Rome 2 CAI actually an huge upgrade from Shogun 2 CAI despite many people said Shogun 2 CAI is better.Less they know how big and more detail and rich the life inside new CAI engine for Rome 2, its very compleks and have lots of branch, its also bring more problem, no wonder early prerelease was disaster X-X. In the past there is mods that also have the same concept that exist before Better Aggresive CAI like Barebone Superious Campaign AI made by Blitzkrieg80. First time i see it, i quite suprised to see a guys that have same minds like me, since its have the same original concept, by unleash the power of AI to its full limit. To bad the mod died premature, so the work and the reseach died with it. And people forget there was exist some people with great minds like him trying to make a game into much better. His work is quite revolutional actually.
Many veteran like Radious or rising star that very popular during rome 2 turbulance era like Magnar and Dresden pretty well know the fact that CAI can be modified to reach its potential limit. However neither one actually did it during their mod development, since its been obvious fact, letting CAI reach maximum Aggresive without fine tuning same like letting the train run without a track. At some point it will destroy the game, either its expand to careless, leaving its teritory unguarded,lack of defense, or make chaos, all that is horrible and will ruin campaign experience. So using Vanilla standart AI personality as safe guard is the safety choice. Because one weakness of big Overhaul it is not flexible enough to be tested over and over just to fine tune the Campaign AI experience and all that still can be considered as testing version. And that mean lots of complain, which nobody want actually have forum thread filled with complain since its will means bad for Mod PR.
Either they wait someone apply for that role in their mod team position,or they can wait somebody working on it then copy paste then imitate the already finished work or they can legally asking modder permission to use it as part of their work. Either way its valid option, since its will reduced their work burden greatly.Even they managed to find the guys to fill that position, there also problem since big mod cant be updated regurally every couple days after release, over and over. So the AI guys who work to develop it cant know the actual problem since less testing mean less information they get. Added the fact that vital information regarding the CAI they try to tweaks mixed with various information regarding other stuff like missing weapon, missing texture, glitch on here and there. There is limit for one a guys try to testing new game just to see what the difference between 0.02 vs 0.10. Its lots of work and wasted so much time not counting the failure and tons of stress, try to understand the effect of value itself. This is the sad fact and devil circle regarding CAI development for much of bigger Overhauls Mods. I think people who use Dei pretty remember how passive and broken the AI before.Especially before patch 16 release from C.A.No magic script can save it, no new campaign mechanic can help it. Its doomed to become worst experience, when you see the AI stay idle like zombie stare one another. Or where fleet stay idle floating peacefully in sea.Its broken beyond repair >,<
That a big mod dillema ,not only they need to catch up with new feature either new mechanical campaign, BAI, creating new units, added extra script, fixing glitch,bug from lots of parts. So most of CAI development , either dead or never fully developed. I mean how can you ask people to play the different version which contain different value over and over. Especially neither overhaul mod able to made cross reference between two engines, unless they port all their work stuff into new engine.I think during Rome 2 Dark Ages era for CAI Development only Radious AI and BareBones Superious Campaign AI probably the only bright light that give people ray of hope for better campaign experience.
Now this is where mod like Better Aggresive CAI is able to fill the gap, since its primary focus was to fine tune Campaign AI only, its data able to be port over new engine like Attila mean there is no loss work. Instead i can made cross reseach between Attila and Rome 2, something that neither big Overhaul can done.Every person that download the mod and use it actually was beta tester since either its good or bad experience they get during campaign play they will post it the result, and using their new input , i can slowly but steady improve the CAI logic . Something that most Overhaul cant done, since the input they get was mixed, so its hard for them to pin point the exact problem and try to solve it.Now on November 2015, who never though the BACAI mod already finish in less then one years development and many of its work used by other people, either they created alternate version, or using it as base to study and modify their own CAI, VV,Ancient Empires, DEI is some of the fine example of it. Knowing his work used by other person already the highest praise a modder can get, because he know that his work actually help and benefit many people in the end. |