Elephant in the room: Will they address the horrid AI?

[ROFL Copter]

The most enduring and oft complained about issue in Total War: the AI. In RTW it was nothing short of a joke, and it hasn't come a long way since. With all these nice features announced, will they address the AI?

[emotion_name]

Apparantly so! Read the previews, or even the threads here that summarise the previews!

Quite a lot is being done to the AI, whether it works or not remains to be seen though!

[The Useless Member]

They said they will, but that's not saying much.

[varangopoylos]

well,they say the same in each game-"this time it will be better bla bla bla" and each time we get the same retarded AI......also remember that good AIs dont sell much games!

[Jonoleth Irenicus]

well,they say the same in each game-"this time it will be better bla bla bla" and each time we get the same retarded AI......also remember that good AIs dont sell much games!

"... this time it will be different ... "

Vaas, Far Cry 3 - the definition of insanity monologue

[alhoon]

They said they will, but that's not saying much.

That.

However, from what I've heard and from the 3-4 hours I played S2TW, they got it right there more or less.

If they do the AI really well than they mgiht put Darth Vader out of modding

Hardly. There will always be things people want different, and Darth is one of those people that when he wants something different, he changes it.

[DonQuigleone]

I've played a lot of Total War over the Years. The AI definitely took a leap ahead between Rome and Shogun 2.

There were some notably bad behaviours in Rome and Medieval 2, that did not exist in Shogun 2.

To get specific:

1. In city assaults, once they breached the walls, the AI would only ever take one root (a straight line) to the center, and it would throw all caution to the wind, and not use any type of formation, notably sending in the general first, even if a wall of pikes stood in the way. And if the next street over was empty, they never took that root.

In shogun 2, it hangs it's general back, and attacks from multiple directions at once. Also, if you mass all your armies at one point on the walls, it will send it's armies to a weaker less defended section.

2. In battles, the Rome AI did not attempt flanking maneuvres, or pick off isolated soldiers. It also couldn't hold a formation for beans. The Shogun 2 AI actually can do all of these things, though not as well as a human.

The strategic AI was just as bad:

3. The Rome (and Medieval 2) AI didn't know what diplomacy meant. Any alliance was worthless, and it was fairly pointless to negotiate with them. The Shogun 2 AI can actually be trusted as an ally. It will be opportunistic if you're weak, but I see nothing too wrong with that.

To give a funny story, in Rome, I had (several occasions) where the AI was seiging one of my cities, asked to make peace, and I got them into a full alliance, and then they immediately afterwards (on the same turn) resieged the same city, and broke the alliance. This often carried on indefinitely until I destroyed the army in question. Many time if they had not continuously made peace and broken off the siege, they would have taken the city.

4. The AI was not aggressive. Basically, the Rome and Medieval 2 AI would rarely attack you, unless you were very weak. They also always attacked the same places repeatedly, and would not pursue other weakpoints opportunistically. The Shogun 2 AI is much more opportunistic. Because of this, almost all battles in Rome and Medieval 2 were sieges. Unsatisfying. Shogun 2 has much more field battles, largely due to improved AI. If it's not powerful enough to seige the city, it will switch to pillaging, or attack another weaker city, forcing you to come out and attack them in the field.


Admittedly I don't know the Shogun 2 AI as well as the Rome and Medieval 2 AI, but I have generally found it far harder to exploit. A lot of the more obvious exploits have been removed.

[DavidtheDuke]

Shogun 2 was greatly improved from previous iterations. If it's about the same now I don't think it'd be that bad, myself.

[♔The Black Knight♔]

Yea we really can't tell you If the ai will improved. All we can do is hope and yell at them alot

[TheRomanRuler]

If AI makes ambushes in battlefield, im happy for it. If it fights with me, im satisfied.

[The Norseman]

look at the articles and interviews thread. They spoke about AI intelligence in one of them. Apparently it has become incredibly human like and it is able to think strategically and do unpredictable moves if necessary..

[emotion_name]

Well, one of the most revolutionary things that S2TW brought imo was the AI actually able to launch Naval Raids and landings. If that stays i'll be happy!

[Heavy Weapons Guy]

Well, one of the most revolutionary things that S2TW brought imo was the AI actually able to launch Naval Raids and landings. If that stays i'll be happy!

When ETW was patched it already happened there.

[Remmke]

When ETW was patched it already happened there.

Remember Barbarian Invasion? The AI did that there already . Nothing new here.

[ROFL Copter]

I hated Shogun 2, because I am a cretin, but didn't Naval Invasions happen in RTW: Alexander?

[Asterix]

The Shogun 2 AI was the best I've seen in a TW game, it did OK. It was a heck of a lot better than the suicidal NTW AI.

[Dewy]

There was naval invasions in RTW, a lot more than in Shogun 2 but that's understandable with the amount of islands.

[DarthShizNit]

I already thought the AI in shogun 2 was pretty decent, they can really only go uphill from there. But of course, it's just an AI, so I won't expect to much.

[Paragon]

You can always play your first campaign in very hard if you want a challenge.

[Humble Warrior]

You can always play your first campaign in very hard if you want a challenge.

That didn`t work with Empire until several patches later- No matter what the level!

People are right to be cautious about the AI. A dead or bad AI makes a useless game. I want to see marching Romans and attacking gauls, but I want to use brains , strategy and tactics to overcome, like the REAL guys did!

Not just walk through them and then pretend I`m good.