , hre disbands one of his crusading armyes near ancona , and the other one is disbanded by a Byzantine stack .
Also portugal is on the road (but it was stuck for 2 turns near it town- too late also.)
I can say norway took the ship and landed in poland with it's crusading army and traveled all along to cairo by foot.
Why spain , portugal , hre didn't took the boat to cairo , because it's clear for norway worked.

I say only that in the vanilla the fact all factios go at oance in the same time gives another feeling. Also a useless thing because the first who arives would take the town so I think it's best so..

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...Ao1FjwX0Yt2NKQ

Now about the BAI : You will see in the picture below the ai attacks a small garison with a full stack .
This is the moment when I lose Jerusalem.
I fought another 4 battles to keep it and won every time but I can say that the ai troops don't stuck and what is impressive is when I was defending the center , I was attacken on multiple streets (3 at number ) . If I hadn't my general and a unit of crusader knights I would had lost.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...31B-Sr08BNvUow

So the AI behaves very goot at sieging , a pity is it hadn't more evoluated troops because it would had smashed me.

I believe it's important that tha AI gets better troops from the begining.

Now on the battlefield: the cavalry makes the rule and the spearmen ( every time they follow my cavalry with units of spearman). So if I attack an army which has cavalry and I don't is big chance that I loose.
I believe the AI has a very good improvment.

[Hunter_PT]

Defently this mod needs some changes the the catholic factions almost dont have any horses, this is a game killer becouse of this the ai dont stand a chance in the battlefield against an army whith at least 3 mounted units this mod like this dosent favor your BAI see for your self its my saved game.

Hi an_do_89,the stacks in cecily dont move, maybe becouse they dont have boats ,i think sicily dont have passage by land to south Italy ,see if they have money and if they have boats .If they are bankrupt they will be stuck becouse they cant construct any boats to leave .In my game they have 2 stacks there and they are stuck too but i saw in TFow that they dont have boat and no money and have the ports blokaded bby enemys so they are stuck dont move see my saved game and give me yours plz to see


The problem With the English losing always with the scots its not becouse of the army conposition its becouse of geography , this is becouse the Eglish always starts the game with the armies divided in France and in Scotland ,and the ai dont evaluate what better lands they need to conquer to be secured,so almost always they start at war in france and they live small garrisons so its easy for the scoots to grow and smash the English several turns later.

[an_do_89]

Hello again ... well in the next picture you will see that all highlighted are bankrupt , England (red) is not yet as Scotland finishes it , HRE has a big empire but It seems it manages well it's money (black) , Kiev (blue) has a big bank account but going down , an interesting thing is Portugal which has a stuck army and it isn't bankrupt yet and another army as a crusader one .

And yes Sicilia has 8 full army stacks and it is bankrupt.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...ey=vnABfQIefYI

In the next pictures you will see diplomatic standings as Socal asked :

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...aVbsv63cbOKlYg

By the way xeryx you made an awesome job please don't change anything only improve it , it gives the Knights the real goal on the battlefield and the real valor of heavy cavalry generaly . I can say that the other troops are also ok.
All I would dare asking, you if you wish, to make a XAI for retrofit mod as it's a faster way at the moment to play medieval 2 and have fun (more fans would have the chance to try this wonderful XAI) remembering in the same time that PDER is a very interesting mod which will keep fans atention at all time.

Thx

[xeryx]

Sorry guys, I am getting sick, so my brain is super foggy.

Stuck units are not a result of XAI, but of usually of path finding on the campaign map. (Not my expertise)
There is always a chance during a naval invasion that if landed in the wrong spot, units can get stuck. This is also a map issue.

The troop evaluation, is simply looked at as strength for auto resolve. The game is not that sophisticated. It is taken into account, but to what degree, is unknown.

I have already explained as to why the first stack taking a city usually fails for the AI, in pder it is due to the experience of the rebel troops in the cities and castles .

It is always possible the Sicily land bridge is messed up, and lands in a bad area. This is something SoCal_Infidel will have to fix (not my expertise)

Also anything that has to do with MAP balancing, like troops in cities/castles, troops themselves, money scripts, rebel strengths etc..etc.. All that is in Socals hands. Please keep reporting those issues. Socal_infidel will read this thread, and take these things under advisement. Hopefully he will take all this feedback and use it for 2.0.

Crusades, I will look at when I play, there shouldn't be that problem since they are at war. If crusades happen successfully on other settlements then it is a map issue.

Thanks for the feedback, when I feel better I will look at things more in depth.

Hi Tudor, welcome to the boards, and thank you for posting!