A genuinely awsome BAI

[Abriael]

So basically from what I've been reading, the AI feels no better or worse from Napoleon then.

I got the same feeling. After a few battles my reaction has been: "so this would be Sun Tsu collated into a game's AI? Ooookay CA, that's nice marketing. Too bad it's just marketing".

[M2TWRocks]

I challenge CA to let me play and write a review on the full game AI, and to leave the CAI and BAI open for us to mod, to we can have fun modding again.

Instead of closing us AI modders out after Med2 because we openly challenged them to do better, and criticized their work when they did not.

I don't believe the word of one man, I have seen too many PR tricks by CA and SEGA to buy into this nonsense. This is why Med2 Kingdoms was the last game that I bought.

I also do not believe PCG (PC GAMER) reviews either because they have been on SEGA's and Atari's payroll for a very long time.

(Pay no attention to this post)

xeryx

If you look at the trend with the last last 3 games, including S2TW, it easy to see exactly why they've sort of shut you guys out. The mechanics and engine of ETW were clearly designed to use it as a vehicle to launch multiple titles in the future...similar to what modders have been doing in the past with every total war title since the original.

Other than geographic and historical differences, there's not a heck of a lot of difference between the overall mechanics and game design from one title to the other. NTW is basically a mod of ETW, as is S2TW.(Albeit, NTW is hundreds of times improved upon compared to ETW.)

If you guys could mod the AI to be better than the incarnations CA is putting out, why would anyone buy a slightly improved upon engine, with slightly improved upon mechanics? Imagine if you guys could have modded ETW to have a completely different map, with a completely different setting. You could have most likely made a BETTER S2TW, which would negate the need to buy the game to begin with.

Keep in mind, everything I've said is pure speculation, but is from someone who generally has defended CA in the past. The more I see of these trends with TW games, the more disheartened I become with the franchise.

GIVE US ANOTHER ENGINE AND ACTUAL GAME WORTHY OF $50! GIVE US TOTAL WAR BACK, PLEASE!

[Tim_Ward]

I have seen this in all games. In the first the Ai attacked 3 katana cavs with one yari, in the second the AI chased (!) my three katana cavs with 1 yari cav. In all the custom battles I played after this one the AI was way too enthusiastic with its cavalry.

Yeah, the AI doesn't use it's calvary well or cautiously. Probably the biggest weakness.

Post me just one screenshot where the AI clearly flanks with infantry. I have not seen any attempt. On the other hand I post dozens of screenshots with big blobs of AI infantry.

Also, here's the AI clearly advancing in three columns, instead of a big blob:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Not really, the MTW BAI was way better.

MTW? I think not.

Yes indeed, but it hardly a major feat of arms. I just want to caution people not to belive everything. The BAI indeed seems to be better than that of ETW but it is nowhere near as good as portrayed by the OP.

I had a similar experience at first with the new BAI. Subsequently, I mostly beat it unless I made a stupid mistake or wasn't paying attention. I think if you come to the BAI from ETW or similar then you tend to be pretty complacent... let's face it, in ETW if you could make a line and had rough parity of numbers then that was literally all you needed to do. If you try and play the Shogun 2 AI like you play other Total War AIs you're in for a rude shock, which I think is a sign of how far it's come. I merely hope they continue to refine and improve the AI, e.g. it's use of calvary and preservation of the general, in patches or in subsequent games rather than just thinking 'right, we've done an AI now - we can ignore it for another four games'.

Reguarding AI formations, I think it's an artifact of how the battle was made - it doesn't seem to deploy it's troops in the deployment phrase, just leaves them in a big lump. This being a hacked historical battle, maybe it doesn't get a deployment phase. If the real BAI is programmed to select something sensible in the deployment phase, then try and stick to it as it advances towards the player then the formation it's going to stick to is the big lump it's troops start in. I've seen it change formation as it advances, sometimes. Possibly something the player does triggers code that makes the AI change formation, hence it moves from the Big Lump to the three column formation I see alot; presumably, something in the way I tend to player seems to cause it to do three columns.

[aus-rotten]

If you look at the trend with the last last 3 games, including S2TW, it easy to see exactly why they've sort of shut you guys out. The mechanics and engine of ETW were clearly designed to use it as a vehicle to launch multiple titles in the future...similar to what modders have been doing in the past with every total war title since the original.

Other than geographic and historical differences, there's not a heck of a lot of difference between the overall mechanics and game design from one title to the other. NTW is basically a mod of ETW, as is S2TW.(Albeit, NTW is hundreds of times improved upon compared to ETW.)

If you guys could mod the AI to be better than the incarnations CA is putting out, why would anyone buy a slightly improved upon engine, with slightly improved upon mechanics? Imagine if you guys could have modded ETW to have a completely different map, with a completely different setting. You could have most likely made a BETTER S2TW, which would negate the need to buy the game to begin with.

Keep in mind, everything I've said is pure speculation, but is from someone who generally has defended CA in the past. The more I see of these trends with TW games, the more disheartened I become with the franchise.

GIVE US ANOTHER ENGINE AND ACTUAL GAME WORTHY OF $50! GIVE US TOTAL WAR BACK, PLEASE!

itīs good to see you finally talk some sense, Mr. Rocks.

[C.I.F]

I challenge CA to let me play and write a review on the full game AI

That's exactly what I catch myself thinking whenever I read a review or preview about Shogun 2 that doesn't even mention the AI, or mentions it fleetingly in three sentences.

We have had community events on both coasts of the US (New York and san Francisco). We are having a community event in Munich next tuesday and we have put out invites for an upcoming CA based UK community event. You have both had the opportunity to respond. Those that have attended the community events have been free to write their experiences without let or hinderance from us.

As this eagle eyed poster has noticed : http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=431103

[daniu]

itīs good to see you finally talk some sense, Mr. Rocks.

You probably mean the "everything I've said is pure speculation" part

Yeah, the AI doesn't use it's calvary well or cautiously. Probably the biggest weakness.

I'd say it's the consistantly unprotected archers. But you're right, cav could use some improvement too.

[Generals_Bodyguard]

If you look at the trend with the last last 3 games, including S2TW, it easy to see exactly why they've sort of shut you guys out. The mechanics and engine of ETW were clearly designed to use it as a vehicle to launch multiple titles in the future...similar to what modders have been doing in the past with every total war title since the original.

Other than geographic and historical differences, there's not a heck of a lot of difference between the overall mechanics and game design from one title to the other. NTW is basically a mod of ETW, as is S2TW.(Albeit, NTW is hundreds of times improved upon compared to ETW.)

If you guys could mod the AI to be better than the incarnations CA is putting out, why would anyone buy a slightly improved upon engine, with slightly improved upon mechanics? Imagine if you guys could have modded ETW to have a completely different map, with a completely different setting. You could have most likely made a BETTER S2TW, which would negate the need to buy the game to begin with.

Keep in mind, everything I've said is pure speculation, but is from someone who generally has defended CA in the past. The more I see of these trends with TW games, the more disheartened I become with the franchise.

GIVE US ANOTHER ENGINE AND ACTUAL GAME WORTHY OF $50! GIVE US TOTAL WAR BACK, PLEASE!

I suspect as the old guys now, we feel a little fatigued. Don't you feel that way? Been with Total War since Shogun. That's what? 6 games plus double that for expansions. I don't think those new to the series will feel the same way though. They will be completely satisfied with Shogun 2(my speculation).

I want this to be good. But based on logic:

1) Same engine
2) There's been a Total War game three years in a row(shorter development cycles more Total War games)
3) They broke the revolution evolution cycle they so steadfastly held on to in the past
4) We all know Shogun 2 isn't going to be adding anything new to the series.

I'm just not as positive as you guys. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it will be an amazing game.

[Hinkel]

So I'm in munich next week to play the full shogun 2 version and I can write down some AI expierence

[Ragga]

GIVE US ANOTHER ENGINE AND ACTUAL GAME WORTHY OF $50! GIVE US TOTAL WAR BACK, PLEASE!

hmmm... although i do take notice of some of your insight, your last sentence make little sense; for one, all games being relased are $50... in fact some companies now think they can jack it up a few buck higher (ModernWarfare or Black Ops release ring a bell). However... in the grand scope of things, $50 is really not that much... I just went into STEAM to see my hours played...

NTW - 140 = about 35 cents an hour!!! LOL

ETW - 647 (and that game had some serious problem here and there) = about 7 mesely pennies an hour!!!

dont know about you... but that's pretty cheap entertainment. my cable bill seems higher

[Abriael]

hmmm... although i do take notice of some of your insight, your last sentence make little sense; for one, all games being relased are $50... in fact some companies now think they can jack it up a few buck higher (ModernWarfare or Black Ops release ring a bell). However... in the grand scope of things, $50 is really not that much... I just went into STEAM to see my hours played...

NTW - 140 = about 35 cents an hour!!! LOL

ETW - 647 (and that game had some serious problem here and there) = about 7 mesely pennies an hour!!!

dont know about you... but that's pretty cheap entertainment. my cable bill seems higher

Got to see how many of those hours are thanks to the 50 dollars' worth of CA's work, and how many are thanks to the free efforts of the modding community. Personally, I couldn't be dragged kicking and screaming to play either of those games vanilla for more than 10 hours each.

[Tim_Ward]

No free efforts of the modding community without an actual game to mod, Abriael.

[Abriael]

No free efforts of the modding community without an actual game to mod, Abriael.

As much as you like, but if the developer releases an utterly incomplete, bugged and inconsistent game, and the modder moves it from the status of "unplayable mess" to "playable" or even "fun", I tend to be grateful towards the modder, not so much towards the developer that quite obviously did a poor job but still got my money.
Dunno about you, but I'll give credit to the developer for those 5-6 hours in which I managed to enjoy the game before the bugs, the incosistences, the repeatitiveness and the utter lack of polish spoiled my experience. After that, I'll give credit to the ones that revived the fun where the developers, with all their resources, weren't able or willing to.

I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, but repeated negative experiences left me quite short on praise for shoddy coding and lazy QA.

[Tim_Ward]

True enough, but you can't mod a bad game into a good one - the phrase "polishing a turd" is a apropos - but you can mod a fundamentally good game dragged down by bugs, bad AI, bad balancing, etc into a good one. Realistically, most of the work was actually done by the developer. Granted they got 100% of the money for less than 100% of the work. I'd happily pay money for a mod the quality of, say, europa barbarorum but sadly that is illegal.

[daniu]

How is this turning into a discussion about mods?
It's about S2's vanilla AI which is good from the get-go, as much as people who haven't tried keep denying it.

[Googoo24]

How is this turning into a discussion about mods?
It's about S2's vanilla AI which is good from the get-go, as much as people who haven't tried keep denying it.

I just like how C.I.F. calmly came in here and posted something, despite his company being blatantly dragged through the mud.

[daniu]

I just like how C.I.F. calmly came in here and posted something, despite his company being blatantly dragged through the mud.

He knows how to not feed trolls that's all.

[Rigby]

There could be a trend that instead seeing a expansion for shogun2 or some DLC's that in 1 year time we will see just another new Total War title. Be it Rome total war 2 or China total war or maybe Greek total war using the same engine .

[Abriael]

True enough, but you can't mod a bad game into a good one - the phrase "polishing a turd" is a apropos - but you can mod a fundamentally good game dragged down by bugs, bad AI, bad balancing, etc into a good one. Realistically, most of the work was actually done by the developer. Granted they got 100% of the money for less than 100% of the work. I'd happily pay money for a mod the quality of, say, europa barbarorum but sadly that is illegal.

Aside from the fact that the history of gaming is full of "turds" polished into good games (and I think few would argue that ETW wasn't a true-to-definition "turd" out of the box) by modders, there's little to be grateful for a game released in a state of disrepair. If it's not a real scam, it misses that definition just by a few hairs.

Hopefully TWS2 won't be released in such a horrible state, but previous experience and what I've seen so far tells me that it won't be released in a state that I'd define polished as well (especially if you use windows xp, the lack of AA is an intentional punch in the face of a good half of the playerbase, considering that it's the most widespread OS in the world, and releasing a full game without AA support for so many people is an asinine choice in this day and age).
I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but I don't expect it, thing that will soothe my disapointment if I won't be and will increase my joy if I will.

I can't wait for the day in which I will be able, after 20+ hours of gameplay, to give a full 90+ score to a TW game again, out of the box. Do I expect it to happen? No. But I'd still love to see that day.

How is this turning into a discussion about mods?
It's about S2's vanilla AI which is good from the get-go, as much as people who haven't tried keep denying it.

Funny how some people overstimate their opinion so much that they automatically think that whoever firmly disagrees with it must be lacking in direct experience (or worse).
I'd advise you to realize that the demo is available to everyone, so there's little doubt that most that say that the AI isn't as smart as CA boasts, or some say, do so out of direct experience.

[C.I.F]

I suspect as the old guys now, we feel a little fatigued. Don't you feel that way? Been with Total War since Shogun. That's what? 6 games plus double that for expansions. I don't think those new to the series will feel the same way though. They will be completely satisfied with Shogun 2(my speculation).

I want this to be good...
...We all know Shogun 2 isn't going to be adding anything new to the series.

I'm just not as positive as you guys. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it will be an amazing game.

Hi GB

Obviously you don't have to take anyones word for it. But, in the office we think this is one of the best Total War games we have made.
We think Shogun 2 has got plenty of new stuff, and improved stuff, and that it is great fun to play. If you dont want to get it on day 1, wait and see the reactions from those that do. As the saying goes; the proof is in the pudding.

In terms of TW "fanboi" credentials. Personally, I've been working on Total War games since the last weeks of Viking Invasion. So that also includes Rome, Barabarian Invasion, Empire, Napoleon, The Peninsular Campaign and now Shogun 2. I played Shogun 1 and Med 1 from day 1 of their release and have played every TW game since then for more hours, days and weeks, than any sane human should.

Look at Jack Lusted's Shimazu campaign report. He did some of that in his own spare time, because he was having fun and wanted to share the experience. In that thread he openly and honestly answers gameplay questions from anyone and everyone.

For those that say nothing has changed:
What about the Japanese style castle battles? Introducing those and naval battles with land in them required a substantial re-writing of code to make them possible, including the BAI and pathfinding. The new Shogun 2 battlefield generation system itself took the team 2 years of building on from Empire code base. There isn't an area of the game that didnt require some improvements or rewriting of code to make Shogun 2.
What else? The skills system for character agents and generals, the improved Diplomatic AI with 3d Daimyos and verbal responses, the re-introduction of generals speeches, new unit abilities... The list goes on.

Anyway I have to go and have some lunch now. Thanking you all in advance for your present, past and future support of Total War. And to any of you going to the Munich or UK community events, I'll see you there.

Jamie

[daniu]

Funny how some people overstimate their opinion so much that they automatically think that whoever firmly disagrees with it must be lacking in direct experience (or worse).

Well since you don't bring any specific examples, screenshots or videos as others do, there's nothing else to assume.