Beta 01: XAI Retrofit + Guaom!

[Glabro]

From what I can tell the AI on the battlefield is improved. I ran into something with the AI on the defensive, I circled around and they just pivoted into a bad position on a hill side. We essentially swapped places. They should have attacked when I got close enough or close enough to be percieved as "vulnerable".

Agreed, a factor of sudden aggressiveness would be ideal in the defensive AI, to throw the player off balance when he's setting up an offense, often being very vulnerable for such an attack, safe in the knowledge that it won't come.

Second game is a bit different. I purposefully went out and recklessly attacked every rebel settlement I could. Just to see how much "logistical extending" I could get away with. The game seems to be ruined within the first 6 moves. I took everyone of the settlements and recouped units during a 10 turn period. The AI should have attacked my loosely guarded towns and castles.

This is a crucial matter. My normal playstyle is to gather up a huge force and take settlement after settlement with it, leaving only a skeleton garrison to each town or castle.

So far in my tests, the AI hasn't shown any interest in trying to take advantage of this. This is, however, by no means conclusive as this testing has been limited to multiple restarts in Ireland.

Disclaimer: These are not demands or expectations, just observations.

[Hunter_PT]

Hi Xeryx, i made a big test retrofit 332 turns lol vh/vh russia no interfering in game.congratulations this is ai is perfoming better than any other mood with xai many disenbarks for ex: england disenbarks in denmark,denmark disenbarks in england,sicily disenbarks on islands around italy south afrika and grece and so on.Things that need repaired for ex: england disenbarked in denmark and was not at war with them and stayed there for several turns and then went to germany, i think ai have some trouble atacking some factions when they are not at war, something in diplomacy is damaging the ai for sure,later on england atack them;spain could atack portugal and stayed the entire game neutral with 2 territories.Germany, egypt,Turks,France,mongols,Temurids these factions never disebark on islands, this is odd ,ai sometimes have some trouble moving stacks on map and no faction atacks the pope.No faction went to the new world.I will put my saved game here.Plz Xeryx see my saved game you will learn some problems of the game i think.

[Hunter_PT]

Here is my saved game, super mongol invasion.

[xeryx]

Please Check the Save Games RA,

RandomAttack is in charge of this overall testing in this. He will be doing balancing and such as that. I going to be very busy with work (on the road) this week.

[RandomAttack]

Hunter_PT,
Pretty wild! Of course i've never actually played a game that far...

A couple of observations/clarifications:
- The CAI is by no means perfect, just (IMO) much better than vanilla. I have seen various factions "stagnate" for whatever reason in various test campaigns. Most commonly Russia, but even HRE once in awhile. Could be a map/pathfinding problem (?) like when crusades/jihads sometimes get "stuck".
- Several of the factions you mention have "prefers naval invasions = no" in the descr_sm_factions file. Of course, you can always change it. Hmmmmm! Mongolian horsey carriers!! :hmmm: Me like!
- There is a HIGH degree of variability in this setup. To keep it as close to "vanilla" as possible I don't see any way around it. Given that, I'm not sure how much more can be achieved via balancing faction standings-- but I'm always open to suggestions to improve it. In 40+ test campaigns I've seen "outlier" stuff like the Danes become a superpower, Spain & Portugal backstab each other in the first 10 turns, the Pope go nuts and take 5 settlements (only once though), etc. That's "vanilla" for ya. Yet the AI usually tries to cover important cities, uses forts well, "patrols" its borders, and SOMETIMES makes some surprisingly shrewd moves.

One thing it DOESN'T do (and never has) is defend against Naval Invasions worth a damn. Have never heard of a way to fix that without resorting to a garrison script.

[MadMardigan]

Thanks for the info RandomAttack, I'll tinker with it a bit when I get some time.

One of the issues I'm running into is being able to sustain a very large and very elite army overall. I'm thinking about increasing the unit upkeep on the more elite units and lowering their availability.

Is there a way to cap availability when you have X amount of units? My thought is some sort of diminishing availability for the elite units. So the more elite units I have the less available they become. Perhaps tie in an amount of elite units per castle or something along those lines... I don't know.

UPDATE: VH//VH campaign #3 : Turn 25

Battlefield AI:

I saw a whole army just stop and get stuck on the outskirts of a town without walls. They just sat there while my archers spent arrows on them.

This has only happened 3 times total throughout all my campaigns but I've also seen it happen in an open field. 2 times it was like the AI got stuck when reserve troops where coming in.

Campaign AI:

Much improved in VH difficulty. The AI is ruthless and has attacked quite a few of my "loosely guarded" towns/castles.

I'll keep testing it, could just be that I've hit a "good" variation in the CAI.

Thank you

[RandomAttack]

MadMardigan,
Thanks for the feedback!

There's no way I know to cap a particular unit type at a certain number. The only thing I've seen is a drastically reduced recruitment pool for certain "rare" units (e.g., Canons of the Sep. at 0.1-- so can only get one every 10 turns at most). But I know that's not a solution to your question.

Maybe MiKLL or Xeryx can chime in on the BAI issue-- I haven't run into that particular one.

[Hunter_PT]

wow super cool RandomAttack, i changed to naval invasions all the factions and they disenbarck every were yupi ,now no one is safe i can be attacked in any place.One thing there are a little bit to many chips,and not to many stackes of armies,can you adjust it or tell me were and i will test.thanks

[RandomAttack]

Hunter_PT,
Yeah, I've noticed at that setting the AI builds a lot more ships-- probably more than needed. I personally don't know of any "CAI" way to change it. You could play with substantially lowering the EDU "recruit priority offset" for all ships and it MIGHT offset this tendency (say, if it's now at "0" try "-10", etc). Just have to test it for balance until it's "jussst right".

[Hunter_PT]

thanks

[MiiKLL]

Hunter_PT,
Yeah, I've noticed at that setting the AI builds a lot more ships-- probably more than needed. I personally don't know of any "CAI" way to change it. You could play with substantially lowering the EDU "recruit priority offset" for all ships and it MIGHT offset this tendency (say, if it's now at "0" try "-10", etc). Just have to test it for balance until it's "jussst right".

What you may be able to do is to slow down the replenishment rate of the ships like happens with higher grade land units in the export_descr_buildings.txt....(see below)

practice_range castle requires factions { denmark, hre, scotland, antioch, france, jerusalem, england, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, ireland, teutonic_order, norway, wales, }
{
capability
{
recruit_pool "Saethwyr" 1 0.5 4 0 requires factions { wales, }
recruit_pool "Longbowmen" 1 0.5 4 0 requires factions { england, }

The number in red means that the units replenish in the recruitment queay at a rate of 1/2 unit per turn in this case...the blue is the total you can have for recruiting at one time per city/castle.

notice this example....

recruit_pool "EE Catapult" 1 0.15 1 0 requires factions { poland, russia, lithuania, hungary, }

it replenishes at a rate of 15% per turn or one available every 6.6 turns with a max of one available to recruit at a time per city /castle.

Here is a port....

building port
{
convert_to castle_port
levels port shipwright dockyard naval_drydock
{
port city requires factions { northern_european, middle_eastern, eastern_european, greek, southern_european, }
{
convert_to 0
capability
{
recruit_pool "cog" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { hre, teutonic_order, france, scotland, ireland, england, wales, }
recruit_pool "longboat" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { norway, denmark, }
recruit_pool "galley" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { antioch, jerusalem, }
recruit_pool "dhow" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { middle_eastern, }
recruit_pool "cog" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { lithuania, hungary, poland, }
recruit_pool "ladya" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { russia, }
recruit_pool "dromon" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { greek, }
recruit_pool "galley" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { sicily, papal_states, milan, venice, }
recruit_pool "cog" 1 1 3 0 requires factions { portugal, spain, }
trade_base_income_bonus bonus 2
trade_fleet 1

notice the cog....it replenishes 100% every turn and can have a max of 3 available to recruit per turn per city/castle. Why not slow the ship replenishment times down and lower the max available. say to something like this....

recruit_pool "cog" 1 0.34 2 0 requires factions { hre, teutonic_order, france, scotland, ireland, england, wales, }

now it takes three turns to replenish the recruitment pool...but you can still recruit 2 if available...in one turn.
If the AI does recruit 2 ships...then it is 3 turns before that city/castle can recruit another or 6 turns to recruit 2 ships. As the AI techs up just make the replenishment for lower tech ships longer and the max available even less to help encourage the AI to use higher tech ships.

The same principles can be used to help encourage the AI to phase out use of low tech land units too...

Anyway just a thought....let me know if I didn't make sense...

[RandomAttack]

I'll be out of town on business until Friday night. So I'm not ignoring you guys...just won't be posting until then

[Hunter_PT]

Excelent MIIKLL, thanks for the tip i will make some changes.

[MiiKLL]

Excelent MIIKLL, thanks for the tip i will make some changes.

Let me know how well...if at at all... it works...if it does...then there are a lot of different ways it could be used....

[Hunter_PT]

Hello people...,first of all i want to congratulate Xeryx for the wonderfull Bai, and the problem of archers resolved yupy i tested in retrofit now we have a chalenge in battles.Now, lets get something straight we cant have good and the devil, i think all of us wants a chalenging campaign, and this leads us to one way out, for the wepons that CA gave to wour modders, every single faction needs to try to win the game so they need to atack imedeatly ungarded settlements, independent of the relegion or strenth that faction has.Its the only way for us to have a chelenging campaign, and to have this of course many factions will be excomunicated, but this is a small price to pay when we have chalenge. Diplomacy is not the strong thing about this game, this is a TOTAL WAR game not a CIVELIZATION game, if the ai stops expanding for some turns becouse of allies or religion or becouse of its neibor being strong, its his death, becouse the human only needs time to win the game, so lets work together to one single direction guys, its the only way for this game be finished.
Now for naval invasions, in retrofit i put prefer naval invasions to all factions, what hapend disenbarcks everyware by all factions, now this comes with a problem spam of ships so MIIKLL told me to go to EDU and EDB and change the values of ships and i think it worked i see the ai making more armies than boats this is good thing becouse now all the factions can atack with bigger and better armies.
England in retrofit in the two tests that i maid killed scotland in turn 17 (disenbarcks on), England is protecting well their borders.
One thing that is very inportant give a good value to ai to recruit mercs. infantry or cavalry, the ai will have faster bigger and better stacks to atack you.
Last thing to Xeryx, i had a great idea for the game to be more dificult is it possible when we are trespassing neutrall or ally territory with out right to pass by that faction, for them to declare imeadeatly war on us? Becouse lets be realistic we dont se other countrys armys passing in wour lands with out authorization, when they do the intensions are not good .Thats all cya.

In retrofit with (disenbarckes on) the problem with invading by sea is fixed with england and all other factions in their islands.
I forgot grait news in retrofit the assasins are back in full force, in a test i heard some screams lol then i went to my city i only saw one femaly menber the others three were ASSASINATED one of them was my KING then i made a spy and I SAW 5 ASSASINS near my city HURREY HE HE finaly.
The problem the ai dont make artillery in KGCM is easy to fix just need to go to EDU filles and change the values for recruting its easy. For ex: catapult recruit_priority_offset -10 change to 0 or 5

[Bond]

the mod is excellent the CAI + BAI very well

the only down side i have noticed that on some sieges when the AI attacks they will run into a what i call "command overflow." their units will stop where they are at, but you will hear "move in, forward" being called out constantly(have lost many a battle because i didn't have enough troops to over run the last unit, but if that last unit went through my boiling oil they should have retreated).

if you set up in the middle of your town/castle i think it doesn't happen

[xeryx]

the mod is excellent the CAI + BAI very well

the only down side i have noticed that on some sieges when the AI attacks they will run into a what i call "command overflow." their units will stop where they are at, but you will hear "move in, forward" being called out constantly(have lost many a battle because i didn't have enough troops to over run the last unit, but if that last unit went through my boiling oil they should have retreated).

if you set up in the middle of your town/castle i think it doesn't happen

Thank you that is very helpful, this is the frequency of orders causing that.!!

Thank you for the report Hunter_PT i will go though things that you have said.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

This is outstanding work! I'm officially addicted to TW again... finally a game where I'm not overwhelmingly dominant by 1150! Xeryx, amazing job.

Haven't run into any big issues yet, I'll post if I do.

[xeryx]

That is good to here QAR, please post your in depth feedback when you get some time.

Hello people...,first of all i want to congratulate Xeryx for the wonderfull Bai, and the problem of archers resolved yupy i tested in retrofit now we have a chalenge in battles.Now, lets get something straight we cant have good and the devil, i think all of us wants a chalenging campaign, and this leads us to one way out, for the wepons that CA gave to wour modders, every single faction needs to try to win the game so they need to atack imedeatly ungarded settlements, independent of the relegion or strenth that faction has.Its the only way for us to have a chelenging campaign, and to have this of course many factions will be excomunicated, but this is a small price to pay when we have chalenge. Diplomacy is not the strong thing about this game, this is a TOTAL WAR game not a CIVELIZATION game, if the ai stops expanding for some turns becouse of allies or religion or becouse of its neibor being strong, its his death, becouse the human only needs time to win the game, so lets work together to one single direction guys, its the only way for this game be finished.
Now for naval invasions, in retrofit i put prefer naval invasions to all factions, what hapend disenbarcks everyware by all factions, now this comes with a problem spam of ships so MIIKLL told me to go to EDU and EDB and change the values of ships and i think it worked i see the ai making more armies than boats this is good thing becouse now all the factions can atack with bigger and better armies.
England in retrofit in the two tests that i maid killed scotland in turn 17 (disenbarcks on), England is protecting well their borders.
One thing that is very inportant give a good value to ai to recruit mercs. infantry or cavalry, the ai will have faster bigger and better stacks to atack you.
Last thing to Xeryx, i had a great idea for the game to be more dificult is it possible when we are trespassing neutrall or ally territory with out right to pass by that faction, for them to declare imeadeatly war on us? Becouse lets be realistic we dont se other countrys armys passing in wour lands with out authorization, when they do the intensions are not good .Thats all cya.

In retrofit with (disenbarckes on) the problem with invading by sea is fixed with england and all other factions in their islands.
I forgot grait news in retrofit the assasins are back in full force, in a test i heard some screams lol then i went to my city i only saw one femaly menber the others three were ASSASINATED one of them was my KING then i made a spy and I SAW 5 ASSASINS near my city HURREY HE HE finaly.
The problem the ai dont make artillery in KGCM is easy to fix just need to go to EDU filles and change the values for recruting its easy. For ex: catapult recruit_priority_offset -10 change to 0 or 5

Hello hunter_pt

I can appreciate you views, about wanting total war. This is why, I have worked so hard at levels. However no matter your opinion, there are other players that have to be considered too. Many people do not like to play it like a RTS game. They do play it like civilization, so these people must me considered.

Naval invasions, and the number of ships will be worked on.

But thank you for the good words. We are definitely working hard on this. I hope more people give more feedback.

xeryx

[Hunter_PT]

Xeryx, is it possible to make this game in vh/vh like i told you?
And in the other lvl like they want? I just wish to lose some games.
Thanks for the reply.