To those working on the battlefield AI

[Cadmium77]

Is there anything that can be done with the AI behavior and troop movement on battlefield maps? Of course roads are non existent for all intents and purposes, except as visual decoration but I was contemplating the beautiful new strat maps for BC and thinking of all the mountain warfare in Afghanistan etc and just dreading the consequences of it on the battlefield map;


More battles with cavalry running at full tilt across 45 degree mountainsides.

Terrible, one of the worst things in the game.


I realize there are strict constraints about what can be done, purely from a technical point of view but is there anything that can be done to restrict movements for different kinds of terrain vis a vis different kinds of units so that we don't have cavalry charges on mountainsides? This would really add to the tactics of the game as was promised us before RTW came out; slingers and bowmen have no armour but can run up steep mountainsides on light feet to rain death down on plodding heavily armoured infantry while horsemen would be simply out of luck, reduced to a slow walk at best.

As it is mountain warfare is about as pleasurable as dragging a fingernail across a blackboard.

[kelvintyk]

Is there anything that can be done with the AI behavior and troop movement on battlefield maps? Of course roads are non existent for all intents and purposes, except as visual decoration but I was contemplating the beautiful new strat maps for BC and thinking of all the mountain warfare in Afghanistan etc and just dreading the consequences of it on the battlefield map;


More battles with cavalry running at full tilt across 45 degree mountainsides.

Terrible, one of the worst things in the game.


I realize there are strict constraints about what can be done, purely from a technical point of view but is there anything that can be done to restrict movements for different kinds of terrain so that we don't have cavalry charges on mountainsides?

As it is mountain warfare is about as pleasurable as dragging a fingernail across a blackboard.

My sentiments too....cavalry are hard to utilise on mountains. But how exactly you want that to be changed?

[Cadmium77]

I'm not sure; I'm not a programmer or even a modder, but I was hoping that there was some mechanism in the games programming that could attach movement restrictions or penalties to different kinds of terrain, so that mountainsides at least could compel heavy units to a walking pace while lighter foot units could still run, and would forbid mounted units entirely from traveling across them.

*sigh* If only terrain meant something in this game's battlefield mode. Imagine if there were real roads across swampy or broken land so that there would be advantages to using roadways to rush around the battlefield. Or if there were swamps that would bog down heavier troops.

There should be a huge advantage for defenders in mountainous terrain. You should have to come in with at least 5 to 1 dominance in forces to take mountainous terrain. It should be so difficult that you'd just naturally avoid it as in real life.

[dmesa]

it makes sense, the mud has always been a bad terrain for heavier troops (armored), i think i saw that thing on a agincourt documental.

i like the idea but i think its very difficult to do now.

[Cadmium77]

it makes sense, the mud has always been a bad terrain for heavier troops (armored), i think i saw that thing on a agincourt documental.

i like the idea but i think its very difficult to do now.

If only the CA crew would devote themselves to making this a serious wargame...

[Miraj]

Very good questions. Of course our man working on the battle AI is GrandViz and I'm sure he can explain the technical details associated with adding such penalties and limitations and tell us whether it can be done or not.

But overall I agree, heavy cavalry should dominate the plains and open country while the Ghorid/Afghan guerillas should be able to take on great odds by utilizing their homeland's terrain.

[Lusted]

There are terrain modifiers to work with:

climate default

grass_short 1.0
grass_long 1.0
sand 1.0
rock 1.0
forest_dense 0.75
scrub_dense 1.0
swamp 1.0
mud 1.0
mud_road 1.0
stone_road 1.0
water 0.6
ice 0.5
snow 0.75

Those are the movement modifiers applied to all units based on ground type, so you can have units move much faster on roads than in swamps, or on grass than on rock(eg mountain).

[Blingerman]

There are terrain modifiers to work with:



Those are the movement modifiers applied to all units based on ground type, so you can have units move much faster on roads than in swamps, or on grass than on rock(eg mountain).

COOOOOOOL. I beg GrandVIz uses this, My Ghorids will be unstoppable in homeland
Edited: Damn it do you mean Luster than you cant have different modifiers for different units? I mean faster movement in mud for light javalinmen and slower for heavy troops? So that those modifiers are for all the troops.

[Cadmium77]

There are terrain modifiers to work with:



Those are the movement modifiers applied to all units based on ground type, so you can have units move much faster on roads than in swamps, or on grass than on rock(eg mountain).

That's amazing because I've never noticed one whit of difference when having troops move across the battlefield terrain in M2TW.

Thanks for that info, Lusted.

[Lusted]

Well most mods which touch the battlefield balance modify them, i quoted the vanilla values, in my mod they are:

grass_short 0.9
grass_long 0.85
sand 0.75
rock 0.6
forest_dense 0.7
scrub_dense 0.85
swamp 0.6
mud 0.8
mud_road 0.85
stone_road 1.0
water 0.5
ice 0.5
snow 0.7

[Blingerman]

So The question is if you can change the modifiers for a certain unit or the modifiers are for all the units.
Thanks

[Lusted]

They're for all units, there is nothing to specify how different units are affected by different terrain types.

[Blingerman]

They're for all units, there is nothing to specify how different units are affected by different terrain types.

That is a failure. Can it be changed anyway or is it harcoded?

[AlphaDelta]

That is a failure. Can it be changed anyway or is it harcoded?

; stat_ground Combat modifiers on different ground types. Scrub, sand, forest, snow

[Lusted]

That is a failure. Can it be changed anyway or is it harcoded?

Hardcoded.

; stat_ground Combat modifiers on different ground types. Scrub, sand, forest, snow

That won't affect speed though, and i'm not entirely sure how those modifiers work.

[Blingerman]

Probably it will affect the damage they can do in those terrains.

[GrandViZ]

As Lusted has pointed out terrain modifiers to movement apply to all units the same way - this cannot be changed by mods.

Another aspect are combat modifiers, determined in the EDU.txt. These can be adjusted individually for each unit.

[Fenix_120]

I hate AI hard coding.

Its like set to no matter what back stab the human player and attack the human player for no apparent reason.

Once I was playing stainless steel(which has had major upgrades to campain and battle-field ai) and the Mongols attacked and I was Byzantines.

They walked by the Turks and Russians with six full stacks with out sacking one of their cities or even bothering one of their armies, walked right by the Knights templar's Antioch which was at the time the best city in my game, walked right by Trezibond which I controlled and the castles in Anatolia that I own, they walked right by every three of my cities that had only one or two low tier units defending them...

To attack my fully upgraded and defended Constantinople.

I had a full stack from Corinth come as I had guessed their plan, and my army had four units of Varagarion guards, six units of trezibond archers and four units of Kataphracts, the rest was dismounted lancers or Byzantine infantry but they were all fully upgraded(except for Kats they only had weapon upgrade).

My army though small had a huge city wall and level two defense's and won the battle staggeringly with a kill rate of 5 to 1.

I lost some 200 men and still had about 700 left, the Mongols lost some 5000 men and still had 2000 left that fled.


But battle AI was good. Just the campain AI sucked which is what I was getting at, they should have sacked all of my small cities first and then let me run out of money from my huge stack defending Constantinople.


So my point is that I want to fix Campain AI more than battle right now.

You can use some other mods for fixing the Battle Ai such as Darths.

[teh.frickin.pope]

I think it is wise to add "please" to certain sentences

[Fenix_120]

I think it is wise to add "please" to certain sentences

Savage large hairy men armed with axes such as myself do not say "Please" as a general rule.


We more or less say "Arg!" or "Aye!" or something of that sort.