Here we have the first installment of Campaign AI balancing. This is a Work In Progress
NOTE: Please do not start any modding until you understand this document in its entirety.
INTRODUCTION:
The goal here is to give you a thorough understanding of what it takes to get a campaign balanced on the AI side of things. Primarily we will focus on AI diplomacy with other AI's. Then your understanding of that will transfer to balancing it to the human then we will concentrate on other factors such as aggressiveness of the AI.
I am not going to teach you how to write an AI, I am going to show you what lines to edit in XCAI files to achieve a balance in your mod.
A big thank you goes out to CA! for their 1.5 update. Because of their inclusion for the game engine to recognize negative values within the campaign AI. That is how we were able to get the AI to be able have reliable diplomacy.
The first thing you must understand, is that every mod out there is different, and initially things will most likely be "out of balance". The original game or mod was balanced, towards "vanilla" style campaign files. Whether the designer realized it or not.
There is no such thing as Plug and play, with AI because there are too many other mod specific files that influence it.
The benefit of integration of XAI into your mod out way the short term issues of balancing.
Here are a list of benefits you will gain from XCAI integration.
+ Includes levels of difficulty.
+ All religions now have rules in the AI, and the Faction Standings
+ Penalties and bonuses for all religions, for a real medieval religious flavor
+ Makes proper use of Forts, and Stone Forts.
+ Real Naval invasions! like they should be, with full reinforcements.
+ XCAI has rules for all nations and religions, diplomatic, strategic, and tactical decisions.
+ Break-through fix, for handling of ships. Please see the faq (in this faq).
+ Improved the consequences for a players actions, especially trespassing.
+ Aggressive Defense of AI territories and besieging.
+ Improved multiple army attack and defense.
+ Many more epic battles!
+ Sure footed and devious expansion of factions.
+ AI picks invasion targets more careful.
+ Factions builds up! Much larger armies used for assaulting players, and defending territories.
+ Allies cooperation in attacks, for both AI and human.
+ Drastic reduction in steam rolling of opponents.
+ More realistic Diplomacy!
I am going to show you over time, how to look for issues and troubleshoot and fix them. I will give you pointers and ideas as I go. I am not going to lie to you and say this will be easy. Together we may run into issues that will make us expand these guidelines.
We are willing to help you complete this project, but we really need you to try and do the best possible job of following the instructions first. I am not the most talented writer around, and I am sure there will be some confusion caused. If you find a better way to do a process, then write it down and maybe we can improve this document. We are all in this mess together, and we all want the same thing. A game that we can play and enjoy. That is why we are still all here!
We all have real lives in addition to our modding, and I hope you can appreciate that we as a team have to balance our priorities. This is why I am working so hard on this document, so if I am gone you can work your way through it on your own. Then ask us for help on the tougher issues.