Will the AI do things that will make sense this time?

[Christian Strand]

In Rome1:

When i declare war on Carthage, and land an army near their capital, they have an army near the city, but when its their turn, instead of taking that army to help the city for and defend it, they march away.

SPQR and some other factions do this EVERY turn.. turn 1: declare war on Gauls(etc), turn 2: ceasfire with Gauls, turn 3: war with Gauls, turn 4: ceasefire with Gauls, turn 5: war with Gauls, and this keep going like this on and on.. it makes no sense.

Another thing, why would a tiny 1 region state declare war on me by blockading a port, without any reason? and i have like 20 regions and they have 1.... are they suicidal?

Also, armies of some 4-5 units besiege cities with full stacks..


There are probably lots of them but i listed some important ones that should be improved in Rome2.

What do you think about this?

[Rasic]

Simple answer: probably not, expect more of the same.

Longer answer: if they insist on keeping things simplistic in the game design the AI is never going to make sense of it's surroundings when it runs around willy nilly doing whatever it wants. There are many simple solutions to all of the above just look at the competing strategy games. That kind of depth though isn't fun to the total war target audience who just want shiny graphics and explosions apparently.

[Anna_Gein]

Usually you don't say you won't improve anything in your future game except the graphic to give shiny preview.

Simple answer: probably not, expect more of the same.

Longer answer: if they insist on keeping things simplistic in the game design the AI is never going to make sense of it's surroundings when it runs around willy nilly doing whatever it wants. There are many simple solutions to all of the above just look at the competing strategy games. That kind of depth though isn't fun to the total war target audience who just want shiny graphics and explosions apparently.

Agree. The simpler solution is to add new mechanics so the AI would be help by new variant to take into consideration.
Sadly CA continue to announce an AI as cunning as a human. We all know it's impossible. A developer can only offer the feeling.
A system of point to direct the diplomacy of the AI isn't bad in itself but it need a real depth to make sense. If it was successfully couple with a system of relation between the different faction leader then the AI could finally offer a natural feeling.

[Restlessspirit4]

I would want these things for a new AI:
-Them to attack me when they are strong enough,not go kamikaze on me and get their ass kicked in five/six turns as in RTW.
-Not throwing their general at line of non ranged units(seriously that was always anti climatic even when I was hopelessly outnumbered)
-Not leaving their cash cows widely open to me.

[Maizel]

I doubt it.

As Rasic, I;m not putting too much hope in the AI.

I think the most we can hope for is more units on screen at once as compared to Shogun II, on the same hardware.

But seeing the ridiculous good looking screenies so far, I doubt that will happen either.

[Nearby]

The AI is sad but modding helps .. when we compare the original vanilla and the game mod that was created after 6 years than we can see the that AI is great compared to the original game .. the same is going to be with rome 2 . First we will get this lame AI and then after 1-5 years we will enjoy great gameplay ..

[RoyalNobody]

Will probs be case of waiting for mods as usual.

But there may be a slight improvement, they seem to be slowly edging their way to better AI with each release.

[Krieglord]

The AI is sad but modding helps .. when we compare the original vanilla and the game mod that was created after 6 years than we can see the that AI is great compared to the original game .. the same is going to be with rome 2 . First we will get this lame AI and then after 1-5 years we will enjoy great gameplay ..

Rome 2 will be nowhere near as moddable as RTW or MTW2

[Nearby]

Rome 2 will be nowhere near as moddable as RTW or MTW2

I agree but I think at the same time you are wrong here . They are going to make less moddable at first .. When they suck all the money they can witl dlc and other basic content that had to be in the game from the beginning ... than they will start giving modding tools for us . Because mods will make people buy the game .. for this reason rome I is still sells and CA said that in few interwievs that because of modding community this game still sells . And I think this is exactly whats happening with shogun total war . The downside of it is that it takes good few years to suck the game dry before giving it to modders ..

[DarthRuanek]

I agree but I think at the same time you are wrong here . They are going to make less moddable at first .. When they suck all the money they can witl dlc and other basic content that had to be in the game from the beginning ... than they will start giving modding tools for us . Because mods will make people buy the game .. for this reason rome I is still sells and CA said that in few interwievs that because of modding community this game still sells . And I think this is exactly whats happening with shogun total war . The downside of it is that it takes good few years to suck the game dry before giving it to modders ..

They don't make modding difficult so they could make more money from DLCs. I don't think they even affect each other all that much (modding versus DLCs, I mean). Perhaps a little bit.

But you'll notice that with every game after M2TW the games are far harder to mod. It's not their intentional choice to make it harder to mod. It's just the way it is.

ETW probably doesn't net them much money at this point. But you don't see a ton of mods coming up from it now, either.

[Yomamashouse]

I still have a hard time playing MIITW and its mods because the AI almost always throws fullstacks of archers and siege engines at me. They inflict devastating casualties in autoresolve sometimes, but I always crush them in played-out battles.

They are so boring and annoying to face that I can barely play the game anymore.

Also - having the AI setup trade rights and an alliance, only to blockade your port with a random ship was also stupid. I really hope the communication between the military and diplomatic sides of the AI is greater in future releases.

[Nearby]

They don't make modding difficult so they could make more money from DLCs. I don't think they even affect each other all that much (modding versus DLCs, I mean). Perhaps a little bit.

But you'll notice that with every game after M2TW the games are far harder to mod. It's not their intentional choice to make it harder to mod. It's just the way it is.

ETW probably doesn't net them much money at this point. But you don't see a ton of mods coming up from it now, either.

Well if you could take any mod and compare it to DLC, than you wont see a lot of difference.. the main idea of dlc is new units , maps , cities , scenarious , factions.. Take a look at shogun ! they introduce this very new dlc with 6 !!.. read - 6 !! new ''elite'' units and managed to put a price tag of 1 £ . And !! ''caching ''!! they have 30k in theyr pockets in upcomming year . Now do this 10 times and add new units , maps , scenarios , factions in seperate dlc's.. After a while you will see that ROME 2 has 50% bigger budget than any game ever before, in CA . And the same song goes on and on , about allmost any game these days .. there are only few companys that are actually giving downloadable Content for free. And guess what ? Modders are creating Downloadable Content for free !!! We would be playing battle for china if shogun 2 would be mod friendly.. But hey ? Maybe we will see new dlc for 15 £ - Shogun 2 battle for Chine ?? ?? if CA would allow to mod when it comes to ROME 2 , then after few months you will be able to enjoy new maps , units , AI .. And this is bad for business..
. One of the main argument of theyrs is that nowadays a mortal modder dont have the resources , skills and sofware to mod but as I am aware many modders are quite angry about these comments and think that CA is making them look like fools .
What I want to say is that if ROME 2 would be moddable than after few first months there would be so much Downloadable Content that CA would run out of ideas how to make a quick buck by intoducing 6 new units including the legendary desert axemen for 1.5£ ...

[dheta]

They said that the Team responsible for the AI has doubled in size since shogun 2 so will probaly see some improvements though im not sure how it will handle all these new features their putting in the game. it will no doubt be better than later total war games but as allways making a perfect AI in a game such as total war is impossible.

[Hasforth9]

They said that the Team responsible for the AI has doubled in size since shogun 2 so will probaly see some improvements though im not sure how it will handle all these new features their putting in the game. it will no doubt be better than later total war games but as allways making a perfect AI in a game such as total war is impossible.

They also said that Empire TW would have a revolutionary new AI, since the AI programmer had spent so much time on it. To bad he stopped working for CA and they released the game with the worst AI in TW history.

The AI in Shogun 2 was OK at best, still did so many illogical (to humans) moves
CA should focus more on a believable AI rather than shiny stuff, but I from what they have told us about the new AI, it sounds promising

[AngryTitusPullo]

If you want to compare about AI and the coming Rome II then I would suggest to look at the latest game instead of last decade game.

The AI is being updated from Shogun 2/FOTS and not Rome I. Those are very old engine and no longer relevant.

[nameless]

For the record since ETW if you beat the crap out of the AI badly they will sue for peace.

You can do the same in FOTS, if you keep kicking the crap out of the AI and it loses tons of men, they will sue for peace. It then takes the time to rebuild its forces before striking out again. It's simply harder to do on harder difficulties because the AI is able to replace those losses very quickly.

If the AI is attacked from another front then it tends to sue for peace so it can focus on that one instead.

So it's not perfect but it has been getting better.

[daelin4]

It is more likely CA will improve the AI as incrementally as they do between TW titles. In ther words it's highly likely it won't act like a genius and will still rely on cheats like more recruitment slots and discounts than the player possibly can have (legendary difficulty).

As for modding, every step CA has taken with Total War has inherently made modding harder. That doesn't necessarily mean a conspiracy to "shut out" the modding community, it's more like a side effect. Seeing as how they've stated Rome2 is on a "heavily modified" Warscape engine it is possible they are implying a more mod-friendly variant.

[Love Mountain]

Ugh, CA reps have said it at least a hundred times, they are putting MORE effort into the AI than ever before. What more do you want? Stop asking questions that people already went over in other threads.

[JaM]

i think the most important improvement they want to add to the game right now is the RTS camera so "player can see the melee fight from his own eyes..." Gameplay dont have such importance or priority as it wont provide WOW previews that are important for initial sales... AI could be patched later, or maybe Mod scene will figure out somehow how to improve it.... (sarcasm)

[Rhaegar1]

I'm not sure because I'm not an AI programmer but isn't it reasonable to expect that with CA reducing the amount of armies (less bigger armies instead of many small) and the 1 province used to govern mutiple regions is not only done to create a more streamlined experience for human players but also for the AI.

I can imagine it will be easier for the AI as well so more resources can be put in making the AI do good things in it's fewer provinces with less armies. Biggest advantage will probably be that the AI's turn will happen a lot faster with less armies walking around