ReallyBadAI Battle System +Hardcore + Settlements v5.7 >Oct 17< ###quality taken to next level###

[Byg]

Thinking about sieging and making the AI do what we ourselves do. I almost never attack through the gate, rarely use towers or rams and almost always attack with multiple ladders spread around the walls enough to stretch any defending forces enough to ensure some get in unopposed. If I have siege equipment I may use them to take the gate, but simultaneously I attack the walls and generally beat the siege equpment to it. Can the ai be made to do that?

ps, don't you find the panic script frustrating without the cursor, even for those few seconds?

[Germanicu5]

@Rozanov

That forest battle sounds cool, actually playing a campaign for once sounds cool too - sadly that doesn't look doable, too many decent scripting commands lying around .

Ad. Siege issue. That's hardcoded, it works reasonably well in campaign, CA obviously didn't think someone would actually want to play a battle with AI having artillery only and there's no workaround. Actually they target the gatehouse, when it's 100% damaged they switch to gates in this scenario.

@Byg
The issue is that units will very often get stuck on ladders no matter what settings you use (or which AI files you use - ofc you can make their capacity "motorway-like", but that's not a real option) and AI will always try to push all units through whatever is the first opening. AI is generally extremely dumb when it comes to sieging and letting it push through gates is the best solution imo (and we need to realise that ladder settings are the same for a player too, which sets some limitations).
I almost forced it to attack plaza from two directions, but it turns units around as soon as the closest group is ready for attack and orders are issued.

Regards

P.S. I attack through gates most of time, I send some crap archers with ladders/towers/rams to different sides of settlement, which leaves the main gate with less defenders (I actuall tried to eliminate such possibility in my AI, still it's at least partially doable). Sounds like an exploit, but I can't resist .

[krolyn]

I'm pretty sure I can make GGR (G5's Grim Reality ) for battles .
Here's a little attempt on more "siege thrill", I dusted it at krolyn's request - this version, now called Panic Script, gives a 50% chance of switching off your cursor for 10 secs when enemy breaks gates/walls . Dodge this.

Coooll!!
Would never have thought of that but sounds interesting.
The only thing is that it affects the player only. Any chance of doing the same for the AI (like 50% chance of 10 seconds freezing)?

[Germanicu5]

@krolyn
Nope, making it harder for AI is considered war crime as it's already too dumb.

@Byg
RR/RC and BGR have a hidden "ai_boost" trait, add 60 SiegeEngieneering and AI's choice of siege equipment should improve.
Ad. panic script - it's just a demonstration, I can disable the whole UI too for given time period... or make some of unts rout, or disable cursor when player's unit routs... dunno, waiting for ideas.

Regards

[Germanicu5]

New AI is up, it includes HA fix I posted earlier on and minor changes targetting AI's passive defensive stance.

Regards

[soulson]

Very cool will try.

[AegonTheUnready]

Hi, I was thinking of trying this mod out. On the first page of RR/RC thread they recommend turning off the advisor. How does that work in conjunction with your mod? Still recommend to turn off the advisor?

[Germanicu5]

@AegonTheUnready
The advisor will pop out anyway, it's forced. The worst that can happen is the fact that no text will appear if you set blind_advisor = 1 (but the script will launch ofc). So yes, I recommend turning advisor off.

Regards

[Gorrrrrn]

Another thing I've noticed - when using rams the AI often allocates them to archers. As human player I can, of course, change that, but the AI gets stuck with them.

Personally I prefer to use woodsmen, spears so that they can engage in melee if attacked.
Also I prefer to have archers being archers, rather than ram shunters.

is this hardcoded?

[Germanicu5]

That's hardcoded all the way. I tried to order AI to drop siege equipment and see what it does - AI simply stopped siegeing at all. So for now we need to consider changing it is impossible. You can only influence who carries siege equipment when spawning an army - just don't put any missile units in it .

Regards

[gracul]

Any way of blocking the ability to put stakes right behind the gates?

[Germanicu5]

Ah, the old exploit... yea, looks very doable. The only possibility is turning stakes off for all player units during a siege - which is cool enough imo.

Regards

[gracul]

Great, thats exactly what im looking for.

[Byg]

@krolyn


@Byg
RR/RC and BGR have a hidden "ai_boost" trait, add 60 SiegeEngieneering and AI's choice of siege equipment should improve.

Regards

I know, I wrote it, but how will siege engineering help if the AI can't handle the extra equipment and only uses the first that succeeds.

[Germanicu5]

It'll help with more fluent sieges - it reduces time spent at building siege equipment, so the calculation is pretty simple here.

AI always attacks using all ladders/towers and might only drop them if ram had broken through, there may be some odd incidents when a settlement has a non-typical layout. I could increase ladder throughput a bit, but then people would say "this is bad, AI opened gates but climbs up adjacent towers and ladders" - I've seen these complaints before. The fact is that CA totally ignored siege and there's no good solution to all emergent issues, as AI is too dumb and relies on "let's get inside through this big hole" strategy.

Generally if we allow wall-oriented assault, AI's forces will get split and even easier to decimate.

Regards

[krolyn]

@G5

I've been looking at the CTD I'm having and it also happens on "custom battles", again only when clicking the "show me how" button. So I guess it must be some instalation problem (as you said). With so many hotfixes released by PB recently, I must have messed something up.

So I haven't looked at Panic yet but I'll try reinstall tonight and let you know in a couple of days...

By the way, just a couple of questions on install:
- Install RR/RC
- Install Oct12 Hotfix
- Install "ReallyBadAI+Stakes+Reinforcements run+HA fix"
- Install "Stakes+Reinf+HA+Panic.zip" from post 239
Right??

[Germanicu5]

@krolyn

That order is correct (although the panic script version doesn't include HA fix, but I guess you're installing it for testing purposes), reinforcements script can crash when repeating custom battles because of game's inability to reset some monitors in between. Campaign battles are very stable though.

Regards

[Gorrrrrn]

Interesting comments on siege battles -
I've been testing a couple of changes I made (which caused a CTD when triggered - ahem)

Before that I was defending Vilnius from crusader armies on H/H early campaign using the hotfix oct12b RC/RR compilation.

The AI attacks were generally well handled. AI Used 2 towers and 2 ladders and a ram (had a spare too.)
no siege artillery.
having 4 wall attacks and a gate attack to deal with means defenders will need plenty of defenders.

I only just managed to survive 1 attack due to crusaders fielding superior troops.

Overall I couldn't fault the AI in terms of its tactics.

(in other words it looks pretty good atm.)

[Andrew1994]

NEW ReallyBadAI+ Stakes+Reinforcements run+HA fix* 14-10-2009, download: SS+6.2 rc4, RR-RCoct12and RR-RC+BGRIV

With RR\RC you mean the new mod and with RR\RC+BGRIV you mean the old files?

[Germanicu5]

@Rozanov
Thx for your comments.

@Andrew1994
Nope, I just forgot to add "oct 12" to RR-RC+BGRIV. These are all new files for the latest RR-RC.

Regards