Battle AI impressions.

[InferiorBeing]

Right. Since they've released an expansion that somewhat changes the dynamic of how Land Battles are fought, (plus patch-notes that listed "AI-improvements".), I figured it might be appropriate to create a thread dedicated to the current status of the Battle AI. The first thing I'll do, is mark down the impressions I got from a few initial tests I did upon having just installed the game.

Quoting myself:

Having the horrid, broken mess that was the ETW/NTW BAI fresh in memory, the very first thing I did once the game was installed was try a Custom Battle where I gave both the AI and myself an identical 20-unit army each, consisting only of matchlock/musket infantry, a few Light Cavalry and two guns. I picked a flat, open map for ease of testing purposes.

The AI was set to be the attackers, so it was their job to advance on me, while I mostly waited. They advanced in a simple two-line formation, like in regular Shogun 2. Once they had gotten close to me, I told each of my units to attack the enemy unit directly in front of them. There were absolutely no tactics involved on my part; I simply wanted to see how the AI would handle a ranged-only line battle.

The results were... mixed. As both armies came within range of one another, a large portion of their army just kept on walking straight forward as my soldiers were firing away at them. Since reloading time is generally pretty short in FotS, they managed to take a lot of casualties that way. They also tried a cavalry charge at the right wing of my army, but that's where I had stationed my own cavalry as well, so they were intercepted before they could do much damage.

Eventually, all the enemy units finally stopped, and started returning fire. The exchange of fire went on for a few minutes, and here it was a bit hard for me to see what was going on because of all the smoke. Eventually, they were all broken and fled almost simultaneously. The result was a very clear victory on my part, with their army having suffered some 1800+ casualties, and my army only some 700+. I should be noted that I also got a bit of a "head start" in the killing because my cannon started shooting at them and killing them long before they were able to get their own cannon slowly marching into range.

What did I learn of the AI? It definitively seemed improved over ETW and NTW, but still certainly not quite working. I eventually got the musket line-battle I wanted, but it took a while, because the AI was slow to actually stop and shoot back. It also seemed to get a bit confused sometimes. A couple of times, I zoomed the camera close in order to see what was going on in the middle of all the smoke, and I saw a few instances of one unit standing directly in front of another unit, blocking them from firing. I also never really saw the AI using any Abilities; but again, there were lots of smoke everywhere and I mostly stayed on furthest zoom-angle in order to see what the AI army was doing as a whole.

Having tried that battle a couple more times, my impression stands. Some of the enemies stop and shoot like they're supposed to; others keep on walking, not halting to shoot back until they get bunched up somewhere in the center where they tend to block each other's line of fire. By the time they had finally gotten their two cannon into position, the entire army had more or less broken. A very clear victory on my part. If people are interested, I suppose I could try and attach a Replay-file or something, assuming it's possible/legal.

[Humble Warrior]

I don`t have ROTS so I can`t really test the shooty stuff, but I would say that the general battle formation cohesiveness and cavalry is very good. The AI attacks as a whole and presses its attack, using its cavalry to flank hard on both sides. If it has more cavalry it`ll even try going right behind you if it can. It`s not supremely amazing compared to STW2 vanilla, but it`s slightly stronger over all.

But this is a battle without any gunnery. I suspect cannons and guns probably screws all this up, especially if the AI has to attack

When (if) I get FOTS i`ll test its arty, gunnery AI and see if it does what you should do in such battles. ETW was awful on it; I just hope it`s better with FOTS.

One thing I have noticed is in sieges, if you attack with a way smaller force than it has defending, it`ll never bother to come out of the Fort and attack you. This mean you can bombard it with only catapults quite happily. A programming mistake in my view. the smart thing would be to leave the castle and attack.

[MrChris]

I've actually found the AI to be pretty competent, when they have cavalry they typically use them very well, attacking the flanks, the odd suicide charge into the front of line inf with a unit occurs every now and then, but they only seem to do that when I have my flanks locked down

otherwise, its actually a line vs line battle now, you can take some pretty steady casualties because the AI can actually form a line to shoot back now lol

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

The BAI can't handle gun units very well. Most of the time units get in the way of each other. It's even worse then ETW/NTW. All you have to do is forming a single line with stretched out gun units and let the AI walk to you. With some melee units to countercharge and securing the flanks battles are easily won.

[Aeon221]

Playing as imperials the AI on hard is competent but unremarkable in battles. The shogunate forces are decently employed and can cause vicious amounts of damage, but I have a feeling the ai does well with them because the strategy revolves around waaaaagh.

In battles against imperials the ai did not do nearly so well. It made good use of a forward hill position to enfilade my troops, and reacted well against slow flanking pushes, but had no way of handling artillery or naval bombardment. That same forward hill position ended up being a death trap when I dropped a bombard and they didn't move.

I saw the ai mostly handling its gun units reasonably well, and it worked to oppose my incoming units with units of its own. It even fired into the melee against priority targets.

It does much better on the strategic map, where it makes effective use of raiding ships, naval invasions and terrain. One thing it categorically does not do is remember that it was ambushed in a spot from turn to turn. I slaughtered two armies in two turns with a single ambush force. Of course this was a campaign problem.

I'm impressed by one thing, the cai force comp is fairly good.

It may be that the bai is tailored around an expected force comp, and giving it a mostly gun force comp with the expectation that it will fight well is an unreasonable thing to do. You also forced it to attack, which has always been the best way to beat an ai in this series. Maybe try attacking under their guns a few times.

@humble warrior: if you don't have the game your comments on game features aren't useful.

[Radious]

Its basicaly impossible to loose if you have same amount of army as Ai does since it will never create proper formations and can be easily shooted to death from many angles. Thats why range battles are big advantage for player. To have slight challenge is necessary to have battle difficulty on VH where AI gets some stats bonuses to its units.

Does Ai actually use kneel fire? Didint noticed it at all. What i did noticed is that sometimes they send 1-2 squads directly on your general ignoring all your army and gets decimated in that process.

[Scarred]

How do you counter cavalary from flanking you?

[InferiorBeing]

Does Ai actually use kneel fire? Didint noticed it at all.

I think I've seen them use it, once.

[MJWilliams]

They really need to sort out the AI suicidally charging it's cavalry into line infantry, too. I've not yet played a FotS battle where the enemy hasn't sacrificed it's mounted component early on. BAI seems to have a real problem understanding that trying to run down riflemen head-on with cavalry will always result in losing the unit in question. Self-impaling cav on spear walls was a huge problem in Shogun 2 and it's a shame to see it still rife in FotS.

AI Cavalry under artillery attack also seems to either ponderously continue forwards and soak up the fire or run off to the right or left; leaving it's army out of the general's radius and susceptible to mass routs. I've won the vast majority of my battles needing only 2 or 3 volleys from line infantry because the general is long dead.

Couldn't agree more with Radious, anything less than VH battle difficulty has such a low challenge level that it quickly becomes dull and repetitive.

[Humble Warrior]

@humble warrior: if you don't have the game your comments on game features aren't useful.

Actually, Sir, they are because the very same enhanced AI is used in S2 that is in FOTS. The lack of artillery does not make my posts null or void, unlike your comment.

[Rizzmond]

The BAI can't handle gun units very well. Most of the time units get in the way of each other. It's even worse then ETW/NTW. All you have to do is forming a single line with stretched out gun units and let the AI walk to you. With some melee units to countercharge and securing the flanks battles are easily won.

It's not worse than ETW/NTW, but it's not much better either. As others have noted, it can't form a line in combat and overlaps its units a lot.

It's as if once the BAI gets close the BAI tells each individual unit to move and fire upon a specific target, totally destroying cohesion. You can emulate the BAI behavior as a player, just give an attack order for each unit in your line and watch it fall apart into ridiculousness like the BAI.

I'm really disappointed they still haven't managed to make the BAI advance firearms in a line and just stop in formation when enemy is in range. I don't understand why this is so difficult, and now it's the 4th CA product with firearms where this happens (ETW/NTW/S2/FOTS).

As a side note, I think the BAI does the exact same thing it does with bow units, except the bows have arc fire so if the incompetent AI overlaps them they can all still fire.

[Josh Knight]

I've actually lost 3 straight campaigns on hard in the early turns. Usually I end up attacking fortresses with a couple hundred more troops than my enemy, but I find without the use of Naval Bombardments the AI handles defending quite well.

[Chevalier IX]

While not perfect this is certainly the best vanilla bai and quite far from broken.The ai puts up a passable fight on a level that is actually much harder than previous games,because now the ai has to balance linear powder units with full on melee units,and it does it passably enough to lead to some rather exciting battles

[Colonel Dax]

I was actually surprised to see a unit of Sabre Cavalry disregard my main force, and attack my gun battery.

Apparently, it had broken off from the rest of its force, allowing it to become hidden in the forest and flank my army (and it took the long way around, no less; it gave my lines a wide berth). I didn't realise it was there, though, until it was behind my battle lines, hacking my gunners to pieces.

[Scarred]

How do you counter cavalary from flanking you?

Anyone?

[Shabby_Ronin]

Anyone?

Don't let them flank you? Or be ready with spears...

While not perfect this is certainly the best vanilla bai and quite far from broken.The ai puts up a passable fight on a level that is actually much harder than previous games,because now the ai has to balance linear powder units with full on melee units,and it does it passably enough to lead to some rather exciting battles

Yeah, it's competent enough to be fun. I don't expect perfection or anything even close to it, so I don't set myself up for disappointment. I also don't try to exploit things, I just have fun.

[Humble Warrior]

As one ancient General once said...

"Flank the flankers!"

[Colonel Dax]

Anyone?

Keep a Melee contingent in your armies.

[Scarred]

Keep a Melee contingent in your armies.

such as spearmen?

[Shabby_Ronin]

such as spearmen?

Don't let them flank you? Or be ready with spears...