Campaign AI

**Resurrection** · April 12, 2009, 12:32 PM

Hi,

for starters two things:

- naval invasions
- total war

And now, I beg you, I would like to hear any way how to tweak the AI's behaviour in regard with these two.

In the game based in several theatres connected with sea and mostly based around colonialism and stuff, it seems to me unbelievable, that something so basic like transporting troops by sea is beyond AI's capabilities. But it's the reality and I doubt CA will fix it anytime soon hence I ask wheter anyone has at least a clue what can be done about it from our (modding) positions.

The other so called "isue" is even more unbelievable. I understand the brand is called total war, but I did not expect it newly translates into "endless wars". Don't get me wrong, I am all to fighting till death, but the key word is fighting. Currently most wars are limited to few battles and then freeze for ever no side doing any actions, but not signing ceasefire as well. The alliance blocks, built-in feature, thus creates "remarkable" things. Half the HRE minor nations stuck forever in war with Pueblo indians or Great Britain fighting forever Prussia without single clash or battle (since naval invasions are disabled and Prussia does not build ships much).

So is there a way? Because it is all fine people are interested in how their line infantry is looking or wheter the range of their ships are correct, but without at least basically working CAI are these IMHO a bit pointless*...

Thanks in advance for any advice.

* It's like having broken engine in the car but caring most for it's colour change...

**Cursisanafou** · April 12, 2009, 12:46 PM

naval invasions are supposed to be fixed next patch.

as for total war and campaign AI, Jack Lusted said that a lot of the campaign AI is built in the startpos.esf and he is going to try to release some info next week on it.... we might be able to tweak it after that... but it may take a little bit of time to get tools to change those values.

I think a big thing is that the AI doesn't have much ambition for world domination.

The only faction i've seen really expand in any campaign i play is maratha confederacy...

**Dud doodoo** · April 12, 2009, 01:21 PM

I think it's up to CA to fix the actual bugs, that's not our job. Our job is to change and modify the way the game works and plays. Try out Imperial Splendor, I hear the maker did a good job.

**harshman_chris** · April 12, 2009, 01:33 PM

Serious what is with people making posts stating false facts when the CA has posted saying otherwise, I mean I must wonder what goes on it peoples heads, were they think they should be able to say anything on the web because they feel it is true when it is not.

Alright rant off.

**Dud doodoo** · April 12, 2009, 01:34 PM

What false facts are you talking about? Have you read the patch thread in general discussion?

**harshman_chris** · April 12, 2009, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by Dud doodoo

What false facts are you talking about? Have you read the patch thread in general discussion?

Not you, no Cursisanafou, but the OP

I doubt CA will fix it anytime soon (Naval Invasions and CAI)

- naval invasions
- total war

- An array of fixes and tweaks to improve AI aggression levels

The other thing being, raise your hand if you understand how this CAI even works.

The short version is it has a list of many many priorities as well as other things that all have to be balanced for the AI to work, you cannot just turn on AI Naval invasions becuase it would break the game. But if you read this it explains it.

We've fixed the bugs that were preventing the AI from doing naval invasions, but that did not mean they would suddenly start doing them all the time. The priority for them needs to be balanced against all the other items that have priorities for the AI and this will take a while to get right. We are going to continuously improve the AI so the amount of naval invasions will keep on getting better from the initial fix that is coming in the next patch.

**Resurrection** · April 12, 2009, 02:19 PM

You are accusing me for having opinion? That's amusing... Especially at public forums meant exactly for this pourpose. As for why I think so, when I look back at all previous TW titles and how long it took for important patches to come out... For instance patch 1.2 for M2TW: it was stated all the time, that it is upcoming soon and that it will fix all those crucial bugs. The reality was, that it took like half the year, which is not in the frame of word "soon" for me and it was far from fixing the crucial bugs. That's why there were patch 1.3 (which took even longer) and decently performing AI was done solely by modders anyway. So that's the reason, why I don't believe what CA's PR is throwing at us.

Anyway, I was looking forward for one thing in ETW - it's moddability. CA was proudly saying all the time prior the release it will be most moddable TW game ever and various polls showed that people want one thing most - moddability. I believe I don't have to mention how the reality looks like as word "complete opposite" says it all. Not unexpected at all, because the other word is "Steam".

And if you did not notice, two major mods so far released are focused mainly on fixing various issues, which reminds me of old M2TW bugfix mod by Lusted (if I am not mistaken) before patches have taken care of some of the bugs.

Nonetheless, I have got the answer. I half expected it, but was not sure... AI is so far basically unmoddable for us so it's up to CA no matter what I say or think.

Thanks to others for replies and comments and I will definitely try out the Imperial Splendor again if it is better then Darth's...

**Dud doodoo** · April 12, 2009, 02:53 PM

Jack mentioned that he was going to describe the startpos system soon(I'm not sure exactly what it is besides the startpos.esf, but he brought it up when I asked questions concerning the CAI) so we will not be completely in the dark, and there already ARE mods released that fix many aggression issues with the CAI.

You are certainly allowed to state your opinion, but if it's ridiculous don't pretend you won't get laughed at.

**Flobulon** · April 12, 2009, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Anyway, I was looking forward for one thing in ETW - it's moddability. CA was proudly saying all the time prior the release it will be most moddable TW game ever and various polls showed that people want one thing most - moddability. I believe I don't have to mention how the reality looks like as word "complete opposite" says it all. Not unexpected at all, because the other word is "Steam".

Would you care to elaborate on how Steam has any impact on the moddability of the game?

**Resurrection** · April 12, 2009, 05:47 PM

Sure, why not. I assume you are familiar with how Steam works. If you buy the game digitally, Steam software downloads and manages the files and everything about it. The later is the key, because modding something is basically altering the existing game files. This is not possible with Steam, because it checks the files and patches/restores them back to standard if change or missing files are detected.

CA has already issued some workarounds for this such as user scripts telling the Steam to prioritise user defined files, but the game itself remains untouchable (of course there are ways...). And thus it is entirely up to CA, which modding options it will allow and so far it was not too many.

There is definitely more on this topic, try google it and you will definitely learn more as this is not very good place to discuss it. I personally semi-hoped, that CAI is not part of yet unmoddable parts, but it apparently is so we will have to wait...

**harshman_chris** · April 12, 2009, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Resurrection

Sure, why not. I assume you are familiar with how Steam works. If you buy the game digitally, Steam software downloads and manages the files and everything about it. The later is the key, because modding something is basically altering the existing game files. This is not possible with Steam, because it checks the files and patches/restores them back to standard if change or missing files are detected.

CA has already issued some workarounds for this such as user scripts telling the Steam to prioritise user defined files, but the game itself remains untouchable (of course there are ways...). And thus it is entirely up to CA, which modding options it will allow and so far it was not too many.

There is definitely more on this topic, try google it and you will definitely learn more as this is not very good place to discuss it. I personally semi-hoped, that CAI is not part of yet unmoddable parts, but it apparently is so we will have to wait...

Again Jack Lusted is comming later this week after he talks to the CAI programmers to help us mod it in the esf files, please read before posting your comments.

Knowledge is power.

**Dud doodoo** · April 12, 2009, 07:57 PM

Actually, from what I understand it does the same exact thing for digital and hardware copies. We already have a tool that completely removes the steam problem, and they pack file system is perfectly designed for mods, more so than the other games.

**Quixote07** · April 12, 2009, 10:47 PM

We have a moderate amount of control over AI priorities. That said, there's a big chunk (I don't know if we can really say how much of a chunk yet) locked up in the startpos.esf in the BDI_POOLS entries for each faction.

Those strings are why some factions always end up doing the same things. They're pretty much unmoddable right now though. The actual format is confusing and there are several thousand entries per faction, and we'd have to edit them by hand.

That said, as far as general prioritization, we've got pretty excellent control over that. The startpos.esf files seem to allow much more specific control.

If you'd like a more dynamic campaign (more "total war") I've tweaked the AI towards that in my mod.

**caldwell77** · April 13, 2009, 09:49 PM

With indifference to the "is not / is to" bickering, the original post is exactly what I am looking for.

I'm completely new to mods and would like to try some, but all I want are campaign AI fixes. The CAI fixes described for Imperial Splendor look like just the ticket. So some newbie questions if I may...

1. Can 2 installations of ETW be done (one modded and one clean)? I assume mods can be uninstalled if they don't work out.

2. Has anyone broken Imp Spl into seperate mods or can anyone tell me how to recreate just the AI changes in a new mod?