Best Campaign AI?

[Quark]

Ok I wanted to find which is the best campaign out there at the moment. So to test this on Hard campaign, Very Hard Battles, we currently have;

Nightbringer - Vanilla Ai - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...04&postcount=3
Ceaser Clivius - UAi - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...39&postcount=5
delra - Darth - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...12&postcount=4
Quark - Snipafist - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...68&postcount=2
delra - Lusted - http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...3&postcount=15

The plan is to have each report on the same game, so that Ai strategy can be evaluated.

I choose Byzantium to test this out, as it allows the Ai to be tested with both known and unknown factions, and allows Jihads and Crusades to procced without player control. The campaign plan is:

Military

• Take Sofia with king+troops from Thesselonica and Constantiple+mercs if required
• Build mechants in Constantinople to Merchanst Guild there
• Build priests in Nicosia (Bosphorus) to get Theologians Guild there. You will need lots of these to avoid dispondent troops.
• Accept mission and take Cantaleke and use leader form Nicea
• Build up some Skythion in Corinth and take Arta
• Use Nicosa on Cyprus to take Adana

Once Cantakle and Corinth have given good force of Skythion convert to cities. This should leave Sofia and Arta guading the west and Adana and Nicea guading the east.

Diplomacy

• Send Princess to Hungry and get alliance
• Move Princess towards Venice and get trade agreements with eveyone
• Ally with Pope (this may be hard or easy depending on Ai)

Build diplomat and send to Turks and Egypt to get trade agreements
Ally with Templars


Economy

• Send Merchants to Anticoh region as 4 good resources there.
• Send one merchant to above Vienna to gold resource
• Send a Merchant towards Bagdad as two good resources there

Generally my plan would be to take Sinop or Smynra depending on what the Turks have done and prepare for war with the Turks and Venice. The 'Nobles' will ask me to take one of them and then Rhodes in my opinion.

I have left Duzzino to see how aggresive the Venetains are.
I taken Adana because its always been my main production fort and guard of Turkey. It may also upset the Templars and gauge reaction there.
I have taken Sofia to see what Hungry does. A small garrison will be left to test the aggressive nature of the Ai.

The reports will also list who took key areas like Hamburg, Florence, Tunis and how wars are developing between such factions as England vs Scotland.

Report Times
Start 1080
Report 1098 (1.5 * 12)
Report 1125 (1.5 * 30)
Report 1155 (1.5 * 50)

IF YOU READ THIS PLEASE DO NOT POST A REPLY UNTIL EACH OF THESE PLAYERS HAVE ADDED A REPORT POST.

This will ensure that all reports are at the top of the thread. Thankyou

Hopefully this will provide useful information to all of us on this thread.

EDIT: I have attached all test Ai's in a zipped folder, including the original, for those who forget to backup.

[Quark]

Snipafist Ai Report



1081: Hamburg falls to HRE, Sicily land in Tunis, Portugal starts its seiges of Salamanca, I sign a trade deal and map information from the Turks.
1083: The mission to take Canakkale appears, I get to Sofia, the French who are very active, beseige Dijon, Siciliy Tunis and Hungry Zagreb
1084: French take Dijon, Milan starts its campign of seiging Marseilles. Scotland starts its York and Dublin campaigns, the Turks start their campigns against Adana. Templars are taking it slow to build up an army.
1086: After several rejects I adopt a new familiy member. Sign an Alliance with Hungry. I am very tempted to marry there Prince, but decide to keep the Princess. I recruit a diplomat just in case. Russia besieges Helsinki. Aragon beseiges Pamplona.
1087: My resources have run so low that I cannot build and for some reason my relations with the Papal States worsen to Poor. Russia takes Helsinki. Hungry is trying to beseige Bucharest and Belgrade. Seems to like the south alot. England is wandering around a bit aimless. Denmark is ignoring the north and trying to get around Hamburg. Portugal takes Silves
1089: I take Sofia, beseige Cantakkale and watch as Jerusalem falls to Egypt. Aragon takes Pamlona, the French Rennes and the Templars take Antioch. Marry off my Princess to a great general.
1092: I form an Alliance with the Templars and a trade agreement with Venice. Scotland takes Dublin, Poland Marienburg (due to HRE being held up by some rebels.
1093: I capture Arta, Kiev Iasu, the French Bern
1095: Scilily takes Tunis and Triploli, I form a trade agreement with Egypt
1096: A quite year, I adopt an experienced governor
1098: Portugal after many attempts finaly take Salamanca I take Cantakkale, HRE Prague. The Turks having been replused many times have given me the chance to besiege Adana.

My reputation is Mixed.

Denmark, England, Venice, Aragon and Spain seem to have the hardest time trying to expand, wereas France, HRE, Sicily and Egypt the easiest. So far all alliances have held, but I suspect the Turks are on the way. Many seiges have failed, so perhaps the factions need to be encouraged to build bigger armies or be slightly less aggressive. Alos I seem to be the only one who has formed an Alliance.

My building plan focused on walls, town halls, ports for cities; roads, mustering halls, tanners for castles. In new settlements I also tried to build churches to avoid despondent troops.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Report 1099-1120

Military
Given mission to take Smyrna and manage to beat Turks there (they lurk), take Adana (love those Skythikon), mission to take Rhodes (in progress). I also have in progress sieges at Scotia and Sinope to gauge reaction. This has weakened Sofia, so we will see if my alliance holds. I have started to convert my castles to generate more income as running a tight budget at the moment. All mission rewards have been in cash (very handy).

Templars: Acre
England: Caernarvon
Moors: Murcia
Sicily: Bari, ElOued, Cagliari (I like the way they are expanding, lots of use of ships)
Venice negotiates its away around Bologna and takes Florence. Does a naval landing outside Athens and besieges. Corinth sends in the Skythikon and Venice destroyed. Negotiations follow and they give trade rights and 500 for 10 turns.
France: Lyon, Antwerp, Bruges (this is a serious faction)
Portugal: Burgos
HRE: Breslau
Leon-Castille: does not move until war declared
Aragon: does not move
Scotland: York (guess what’s going to happen)
Egypt: Damascus
Hungry: Belgrade, Bucharest
Denmark: Groningen. Now that the south is out the way, Denmark remembers there is a north.
Poland: Stettin
Turks: Trebizond
Milan: Marseille (at last)
Russia: I think the reduced movement is limiting the Russian states as a whole, as they try and figure out how to expand. Their armies seem a little undecided.

Zagreb: Venice, HRE and Hungry seem to have decided that having been beaten from it, its to tough and are starring at it from their borders.

1114 It all kicks off. Moors block port of Valencia, but do nothing else
1114 Venice declares war on Sicily but no action
1116 England attacks York, taking it the next turn, blocks ports and attacks in the North sea. Scotland’s reply is handicapped by there main army going rebel.
1119 HRE attacks Metz and takes it next year.

Iraklion is very well defended, while Iconium only has three units. Generally I think that settlements are under defended, but not at the one unit level. Rebels are hunted down. Looking at this area though it's easy to see how the early appearance of a random rebel can aid in determining which faction gets there first.

Diplomacy
Get trade with everybody I meet, Milan, France, HRE, England
Marry heir to Sicilian Princess for Trade rights and they give me 4180 florins (very handy)

1101 first faction Alliance France and Venice
1102 Pope accepts my very generous alliance and trade agreement, and an additional gift of 100 florins for 10 turns.
1108 France allies with HRE (that’s not good for the world)
1110 Moors ally with Portugal (that’s the bit I don’t like)
1112 Moors ally with Aragon (its not looking good for Leon-Castille)
1112 Hungry and Poland ally
1112 Egypt tries for an alliance, but I reject it

Alliances which have formed seem to be holding, otherwise its time for a bit of action.

Relations
Terrible: Turks, Venice
Poor: Kiev Rus (err why, my fellow Orthodox faction, will have to peek at descr_stat)
Amiable: Templars (rises to Good), Papal States
Reasonable: Sicily, this progresses to Very Good due to our marriage alliance, Hungry this progresses to Good, despite having Sofia.

Guilds
Only one guild building, a Merchant guild in Constantinople when I built a Merchants Wharf. Nicaea has built churches, priests but no Theologian guild – boo.

Religion
Moors and Egypt use their priest aggressively, HRE, also builds lots. The Templars seem to care little for Merchants or Priests.

Not a single Crusade or Jihad in sight

Conclusion
Wars seem to be progressing at a natural pace, some good expansion by France, HRE and Sicily, alliances holding, so so far so good. No overt stupid behaviour, unless you count Venice attacking ME, and even that was a naval landing, so no complaints. Factions are responding to each other so far, rather than just the player.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...0&postcount=38

[Nightbringer]

Vanilla 1.2 ai report

Report in 1098

I captured the settlements in Greece and got sofia, as well as the ones in the far west of Anatolia. The turks managed to grab adana before I could get it, the templars don’t seem to care though, they captured antioc and are moving their army down towards Egypt. Who is moving right towards them, having captured Jerusalem from the rebels. I should be able to take adana whenever war starts between me and the turks and maybe tat might bother the templars. Hungary doesn’t seem to like that I got Sofia as it is sending a full stack my way despite our alliance. Venice didn’t go for durrazo and sicily took it instead. But Venice did land a army at bari, which is still rebel but in Sicilian territory.

Sicily has also expanded very successfully in Africa. The HRE is expanding into Poland which is going right into it, they are still at peace though, as is everyone else actually.
HRE and Hungary are also both rushing for Zagreb. England and Scotland both have large armies but have captured nothing. France is expanding fast, not much happening in Iberia.
The dutch seem to have gone passive, they have no army and have captured nothing.

1098
novograd is still expanding well
turks are moving north towards asia
denmarks builds a small army and loads it onto ships
1099
HRE has a rebelian in its most northeastern province (forget name)
france is still expanding
egypt takes acre and damascus
1101
i get mission to take scopia
venice attacks still rebel zagreb
venice takes bari, sicily doesnt care and moves troops toward new territory
denmark unloads troops and move them north
templars move east with their army
keiven asks for trade and i accept
i take smyra
sicily takes elOues
1102
sicily lands on the island with cagliari
england finally makes a real move, taking caervaren or whatever its called, in west of its island
turks move north and west
i get trade rights with poland and milan
french move a large army to pampolona
fench take lyon and move north
1104
HRE leaves bologna with any garrison but venice moves an army right past it heading south
their is still no war and no one has alliances except mine with hungary and mine with templars.
1105
HRE is constantly using armies that are way too small and is accordingly losing every time, therby having no expansion. franch has seiged pampolona with a large army. leon is still not really doing anything.
venice walks back past the same empty HRE settlement. moors are moving their troops into iberia. turks are continueing their expansion while moving troops towards me, war cant be too far off. fatimid is milling about with its many small armies.
portugal takes silves, and kieven seiges bacarest.
1107
hungary has gone passive, with three large armies that have not moved for a number of turns, they have yet to take any new settlments. sicily is moving two armies about in southern italy, maybe they will attack venice in bari. still rebel zagreb beats away the tiny venetian army that has seiged it. france has captured pampolona. HRE is beaten by a few more rebel settlments. england is moving troops towards scotland. egypt sends a large army towards aleppo. aragon is snatching up provinces in iberia. i ally with the papacy. templars also send an army towards aleppo, maybe they and egypt will fight over it. scotland has bribed dublin. denmark finally makes a move toward hamburg. milan sends a large army towards marseille. Finally a war starts, the HRE attacks poland controlled magdeburg, with a decent army. leon castille loses a large battle against the rebels in salmeca. venice starts war with me by attacking athens. sicily ignores the venicians in bari and moves all its italian armies into the island of sicily, no idea why. sicily then blockades one of my settments. denmark runs away from hamburg, probably because the HRE garrison is too large for them. the large egyptian army at aleppo rebels, templars wander away, the dont seem to want aleppo as they control the settments to the west and east of it but ignore it.

observations so far
its the same old vanilla ai we all know and, well, ya.
it uses many armies that are way too small for the designated task, losing constantly to the rebels, this improves some over time but is a constant anoyance. it also tends to leave settlements very poorly guarded. it attacks the player for little to no reason, is likely to ask for ceasfire quite often after attacking with a couple of ships. has a very hard time making up its mind, (sicily is walking around its home island with two full stacks while expansion everywhere else has halted for them as an example). the ai also seems to have a hard time recognizing what an easy target is, (venice attacking my well defended athens rather than walking into the empty HRE bologna.

[delra]

Darth AI report.

SUMMARY for lazy readers.

At the beginning everything is calm and peaceful. For some reason AI factions don't ally with each other. They just prefer to take rebel settlements first and until they are bordering some, they won't start a war nor ally with another faction. Every attack on a rebel settlement is usually well-prepared, they are not jumping with forces which can't win.

Finally when all rebel settlements are taken, they decide which of their neighbours they are going to tear into pieces. They try to get an alliance with some other factions and then declare war on the victim. It is all going very well till this moment.
When they declare war on other faction, all their allies are also dragged into this war. It results in coalitions fighting each other or many factions stripping one from its land.

It would be perfect if it could stay this way. The problem is that AI factions are very prone to switch sides and break alliances. They are also getting new alliances too easily. The result is very quick, almost insane pace of breaking alliances, switching sides and starting wars. It ends up with everybody fighting everybody and every diplomatic move turns everything around 180 degress causing coalitions breaking into pieces and every faction getting around 15 enemies. It's all very chaotic, unpleasant and difficult to follow. It destroys the whole game experience. There's also a problem causing that human player is not dragged into a war on the same conditions as AI factions. In result you just sit there calmly and see everybody fighting everybody. If you don't decide to interfere (i didn't interfere as it was more a review than a real game) and manage to ally with a number of your neighbours, you are very safe, everybody attacking you will have to fight your friends first, it makes you lazy and doesn't demand from you building any serious military. On the other hand, you don't have to participate in wars of your neighbours at all. If you do it, you will end up at war with everybody else and lose your allies too. AI will switch sides, declare war on many factions and ally with so many that if you try to follow it, soon you will be at war with everybody. If you don't do it, you will just be in the middle of hell sitting, drinking beer and reading a book.

Even shorter summary: At first it's boring, everybody is taking rebels and until there are rebels around you won't be attacked. After that AI factions insanely jump on each other, change their alliances twenty times a turn and declare war sometimes to 15 or 20 other factions at once. You don't understand it, you don't follow it, you want to quit the game and get better campaign AI.

Shortest summary possible: One of the most boring and pointless campaigns in M2TW in my life.

Possible fixes: If it was harder to get an alliance with another faction, it would probably work much better, but diplomacy is hardcoded so thank you very much CA. Also if it could be modded that after a faction who started the war signs peace with faction that was attacked, all the allies of the attacker get a ceasefire too... it would be great. But now it just makes the game unplayable quickly.

Suggestions: I am a huge fan of many Darth's productions but this time sadly I have to write that THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO GO! IT WILL RUIN THE WHOLE GAME. Please guys, i hope other AIs are better. I'm looking forward to reading your reviews.





===================
Here goes the detailed report turn by turn:

Lime is about conditions Quark set to us. Red and Bold are for important things and observations. The rest is just an AAR. Read the whole story if you want to see in detail why i wrote in summary what i wrote there.


1080 - I put my chick Anna Komnenos on a ship. I realize she should go to Hungarians first so I am forced to start over the whole campaign.
...
1080:

- I send my chick Anna Komnenos to Bran.
- I move armies to take all the cities Quark told me to take.
- I'm afraid about Adana, i have no general and they have a lot of cavalry there.
- I build ports everywhere i can, merchant's warf in Constantinople.

1081 -

- I get a mission to take Cannakale, my army is on the way already.
- I get a candidate for adoption (very early!), he's dreadful so i tell him to find some other family instead.
- Hungary is heading for Zagreb instead of Bucharest or Sofia. It probably means their early war with Venice. Other AIs seem to be standard. Portugal wants Salamanca, HRE wants Hamburg.
- My merchant hits the road to Antioch meating a turkish diplomat on the way, they will come to me, i wonder what they are planning to offer.

1083:

- Another dreadful candidate for adoption. Why all the evil bastards want to become a part of my family?
- HRE takes Hamburg, as always.
- Novgorod stands idly, they don't go anywhere, don't want Helsinki, nor Riga. Same with Portugal, their two big (well, substantial) armies are close to Salamanca but they just don't go there. I start feeling that Darth's AI may be one of those passive ones. Durazzo also seems safe from both Venice and Sicily.
- I change my mind when I see what Milanese are doing. Warmongers. They leave Genoa not garrisoned, split their armies in two parts and send them to both Marseille and Florence. They will fail in both cities. Losers.
- France is lurking around Dijon, maybe they will hit it? For now only HRE made an acquisition.
- My eastern diplomat meets the turkish one. My offer of trade rights is generous. They happily accept, our relations are still "Terrible".
- Tusks are getting dangerously close to Adana, one of my objectives. I decide to land the cyprus army there and besiege the city despite my forces having no chance to win the battle.

1084:

- My ports are ready. I built a church in Nicea to recruit priest there. Roads everywhere else. Merchant's warf in capital still not ready.
- My king finally got to Sofia. Hungarians are not there, they are near Belgrade though, I will check if they come to us or not.
- My chick Anna gets to Bran. My trade rights and alliance offer is happily accepted but our relations improve to So-So. Instead of letting her party with hungarian playboys, I send her to Venice right away. She got +2 charm, she's hotter than Charlize now.
- Hungarians are besieging Zagreb. Venice is not even around. They are sitting around Ragusa and on Venetian border with Croatia.
- The Turks have resigned from Adana, they moved their army back to near Ceasarea.
- Portugal is besieging Salamanca, France jumped on Dijon, Novgorod on Smolensk. Scotland is heading to take irish cities. Finally some action! This AI is not as passive as I have thought at first. Milanese losers have their armies standing undecided close to Marseille and Florence. They know they are too weak to take both at the same time and shouldn't have split their armies. England is sitting idly not doing anything. All their army is trained in Caen. Maybe a war with France? Same with Kiev, Aragon, Castille, absolutely no desire to expand. Denmark can't decide if attack Hamburg or not. The next few turns will be decisive whether it will be a peaceful campaign or not. Sicily is besieging Tunis.

1086:

- Salamanca, Dijon and Tunis have fallen.
- Milan is besieging Marseille. Defenders outnumber them two to one. Somebody please remove Milan and add Genoa instead.
- England had an army hidden in woods. They besiege Cardiff now with a lot of soldiers. It will be theirs.
- Scotland joins their two big armies in Ireland into one. It's almost a full stack, they will take the island in no time.
- Egypt is gathering their army slowly, they are nowhere near Jerusalem yet. Lazy ass Fatimids.
- Venice looks like they want Bologna, I wonder if they will dare to start a war over Zagreb (still besieged by Hungarians) and Bologna. If they do, Iraklion will be mine. ;-)

General impression is that AI was gathering its armies together during those first few turns to hit cities a bit later but with more success. I just sent my troops in all directions. How smart of me.
What i realize, no alliance has been announced yet. Not a single one except mine with Hungary.

1087:

- Cardiff and Smolensk have fallen.
- Marseille hasn't sallied forth to kill Milanese besieging them. Why? Milanese are MUCH weaker. They should have been hit.
- I finally get a decent candidate for adoption. He is spawned in my capital but won't manage to aid the army besieging Canakkale sadly (where the hell did i sent that starting fleets, can't find them anywhere).
This is the last turn of the siege of Canakkale, the first battle of my campaign is about to start. If I screw it up, the whole forums will be laughing at me. Especially readers of all those "Byz help" threads where i participated.
- I chicken out in Adana, withdraw my forces and build more spears on Nicosia, even if I win, i will lose too many people. It's safe from Templars and Turks anyway. Templars are just idling, no cash, no barracks, no army, how sad they must be. Turks seem to be keen on taking Trebizond or Sinop. Their main army is heading north. Iconium is guarded by one unit of militia, if only Quark allowed me to take it... I fight with myself and eventually leave it alone.
- My roads are ready, now farms.
- On the map: Hungary lost in Zagreb. HAHAHAHAHAH. ;-)
- HRE is about to take Metz with their huge army.
- Whole Iberia is arming itself, Moors have gathered armies from all of their african provinces. Castille have produced a lot of troops, Aragon have an army around Valencia. Portugal still has the army that took Salamanca. One spark and everything will BLOW UP here.
- Templars send their cardinal to Antioch. They plan on taking the city!
- I click a bunch of times on Anna (still in Hungary but moving towards Venice) to hear her sexy voice and end the turn.

1088:

- The battle of Canakkale was short and easy. I moved spears up front, archers behind them, general on wide (!) left flank. They send two units of their spears to hit my infantry and their captain is trying to get to my cavalry. I tell cavalry to run away. Their captain decides to leave them be and makes a decision to hit my inf from a flank instead. While he turns around i order my cavalry to turn quickly and rush a charge on them, they rout the loser shortly after they hit his troops and kill him quickly while he's trying to escape. Then they hit their engaged infantry in the back, route both units and when they are advancing on enemy archers, everybody surrenders. End battle, 23 people lost and the city is mine. VH, hahah. :-P
- Scotland takes Dublin, Novgorod is advancing on Helsinki, Metz has fallen.
- MILAN: This is funny. They've lost in Florence, they were beaten by French to Lyon but... THEY WON IN MARSEILLE, it must have been a heroic victory.
- General impression stays the same. AI concentrated its armies (or still does it) and slowly advanced on nearby rebel cities. No blitzing, no high priority here. I don't see any high pace of expansion by AI. They do it slowly, prepare well and avoid heavy losses. Only Milan does different but they are insane anyway.

1092:

- Portugal takes Silves, they have two new cities now. They lead the race along with HRE (Metz and Hamburg) and me (Canakkale and Sofia which SADLY surrender to me without a battle).
- Hungary are trying to get to Zagreb (small army) and Bucharest (3/4 of a full stack).
- Venice is standing idly. It seems they want to attack HRE in Bologna but are too afraid to do it.
- Anna slowly makes her way to Venice. Maybe when she's there, she will be able to find out what's going on in the head of the Doge.

1094:

- Trading rights with Venice (just accepted), HRE (just accepted) and Egypt (barely accepted). I don't know if it's my alliance with Templars or my religion, but christian factions accept trade rights much more willingly than muslims. Poland took both Breslau and Magdeburg by now. If HRE's AI is aggressive, they won't forgive that. (EDIT: THEY FORGAVE IT).
- I check diplomacy scroll, there's no war going on. There are also no alliances between AI factions.. I start thinking Darth's AI won't win this competition.
- Anna got a few more points of charm for her difficult trade rights agreements in Italy, she was always the hottest chick on the map but now she's even hotter than lava. I hope she will charm the Pope. I really do!

1101:

- Anna gets to the Pope and he is absolutely charmed with our wonderful princess. He happily accepts her proposal of an alliance, trade rights and our map. Our relations go up from Reasonable up to Very Good.[/B] She did her job, she deserves a good husband now. A few came when she still had things to do, all were turned down.
- Templars take Antioch, England takes Wales, Milan takes Sardinia and Lyon. There are not many rebel settlements left on the map. Still no wars, still no alliances. Maybe things will improve when AI won't have space to expand to?
- I move my forces to Smyrna, Sinop was taken by Seljuks. I chicken out once more in Adana, i bring more skythikon from Cyprus, the next turn the city is mine. My farms are done. I slowly move on to building markets and churches to get guilds Quark told me to get.

- My merchant near Antioch wasn't challenged yet. I saw no diplomats or merchants passing by to muslim area through Bosphorus.
- Sicily is now my neighbour, they landed a small force (4 units) near Durazzo and took it without problems. I will try to introduce our jewel Anna to them before she's married. They will love her and won't betray us.

1103:

- Seljuks tresspassed my territory. Looks like they were heading to Smyrna but i have taken it when they were on their way. I employed armenian archers and cavalry to help me in the siege. They will also help on Rhodos.
- My first grain exchange is ready, merchants in Constantinople is on the way. I also recruited a bunch of priests in Nicea but it's still too small for a guild. I keep sending priests to Iconium, will see if Turks manage to hold onto the city.
- Fatimids took Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem. They should jump on Templars now, i'm starting to be afraid about their landing in Nicosia. Cyprus is defended by a pack of peasants while everybody else is besieging Adana. I still can't decide on attacking it. I need to keep my fleet close to aid the island quickly. I certainly don't want to lose my future cashcow. (EDIT: THEY NEVER LANDED THERE).

1107:

- Turks go away from my territory, they have no bad feelings about me. Nicea is lightly guarded, same with Conakkale, everybody is sailing to Rhodos. They don't decide to attack and head north-east instead.
- The first war in this campaign is started. . Portugal wants to connect their holdings together. They have taken Burgos and now want to link it to the rest of their empire by taking Leon. A small Portuguese army is also heading for Toledo. I don't see any spanish armies but they were of the laziest in this campaign so maybe they didn't produce any troops? I have to admit that the attack is well-prepared and well-planned. In three turns there will be no Castille on the map. Still no alliances though.

1109:

- Finally an alliance. HRE and England seem to plan a little surprise for France.
- Our charming Anna has no trouble getting trade rights from Sicily (happily accepted).
- Nothing else happens. My forces are still hanging around Adana, Rhodos is besieged. I'm building infrastructure. Mines, farms, roads are all up and running already. Those armenian mercenaries cost way too much though, they will be disbanded after Rhodos is mine.

1111:

- THE HELL IS UNLEASHED.. HRE, England and Aragon all attack France. Castille allies with France. Moors decide to snatch a piece of Portugal while Portuguese are busy with Castille.
- I build a church... and decide to build barracks in Sofia as I suppose the peaceful part of the game has just ended. Anna still can't get a good husband. Maybe I will marry to one of those great chivalrous and pious folks i adopted?
- I still don't have Adana. I have 6 priests near Iconium though and half of its population is orthodox now. Turks handle it well but I don't see them counter my priests with their imams.
- Three merchants are heading to Antioch. Now one near Durazzo and one near Baghdad and i'm done with this part. I already have all the cities, all of diplomacy is also done. Looks like guilds, merchants and Adana are my only objectives for next 40 years.
- Milan became a superpower in Italy thanks to their early blitz. They took Florence, Marseille, Sardinia and Lyon. Venice is still standing idly.

1113:

- It's getting hotter. One spark was enough to destroy the whole balance in Western Europe. England makes an alliance with Milan to drag them into the war with France. Castille declares war on England, HRE and Aragon. France on Portugal. This part of Europe in two turns from heaven became real hell. The biggest losers by now are French as they are attacked from all sides and Hungary who lost multiple times besieging Iasi, Zagreb and Bucharest. I'm afraid that after they finally take those, I may become their next target despite our alliance. We will see. I can say one thing, i like the way a few factions organized together and launched a coordinated attack on a third faction. If Milan will join the action it won't be much lower than WW1.

1115:

- Milanese join the action against France. Castille signs peace with Aragon. Portugal screwed up, they didn't take any of castillan cities and are now struggling against bigger moorish force. Belgrade is Hungarian now, so we have border. My barracks in Sofia are up and running. A few turns and i will train dismounted lancers!


1116:

- Castille attacks Aragon again.
- I now have Adana and Rhodos. I send a general to Adana. I don't plan any further expansion. I want to check who will attack me and why.

I will keep 3/4 of a stack in Adana and will see if Turks or Templars decide to attack it. I will have half a stack of good troops in Sofia to see if Hungary will break their truce. I will have 3 units in Arta to check if Sicily will decide to expand into Balkans more than just hardcoded landing near Durazzo.


Not much has happened during all those years...
Kiev tried to bribe Sofia a number of times, then proposed trade rights to which i accepted. Northern France was taken by England, southern by Milan (along with Toulose).

1128 -

- In 1128 I was attacked for the first time. Kiev blocked my port in Sofia and landed half a stack just near it. Turkey has a large stack near Adana, probably they will start a war there. They are allied with Fatimids already. Templars after a battle near Damascus where they lost most of their army decided to become egyptian vassals so i've lost an ally. Venice landed near Athens, probably will try something nasty there. I start thinking that the same what happened to France is about to happen to me so i make some significant steps to avoid it. Will see if i manage to prevail.

- The Pope declared war on Kiev after they attacked me. So this is how it works. Darth forced a declaration of war while an ally starts a war. Thanks to that there's almost no France on the map and thanks to that I will save my ass from Venice and Kiev. Hungary will kill them both - provided they accept to defend me. What's weird, i wasn't asked to start a war with Fatimids when they attacked Templars. So maybe it's only AI that's forced to do it? I certainly didn't overlook the popup.

1130:

- Hungary and Templars declare war on Kiev despite not having direct border with them (Poland snatched Iasi before Hungary). I really like this feature of Darth's AI and i think it's really worth porting (even if only as an optional file) to any AI we decide to choose.

1132:

- Hungary split their forces into two parts. One heads straight for Zagreb (Venice won't love it), other one goes for Kiev. Poland joined the action and decided to take a part of Kiev too. Kievians are smart enough to take their army from my land on a ship and sail with it to defend their homeland. Venice is idling next to Athens where i have two generals and a bunch of different early units. I have numerical advantage and what landed seems to be their force from Iraklion so it's a general with militia. They won't take the city.

- Turks resigned from Adana and went somewhere north. I have a feeling that they are just moving their forces between Ceasarea and Diyarkabadir next to Adana.

- They resist my HEAVY conversion of Iconium, probably a decent governor. I have merchants everywhere but near Baghdad. I lack the guild in Nicea also. The rest from the objectives list is done. I'm just watching what AI will do.

- France is dying, they lost Pamplona to Aragon and Rennes to England. Their armies were destroyed by HRE (with whom i should have allied, by the way) and their cities are picked one by one, Paris won't last long if there is no miracle.

1134 -

- The Pope calls a crusade on Jerusalem (Fatimid). Almost every catholic faction on the map joins the party. All the major ones for sure.
- Venice besieges Athens. All my allies attack Venice immediately, including the Pope.. I have a significant numerical advantage in Greece, they will die and after that my allies will tear them into pieces.

- Kiev does stupid things, they land an army after an army (no more than a few units each time) near my port of Sofia and immediately tell them to march north to stop Hungarians marching straight to Kiev.

1138:

- Sicily tried to bribe Sofia a number of times, without success. Their princess also spoke with kievian princess which almost caused my heart attack. Sicilians didn't decide to attack me though. They jumped on Milan taking Ajaccio and the whole alliance against France has fallen apart. Some of the countries decided to help Milanese, others decided to break their alliances instead. One of them was HRE who now is a faithful ally of Sicily.

I am enjoying the show while Poles and Hungarians decimate Kievian armies.

- France lost Dijon and will lose Rheims soon (two stack of english archers are there). Portugal struggles against joined forces of Moors and Castille but manage to hold their ground. Kiev will be dead soon provided Hungarians and Poles don't decide to kill each other. I still am waiting on the outcome of the crusade. It should befriend all the catholic factions, as they relations improve while they are together on a crusade. Maybe this will save France from disappearing from the map?

1140:

- Kiev declared war on everybody who was at war with France and allied itself with HRE. This should result in HRE declaring war on me and my allies (Hungary, Templars and the Pope) but it didn't. I stop understanding this system. It is a web similar to the one that caused WW1, factions are allied to each other in such a complicated way and switch sides so often that i can hardly follow. I need to draw a picture.

1141:

- Sicily and HRE declare war on me and my allies. I get a theologicians guild in Nicae. I have fullfilled all the requirement by now. I also think that i know Darth's campaign AI pretty well and am prepared to write a summary to this VERY LONG post. I will play the last few turns and in 1155 you will get the final report.

1155:

I played the last few turns. Everybody who declared a war on somebody else was dragging into it a huge mass of his allies which resulted in a diplomatic disaster. Factions were changing their alliances and friendships like crazy and some of them ended up at war with everybody else, especially HRE and their only ally, Kiev. In one of the last turns Venice came to me asking for peace. I agreed to see if it will end their war with my allies. It didn't. Also, i noticed that i am not dragged into wars automatically nor get a pop-up asking me if i want to join them or not. It's all for AI factions.

Here's a shot of my final turn, i decided to show you France as most of the fun happened there:

[Caesar Clivus]

Ultimate AI Campaign Report

First impressions: playing with no FOW takes freakin' forever!!!!

Turn by turn breakdown:

1081
- HRE takes Hamburg
- Sicily lands in Tunis

1083
- Spain and Portual ally.
- I ally with Hungary.
- Seljuks offer me trade rights.

1084
- France takes Dijon
- Sicily takes Tunis
- Scotland tries to take York and loses
- England lands diplomat & princess @ Arhus
- Rebel fleet defeats Danish fleet.

1086
- Sicily and Milan ally.
- Spain takes Burgos
- Scots take Dublin
- Novgorod takes Smolensk
- Portugal defeated by Salamanca rebels, brings up second army and holds off rebel sally.
- Novgorod holds off Helsinki rebel sally.
- Seljuk family member Tarkan has rebelled near Iconium, taking with him a v.large army.
- HRE holds off Stettin rebel sally.

1087
- HRE defeated at Stettin (rebel)
- Milan defeated at Marseille (rebel)
- Novgorod takes Helsinki
- Turks defeated at Trebizond (rebel)
- Portugal defeated at Salamanca (rebel)
- Kievan Rus defeated at Iasi (rebel)
- I take Canakkale, getting 2500 florins from a mission
- Milanese army rebels while sieging Florence
- My bishop becomes a heretic (that bastard!)

1089
- Kievan Rus take Caffa
- Aragon defeated at Pamplona (rebel)
- England defeated at Caernarvon (rebel)
- Templar holds off Antioch rebel sally
- HRE defeated at Stettin (rebel)
- I take Sofia

1090
- France takes Lyon
- Spain takes Salamanca
- Templars take Antioch
- Kievan rus defeated at Iasi (rebel)
- Sicily defeated at Bari (rebel)
- Poland defeated by Thorn rebel sally
- Egypt defeated by Jerusalem rebel sally
- Poland and Hungary ally.
- I steal Istavin from Hungary with Anna Komnemnos. Getting him south to my territory brings my relationship with Hungary down to Abysmal.

1092
- France defeated at Marseille (rebel)
- England defeated at York (rebel)
- Seljuks defeated at Trebizond (rebel)
- Poland defeated at Thorn (rebel)
- France defeated at Rennes (rebel)
1093
- HRE defeated at Breslau (rebel)
- Sicily takes Tripoli
- Scotland defeated at Cork
- England takes Caernarvon
- Hungary takes Iasi
- I take Arta

1095
- France defeated at Antwerp (rebel)
- HRE takes Prague
- Turks defeated at Sarkel (rebel)
- Poland takes Magdeburg
- Hungary takes Bucharest
- Hungary defeated at Zagreb (rebel)
- Aragon takes Pamplona
- Milan defeated at Marseille

1096
- HRE takes Metz
- Moors defeated at Silves (rebel)
- Egypt takes Jerusalem

1098
- HRE takes Breslau
- Portugal takes Silves
- My reputation is reliable.

Observations so far:

• No wars have broken out so far.
• More often than not the AI tries to take settlements with waaaay too few troops to do the job. Even when it does seem to have enough, they often lose. This seems to be the biggest obstacle to AI expansion.
• Some factions dont seem to be interested in expanding into their "natural" expansion areas. Denmark is yet to take ANY nordic settlement or make any motions in that direction. The Moors haven't taken any African settlements. Sicily is more interested in Africa than the Mediterranean islands.

1099
- France defeated at Bern
- Venice defeated at Zagreb
- Sicily takes ElOud
- England defeated at York (rebel)
- Full stack Templar army rebelled
- Moors defeated at Murcia

1101
- Milan defeated at Marseille
- England defeated at York twice (rebel)
- Seljuks take Trebizond
- I took Smyrna

1104
- Milan defeated at Marseille (rebel)
- Moors defeated at Murcia (rebel)
- Seljuks defeated at Sarkel (rebel)
- Egypt defeated at Damascus (Rebel)
- Poland takes Stettin
- Kievan Rus defeated at Mensk (rebel)

1105
- Danish army that landed a few turns ago at Groningen is yet to do anything (victim of the bug Delra mentioned)
- HRE takes Zagreb
- Scots land at Bergen, start to siege it but are defeated by a rebel sally
- Novgorod defeated at Riga (rebel)
- Portugal defeated at Murcia (rebel)
-a medieval "Paris to Dakkar" race is currently being held by the Moors and Sicily to see who can get to Timbuktu first. Good to see Moors

FINALLY expanding into Africa!

1107
- England takes Rennes
- Hungary defeated at Belgrade (rebel)

1108
- France declares war on England
- Sicily declares war on Venice by a one turn blockade of Iraklion.
- Portugal defeated at Murcia (rebel)

1110
- France takes Marseille
- Sicily takes Bari
- Milan defeated at Florence (rebel)
- Novgorod defeated at Kirov (rebel)
- Seljuks defeated at Edessa (rebel)
- Novgorod defeated at Vilnius (rebel)

1111
- I take Rhodes
- Novgorod defeated at Konosha (rebel)
- Kiev defeated at Bryansk (rebel)
- Turks defeated at Adana (rebel)
- Milan defeated at Florence (rebel)
- Portugal holds off rebel sally at Murcia

1113
- I take Belgrade
- Milan takes Bern
- Novgorod defeated at Riga (rebel)
- Moors take Timbuktu
- Turks defeated at Sarkel (rebel)
- Egypt takes Acre
- Portugal defeated at Murcia
- Seljuks defeated at Edessa
- Scotland defeated at Bergen
- Novgorod defeated at Konosha
- Poland declares war on Kievan Rus
- France allies with Scotland.

1114
- I adopt a rather good general through Istavin.
- I am now the largest faction
- Egypt takes Mecca
- Aragon takes Palma
- HRE defeated at Florence (rebel)

1116
- I establish trade rights with the HRE, completing a mission to open diplomatic relations.

1117
- Crusade called against Toulouse. Obviously the French attacks against the English haven't gone unnoticed by the Pope.
- England takes Cardiff
- Portugal defeated at Murcia (rebel)
- Novgorod defeated at Konosha
- Templars declare war on France (crusade)
- Poland declares war on France (crusade)
- Sicily declares war on France (crusade)

1119
- Milan takes Florence
- Templars take Edessa
- Milan declares war on France (crusade)

1120
- Templars take Damascus
- Templars defeated by Adana rebel sally

1122
- NOvgorod defeated at Riga (rebel)
- Seljuks defeated at Adana (rebel)

1123
- Venice takes Naples from Sicily
- Milan takes Toulouse, completing the crusade
- England takes York
- Portugal takes Murcia (finally!)

1125
- Sicily defeated at Durazzo (rebel)
- France defeated at Toulouse (Milan)
- France takes Antwerp

Progress report:

• Reputation: Very Reliable. Relations with Hungary (my only ally) are poor (up from abysmal).
• Only a few wars have broken out (apart from several factions crusading against France). Out of those, only England and France have been seriously going at it. Although Venice looks like its gearing up to something more against Sicily.
• Still a LOT of provinces in rebel hands: Thorn (surprisingly), most Russian provinces, Bruges, Cork, Antwerp only just taken in 1125. The last rebel Iberian region was taken only in 1123! Seems waaaay too slow, especially for Novgorod, Kievan Rus and especially Denmark
• Speaking of the Danes, I think the vikings must be drinking too much ale or something. They're not doing a damn thing. The most they do each turn is to move their single merchant and their single princess around the map. That's it. They have one small army next to Groningen doing nothing, another tiny one near Norkporring doing the same. They haven't taken a single province in this game. It's like if they dont get Hamburg before the germans, they spend the rest of the game sulking
• Oh remember that Seljuk family member that rebelled in 1086? He's still around! I'm telling you this guy is freakin Conan or something. He's defeated at least 40 attempts by the Turks to kill him and he's still there! Severely reduced troop numbers of course, but he's still kicking butt.
• Speaking of the Turks, they've been oddly quiet this game too. They haven't even tried once to take Sinop, which they have always done in my other Byzantine campaigns, UAI and vanilla AI. Hmmm...I wonder if this rebel-god-general is sapping all their resources and thats why they're not sending any troops out. No jihads yet.
• Overall: The AI still seems way too quiet and slapdash with taking rebel settlements. Taking on a near-full stack of rebels with 2 units of spear militia aint gonna cut the mustard. I'm going to take Durazzo to stir the pot to see if anyone attacks me

[Nightbringer]

ok, now that all 4 of us have made a post other people can post at will
please feel free to make any suggestions or comments and ask all the questions you want!

[messenger42]

Thanks all the tester for all the reports, much appreciate what you guys have wrote down, it's a tedius task, but with it we'll will learn more about the campaign AI and made the game better.

[delra]

Ceasar: I turned off "Follow AI movement" after a few turns. :-)

I've read Ceasar's report thoroughly as i wanted to find differences between UAI (which i like the most so far) and Darth's AI that I tested. One huge difference is that AI is more likely to take risk. In my campaign (and i've seen it MANY times), they almost never attacked when not having numerical advantage and when they decided to attack (i saw it once, Milan on Marseille), they won so they must have had quality advantage. Many attacks, even on those crucial cities, were prepared for much longer by AI than in UAI. For example Dijon, in UAI it was attacked by their starting army. In Darth they waited for another army to join in.

Other difference is that AI factions ally to each other while there are still rebel settlements left. In Darth's there was no alliance until they had rebels to take.

I'm sure a war in UAI would break if another nation took a city that somebody considers crucial. I played UAI for so long that I know that HRE won't forgive Poland taking Magdeburg, Venice will attack everybody who would dare to take Zagreb and Seljuks won't allow anybody else to have Adana. Except that, AI factions are rather unlikely to fight.

[OTZ]

Will the test be run multiple times, just to rule out flukes?

I applaud the effort though!

[delra]

I see no point in running it again. I know what will happen.

First 30 turns: no alliances, no wars, everybody busy taking rebels.
Next 20 turns: Everybody declaring war on everybody, despite any alliances, due to the system that forces a chain reaction of war declarations. Most of the factions will be at war with 12 to 15 other factions after a few turns, and there will no way out of it. Any ceasefire that sign will be denied in seconds, it's enough for any of their allies to start a war and be declared a war.

The result is a chaotic roller coaster of declarations of war (10 factions all declare war to 10 other each turn) without way out of it.

Maybe somebody will like it this way, i just couldn't follow and everybody being at war with everybody is not what i consider a reasonable and realistic way of playing campaigns.

If you really insist though, i can do it again, it will be much faster without writing so detailed report. Just tell me if you really consider Darth's AI a candidate with all this insane everybody vs everybody diplomatic disaster.

[OTZ]

If you really insist though, i can do it again, it will be much faster without writing so detailed report. Just tell me if you really consider Darth's AI a candidate with all this insane everybody vs everybody diplomatic disaster.

Sorry delra - I wasn't necessarily reffering to your test (as it seems to be a poor choice for Campaign Ai) - but the others that at least have some redeeming features...

[Lusted]

I know Quark was looking for a tester to test my campaign ai in SS, why don't you give it a go Delra? I'm really interested to see a more indepth test of it as my own time is limited, and it being pitted against other ai's will show it's strengths and weaknesses.

[delra]

Oh. Lusted: I just noticed there's nobody to test Lusted's CAI. :-)

I will do the whole campaign tonight and we'll see.

If it's as good as your battle AI... i don't even want to think about it. :-)

[Lusted]

I will do the whole campaign tonight and we'll see.

If it's as good as your battle AI... i don't even want to think about it. :-)

Well what i'm hoping for with my campaign ai is that it attacks and defends better, less random backstabs, more power blocks forming, and better relations and reputation for the player faction instead of them always being awful like in vanilla.

[delra]

Lusted's AI test.

Quark: please add links to all the tests to the first post. It will make it much easier to navigate here.


Summary, for lazy readers:

Lusted wanted to improve CAI but also tried to do as little changes as possible which allowed him not to break it like it happened to some other CAI modders in the past. The start of the campaign is quite slow, as always. Nobody sings any alliances, no wars are started, all factions concentrate on taking nearby rebel settlements. At first they send small contingents of troops to each settlement and lose many battles. As time progresses, those forces become bigger and bigger, resulting in AI having a significant army on each front. This makes AI be well prepared to wars that are about to begin as soon as all the rebels are dead.

When attacking enemy faction, AI seems to prepare well. Many alliances against a faction they were planning a war with were signed during my campaign. For example Hungarians before they attacked me, allied with Seljuks and Kiev who turned out to be eager to take parts of my empire. England signed alliance with Aragon who wanted French Toulouse and Portugal who couldn't stand French holding Pamplona. Most alliances caused allied countries to join the war. Most of them also prevailed till the end of my playing in 1155.

I saw no random war caused by a port being blocked. All the wars had a valid reason. I also saw AI quickly accepting peace while beaten which also is not the case in all CAIs. For example Milan accepted peace with much stronger Venice despite the fact that venetians held onto their former capital. Hungarians also come to beg for peace to me after whole their army died in Sofia, after Kievian fleet was sunk and finally after I killed turkish stack besieging one of my cities. What was great, their allies quickly followed their way and also signed peace with me.

This part is wonderful and makes AI factions function diplomatically, build armies and start wars exactly the way I want them to do it. I really encourage people to try Lusted's CAI for themselves. I would also like to receive any comments agreeing or disagreeing with my conclusions from people who played Lusted's CAI already.

I also have to add a few sentences about main problems during the campaign. My main concern is that there's still the old bug which causes AI army that is outpaced to a city by another army to stand near the city forever without any plans. It would be nice if it could be fixed. It is a problem of Vanilla, UAI, Darth's and Lusted's CAIs, so I don't think it will be easy to fix. Other campaign bugs from vanilla also remain in Lusted's CAI. Early attacks by AI factions aren't concentrated on any particular city. AI attacks in all directions with small forces and loses heavy number of battles until it's wealthy enough to afford bigger stacks being sent each time.

I also am not very keen on changes which Lusted probably describes as "AI being more defensive at war". It causes AI to decimate any enemy force that is on their turf, rebels and heretics die very quickly for example. But it also causes stallmates in most of the wars. Armies are fighting each other in field but no cities are taken. For example France and England killed thousands of troops near Caen but Caen itself and all the cities in northern France remained safe. AI just didn't accept the risk of leaving its cities unguarded in order to take enemy cities. The same happened in Iberia. Portugal fought a defensive war with Castille there. They were killing each other regularly with breaks when the Pope told them to rest but no cities switched hands. One thing that is very good in this "defensive" stance is that AI quickly concentrates its forces around a city that is endangered. For example France quickly moved three of their armies and a fleet near to Antwerp when it was endagnered by english naval invasion.

The last thing I want to complain about is an old vanilla bug that causes AI to very lightly garrison its cities. Most of the time there's just a governor inside, sometimes a unit of militia. It makes it too easy for the player to blitz AI lands as all the defensive moves happen only after a war breaks out. If something can be done to AI at least using all the free upkeep slots, it would be great.

Summarizing: The best campaign AI so far as I am concerned. It inherits a number of old vanilla problems but everything that Lusted has added works great and makes this AI very playable.


=== The report:



I'm really eager to try out Lusted's CAI. To make this test easier to read, I decided to put more screenshots into it than i did to my previous test. To achieve that, i'm trying to find some reasonable software which would just take a shot after i press a hotkey in-game and save it to specified folder. I already tried 15 "magical" programs, none of which does what i want it do. ARGH.

[half an hour later] Screw it. I'm starting.


1080:
- Anna goes to Bran. I build ports, a diplomat and a skythikon. I also send my merchant to Antioch and armies to Sofia and Canakkale.

1081:
- I'm watching AI factions moving their armies to nearby rebel settlements, killing rebels, sending diplomats to neighbours and so on. This promises that AI won't be turtling before taking rebels.

1083:

- HRE takes Hamburg. Portugal besieges Salamanca with quite low in numbers army but two big stacks are already on their way to aid it. Sicily lands their stack near Tunis and will probably take it without problems.
- I see AI sending priests to areas they are about to take. Novgorod moves their priest to Helsinki, Egypt to Jerusalem, so on. Very smart.
- I have trade rights with Seljuks. Happily accepted my generous offer. Our relations are still terrible though. Their army is heading to Adana which will be besieged by my army the next turn.

1084:

- I see many diplomatic actions between AI factions. No wars and no alliances are announced yet.
- France besieges Dijon. Sicily doesn't storm Tunis. Seljuks don't move close to Adana yet but I see them concentrating around Ceasarea. The rest of the factions are just preparing for their first acquisitions.
- My ports are ready, now roads.
- Anna goes to Bran, they happily accept an offer of our trade rights, map and alliance. Our relations are amiable now. I like the way how your relations with your allies are quickly going up. A huge plus to Lusted's CAI.

1086:

- I notice that no cities were left ungarrisoned so far. I saw it quite often in Darth's CAI. Here there's always somebody guarding a city.
- Tunis, Salamanca and Dijon all fall to overwhelming AI forces. I consider it a standard AI behaviour. Wait out the first turn of a siege and strike on the second. The same is in Vanilla, UAI and Darth's CAI.
- My merchant is on resource near Antioch. I see no other merchants around. Egypt sent their starting merchants to Dongola, italian merchants slaughter each other on resources close to their homelands (especially Vienna). This also seems to be some sort of a standard AI behaviour that's the same in all AIs I ever used.

1087:

- Moors move their imam to Silves, Templars their cardinal to Antioch. Still no offensive usage of priests against other factions, only agaisnt rebels but I think it will change as soon as rebels are done.
- Smolensk falls to Novgorod.
- Denmark each turn tries to bribe Hamburg. Without success. I bet the first war will start here.
- Other factions are doing the same as always, killing rebels and moving their armies closer to rebel settlements they want to take. Nothing new or insane in this department. I see a lot of roads being built.
- My roads are ready, now mines and farms + barracks here and there.
- I'm really trying to find AI doing something unusually stupid.

1089:

- I take Adana and Canakkale. I autoresolve both battles as i'm lazy and both end in Draw with mediocre losses, the cities are mine anyways. I'm the largest and the most developed faction now. (Yes *I* am. L'etate c'est moi!).
- Seljuks are heading for Nicea (or to Sinop by my road built in Nicea). I got 4 Skythikons (i'd prefer 2500!) for taking Canakkale and adopted a new general (pious and chivalrous!). I move all of them to Nicea. The city is now less tempting to take and seljuk army isn't very big. Will they attack me or move on rebels in Sinop and Smyrna?
- AI lost many battles during this turn. Hungarians lost in Belgrade, Zagreb and Bucharest. Kiev didn't take something in Asia. Milan was defeated in Florence. They don't prepare very well or are very unlucky. It looks more like Vanilla/UAI behaviour than Darth's where they really accumulated their armies before any offensive actions.
- Moors can't decide whether to move into Iberia or for Tunis. They move they armies between Cordoba and Fez without any logical pattern.

1090:

- I take Arta (autoresolve, again draw) and Sofia (surrendered), my relations with the Pope automatically worsen to "Poor". I like it.
- Seljuks are moving out from around Adana after I took it. I have four units guarding it, a very tempting target.
- Fatimid diplomat ignored my diplomat near Antioch and moved to Turks. Maybe he has a high-priority deal (an alliance?) to cut there?
- I chase egyptian diplomat and cut trade rights deal with him.
- Seljuks have an army two steps from Adana, it may be besieged the next turn. They will lose both Iconium and Ceasarea if they dare to attack me. The whole Adana test is to see if Templars and Seljuks are aggressive. After they take it, i'm free here to do anything i want to do to them. And they will get serious beating, I promise. :-)
- Seljuk army didn't go for Nicea, they were heading to Sinop. I move my Canakkale and Nicea armies towards Smyrna to anger Seljuks even more.
- No alliances, no wars yet. Everybody being busy with rebels.
- I decide to move to the shop for more beer, I hope to take and sack it after a short siege.

1092:

- I see many times AI losing its siege battles. No particular care is put into accumulating forces and delivering strong blows in one direction. AI moves its armies chaotically, in all directions, besieges a number of cities at once and fails, while it could take them one by one with joined forces. I see no improvement over standard Vanilla AI here.
- Still no wars and alliances. Boring.
- Poland took Magdeburg (ignoring Breslau and Praha), HRE was heading for it and has three substantial armies in the area. The first war is about to start.
- I build random things, grain exchange somewhere, a church in Nicea, a farm somewhere. Sofia will be a castle soon.
- Hungary has a large stack near Bran. They were nowhere near Sofia yet. Probably Vanilla AI would take Bucharest and lurk around Sofia by now.

1094:

- I don't like what Scotland is doing. In Darth's AI they built one huge army and headed to Ireland taking both cities there. Here they do a standard Vanilla AI thing, put everybody on a ship, probably with a plan of landing in Norway or near Groningen (which is besieged by Denmark).
- German stack hides in woods near Magdeburg.
- Poles move their armies west to stop german "drang nach osten". They fail to take Breslau for the third time though.
- Egypt takes Jerusalem with their full stack. A crusade is close to being called. It may destroy the starting peaceful situation
- My impression by now is that I can't see any improvement over vanilla AI except one thing, my relations with factions I get an alliance with are improving significantly. This was not the case for example in UAI. I like this feature and I recommend porting it into any AI we choose as the best. Lusted is famous for doing little changes that make a huge difference. Maybe this difference will show up when there are no rebels left and factions will start fighting their neighbours.

1096:

- German princess tries to bribe Sofia. Maybe they are planning an attack on Budapest? They still have no new province except Hamburg. Not even Metz. There's no particular interest for AI to take new cities, I hardly see any new acquisitions and I know what is wrong. AI is splitting its armies and loses many battles against rebels. This is standard vanilla stuff and Lusted didn't improve this at all.
- I have trade rights with Venice (barely accepted, poor relations) and HRE (a mission, barely accepted balanced offer, so-so relations). I also get an alliance with Templars, very generous and happily accepted, our relations are Good now.
- No wars, no alliances yet.
- My relations with Hungary improve from "Amiable" to "Good" for no particular reason. It looks like to be the effect of our alliance, this is the way to go.

1098:

- HRE took Breslau splitting polish territory into two parts. They are on verge of a war now. Sicily is heading for Durazzo and Bari, a probable war with Venice here. HRE also wants to take Zagreb. Venice is standing idly, soon it will be too late for them to do anything.
- AI factions still keep sending small forces to different cities and losing there terribly. For example the Turks tried to take Sinop five times already, same with Milan in Florence and France and Milan in Marseille. For now the faction with most battles won is Rebels. They win 4 or 5 each turn, hardly ever losing a city.
- I build barracks in Sofia, Arta and Adana as I will need good infantry if I want to defend myself there. I besiege Smyrna (mission). I get my first priests from Nicea, all go to Iconium. We will see if they will counter my conversion with their imams.
- I'm starting to be afraid that I may overlook Lusted's improvements. For now I see no real advantage over Vanilla. Maybe i should have noticed something but I overlooked it instead?

1100:

- I get an alliance with the Pope, very generous offer (with map and trade rights), happily accepted. My reputation is still mixed. I try to recall which AI didn't improve my relations when signing an alliance. I think it might be UAI but am not sure.
- Aragonese princess comes to Sofia and offers trade rights. I'm so far from them, still they do it. It shows that AI spreads their diplomats quickly sending them in all directions on the map to get trade rights and probably maps. I like it this way.
- French full stack takes Antwerp. It shows that AI is able to concentrate their forces in advance of an attack on a target that is well-defended. Egypt did that in Jerusalem, Denmark did the same in Groningen. now France does the same. Another good thing I notice but i am not sure how big Lusted's contribution is here.
- My relations with HRE drop to "Poor". I think they might be angry at Hungarians who keep transgressing their border while going to Zagreb. HRE's attack on Hungary seems to be close.
- Anna gets an obsessed suitor. How did they know about my attitute towards her?

1101:

Two positive thing happen here:
- A crusade is called on Jerusalem. Due to my alliance with the Pope, my relations with Fatimids go down to Poor. Good!
- I see that average size of a stack that AI designates to take rebel cities is steadily growing. Now half a flag is not that uncommon. During my starting years it was two to five units most of the time. AI seems to be building its forces steadily and most factions will soon have significant armies on all fronts they have. My early impression that AI will just lose it due to their recklessness in sending all what they produced to attack seems to be proving to be false. My prediction is that AI factions will now quickly wipe the rebels out of the map, build up their forces and then first wars (especially HRE vs Hungary and Poland) are bound to start. I will also look carefully who will join the crusade.

1103:

- I notice heretics and rebel armies being executed very quickly and with high priority everywhere they pop up. No more AI lands crawl with infidel scum.
- HRE sends a full stack of troops that was hiding in woods next to Magdeburg on the crusade.
- Some loser tries to marry my Anna, he's old and hopeless. He's a good general though. I reject him anyway.
- Turkish army is standing near Smyrna waiting for me to lose the siege. Very good!

1105:

- I take Smyrna, Corinth is now a city (and is revolting, damn teenagers). I get four more skythikons as a reward for Smyrna while i'd prefer to get cash.
- HRE finally took Metz. Bigger stacks promise more success in future. The problem is that the longer it takes for AI factions, the shorter is the period of AI vs AI wars I will be observing.
- I don't know why, but nobody has allied so far. I don't like it this way and it needs to be improved. It would be nice if AI could pick allies earlier. Now it seems they are just trying to get every rebel settlement they border and after they do it, they will pick who's their friend and who's their enemy.

1106:

- Anna gets a good husband. A very good governor.
- France joins the crusade
- First war starts. French huge stack that took Anwerp besieges Caen. English sally forth, win the battle and chase down routing French army. In the second battle they kill the rest of them. Well done!
- My relations with Aragon drop to "Poor". I don't recall doing anything to them so maybe they are angry at one of my allies? I saw their diplomat somewhere near Templar lands. Maybe he didn't get the deal he wanted? Or maybe my relations with AI factions are bound to detoriate? I will have the answer in a few turns.
- I get a mission to take Rhodos. I was heading there anyway.
- Turkish army waiting near Smyrna after I take the city just turns around and heads back to their land. No standing idly next to the city they failed to take cause somebody else was faster that we know from UAI. Very good.

1110:

- France has won a number of field battles against England. English were forced to withdraw to Caen and are slowly rebuilding in there. France didn't put much priority to this war though, they didn't follow English to Caen to besiege the castle, they went for Rennes instead. Maybe the Pope forbid them?
- I notice that AI doesn't garrison its cities with many troops. Most of them are away fighting rebels. There's usually a unit of militia present or just a governor. What is bad is that when the governor dies, the city is left ungarrisoned for a while. French did that in Antwerp, their governor died in there and the city was left empty. English landed their forces near it and are about to march in. Something should be done to AI to make it build more militia units, human players can easily blitz through AI territory just assigning five units to take and hold onto each city.
- Portugal wanted to connect their territory (they took Burgos before) and decided to attack Leon while castillan stack is out busy taking Valencia. When Spaniards come back, they will steamroll Portuguese.

1112:

- France quickly moved three nearby armies close to Antwerp and killed english troops that endangered their city. They also moved their fleet very close to the city to prevent future landings. Well done. This is the kind of behaviour I expect!
- They also kicked out other small english armies from their territory. AI seems very persistent to destroy any hostile activity inside their borders. I like it.
- Milanese princess tried to bribe Arta for a number of times. What a ****. Finally she demanded trade rights for 200 florins. I agreed. I would marry her to my prince but I don't want such a ***** to be a part of my family. Maybe if she was nicer...
- Castille seeks help in their war with Portugal in France. French already have Pamplona and can easily march their army to take portuguese wooden castle Burgos. I just wonder if Castille really wants more french presence on the peninsula. In long-term it seems to be very problematic to them. They should have read Machiavelli, they would know all that.

1114:

- HRE's crusade just popped up near Nicea, they are progressing towards the Holy Land very quickly and they have a lot of very good mercenaries with them. The city is theirs despite Fatimids stopping their expansion and parking their stack near Jerusalem.
- My prince got a nice and smart byzantine wife, my merchants are progressing towards Antioch.
- I praised Turks a while back for not parking their offensive force next to Smyrna after I outpaced them to take the city. It is not a general rule though. I noticed spanish stack near Pamplona that just went rebel. It was heading there to take the castle but French were faster. This little annoyance is not fixed at all.
- I noticed that my conversion of Iconium stopped around 50%. Seljuks must have trained a lot of imams and they keep them inside the city so they are not prone to assassination. Well done!

1116:

- FIVE my priests that i trained to convert Iconium have fallen to heresy while trying to denounce a heretic that popped up near Nicea. Nicea after a turn is 20% heretic and is on a verge of a revolt now. I'd comment that if swearing was allowed on this forums.
- Venice lands small force near Durazzo, sees that it's taken by Sicily and does nothing. I was very happy when I saw Seljuk army heading back home when I took Smyrna before them. It looks like though, that this (very common) bug is not fixed at all in Lusted's AI. A major setback for me.
- The Pope takes his huge army and attacks Florence. He thought a lesson to Milanese who have lost around 15 battles in Florence since the game started. This is how you should take cities you fools!
- France and England do nothing to each other except standing with their armies near each other's borders, a classical sitzkrieg. Boring!
- England marches one of its armies towards York, which was taken by Scotland. We're close to another war.
- Portugal is losing to Castille, but none of them engage any big force into the conflict. Maybe they decide to play it safe. Or maybe the Pope interfered. I'm not surprised that they don't want to mess with a Pope who took the mighty city of Florence so easily leading the army himself!

1118:

- Milanese stack is standing idly near Florence not knowing what to do. The bug is present in Lusted's AI.
- England gets an alliance with Aragon. I suppose France will be backstabbed soon.
- Seljuks took Sarkel, maybe KK should do something to prevent them heading north? Add some obstacles, maybe a significant rebel armies in northern Armenia?
- Scotland decided to go von Moltke's way and headed to take Wales (still rebel) instead of concentrating their defensive forces around York. English who seemed to had made a decision to attack York now look confused and don't really know what to do. Especially that their continental armies were decimated by French. Aragon, their new ally has a stack of good troops ready, maybe they will come to aid in France?
- I build some buildings and recruit some units. Nothing really interesting. If I wasn't playing to the rules, I'd already own all the Balkans and probably half of Turkey with their reluctance to garrison their cities with more than a unit of weak spearmen. Boring.

1120:

- Portugal seeks help and allies with Moors.
- I decimate heretics around Nicea. It would be faster but i have mistaken a german princess for a heretic and my bishop had to come back quite a long distance after he found out about the mistake. I hope no Germans will be reading this.
- HRE did a good job of hunting down all the rebel fleets that were ruining trade on the Baltic. It proves once again that there's a high priority of attacking rebels by AI factions.
- Aztecs are sitting in their cities and doing absolutely nothing. (You can see them with toggle_fow).

1121:

- England continues to ally with French neighbours. This turn they have allied with Portugal. Very smart!
- I forgot about my army on Rhodos and they were standing there doing nothing for a few turns. I wonder what i would write about AI faction who would send a stack of troops to take a rebel city and then parked them next to it doing nothing for many years. I wouldn't call their leader a genius for sure. :-(
- Everybody seems to have stopped. There are no easy picks anymore. Most of the rebel cities left are either well-armed or very far from troop production centers. I also see no particular interest to attack other factions. They are just moving their armies here and there to kill rebels that pop up inside their territory.
- Egypt did something really dumb. They had half a stack of troops in Jerusalem. HRE crusade is parked two steps from the city. They pulled the troops out of the city to fight some rebels. They won't manage to come back to rescue the city if it's besieged. Their full stack also got confused and is now chasing rebels around their provinces in Levant. They should at least try to reinforce the city. I don't blame Lusted here. CA is to be blamed for that.

1122:

- Venice lands a unit (yes, a unit) of peasant archers near Athens (a large city now). Yes, a unit. They look average but maybe they are masked ninjas who will take the city without problems? I anticipate a larger invasion coming and move my Arta force south, hire some mercenaries to do the cannon fodder work at the gates and also train more militia. I would say COME AND GET THEM but it's Athens, not Sparta.
- I find out that two generals came to age recently. I'm watching AI so much that I forget about my own faction. I hope that my bodyguards won't assassinate me in desire to get a much better emperor.

1124:

- My relations with Templars and Hungarians have gone up to "Very Good". Probably due to the duration of our alliance. I like this feature. No more bribing your allies to stay with you.
- Most of AI factions now are proud owners of at least one stack of troops. Turks are heading with their stack towards Edessa. Castille has a stack near Valencia. Templars have just besieged Acre with their built for ages stack. They were steadily building up their armies since the start and now we see the effect. They all have significant armies, there are almost no rebels left and huge wars are about to start. They prepared themselves to that quite well.
- Denmark is not progressing into Scandinavia at all. I will suggest KK giving them a spy near Uppsala in 4.2. This may cause them scouting the area early on and maybe deciding to take cities there.
- Moors decide to attack Sicily. They don't like them having Tunis. They have a small army en route to Tunis and they block the sicilian port. A coordinated action? I'm not sure.
- I receive a mission to get Skopja. They pay 2500 and I saw nobody really interested in it except a small sicilian attack a while back that failed terribly. I move my Sofia force there. It will test my alliance with Hungary too. Sofia is guarded by a unit of peasants now.
- Venice adds four more units to their ninja force near Athens along with a general. I add half a stack of elites who took Arta and received armor upgrades in there.
- I kill the last heretic near Nicea. Nicosia is now a city. Hurray!

1125:

- Venice shows absolutely no interest in Zagreb. Their armies pass by the city a number of times walking from Ragusa to Venice itself and back. The city is besieged by Hungarians once more and is very likely to fall into their hands now.
- Milan lost the race for Marseille, France is better. Milanese however see venetian weakness somehow and decide to take the city of Venice. Their army outnumbers the defenders and they also sent half a stack of troops to block reinforcements coming from Ragusa.
- Sicily snatches Ajaccio while Milan is busy with Venice.
- None of english allies (Aragon, Portugal) has joined their war with France. The war has gone to a stallmate anyway, a ceasefire is probable here. I suppose a huge army must have revolted in woods near Caen as both factions kept sending their armies into those woods and all of them were coming back seriously decimated.
- HRE have taken Jerusalem with ease. What a surprise. Egypt hastily brings his armies to besiege the city. I saw the quality of german troops while they were passing through my lands. Egypt will spend a lot of time on retaking Jerusalem. My allies, Templars, grow in power too, they took the castle of Acre with ease and may also be interested in getting a piece of the egyptian cake. I am also eager to see if they will decide to take Jerusalem from HRE after Germans receive some beating from egyptian archers.
- The rest of the map is quite calm. None of the wars have caused any cities being taken yet. Portugal and Castille decimate their armies but don't go after cities at all. Others juts accumulate troops to get those rebels that are still left.

1128

- Milan manages to block venetian reinforcements but fails to take Venice. They are quickly repulsed from venetian territory and now are regrouping and trying to bring some reinforcements from Bern.
- HRE signed a truce with Fatimids, France (who always went on a crusade but never made it to the Holy Land) also signs a truce. I saw no big interest in taking the crusade despite many catholic factions doing nothing but building armies for last 20 turns. For example Poland did nothing except taking Magdeburg, has two halfstacks of troops and didn't participate in the crusade at all. They are all lazy! There's generally not much of an offensive stance towards other AI factions but I suspect it may be just too early.
- England still hesitates to attack Scotland.
- Scottish king died leaving their capital ungarrisoned and they don't train any troops there for more than 5 turns already. I don't like it.
- Hungarians trespassed into my territory south of Bucharest. I wonder if they were chasing a rebel army or are heading for Sofia. I decide not to reinforce it further to see if they are truthful or not.
- Venice sits near Athens and does nothing. They know they are too weak to take the city but they don't withdraw nor bring new troops.

1130:

- Venice takes Milan (the city). They have a full stack of castle troops. Milan has a lot of weak militia who are slaughtered quickly. Venice still has a full flag of troops after taking the city. A disaster for Milan. I’m so happy! ;-)
- Hungary decides to attack idle Poland instead of breaking their alliance with me. Aragon decided to help their allies in England and attack France. HRE doesn’t like Venetian quick gains in Italy and decides to join the action before Venetians have grown too strong. Venice has gathered a strong army and won’t give up easily. I feel that all the fun is starting now!

1132:

- Hungary keeps moving towards Sofia. They sign an alliance with Seljuks. I will be betrayed and attacked the next turn. My low garrison inside the castle and good infrastructure tempted them to do it. I could say I don’t like AI betraying me or losing the city. Instead I will say that I consider this move to be very smart and that I demand such behaviour from AI factions. I see Lusted’s hand here more than in anything else. I don’t plan to do anything to save the city, I won’t train new troops inside, I won’t bring back the army that is besieging Skopja. I will wait for Hungary to take my castle to prove my point! You can’t even imagine how much it will cost me.
- Aragon takes Toulouse from France. It will cause a serious danger to the whole southern France. I wonder if France will do something about it or will just keep attacking and losing their armies on the walls of Caen.

1134:

- Venice allies with Fatimids, France and HRE.
- Hungarians resign from Sofia although I have “come and take this city” written on the walls.
- Still no AI progress inside Scandinavia and Ireland.

1135:

- Hungary allies with Kiev. They don’t attack Sofia yet and their army moved back to near Bucharest. Maybe they want to prepare better to their war with me? I’m still wealthier and have more troops then they do. They are also at war with Poland and lost a couple of battles there. Maybe they will focus their effort on their northern frontier instead? Opening a new front with me while they are losing there wouldn’t really be a good idea. They don’t know I have to play to the rules of my test and can’t blitz through their territory which I would have already done normally. :-)
- Sicily besieges Thessalonika, I’m at war for the first time. I will kick them out to Durazzo and take the city too, just to see if it will provoke Venice to attacking me. Their stack is still standing near Athens, hiring some weak mercenaries (Slav Levies, hahahah).
- I see some activity of factions that were idle for a while. Poland besieges Praha with their stack. Moors move to Valencia. Denmark has a stack of troops heading to Oslo. Finally. Anyway, I can’t find any reason why they waited for so long.
- It’s 04:28 AM here but I decide to play to the end and finish my test today. I will want to rest from M2TW for a day or two after that. Maybe another EB (RTW mod) campaign will help me forget all those following AI movement I did today and yesterday.

1137:

- Milan signs alliances with Fatimids and France. They also sign a truce with Venice allowing Venetians to keep their former capital. It really shows how defensive AI is.
- I notice a weird thing happening in Spain. Portugal is still at war with Castille and no cities were taken yet. Portugal has three stacks of troops near Salamanca and a stack in Lisbon. They don’t move into Castillian terriotory. The same with Spaniards, they have a stack of troops in Toledo, a stack in Leon and a stack heading to retake Valencia from Moors. They show no desire in attacking Portugal. Maybe the Pope forbid them? It’s the only explanation I’m able to find.

1139:

- Fatimids decide to retake Jerusalem and are well prepared to do it. They block the port there and move their army towards the city. It looks like a coordinated action more than a random declaration of war. Venice breaks their alliance with Fatimids to stay allied with HRE. They also almost immediately ally with the Pope who is known for not being a friend of Fatimids. This is how Lusted’s AI works. AI factions are very likely to sign and keep alliances with countries who are at war or dislike their enemies. They also seem to be very reluctant to betray their allies. This really leads to a forming of a number of strong but not very numerous blocks of power in Europe who are fighting each other. This is something I really like and something that really improves campaign gameplay. You can count on your allies. You also can see logic in the countries picked by AI to form an alliance. It’s not random, they have it well-thought.


1140:

- Hungary allies with HRE. They seem to be forming a huge alliance against me.
- Kiev took Caffa early but all their attacks on Mensk are repulsed and this has stopped them for good.
- Portugal moves fast into Spain after they took Oporto from them. This confirms that they weren’t standing there idly for no particular reason. The Pope forbid them to fight and they stood there for 7 turns until the ban was lifted, then quickly progressed on their enemies.
- Seljuks are busy near Astrakhan. They show no interest in fighting in Levant or attacking me. They seem to be keen to take as much of Asia as possible. They don’t know that Mongols and Timurids are coming. It shows.

Lusted CAI report. The continuation.



I have a huge problem with the forums. It timed out a number of times not loading the page for me. Now it refuses to show my 1128 report despite it being present inside the "Edit" window. Maybe i exceeded the maximum length of a post? Or maybe it's just broken? I'll copy my whole report to Word, save there and finish in there. Then I will try to post it here, somehow.

Here goes the rest of my report, from 1125. The first part is here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...3&postcount=15

For some reason I am not allowed to save my changes to the old post. If there's any moderator around reading this, please try to merge my two posts into one. I don't want them to be split. I can see the changes I make inside the "Edit" window but after I save, my post disappears from the page for good. After reloading it, it shows up, but without my changes present. When I "Edit" it, my changes are inside.

1125:

- Venice shows absolutely no interest in Zagreb. Their armies pass by the city a number of times walking from Ragusa to Venice itself and back. The city is besieged by Hungarians once more and is very likely to fall into their hands now.
- Milan lost the race for Marseille, France is better. Milanese however see venetian weakness somehow and decide to take the city of Venice. Their army outnumbers the defenders and they also sent half a stack of troops to block reinforcements coming from Ragusa.
- Sicily snatches Ajaccio while Milan is busy with Venice.
- None of english allies (Aragon, Portugal) has joined their war with France so far. The war has gone to a stallmate, a ceasefire is probable here. I suppose a huge army must have revolted in woods near Caen as both factions kept sending their armies into those woods and all of them are coming back seriously decimated.
- HRE have taken Jerusalem with ease. What a surprise. Egypt hastily bring their armies to besiege the city and take it back. I saw the quality of german troops while they were passing through my lands. Egypt will spend a lot of time on retaking Jerusalem. My allies, Templars, grow in power too, they took the castle of Acre with ease and may also be interested in getting a piece of the egyptian cake. I am also eager to see if they will decide to take Jerusalem from HRE after Germans receive some beating from egyptian archers. (EDIT: They were busy with rebels in Aleppo and Damascus and didn't attack Jerusalem).
- The rest of the map is quite calm. None of the wars have caused any cities being taken yet. Portugal and Castille decimate their armies but don't go after cities at all. Others juts accumulate troops to get those rebels that are still left.


1128

- Milan manages to block venetian reinforcements but fails to take Venice. They are quickly repulsed from venetian territory and now are regrouping and trying to bring some reinforcements from Bern.
- HRE signed a truce with Fatimids, France (who went on a crusade but never made it to the Holy Land) also signs a truce. I saw no big interest in taking the crusade despite many catholic factions doing nothing but building armies for last 20 turns. For example Poland did nothing except taking Magdeburg, has two halfstacks of troops and didn't participate in the crusade at all. They are all lazy! There's generally not much of an offensive stance towards other AI factions but I suspect it may be just too early.
- England still hesitates to attack Scotland.
- Scottish king died leaving their capital ungarrisoned and they don't train any troops there for more than 5 turns already. I don't like it.
- Hungarians trespassed into my territory south of Bucharest. I wonder if they were chasing a rebel army or are heading for the city. I decide not to reinforce it further to see if they are truthful or not.
- Venice sits near Athens and does nothing. They know they are too weak to take the city but they don't withdraw nor bring new troops.

1130:

- Venice takes Milan (the city). They have a full stack of castle troops. Milan has a lot of weak militia who are slaughtered quickly. Venice still has a full flag of troops after taking the city. A disaster for Milan. I’m so happy! :-)
- Hungary decides to attack idle Poland instead of breaking their alliance with me. Aragon decided to help their allies in England and attack France. HRE doesn’t like Venetian quick gains in Italy and decides to join the action before Venetians have grown too strong. Venice has gathered a strong army and won’t give up easily. I feel that all the fun is starting now!

1132:

- Hungary keeps moving towards Sofia. They sign an alliance with Seljuks. I will be betrayed and attacked the next turn. My low garrison inside the castle and good infrastructure tempted them to do it. I could say I don’t like AI betraying me or losing the city. Instead I will say that I consider this move to be very smart and that I demand such behaviour from AI factions. I see Lusted’s hand here more than in anything else. I don’t plan to do anything to save the city, I won’t train new troops inside, I won’t bring back the army that is besieging Skopja. I will wait for Hungary to take my castle to prove my point! You can’t even imagine how much it will cost me.
- Aragon takes Toulouse from France. It will cause a serious danger to the whole southern France. I wonder if France will do something about it or will just keep attacking and losing their armies on the walls of Caen. Shortly after Bordeaux fells to Aragon too.

1134:

- Venice allies with Fatimids, France and HRE.
- Hungarians resign from Sofia although I have “come and take this city” written on the walls.
- Still no AI progress inside Scandinavia and Ireland. (EDIT: Till the end of the game in 1155, Ireland and northern Scandinavia remained rebel.

1135:

- Hungary allies with Kiev. They don’t attack Sofia yet and their army moved back to near Bucharest. Maybe they want to prepare better to their war with me? I’m still wealthier and have more troops then they do. They are also at war with Poland and lost a couple of battles there. Maybe they will focus their effort on their northern frontier instead? Opening a new front with me while they are losing there wouldn’t really be a good idea. They don’t know I have to play to the rules of my test and can’t blitz through their territory which I would have already done normally. :-)
- Sicily besieges Thessalonika, I’m at war for the first time. I will kick them out to Durazzo and take the city too, just to see if it will provoke Venice to attacking me. Their stack is still standing near Athens, hiring some weak mercenaries (Slav Levies, hahahah).
- I see some activity of factions that were idle for a while. Poland besieges Praha with their stack. Moors move to Valencia. Denmark has a stack of troops heading to Oslo. Finally. Anyway, I can’t find any reason why they waited for so long.
- It’s 04:28 AM here but I decide to play to the end and finish my test today. I will want to rest from M2TW for a day or two after that. Maybe another EB (RTW mod) campaign will help me forget all those following AI movement I did today and yesterday.

1137:

- Milan signs alliances with Fatimids and France. They also sign a truce with Venice allowing Venetians to keep their former capital. It really shows how defensive AI is.
- I notice a weird thing happening in Spain. Portugal is still at war with Castille and no cities were taken yet. Portugal has three stacks of troops near Salamanca and a stack in Lisbon. They don’t move into Castillian terriotory. The same with Spaniards, they have a stack of troops in Toledo, a stack in Leon and a stack heading to retake Valencia from Moors. They show no desire in attacking Portugal. Maybe the Pope forbid them? It’s the only explanation I’m able to find.

1139:

- Fatimids decide to retake Jerusalem and are well prepared to do it. They block the port there and move their army towards the city. It looks like a coordinated action more than a random declaration of war. Venice breaks their alliance with Fatimids to stay allied with HRE. They also almost immediately ally with the Pope who is known for not being a friend of Fatimids. This is how Lusted’s AI works. AI factions are very likely to sign and keep alliances with countries who are at war or dislike their enemies. They also seem to be very reluctant to betray their allies. This really leads to a forming of a number of strong but not very numerous blocks of power in Europe who are fighting each other. This is something I really like and something that really improves campaign gameplay. You can count on your allies. You also can see logic in the countries picked by AI to form an alliance. It’s not random, they have it well-thought.

1140:

- Hungary allies with HRE. They seem to be forming a huge alliance against me.
- Kiev took Caffa early but all their attacks on Mensk are repulsed and this has stopped them for good.
- Portugal moves fast into Spain after they took Oporto from them. This confirms that they weren’t standing there idly for no particular reason. The Pope forbid them to fight and they stood there for 7 turns until the ban was lifted, then quickly progressed on their enemies.
- Seljuks are busy near Astrakhan. They show no interest in fighting in Levant or attacking me. They seem to be keen to take as much of Asia as possible. They don’t know that Mongols and Timurids are coming. It shows.

1146:

- Poland signs an alliance with HRE and it forces their truce with Hungary. Hungarians aren't at war now.
- Polish princess, Agnieszka, comes to me offering their map, trade rights and an alliance. I dated one Agnieszka once. It's a beautiful name so I accept. The next turn Poland attacks Hungary. I dissolve my alliance with Poland just like I dissolved my relations with Agnieszka in the past. Quark wants me to test if Hungarians will betray me or not, so I need to stay their ally till the end. HRE also resigns from their alliance with Poland as soon as they attack Hungary. But they sign an alliance with Poland the next turn. So after three turns Hungary is at peace again.
- Hungary is not busy at north anymore. They quickly advance on Sofia. I can see turmoil in Sofia caused by their spies. They will betray me. Finally!

1147:

- Hungary besieges Sofia. It denies their alliance with HRE. I find out i'm allied with Germans although I can't remember doing so. Must have happened when they were on a crusade. I hope Agnieszka will visit me again! Of course to sign another alliance.
- Venice marched from Athens to Arta, my stack followed them. When they saw that I won't allow them to take Arta, they moved back towards Athens. We're still not at war but they are just waiting for an occasion. Open space to strike. Something like Sofia, an easy pick.

1149:

- England see there's nothing to get in France and sings a peace deal there. The same turn they attack Scotland who already have taken York, Cardiff and Caernavon and started endangering the very existence of England.
- Seljuks, allied to my new enemy, Hungary, send a diplomat to Constantinople. He wants 180 florins or they will attack. I tell him to tell his sultan to ****** himself and his goat. My advisors seem to be uneasy after I do that. I wonder if he will send his best wishes to me too. I also train a few units of pikes in Constantinople. Just in case. I have plenty of cash, 15000, haven't been building armies, have been building economy, now I see the result.

1155:

- All the fun starts during my last few turns. Hungarian allies Kiev and Seljuks all attack me. Kiev blockades my port in Constantinople. Seljuks besiege Adana with their stack. Venice joins the actions and finally besieges Athens. If I wasn't such a hardcore player :-P and wasn't predicting it for a number of turns, I'd probably be unprepared and they would take a half of my empire now. I am prepared though, I retake Sofia, kill every single Venetian near Athens, kick Seljuks back to Ceasarea and sink the Kievian fleet.
- After this HUGE disaster, Hungarians come to me begging for a truce. I accept. The next turn Kiev and Seljuks come asking for the same. I sign it all and call it a day. My campaign is done. All requirements have been met, even if I didn't write so. I just didn't consider it significant enough.

Lusted CAI report. The continuation.

Summary, for lazy readers:

Lusted wanted to improve CAI but also tried to do as little changes as possible which allowed him not to break it like it happened to some other CAI modders in the past. The start of the campaign is quite slow, as always. Nobody sings any alliances, no wars are started, all factions concentrate on taking nearby rebel settlements. At first they send small contingents of troops to each settlement and lose many battles. As time progresses, those forces become bigger and bigger, resulting in AI having a significant army on each front. This makes AI be well prepared to wars that are about to begin as soon as all the rebels are dead.

When attacking enemy faction, AI seems to prepare well. Many alliances against a faction they were planning a war with were signed during my campaign. For example Hungarians before they attacked me, allied with Seljuks and Kiev who turned out to be eager to take parts of my empire. England signed alliance with Aragon who wanted French Toulouse and Portugal who couldn't stand French holding Pamplona. Most alliances caused allied countries to join the war. Most of them also prevailed till the end of my playing in 1155. I also noticed that AI tries to avoid wars on two fronts. Hungary didn't attack me until their war with Poland ended despite they had an occasion for an easy pick since my city of Sofia was left almost unguarded. Also England signed peace with France prior to attacking Scotland.

I saw no random war caused by a port being blocked. All the wars had a valid reason. I also saw AI quickly accepting peace while beaten which also is not the case in all CAIs. For example Milan accepted peace with much stronger Venice despite the fact that venetians held onto their former capital. Hungarians also come to beg for peace to me after whole their army died in Sofia, after Kievian fleet was sunk and finally after I killed turkish stack besieging one of my cities. What was great, their allies quickly followed their way and also signed peace with me.

This part is wonderful and makes AI factions function diplomatically, build armies and start wars exactly the way I want them to do it. I really encourage people to try Lusted's CAI for themselves. I would also like to receive any comments agreeing or disagreeing with my conclusions from people who played Lusted's CAI already.

I also have to add a few sentences about main problems during the campaign. My main concern is that there's still the old bug which causes AI army that is outpaced to a city by another army to stand near the city forever without any plans. It would be nice if it could be fixed. It is a problem of Vanilla, UAI, Darth's and Lusted's CAIs, so I don't think it will be easy to fix. Other campaign bugs from vanilla also remain in Lusted's CAI. Early attacks by AI factions aren't concentrated on any particular city. AI attacks in all directions with small forces and loses heavy number of battles until it's wealthy enough to afford bigger stacks being sent each time.

I also am not very keen on changes which Lusted probably describes as "AI being more defensive at war". It causes AI to decimate any enemy force that is on their turf, rebels and heretics die very quickly for example. But it also causes stallmates in most of the wars. Armies are fighting each other in field but no cities are taken. For example France and England killed thousands of troops near Caen but Caen itself and all the cities in northern France remained safe. AI just didn't accept the risk of leaving its cities unguarded in order to take enemy cities. The same happened in Iberia. Portugal fought a defensive war with Castille there. They were killing each other regularly with breaks when the Pope told him to rest but no cities switched hands. One thing that is a very good in this "defensive" stance is that AI quickly concentrates its forces around a city that is endangered. For example France quickly moved three of their armies and a fleet near to Antwerp when it was endagnered by english naval invasion.

The last thing I want to complain about is an old vanilla bug that causes AI to very lightly garrison its cities. Most of the time there's just a governor inside, sometimes a unit of militia. It makes it too easy for the player to blitz AI lands as all the defensive moves happen only after a war breaks out. If something can be done to AI at least using all the free upkeep slots, it would be great.

Summarizing: The best campaign AI so far as I am concerned. It inherits a number of old vanilla problems but everything that Lusted has added works great and makes this AI very playable.



=== The report:


I have a huge problem with the forums. It timed out a number of times not loading the page for me. Now it refuses to show my 1128 report despite it being present inside the "Edit" window. Maybe i exceeded the maximum length of a post? Or maybe it's just broken? I'll copy my whole report to Word, save there and finish in there. Then I will try to post it here, somehow.

Here goes the rest of my report, from 1125. The first part is here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showp...3&postcount=15

For some reason I am not allowed to save my changes to the old post. If there's any moderator around reading this, please try to merge my two posts into one. I don't want them to be split. I can see the changes I make inside the "Edit" window but after I save, my post disappears from the page for good. After reloading it, it shows up, but without my changes present. When I "Edit" it, my changes are inside.

1125:

- Venice shows absolutely no interest in Zagreb. Their armies pass by the city a number of times walking from Ragusa to Venice itself and back. The city is besieged by Hungarians once more and is very likely to fall into their hands now.
- Milan lost the race for Marseille, France is better. Milanese however see venetian weakness somehow and decide to take the city of Venice. Their army outnumbers the defenders and they also sent half a stack of troops to block reinforcements coming from Ragusa.
- Sicily snatches Ajaccio while Milan is busy with Venice.
- None of english allies (Aragon, Portugal) has joined their war with France so far. The war has gone to a stallmate, a ceasefire is probable here. I suppose a huge army must have revolted in woods near Caen as both factions kept sending their armies into those woods and all of them are coming back seriously decimated.
- HRE have taken Jerusalem with ease. What a surprise. Egypt hastily bring their armies to besiege the city and take it back. I saw the quality of german troops while they were passing through my lands. Egypt will spend a lot of time on retaking Jerusalem. My allies, Templars, grow in power too, they took the castle of Acre with ease and may also be interested in getting a piece of the egyptian cake. I am also eager to see if they will decide to take Jerusalem from HRE after Germans receive some beating from egyptian archers. (EDIT: They were busy with rebels in Aleppo and Damascus and didn't attack Jerusalem).
- The rest of the map is quite calm. None of the wars have caused any cities being taken yet. Portugal and Castille decimate their armies but don't go after cities at all. Others juts accumulate troops to get those rebels that are still left.


1128

- Milan manages to block venetian reinforcements but fails to take Venice. They are quickly repulsed from venetian territory and now are regrouping and trying to bring some reinforcements from Bern.
- HRE signed a truce with Fatimids, France (who went on a crusade but never made it to the Holy Land) also signs a truce. I saw no big interest in taking the crusade despite many catholic factions doing nothing but building armies for last 20 turns. For example Poland did nothing except taking Magdeburg, has two halfstacks of troops and didn't participate in the crusade at all. They are all lazy! There's generally not much of an offensive stance towards other AI factions but I suspect it may be just too early.
- England still hesitates to attack Scotland.
- Scottish king died leaving their capital ungarrisoned and they don't train any troops there for more than 5 turns already. I don't like it.
- Hungarians trespassed into my territory south of Bucharest. I wonder if they were chasing a rebel army or are heading for the city. I decide not to reinforce it further to see if they are truthful or not.
- Venice sits near Athens and does nothing. They know they are too weak to take the city but they don't withdraw nor bring new troops.

1130:

- Venice takes Milan (the city). They have a full stack of castle troops. Milan has a lot of weak militia who are slaughtered quickly. Venice still has a full flag of troops after taking the city. A disaster for Milan. I’m so happy! :-)
- Hungary decides to attack idle Poland instead of breaking their alliance with me. Aragon decided to help their allies in England and attack France. HRE doesn’t like Venetian quick gains in Italy and decides to join the action before Venetians have grown too strong. Venice has gathered a strong army and won’t give up easily. I feel that all the fun is starting now!

1132:

- Hungary keeps moving towards Sofia. They sign an alliance with Seljuks. I will be betrayed and attacked the next turn. My low garrison inside the castle and good infrastructure tempted them to do it. I could say I don’t like AI betraying me or losing the city. Instead I will say that I consider this move to be very smart and that I demand such behaviour from AI factions. I see Lusted’s hand here more than in anything else. I don’t plan to do anything to save the city, I won’t train new troops inside, I won’t bring back the army that is besieging Skopja. I will wait for Hungary to take my castle to prove my point! You can’t even imagine how much it will cost me.
- Aragon takes Toulouse from France. It will cause a serious danger to the whole southern France. I wonder if France will do something about it or will just keep attacking and losing their armies on the walls of Caen. Shortly after Bordeaux fells to Aragon too.

1134:

- Venice allies with Fatimids, France and HRE.
- Hungarians resign from Sofia although I have “come and take this city” written on the walls.
- Still no AI progress inside Scandinavia and Ireland. (EDIT: Till the end of the game in 1155, Ireland and northern Scandinavia remained rebel.

1135:

- Hungary allies with Kiev. They don’t attack Sofia yet and their army moved back to near Bucharest. Maybe they want to prepare better to their war with me? I’m still wealthier and have more troops then they do. They are also at war with Poland and lost a couple of battles there. Maybe they will focus their effort on their northern frontier instead? Opening a new front with me while they are losing there wouldn’t really be a good idea. They don’t know I have to play to the rules of my test and can’t blitz through their territory which I would have already done normally. :-)
- Sicily besieges Thessalonika, I’m at war for the first time. I will kick them out to Durazzo and take the city too, just to see if it will provoke Venice to attacking me. Their stack is still standing near Athens, hiring some weak mercenaries (Slav Levies, hahahah).
- I see some activity of factions that were idle for a while. Poland besieges Praha with their stack. Moors move to Valencia. Denmark has a stack of troops heading to Oslo. Finally. Anyway, I can’t find any reason why they waited for so long.
- It’s 04:28 AM here but I decide to play to the end and finish my test today. I will want to rest from M2TW for a day or two after that. Maybe another EB (RTW mod) campaign will help me forget all those following AI movement I did today and yesterday.

1137:

- Milan signs alliances with Fatimids and France. They also sign a truce with Venice allowing Venetians to keep their former capital. It really shows how defensive AI is.
- I notice a weird thing happening in Spain. Portugal is still at war with Castille and no cities were taken yet. Portugal has three stacks of troops near Salamanca and a stack in Lisbon. They don’t move into Castillian terriotory. The same with Spaniards, they have a stack of troops in Toledo, a stack in Leon and a stack heading to retake Valencia from Moors. They show no desire in attacking Portugal. Maybe the Pope forbid them? It’s the only explanation I’m able to find.

1139:

- Fatimids decide to retake Jerusalem and are well prepared to do it. They block the port there and move their army towards the city. It looks like a coordinated action more than a random declaration of war. Venice breaks their alliance with Fatimids to stay allied with HRE. They also almost immediately ally with the Pope who is known for not being a friend of Fatimids. This is how Lusted’s AI works. AI factions are very likely to sign and keep alliances with countries who are at war or dislike their enemies. They also seem to be very reluctant to betray their allies. This really leads to a forming of a number of strong but not very numerous blocks of power in Europe who are fighting each other. This is something I really like and something that really improves campaign gameplay. You can count on your allies. You also can see logic in the countries picked by AI to form an alliance. It’s not random, they have it well-thought.

1140:

- Hungary allies with HRE. They seem to be forming a huge alliance against me.
- Kiev took Caffa early but all their attacks on Mensk are repulsed and this has stopped them for good.
- Portugal moves fast into Spain after they took Oporto from them. This confirms that they weren’t standing there idly for no particular reason. The Pope forbid them to fight and they stood there for 7 turns until the ban was lifted, then quickly progressed on their enemies.
- Seljuks are busy near Astrakhan. They show no interest in fighting in Levant or attacking me. They seem to be keen to take as much of Asia as possible. They don’t know that Mongols and Timurids are coming. It shows.

1146:

- Poland signs an alliance with HRE and it forces their truce with Hungary. Hungarians aren't at war now.
- Polish princess, Agnieszka, comes to me offering their map, trade rights and an alliance. I dated one Agnieszka once. It's a beautiful name so I accept. The next turn Poland attacks Hungary. I dissolve my alliance with Poland just like I dissolved my relations with Agnieszka in the past. Quark wants me to test if Hungarians will betray me or not, so I need to stay their ally till the end. HRE also resigns from their alliance with Poland as soon as they attack Hungary. But they sign an alliance with Poland the next turn. So after three turns Hungary is at peace again.
- Hungary is not busy at north anymore. They quickly advance on Sofia. I can see turmoil in Sofia caused by their spies. They will betray me. Finally!

1147:

- Hungary besieges Sofia. It denies their alliance with HRE. I find out i'm allied with Germans although I can't remember doing so. Must have happened when they were on a crusade. I hope Agnieszka will visit me again! Of course to sign another alliance.
- Venice marched from Athens to Arta, my stack followed them. When they saw that I won't allow them to take Arta, they moved back towards Athens. We're still not at war but they are just waiting for an occasion. Open space to strike. Something like Sofia, an easy pick.

1149:

- England see there's nothing to get in France and sings a peace deal there. The same turn they attack Scotland who already have taken York, Cardiff and Caernavon and started endangering the very existence of England.
- Seljuks, allied to my new enemy, Hungary, send a diplomat to Constantinople. He wants 180 florins or they will attack. I tell him to tell his sultan to ****** himself and his goat. My advisors seem to be uneasy after I do that. I wonder if he will send his best wishes to me too. I also train a few units of pikes in Constantinople. Just in case. I have plenty of cash, 15000, haven't been building armies, have been building economy, now I see the result.

1155:

- All the fun starts during my last few turns. Hungarian allies Kiev and Seljuks all attack me. Kiev blockades my port in Constantinople. Seljuks besiege Adana with their stack. Venice joins the actions and finally besieges Athens. If I wasn't such a hardcore player :-P and wasn't predicting it for a number of turns, I'd probably be unprepared and they would take a half of my empire now. I am prepared though, I retake Sofia, kill every single Venetian near Athens, kick Seljuks back to Ceasarea and sink the Kievian fleet.
- After this HUGE disaster, Hungarians come to me begging for a truce. I accept. The next turn Kiev and Seljuks come asking for the same. I sign it all and call it a day. My campaign is done. All requirements have been met, even if I didn't write so. I just didn't consider it significant enough.

The summary will be in this post as I can't edit the old one for the reasons i described before. It's 05:49 AM. If you read this and don't +rep me, you're evil people.

[King Kong]

Hi Nightbringer, Ceaser Clivius, delra and Quark,

A very big thanks for all your detailed reports and I really glad for your all your help!

I think will write also a small report regarding vanilla AI tomorrow, since I tested it endless times (UAI, too actually), maybe this will help a little to compare it better with other AIs...

Cheers!

@Quark,

Besides the very good reports, you may want to add a poll for campaign AIs, so probably more people would raise their voice


Hi Lusted,

Thanks for attaching your campaign AI files here!
I'm also going to test your AI in the next days...
Judging from delra's report it sounds promising

[Lusted]

Im glad you guys are testing as i haven't had the time to thoroughly test it myself and your feedback will help me fine tune it and improve it. From the feedback i've already had it seems like it's working well, but there will always be room for improvement.

[delra]

I wanted to finish my little AAR first but well:

KK: Thanks, i'm glad i could be useful somehow. :-)

Lusted: If you could make AI resign from its stupid hardcoded naval invasions and make them concentrate armies more than they do now, AI progress would be very quick and steady. It is now held back by a huge number of battles lost to rebels all over the map. Those factions who concentrate their armies first do really well. Egypt takes Jerusalem as soon as their starting armies are together, then quickly takes Acre and Damascus. Most of the factions split their armies into tiny pieces and attack many cities at the same time. They fail everywhere while they could join them all together and take one city at the same time, then another and another.

[Lusted]

Lusted: If you could make AI resign from its stupid hardcoded naval invasions and make them concentrate armies more than they do now, AI progress would be very quick and steady. It is now held back by a huge number of battles lost to rebels all over the map. Those factions who concentrate their armies first do really well. Egypt takes Jerusalem as soon as their starting armies are together, then quickly takes Acre and Damascus. Most of the factions split their armies into tiny pieces and attack many cities at the same time. They fail everywhere while they could join them all together and take one city at the same time, then another and another.

Well when i tried to remove the coded automatic attacks (if faction is at peace and player at peace and faction doing nothing so attack player) the camapign it crashed, so all i can really hope to d is minimise the other silly ai attacks.

As for making the ai buildup more, it might be possible, but only by maknig the ai delay it's attacks on ai provinces for a good amount of turns by setting things to builup instead of invade opportunistic, my only concern with that is that by the time that happens the player is already expanding and so the ai is already disadvantaged.

[delra]

It doesn't seem to be easy to resolve.

On one hand if for example Milan had all the armies they lost in Florence and Marseille by now (it's 1100), they could take the whole northern Italy with them.

On the other hand Egypt delayed their attack on Jerusalem by many years while concentrating their forces.

If there's a choice between those two, I would choose AI splitting forces and attacking everywhere instead of idling for many turns to give blitzing players a huge advantage. But if we can move a few steps on a scale from "insane attacks in many directions" towards "more organized attacks", it's certainly the way to go.