Battle AI mod

[♔Dignan♔]

Hi,

I have stopped to play and to mod formations in ETW several months ago. But I see I should share some my knowledge with community. I am more and more involved in the other things in my life than gaming and modding, so be patient if I will not react quickly (it is not my arrogance, but the lack of free time). I will try to devote some my free time to the matters related to formations in ETW, which are already "invented" by me in summer 2009 (to use the wording of my old "enemy" and friend DarthVader) but I was not motivated till this time to use them and to share them. I was not also motivated to improve my old ETW formations, which are defective as for their naval formations usage - simply fixable with my current knowledge. I need some other suggestions for changes in groupformations to implement them. In other words, I need some ideas and historical sources.
Well, to the question above - it is very simple to do it technically, you must define only the formations for which you could do this.

Bye, see you later
Sinuhet

Sinuhet, I think the community would be very receptive to this if you could do it. In my opinion, the biggest cause of the BAI bug (aka "melee bug") is that units overlap and never stop reshuffling. If their formations start out with more spacing they will be less likely to overlap in the first place. Now, the obvious downside to this is that the line would be stretched out even longer than it is now. I wish the AI could properly use a "stacked" deployment formation where one line is put behind another. THis can never happen properly because they will "leapfrog" each other trying to get a free line of fire. They will do this until they walk into the player's lines without firing a shot.

I don't really have any historical information to help with formation but a start would be just creating a formation mod that spaces the units out farther apart than they are now.

[Nikator]

Hey Luntik, thanks for your great mod, I like it very much. Just one small, maybe stupid question: Did you change the amount of ammunition the infantry has? Because somehow I've got the feeling my infantry runs out of ammo sooner than before I used your mod... but that maybe just a misapprehension.

Thanks and keep up the great work,
Nikator.

[♔Dignan♔]

Hey Luntik, thanks for your great mod, I like it very much. Just one small, maybe stupid question: Did you change the amount of ammunition the infantry has? Because somehow I've got the feeling my infantry runs out of ammo sooner than before I used your mod... but that maybe just a misapprehension.

Thanks and keep up the great work,
Nikator.

It probably just seems like they are running out of ammo because they are actually USING their ammo with this mod.

[joedreck]

It probably just seems like they are running out of ammo because they are actually USING their ammo with this mod.

Yes and the fights are longer now.

2 days ago, I try my new uniforms and fought Brits vs Austria. I shot on him and he on me, but nobody wants give up. After a while, as I saw, I could lose the fire fight, I, I repeat, I go into melee, but lost, because he gave me 5m before reach his man a deadly lead rain.
Never saw this before. Never had a long fire fight like this one. I was really happy about lost this battle .

[irish437]

Sinuhet, I think the community would be very receptive to this if you could do it. In my opinion, the biggest cause of the BAI bug (aka "melee bug") is that units overlap and never stop reshuffling. If their formations start out with more spacing they will be less likely to overlap in the first place. Now, the obvious downside to this is that the line would be stretched out even longer than it is now. I wish the AI could properly use a "stacked" deployment formation where one line is put behind another. THis can never happen properly because they will "leapfrog" each other trying to get a free line of fire. They will do this until they walk into the player's lines without firing a shot.

I don't really have any historical information to help with formation but a start would be just creating a formation mod that spaces the units out farther apart than they are now.

On top of the spacing there is a strange tendency for vanilla units to run diagonally accross your lines eventually ending up in melee. I am not sure spacing alone will fix it, but mixed with Lutniks mod it may.

[Nikator]

It probably just seems like they are running out of ammo because they are actually USING their ammo with this mod.

Hehe yeah, maybe, but I'm not sure. I somehow have the feeling that I have to send my men into melee way sooner than before using this mod.

In any case, before using this mod, I only realized that there actually IS an ammo-limit when fighting a huge battle against three enemy armies. The battle took more than 2 hours, my artillery pounding the enemy the whole time. During the last 30 minutes or so, I realized that my infantry isn't firing anymore and that I have to send them into melee. Now, after installing the mod, the infantry runs out of ammo after about 20 minutes or so, I didn't check the time. Strange.

Anyway, I don't know if it's actually possible to change the amount of ammo or if it's hardcoded.

[♔Dignan♔]

Hehe yeah, maybe, but I'm not sure. I somehow have the feeling that I have to send my men into melee way sooner than before using this mod.

In any case, before using this mod, I only realized that there actually IS an ammo-limit when fighting a huge battle against three enemy armies. The battle took more than 2 hours, my artillery pounding the enemy the whole time. During the last 30 minutes or so, I realized that my infantry isn't firing anymore and that I have to send them into melee. Now, after installing the mod, the infantry runs out of ammo after about 20 minutes or so, I didn't check the time. Strange.

Anyway, I don't know if it's actually possible to change the amount of ammo or if it's hardcoded.

You should be able to increase ammo easily. Not sure which db file.

Luntik, I noticed that in the battles_entities file for your NTW BAI mod you changed a lot more numbers. Could these changes also be made to the ETW BAI mod (to make it better) or are they specific settings just for NTW?

[WesW]

Hehe yeah, maybe, but I'm not sure. I somehow have the feeling that I have to send my men into melee way sooner than before using this mod.

In any case, before using this mod, I only realized that there actually IS an ammo-limit when fighting a huge battle against three enemy armies. The battle took more than 2 hours, my artillery pounding the enemy the whole time. During the last 30 minutes or so, I realized that my infantry isn't firing anymore and that I have to send them into melee. Now, after installing the mod, the infantry runs out of ammo after about 20 minutes or so, I didn't check the time. Strange.

Anyway, I don't know if it's actually possible to change the amount of ammo or if it's hardcoded.

No, Luntik didn't change the ammo amount. Units are only given 15 rounds, so if you were fighting three armies I can see where you could run out. It's easy enough to change, but you'd have to do it for each individual unit.
I remember reading once that Frederick the Great gave his men 50 rounds, and that in some battles they used it all up! I want to say that the standard amount was about 30 rounds. Someone in the historical forum could probably answer that. I'll try to remember and increase the ammo amount for my mod, though I wonder how many men a unit would have left after exchanging that many volleys!

[Luntik]

Luntik, I noticed that in the battles_entities file for your NTW BAI mod you changed a lot more numbers. Could these changes also be made to the ETW BAI mod (to make it better) or are they specific settings just for NTW?

Yes, these changes can be applied to ETW, I hope that they do not worsen the "melee bug". I plan to release a new version of the NTW BAI and then return to ETW

[joedreck]

Yes, these changes can be applied to ETW, I hope that they do not worsen the "melee bug". I plan to release a new version of the NTW BAI and then return to ETW

Nice to hear that. We need more man with eggs, who are loyal to E:TW .

[irish437]

Yes, these changes can be applied to ETW, I hope that they do not worsen the "melee bug". I plan to release a new version of the NTW BAI and then return to ETW

That is good news. Sometimes I get good battles, other times, I get chicken dancing.

One thing I do like is that the defenders actually defend. They will move out of range of fixed cannon.

Is there any way to get the AI to build trenches instead of spiked logs and to get them to stay behind the trenches. This would help the defenders as cannon really doesn't penetrate the trenches.

I also noticed that it takes alot more casualties to break a unit. That may have gone to a bit of an extreme. I see some units literally fighting to the last man. Still fighting with 8 men left of a 160 man unit.

[♔Dignan♔]

I also noticed that it takes alot more casualties to break a unit. That may have gone to a bit of an extreme. I see some units literally fighting to the last man. Still fighting with 8 men left of a 160 man unit.

I would guess this can easily be fixed by altering the kv_morale table. Or completely removing it which Luntik has said doesn't really effect the way the AI acts in his mod.

[Turbo]

I would guess this can easily be fixed by altering the kv_morale table. Or completely removing it which Luntik has said doesn't really effect the way the AI acts in his mod.

Dignan
This is the only issue I have with Luntik's AI is that the morale boost is extreme. Perhaps you could change the morale settings? I am sure that Luntik wouldn't mind and it sure would be appreciated by a number of us.

[irish437]

I wouldn't mind seeing them break at closer to 25% of full strength. But fighting to the last man isn't good, the AI never has any residual armies.

[♔Dignan♔]

Dignan
This is the only issue I have with Luntik's AI is that the morale boost is extreme. Perhaps you could change the morale settings? I am sure that Luntik wouldn't mind and it sure would be appreciated by a number of us.

This is easy to do if you want to do it in your own version. Just download the DBeditor. Open up Luntik's mod with the editor. Click on KV_morale table. Go to File and click "delete table". THis will undo the morale changes and put back the vanilla morale stats.

I'll defer to Luntik as to whether this will unbalance his mod or not?

[irish437]

This is easy to do if you want to do it in your own version. Just download the DBeditor. Open up Luntik's mod with the editor. Click on KV_morale table. Go to File and click "delete table". THis will undo the morale changes and put back the vanilla morale stats.

I'll defer to Luntik as to whether this will unbalance his mod or not?

Luntik, is there any chance you can respond to this?

Would it be possible for you to do a quick update of this mod that would restore original morale or at least make the AI not fight to nearly the last man?

Thanks.

[Luntik]

At your request
http://www.filefront.com/15865029/Ba...rale_test.pack
BAI mod without _kv_morale table.
This is not a new version.

[irish437]

At your request
http://www.filefront.com/15865029/Ba...rale_test.pack
BAI mod without _kv_morale table.
This is not a new version.

Awesome man + Rep

1 last question. I seem to have a problem. Bear with me. This is the first mod I tried to install myself except for the Darth Mod that loads automatically. When I opened my script folder, there was not a user.empire_scripts so I created one. I put the mod name in there in the line. It was the only line in there because this was a brand new document. The mod didn't work. So I put that in the first line of the preferences.empire_scripts and it worked. However, it fouled up the ability to load Darth Mod.

I like to play Vanilla with your mod sometimes and Darth others. Do you have any hints as to why this didn't work in my newly created user.empire_scripts?



Do you know what I am doing wrong? It should be as simple

[irish437]

What can I possibly be doing wrong here:

Here is my Scripts folder:
[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Greg/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/Users/Greg/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png[/IMG]Folder DMUC
preferences.empire_script
user.empire_script

Inside my user.empire_script, I have 1 line:
mod cetw_Battle_AI_v1_1.pack(I tried it with "cetw_Battle_AI_v1_1.pack" too) I also tried the same process with the beta test mod you just posted again as well.

Inside my data folder:
I have all types of PACK files including cetw_Battle_AI_v1_1 76 KB

The mod does not work.

Now if I put the line mod cetw_Battle_AI_v1_1.pack in the top line of my preferences folder, it works, but this causes Darth Mod to get completely fouled up.

Its as if it doesn't recognize that user.empire_script.

Is there something I need to do to recognize that user.empire_script?

user.empire_script wasn't there until I just created it the other day when I tried at first to use the mod.

Thanks.

[Luntik]

irish437, you did everything right, but there is one small thing...
Now, delete file user.empire_script,
create a new and save the user.empire_script.txt file in Unicode.