Major Breakthroughs in the Battle AI

[xeryx]

Guys I hate to post this here, but this is stupendous news for the whole modding and gaming community!!

v3.0 XBAI willl be out NLT Friday, we have Fixed most major issues with the Battle AI system!! They are too numerous to list here, we have also added new code to the BAI and fixed morale. The BAI can now whoop the hell out of the human at VH level, without cheating.

Please go to the XAI forums and read this current progress thread

This is such an amazing break though, and since most people come to this forum, I wanted for you guys to know about it. BTW

SPREAD THE WORD to other forums and all your friends, once you have played it on Friday..we need to revitalize the community!!

CORE GAME PLAY Gentleman

[Chim]

Good to hear xeryx! Congratulations on the new release.

[gracul]

im 99% sure that it will be included as either the base BAI or an optional one for 6.2 or 7.0

[xeryx]

This BAI can be used in any mod, it is strictly the 2 BAI files. But modders may need to do some re-balancing

Thank you Chimaeria

[Gorrrrrn]

HI Xeryx

pleased to this released.

Will need sustained game testing to see how good it is (that's not a criticism, it's just there's too many people will say it's brilliant on the basis of just one or two battles.)

Look forward to playing with this - as you say may require some re-balancing for units.

Hopefully we'll be able to settle on a BAI in time to make it the baseline for future mods to work on (ie SS 6.2 and beyond.)

[xeryx]

@ rosanov: Trust me for 3 weeks we have been doing just battles with my reliable tester. You know me well, and I only speak the truth. After all, adding code and re-writing CA's files are my specialty.

I am far from done, with where I want to go with the BAI. But you will see that all claims are true to my word and my reputation.You will witness the glory, In 2 days..maybe sooner if todays testing goes great.

xeryx

[Chim]

Not sure weather Friday will work out? Take your time man.

[xeryx]

Not sure weather Friday will work out? Take your time man.

That's the thing, all the testing has gone great. Besides I am not going to be able to test every combination of mod out there.

CAI: Don't worry, we will be re-working the XAI CAI once again in the fall. We have some other files to work on first. We are trying to improve as many files as we can.

[Barser]

To bad it is not the campaign ai.

[Phase]

To bad it is not the campaign ai.

I think people would say that about the battle AI, if the campaign AI was improved like this.

[delra]

Too bad they didn't fix crossbowmen on walls. :-)

[Barser]

Sorry for being a little sceptical about this battle ai.. It all sounds good but I hope it dont give the ai some silly insane high morale bonus.
You should afterall have just as big a chance of winning against the ai if you both enter the battle with only one unit of peasants each.

I like it that it makes smarter moves though

[xeryx]

Sorry for being a little skeptical about this battle ai.. It all sounds good but I hope it dont give the ai some silly insane high morale bonus.
You should afterall have just as big a chance of winning against the ai if you both enter the battle with only one unit of peasants each.

I like it that it makes smarter moves though

No problem with skepticism, I have been full of it towards the game and mods too. See I love this game!! I am a gamer before being a modder, I have gamed for 22 years now. I have been disappointed hundreds of times with promises from game manufactures, and quite frankly I am tired of it. You have my word as a gentleman and scholar. The fixes here are real. And by God I want to be able to enjoy playing more than 100 turns of this game, before I get so bored of decimating the AI, that I put this game back on the shelf. I do not give up, that you can be sure!! I have great plans for this AI, and they will come to fruition.

Before this new system, the Human used the same morale levels as the AI, but there must be a bonus ( we'll say a +2) somewhere else for the human player. So no matter what level you played, you always had higher morale than the AI. Have you ever wondered why the human player's troop losses are so one sided? The (+2) bonus is why, This bonus also affects the hit rates, so with this bonus, the human ALWAYS gave more casualties than the AI. I have tested and proven this.

The Morale is scaled according to Difficulty now. On VH, it gives a slight bonus to the AI, then the tactics come in like when units get flanked, heavy losses, being surrounded, having units behind the lines, fatigue, and general dies. So there are plenty of opportunities to counter the morale. Basically what we have done, is negated the bonus for the human (It's scaled by difficulty level). Also on the harder levels the AI will not give up nearly as easily as the lower levels, it will basically fight to the death, if you rout them they will rally and come back!

Here is a simple test you can do.
If you take 2 identical units and battle, when you put your cursor over the unit, you will see that the Human player is consistently higher in morale and nearly impossible to break. The AI will also take more losses in a perfectly matched fight. The AI might get a few units of yours to rout, but how many times has the AI ever broken your army? but you can easily beat his, it's because of this bonus affecting the morale of the troops and the hit rate.

Too bad they didn't fix crossbowmen on walls. :-)

All Missile units work as they are suppose to.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

All Missile units work as they are suppose to.

So putting Musketeers on walls, finally inflicts the slaugher it should?

[EgyptianNecrophiliac]

So putting Musketeers on walls, finally inflicts the slaugher it should?

I just tried.. they barely killed anyone.

[OG Grenadier]

Sorry for being a little sceptical about this battle ai.. It all sounds good but I hope it dont give the ai some silly insane high morale bonus.
You should afterall have just as big a chance of winning against the ai if you both enter the battle with only one unit of peasants each.

I like it that it makes smarter moves though

EXACTLY. That's always been the issue. I want a smarter AI, not an AI that's being over compensated with beefed up morale. Not all a damning indictment of the superb work done by the modders I might add.

[The Noble Lord]

Great news.

[Barser]

Thanks for explaining this. I dont eally know how it works.

[GuineaPig]

So basically on VH it will be impossible to inflict a full-scale rout?

[xeryx]

So basically on VH it will be impossible to inflict a full-scale rout?

Actually, it all depends on all the factors I listed. I did forget if you get 4 units to route quickly, kill a general those easily cause a full route.At VH the AI is more determined, and not very easy to get to flee. It all scales by difficulty, I know we all think there is only one setting.. but there are actually 4 now.

Guys, we may need to make some adjustments, but overall I am very pleased. I can still win my battles, they are just less forgiving of mistakes. Now the AI can make your army route, which was nearly impossible before. You just can't sacrifice units. Yu may even have to find a way to rest some troops, so you have reserves of fresh troops. Just remeber, the human factor can always win, I am just trying to make it challenging.

I am releasing this version in a couple of hours. Just a few more tests.