DarthMod Empire v8.0.1 Platinum Feedback (READ FIRST POST)

[Krebskandidat]

@Spirit: I agree absolutely to you!!! I think the Dagestan Bug is a major bug. It's completely impossible to form and foster alliances with minor nations and suppress the striving for power of the other major nations, because any moment Dagestan could ruin such alliances. This means that it's now easier for the major nations to attack and conquer them, because no other major nation (and I don’t think that Dagestan is a empire) will hold her helping hand over them. And perhaps if you attack the aggressive major nation you will get the "violation of treaty" penalty. So far for keep balance in Europe.

[Vice]

I can't even get through a turn as the United States in DME Late campaign because of the Ottoman Empire turn lag...However, when I played as Great Britain in a new early campaign there was no Ottoman Empire lag on the end turn...

EDIT: After turning it to 3 turns and enabling that I see the computers moves I was able to avoid Ottoman Empire turn lag playing as the United States in DME Late campaign.

[alhoon]

Question:
Has the problem with the CAI / x4 slower tech been resolved?
For those that don't know, while Darth made the CAI research battle techs more, the x2, x4, x8 slower tech mods weren't updated till... a few monhts ago that I last checked.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

Dont know
To sum up what i have seen in the first 30 turns of my campaign
GOOD
1)ALLY AI'S COVER YOUR BACK AND HELP YOU IN YOUR TOWNS,though this is good i want ai to be more clever for example.Dagestan reenforces me in don vosko to help defend from the ottomans.he has a big army in my region helping me defend.I make peace with ottoman and ottomans cross the mountains of caucasus almost inside dagestan only region.They are in jeopardy and they dont retreat back to their region to protect their nation.Instead they took the coastal road and invade georgia!HOME region should be ultimate priority. f^&&^ allies f%%*^ everything our capital is number 1 and should be looken after before helping an ally
2)SIEGES SEEM GOOD
3)NAVAL BATTLES seem good although in VH/VH your ships flee too often,and the ai's even in red damage dont.this means you can lose battles with better fleets

BAD
WHEN YOU ATTACK and AI(defends) ITS JUST REDICULOUS very bad and needs to be fixed.I have posted above what happens.I will repeat one more time Ai tries to defend and gathers above a small area.so much moving and changing position.Artillery taking walks and dont fire a shot.Cavalry attacks stupiditly.Have seen the same in 4 battles.
Still need to test ai attacking

[alhoon]

Custom battle:
Grassland.
While the BAI was very good, perversely good I may say (they put stakes on the flanks of their army so I couldn't take out their canons from behind), I think the AI doesn't use their cannons very well.
Most of the battle was... cannon vs cannon. Reasonable since I had cossacks with 500 people/regiment and mortars. If they approached I would butcher them.
I killed over 1500 people with my cannons, the BAI killed less than 400. So in effect, I beat them hard in the cannon-to-cannon and forced them to advance with even LESS people than they started with. If the BAI have "won" the cannon-vs-cannon battle, I would be in a bad situation. But they didn't win it, mostly because they didn't take advantage of the "bouncing" cannonballs.
I targeted not regiments, but in front of regiments, so the bouncing cannonballs were killing many many more than if they landed in the regiment then flew away.

Other reasons they lost the very decisive arty battle:
- the horse arty fires crappy 6lb cannonballs that do little damage compared to the 18lbs. Or at least so it seemed to me.
- My line was made thin with large spaces between the 4-line deep regiments and the few reinforcements. Their line was nice and cohesive, but the cannons were ripping them appart.
- The regiments of the BAI were moving to cover gaps that I opened in their line by breaking regiments and I was targeting the moving regiments to hit them on the flank. In one case, I killed 20+ people with a single cannonball that crossed the whole regiment from flank to flank leaving a whole line dead.
- They were targeting my general or the elites that were too far away and isolated killing very few people or missing all together.

To surmise:
They had 4 horse arty, I had 2 18lbs. I had a nice and "thin" line with my general far to the back, near the end of the deployment zone.
So, while their arty was shooting and killing 10-12 people or missing trying to get my general or my elite regiments in the faaar back, my fewer but more powerful cannons were ripping big chunks of their army.

[toshiroash]

Yes, I agree in general with what's been said in this thread so far. Although the dagestan bug rarely affects my games. However, the BAI does.

I really think that the focus should not be in making the AI smarter at this point, rather it should be to un-break it. Since it is broken and at the moment the game is not playable.

[alhoon]

The BAI is excellent IMO. I can't blame the BAI for not targeting with their cannons in front of regiments.

Also, I will now test the BAI in "weird" terrain. In the flat grassland, it opperates very well. I want to see how it works when there are hills and forests etc and if it takes advantage of terrain or if it's confused by it.

EDIT:

Custom battle 2:
In a more difficult terrain with hills and forests. Don't remember which map.
Well, the BAI's cannons seemed to work better in this map...probably because mine seemed to work worse. Still, I caused terrible casualties to the AI with my cannons, but it was because I set a trap for them.
I had 3 cossack infantries on a hill and down the hill, I had my main line. I had 2 cannons that could easily target the way to the hill and the mortars behind my real line. I also had 2 mameluks protecting the cannons since they were on a cliff accessible only from one side.
The AI moved its forces to attack my poor cossacks. However, I turned the way to the cossacks to a killing field with sharpnel shot and precursion shells. The mameluks adequetly protected my flank from the AI's cavalry (I targeted it too with the cannons).
Still the Prussians have good morale so they broke 2 of my cossack regiments creating a gap in the "line" that their cavalry first, followed closely by their infantry, battered from the arty rushed through... to be met with my real line.
Their other infantry have engaged my real line in other places, but as they stood there, I had my mortars fire on their regiments.

After they retreated with just a few hundred men left, I sent my cavarly, killed their arty and crushed the new feeble line they've set.

To surmise:
The AI did well with the varied terrain.

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

I agree and believe you.But custum battles are different than campaign battles.Because campaign battles are divided in ai's attack and defence battles.
If you have time and a good pc can you test custum battles?1vs1 2vs2 3vs3 and 4vs 4?

[SandraDevilGirl]

please focus on campaign battles..

[Sir_Aggelos_GR]

I agree but as Alhoon's time i limited he may not have time to test campaign battles.He could take on the custum battle testing
UPDATE:
*When i say ai defend i mean ai is getting attcked from human first
A BATTLE THAT WAS DIFFERENT
as you can see in my above posts im not satisfied with the ai's defence when getting attcked.Have played more than 5 battles that ai was defending and in all i saw the same.So much moving and changing os position,cavalry suicide and artillery idle and moving,no single shot fired(pic prussia 3).But tonight i played a battle that was different.It wasnt very good but it hadnt the things posted above i will explain at once.
As you can see i play as Russia(campaign configuration is in above posts) VH/VH with subs 1.5 on
I get invaded by trustworthless british army commanded by john churchill,transported by a fleet.They land in st peterburg(ingria) bay,stay and camp there for many turns(no moving,no attck even though they could capture ingria).They gave me time to plan defence and move to offence.British has superior army in numbers.
Battle starts and ai has deployed defences and stakes.Cannon cover a big area and fired from the beginning.Cavalry didnt attack me and stayed behind lines.Infrantry moved and changed position so many times!Infantry moving was not good they move with no formation forming mobs(my howitzers explosive's shots best).Ok it was not as bad as battles ai doesnt deploy defence but its not the best.I have one last question before telling my thoughts about battle.WHY in the previous ai didnt deploy defences?whats changed here and ai deployed defences?Defences seem to solve the battles ai defence problems.So lets say if you make ai deploy defences EVERY TIME WHEN ATTACKED battle is better because they use artillery and keep cavalry
BUT apart from this ai's movement is not good as decribed.AS you can see in pictures ai has covered the whole front in the begining including the left flank.As battle moves on ai tends to move to the right.They left the left flank with no troops even though they saw me move forces there they didnt run to cover the weak area.It was simple i sent a cavalry regiment attcked 2 batteries and nobody moved.Instead they made a line vertically to the cannons where all other forces concetrated i an area in mobs like rebells suffering terible bombardement from my cannons.At the same time i sent the same regiment of horse that attacked their batteries to attack their nearby general.their general unexpectadly didnt run to hide behind his infantry mass and was engaged and killed.Plus neither his infantry tried to help him.(pic brit1,2,3,4)In no spot of the battle i got in danger although ai had 1500 more men and double the cannon.They didnt support their lines although as you can see in pics ai had very good phases during the battle(pic brit 2) while battles go on and human advances ai gradually ruins it.
I could analyse more what ai should have done but thats not my job.Ai should make logic and simple moves(keep the line straight,move onlY when needed and when attacked somewhere move cavalry there or infantry that are near this area not all the infantry or units from the other side,no mixing needed).When overflanked ai should turn and form different line that looks like |_ .General always safe this means helping or hiding him.Artillery up and firing
All these should happen when ai defends(attcked by human first)
some more things about CAI
1)when you win a battle some ai fragmented armies stay and raid your countryside.When you attck them and autoresolve 1 or 2 units stay and keep raiding your region.ow many times should i battle the untill are destroy them?1 autoresolve is not enough?Do i have to chase 10 horses that remained from their crashed army?(pic prussia 4)
2) some ports of big nations are still being raided too much make them keep at least 1 unit there
3)Do you remember i told you ai helps you very much when you are allies,and doesnt protect his capital.See what happened to Dagestan?It was captured by turks and they had their army to support me(they didnt run to their capital=resulted in nation destroyed).Capital region should be above treaties and alliances and should guarded when in danger.Ottomans had camped in caucasus mountains 2 turns before they attacked and captured capital.Dagestan kept sending troops to my region to help instead of fighting for their capital,they had time to pull back they didnt catch them off guard(pic overhelping)
4)no lag so far(more lag happens in late campaign)

[alhoon]

please focus on campaign battles..

No time, sorry!

[Blackader]

Autoresolve is...well...I haven't seen that...but I guess it is a vanilla problem.
But lossing 700 men against 1, I've said one, mortar...

[alhoon]

IIRC Autoresolve has been changed on purpose by Darth, in order to not be that predictable. Yes, usually you'll get the expected result, but once a while you'll get a miraculous victory or a unexplainable defeat.

[zorak]

As someone who clocked hundreds of hours in darthmod campaign. I can say that actually Autoresolve is very predictable. If you're attacked, you win. If you attack, you lose. Numbers or strength don't matter.

[Blackader]

And it is very predictable for losses: you will loose the maximum of troops...

[alhoon]

That is... a problem.

[Jiiub]

I want to play Empire because of the big map... but napoleons AI is way better.. i will try some more battles in empire and see, so far the AI in empire doesnt gather up and make lines before advancing, instead they advance all spread out, cannons work for me most of the time.

Cav charges from the start and dies, but it does hold me up from creating the lines i need to defend. my problem so far is that i havent fought any army large enough since i re-installed the mod.


also the laser things that show the bullets and cannon balls, its enabled, even when the mod launcher has it as disabled.

[Jiiub]

now i have the ottoman freezing problem aswell... worked fine up till this turn, im 4 years into playing as russia, never got this problem in v8

[Jiiub]

i did the simplest of all battle setups, gave both sides just line infantry, the AI does Flanking and charges at single points well, but they wont line up right, they all seem to run as single units and not as a army.

[n1njaloanthi]

now i have the ottoman freezing problem aswell... worked fine up till this turn, im 4 years into playing as russia, never got this problem in v8

do not let them have a large empire or do not set the battle difficulty at easy. Do that and you will not face this annoying lag. I once had to delete an old GB save because i let the maratha destroy both russia and ottoman (it took about ~30' for them to end turn). Set the battle difficulty at easy and the AI will not merge their units into a single stack but let those units roaming on the map -> you have the lag.