Melee bug 1.5 in all its glory for Kieran and CA

[nigelnire]

I played this Custom battle tonight for you and you colleagues at CA Kieran and I hope you will report back to CA . This is the 1.5 battle Ai you say so many of us are happy with. Empire running on patch 1.5 CA units only and using no mods at all so strictly vanilla game.
I was playing as the British I formed a normal straight battle line and let the enemy approach. Without firing a single shot they ran on mass into my centre as can be seen from this screenshot. They would have been better off carrying axes instead of muskets because they didn’t use them. I was using 18th century tactics while they were using tactics like something from braveheart.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This has been my experience since the 1.4 patch before that with 1.3 I had been enjoying Empire and having close hard fought battles but sadly it was not to last and with the following patch the games Ai was destroyed. Without ranting or being rude I can only describe Empires current BAi as pathetic.


Now heres a few things highlighted in the screenshot. The blue arrow points out one or two casualties I took from the enemy artillery not from musket fire as there was none. You can see from the red circled area that my lines are intact and have not taken casualties from the enemy. My troops are kneeling as they have been firing on the charging 1.5 melee happy Americans. The green circle shows that the American units have not stood in lines because if they had you would know from their dead being in lines. Instead you can see where they have been killed as they were charging.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[IMG]http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/1638/15meleebug2.jpg[/IMG]

This kind of battle Ai would be fine for Zulus but not for 18th century warfare.

Do you Kieran or anyone else from CA feel that this is an acceptable way to leave Empires Battle AI ?

[Humble Warrior]

CA have their heads in the sand.

[Chyeaaaa111]

CA have their heads in the sand.

That's to nice, more like their arse.

[Jihada]

I never play vanilla ETW but when I see that disaster in your screenshot, I can begin to understand the feeling in that boycott thread. I suppose CA just don't care and suppose Darth and others will just fix it for them.

[nigelnire]

Now heres a few things highlighted in the screenshot. The blue arrow points out one or two casualties I took from the enemy artillery not from musket fire as there was none. You can see from the red circled area that my lines are intact and have not taken casualties from the enemy. My troops are kneeling as they have been firing on the charging 1.5 melee happy Americans. The green circle shows that the American units have not stood in lines because if they had you would know from their dead being in lines. Instead you can see where they have been killed as they were charging.


http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/1638/15meleebug2.jpg


This kind of battle Ai would be fine for Zulus but not for 18th century warfare.

[big_feef]

I never play vanilla ETW but when I see that disaster in your screenshot, I can begin to understand the feeling in that boycott thread. I suppose CA just don't care and suppose Darth and others will just fix it for them.

I wonder how Darth and others who have been modding the BAI for the previous games in the series are going to mod the BAI for Empire when most of the files are locked to them. The current BAI from Darth is good (and a lot had to be taken out too, making it a workaround BAI mod at that); but I'm sure that there was so much more than could have been done if he had some more support from Creative Assembly.

[nigelnire]

Darth has done his best and worked wonders without having access to the BAI code. I couldn’t speak highly enough of him and all those who have struggled to make Empire at least playable again. CA when making their promise/Lie to fix Empires BAI was quick in what seems now like a put down to let us know that Darth could not work with the BAI code.
If CA want to wash their hands of Empire when it’s not even a year old why can they not just trust one modder preferably Darth with the tools to properly fix Empires BAi.

[eregost]

CA are only out to make money. Will they be able to charge for a fixed BAI? Probably not.

[♔Dignan♔]

Nigelnire,

That is spot on, what I experience with vanilla BAI. Just frustrating beyond belief. I do hope they change their minds and give us a fix. Such a shame to not fix a game like this that has so much potential and is otherwise, very well put together.

[FlyingViking]

I had a good example of the bug this evening with Vanilla 1.5.

First Picture: The AI marches up in perfect formations, till then ... pretty sweeet.

Second Picture: 30 Seconds later ...

[Humble Warrior]

The thing is it`s a type of warfare where it is ESSENTIAL for the BAI to know to stand at distance to the enemy and keep shooting. That`s what 18th century European warfare was all about! They should have programmed it to the gills and tested and retested the shooting mechanics until it was perfect.


I just don`t understand how CA could miss this. It`s as if they were still in STW, MTW and RTW melee sword mode when they made the game.

And if it was because they just had one BAI programmer that was sheer stupidity. I had always thought that CA employed at least a couple of AI programmers, not just one. How can you truly make a good battlefield AI with just ONE programmer? 2 or 3 GOOD AI programmers could throw ideas off one another and if one happens to leave or becomes ill, the other can take over. No doubt they had a couple a dozen graphic eye candy people, right?

Also, it`s clear that battlefield military thinking of the 18th century was simply not applied here. the very fact that the AI does not know to even use a hill to its advantage is one such example why.

To tell us they don`t see the problem shows just how little they know of 18th century war.

Incompetent. Amazing with their past pedigree, just incompetent.

[empr guy]

I just don`t understand how CA could miss this. It`s as if they were still in STW, MTW and RTW melee sword mode when they made the game.


.

are you crazy? even the AI in those games didnt randomly charge the center of your lines, they actually tried to use their units

[Kinjo]

I bet NTW has the same issue!

[Jihada]

I bet NTW has the same issue!

I think if NTW has this melee issue with columns perhaps only firing one volley before contacting the enemy, that wouldn't be too unhistorical.I know most early Napoleonic armies still used linear tactics but in later years only the British and Portuguese were able to counter column attack effectively and most adopted tactics similar to the French. This is ofc very general and has been discussed ad infinitum on many forums.
Of course for 18th century,at least until the 1790 revolutionary wars,linear tactics were the norm.

[nigelnire]

Nigelnire,

That is spot on, what I experience with vanilla BAI. Just frustrating beyond belief. I do hope they change their minds and give us a fix. Such a shame to not fix a game like this that has so much potential and is otherwise, very well put together.

Totally agree with you Dignan if Empire had decent stand and fire in line BAi it would be great. It really is a shame and frankly disgusting that CA would just leave it to die after less than a year.
Great screenshots there Flying Viking again you can see the melee mob /blob charging and you can also see that your BAi enemy has not been standing firing in lines as their dead are all over the place and not in lines .

[FlyingViking]

Great screenshots there Flying Viking again you can see the melee mob /blob charging and you can also see that your BAi enemy has not been standing firing in lines as their dead are all over the place and not in lines .

Thank you. As you can see, thay stayed and shot at me at my right flank where I took cover behind the wall. The only spot where they SHOULD have charged (because of the wall), they stayed in place and shot holes into the bricks.

[Abspara]

CA believes in the tooth fairy as well, so I'm told.

[aeoleron9]

Darth Lite mod did a nice job of improving the melee issue. Even if NTW's BAI turn out to be another joke, we still have Darth

Although I have to say, even if the BAI is suddenly completely operational, intelligent and challenging, it still won't save ETW. At this point the only thing that can make the game interesting again is mod support and full-conversion mods. Look at Third Age. Look at the Eastern Front mod for CoH. That's how you extend a game's lifespan. Until CA/Sega gives us mod support, ETW is good as dead.

[♔Dignan♔]

We need to keep this issue alive.

The AI doesn't even deliberately charge, they run at you in an effort to get out of the way of their own units. So instead of slowly changing position to the SIDE they run forward and before you know it, a running unit hits another, that one tries to get out of the way and hits a third and so on and so forth. Before you know it every AI unit is running forward and unintentionally runs into the human players' line.

CA, Mr. Brigden, anyone at CA who is reading this...please take another look at this. I have challenged anyone who claims not to have the problem to set up a default vanilla battle and show us screenshots or video......nobody has been able to do this yet. The problem is NOT isolated.

[Sardonicus]

Actually units on the battlefield would stand and trade volleys until the opposing side broke and ran. Melee was seldom used as it defeated one of the purposes of the musket, which was to keep the general out of harms way during a battle.
I've read where a regiments honor didn't depend on how many kills they achieved, but on how long they were able to stand without breaking under the firepower from enemy volleys.
Usually after the first volley from each side, the smoke would be so great that any further volleys were aimed in a certain direction, instead of being aimed at a particular target.
The soldiers wearing the most colorful uniforms were battle hardened and considered the bravest, as they could be seen the best through the smoke.
These soldiers also struck the most fear into the opposing lines as they caught sight of them, and in some cases would actually cause enemy troops to rout without firing so much as a single volley.

I wrote this to show how far off the mark CA has strayed in their pathetic attempt to recreate battles from the time period. I don't believe much research was done by CA as
any idiot should realize that the point of going into battle with musket and cannon is to avoid melee, unless forced into it as a last resort. Pathetic....
and it's one of many reasons why I very rarely play the game.