Battle AI mod

[♔Dignan♔]

The Battle AI works really fine, Luntik - you make a very good Job! Can you tell us where we find your other cetw-mods? And what this do? (Cetw_ai_tunings etc..)

Regards Germane

Yes Luntik...please share your ai_tunings mod and others. Keep em coming .

Here is some more feedback. I did another series of battles with your mod. All custom battles. (NOTE: I did remove fire& advance and stakes)

For the most part, I got really good AI behavior to the point where I actually forgot that I was testing the mod and realized I was enjoying the game.....IMAGINE THAT!

Is the melee bug completely gone??? Of course not, but I have yet to play any mod yet where the problem has been completely fixed.

I had one battle that I thought, "well crap, here we go again." I was Sweden playing against Russia. The Russian forces advanced, in column formation by the way, got within range and then deployed into line formation. They all fired one volley and charged. At first I thought that it was the melee bug rearing its ugly head again but I realized that very few of the units were overlapping when this happened. I think the AI charged on purpose. Hasn't it been suggested that Russia has an AI tendency to go into melee? I can live with the occassional mass charge if it looks like it was intentionaly and in this case I think it was.


Again, my only complaint is that the AI forms squares too much. And it doesn’t respond well to aggressive flanking maneuvers or tactics by the human player (the melee bug starts) but then again, the AI has never been good at this.

Overall a good job here. Would love to see what your other mods are all about.

[Isabelxxx]

1) I am well aware of Darthmod (I am a user of it ) and I think it did wonders for the battle AI. However, many many people have asked for a straight BAI mod for just vanilla that doesn't come with a lot of other changes. Not everyone likes to play big, total conversion mods. So for that purpose...this mod has a lot of potential.

Ok, this is a good reason.

2) Have you actually tried this yet? Because I did and I saw behavior with Luntik's mod in the AI that I never saw in Darthmod. Units seemd to be more aware of where their fellow units were and didn't overlap as much. He has made some different changes to stats in "battle_entities_tables" that aren't in any other mods. So in addition to #1, this mod may actually have made a new advance to improve the BAI. I simply wanted to see what others thought to make sure I didn't just have a few "lucky" battles.

No tried it yet , I have downloaded and seen by myself the changes in all the tables. For me seeing the changes is more useful than testing it in the game, but I will try it as soon as I had time.

"battle_entities_tables" that aren't in any other mods.

This affirmation is risky and in this case wrong.

[♔Dignan♔]

This affirmation is risky and in this case wrong.

Isabelxxx, I should have been more specific. I didn't mean that nobody else had edited the battles_entities file. What I meant was that Luntik has changed some cells (unknown columns 2,3 and 4) in battles_entities to values that are new. Look at these columns for the infantry. These values are new and I think this is what is giving us the better AI movement.

Luntik, what do those unknown column values do? I'm curious.

[joedreck]

No tried it yet , I have downloaded and seen by myself the changes in all the tables. For me seeing the changes is more useful than testing it in the game, but I will try it as soon as I had time.

Are you working for CA? Ca did it the same way. The create it, but never try out.


@Luntik

It looks good on the screenshots . They formated a line .

[Penchik]

Excellent mod Luntik.AI do not stand in one place,always searching ways to strike.

[Pdguru]

Well, what a nice surprise - Played 14 vs 14 units, British versus French (AI) late period. Those French devils gave me a solid run for my money! Good work old chap!

I don't care how you did it (all this banter about values and what not), but the AI used firing lines, charged weakened areas, used cavalry well, and even the artilery were a roving nuisance. Thank you for this work.

+rep!

[Lord Nova]

From my experiences with BAI, it perfroms differently in a campaign game then in a custom battle game. This is due to the more random nature of the campaign map and the units involved on both sides. I suggest people who test this mod test it solely on the Campaign map battles to see all the effects.

I would also suggest using a faction like France or Britian and you can see if this AI has negative effects on melee factions like native americans or pirates.

I would like to know how this develops since a stand alone battle AI mod would save me the time of gutting Darth's or JM for it's bin file if I ever make a update to lethal. I just wish that we didn't have to change other gameplay values to make the AI better but I guess it can't be helped.

[l33tl4m3r]

Can't wait to test this out!

+rep for the effort if nothing else!

[Germane]

Really!!..thats the first BAI i have shoot outs with MILITIA and CITIZEN of ARMS.
I have played only a few rounds but i can confirm - in these few rounds - no Reformations, no Chickendance - and when the AI goes in infight, there goes in infight with a loud cry "CHAAARGEE!!" and that is what i will see in a Battle..

And the thing with the square formations by dignan - in the few custom battles i made, the AI only forms a square when the enemys cav rides an attack to the units, i never seen unsenseless Squares without Cav..

But i have played only a few battles, i will test more - but that what i seen is impressieve..

Germane

[Lazy Knight]

Great stuff you're working on here.

You are the first modder who shares what he has done to improve unit behaviour, big thanks for that.

I encouraged using your mod with Imperial Splendour on our Forums and I hope some people try it and deliver feedback

[DARTH VADER]

Luntik
I am sorry but this is a hoax. I was directed to see this if it actually adds something. The 3 values in battle entities unknown columns 2,3,4 are:
charge_distance_commence_run, charge_distance_adopt_charge_pose, charge_distance_pick_target
(Lee Cowen CA staff has the credit for this info)

I have explained previously in my updates what they do, so you should/could have read. (Lazy Knight I have shared too much but you asked and adapted nothing it seems... I am not talking about the other one here)

Please read the english description and then I hope you understand better what they do:
For example 0,30,0 is a really weird option... I am not even going to test that now because I remember when I did test and optimized the values for the correction of the melee bug (and many other values) I have by mistake made the infantry to stop their charge immaturely... this will be the case now and worse. Although they will musket more yes. But the charges will be useless.
But you are correct to try to find a better value system for them. The vanilla settings are plain wrong. Copy/paste those of DarthMod values and proceed to your endeavour.

Germane, Dignan... You still cannot accept the fact. There is only one fix. There is no hope for someone to try to re-invent the wheel.

[♔Dignan♔]

Luntik
I am sorry but this is a hoax. I was directed to see this if it actually adds something. The 3 values in battle entities unknown columns 2,3,4 are:
charge_distance_commence_run, charge_distance_adopt_charge_pose, charge_distance_pick_target
(Lee Cowen CA staff has the credit for this info)

I have explained previously in my updates what they do, so you should/could have read. (Lazy Knight I have shared too much but you asked and adapted nothing it seems... I am not talking about the other one here)

Please read the english description and then I hope you understand better what they do:
For example 0,30,0 is a really weird option... I am not even going to test that now because I remember when I did test and optimized the values for the correction of the melee bug (and many other values) I have by mistake made the infantry to stop their charge immaturely... this will be the case now and worse. Although they will musket more yes. But the charges will be useless.
But you are correct to try to find a better value system for them. The vanilla settings are plain wrong. Copy/paste those of DarthMod values and proceed to your endeavour.

Germane, Dignan... You still cannot accept the fact. There is only one fix. There is no hope for someone to try to re-invent the wheel.

This may be true but I can only report what I have seen from using this mod. And what I have seen, using only vanilla and Luntik's mod is generally very good BAI behavior. I'll retest and pay attention to how the infantry are charging when they do.

In my opinion, the "wheel" may have been invented and improved....but not perfected. We should still strive to make this problem better. Part of the problem being that we don't have the correct "chisel and hammer" to make the wheel.

[Luntik]

charge_distance_commence_run, charge_distance_adopt_charge_pose, charge_distance_pick_target
(Lee Cowen CA staff has the credit for this info)

bingo )
"charge_distance" - this was my second hypothesis.

But you do not think that the error may be hiding in the algorithms CA around charge distance and reformations.

[Luntik]

I had one battle that I thought, "well crap, here we go again." I was Sweden playing against Russia. The Russian forces advanced, in column formation by the way, got within range and then deployed into line formation. They all fired one volley and charged. At first I thought that it was the melee bug rearing its ugly head again but I realized that very few of the units were overlapping when this happened. I think the AI charged on purpose. Hasn't it been suggested that Russia has an AI tendency to go into melee? I can live with the occassional mass charge if it looks like it was intentionaly and in this case I think it was.

But you are correct to try to find a better value system for them. The vanilla settings are plain wrong. Copy/paste those of DarthMod values and proceed to your endeavour.

I stopped on the following parameters 60 60 0
In battle Sweden vs Russia, Russian stopped and began to shoot.
The battle was like the one described by me above (portugal vs spain).

But need to test further.

[DARTH VADER]

Ok yes I understand. Allow me also to read these values and know what I say. About the wheel. The wheels were perfected re-worked on top of previous version models and not by inventing each time from the neolithic models.

If I am wrong on this, It will be proved by the feedback of others. But the anxiety of some will lead to faulse reports etc.... well whatever. Really it is not worthy to see myself. I am sorry.

---edit

Even I have not written "Battle AI mod"... because there is no AI in these values. I say indirect fixes of AI.

[Luntik]

Even I have not written "Battle AI mod"... because there is no AI in these values. I say indirect fixes of AI.

Absolutely agree.
But this name might attract the attention of most

[Nikitn]

This mod is defintely better than darthmod AI.

but i think it became a bit obsolete with the old CA AI patch, i think?

[Evergreen]

The Gamefront link for the battale AI pack is dead. Someone would need this

[GAIUS GERMANICUS CAESAR]

@ Evergreen Thank You for re-posting this Mod! Just one question is this the super moral version or the adjusted version?

Your on my rep list

[DARTH VADER]

Of course Luntik. I encourage you to tweak these values as much as you can. They can create "gold" behaviours of AI. Please see my files in DarthMod and start with that. I think there can be other variations as well with good results. But I also think that the current ones you use now are wrong. Please continue to search this.