A Lot of New Info from Gamestar

[rohirrimelf]

"Everybody that is worried about the ai because of this article are forgetting that they only got to play on the easiest difficulty." The low number of units per stack can be part of the easy difficulty but above normal the AI on any TW game does not get better but cheats more. This is just very dissapointing news if: units dont retreat when fired upon, the AI cant defend a siege, it has no clue it has to unload transport ships etc. Its just a sign that this build is not good.

[Reiver]

No it doesn't prove anything and is in no way definitive but it's probably the best source we have as to how the game plays and also confirms some fears based on past experience. Now people can scream "whiner" or negative nelly all they want but when almost every tw game has failed to make good on its ai claims (despite occasional improvements) cynicism and disbelief would seem to be the most practcal and sensible default state.

As to why they wont show unedited and unscripted play: it's the old saying about stupidity. Better to remain silent than to speak and remove all doubt!

[alQamar]

We could take this thread to the one with the most replies easily if we talk on. In the end all our fears and talk is relieving our minds but will not change anything. Which not means we shut not talk at all and shut up.
I don't like their marketing and community handling here or on totalwar.com. That's all.

[TwinCam]

i didn't read all 10 sites of comments but regarding the AI: Gamestar also wrote that the szenario was played on "easy" - so it is possible that the AI is better on higher difficulties.

[alQamar]

Well if we only discuss on AI here I am out. Formations and pathfinding would be interested as well. What about that? Rome need to have a complete other pathfinding as battles are not men vs men anymore but in case of Romans and phalanges in formations. Did they tell anything about it?

[RandyRhoads]

The unfinished game argument is getting old. The game will be released in a month they'll start shipping it soon, if they haven't already.

[-Concrete-]

The unfinished game argument is getting old. The game will be released in a month they'll start shipping it soon, if they haven't already.

Steam; what does it do?

[RandyRhoads]

Steam; what does it do?

What about the physical copies, will they have to release a day 1 patch?

[Rittsy]

What about the physical copies, will they have to release a day 1 patch?

Yes. Game requires an initial internet connection.

[-Concrete-]

What about the physical copies, will they have to release a day 1 patch?

Yes they've already announced that for Pontus, and if I remember correctly Shogun 2 had a day one patch.

[Emperor Domitianus]

Oh I've already bought it myself. But complaining about the AI being bad in a Total War game is like complaining about the sun rising. What does get annoying though? Is CA saying with each new game that the AI has been completely redone or vastly improved. There was a comment during the Angry Joe interview where the dev said the AI was actually beating them and I had a flashback to Empire or Medieval II. Couldn't remember which one it was, where they had made the same remark.

They may not be lying, exactly, but they sure are stretching the out of the truth.

They might as well be winking at the camera when they say those things because its not like we don't know better, by now.

I will do it asap. I don't see the problem with the AI. The human will be always better than an AI because the brain can find solutions not avaible to the AI. The TW games has been always fun and I have found no problems with tha AI. I am sure it will be better than before.

So do I but 55 € worst case price for a pig in a poke is very pricy test drive I'd rather save +100 € and rent a Porsche for a day. That's at least more fun than doing fence wars here.

It can costs even less than 55€.

No people may be worried about:

no demo (first time ever in Tw) +
non-scripted battle still to see (first time ever in TW in just a month from release) +
ai improvements just "expressed verbally" from CA +
first preview not much "stimulating" about ai =

Yes, I wouldn't call "crazy" someone a little worried about... but also yes we have to wait and see our own, but not before we buy the game this time....

I am not saying theyare crazy. I am saying people discuss about what they have not seen yet.

[ashbery76]

The unfinished game argument is getting old. The game will be released in a month they'll start shipping it soon, if they haven't already.

The demo builds is 3-4 months old so I think the argument is very valid.

[Spartacus041]

The demo builds is 3-4 months old so I think the argument is very valid.

That's my hope too. As an engineer, I know that when you have a complex project with many different departments (campaign, modellers, animators, battle ai, campaign ai, etc etc) some elements may not have been updated and included in the demo build. Whatever they're showing us or have let reviewers play may have been an alpha build - which doesn't mean the actual game is at alpha stage - perhaps the latests builds have not been approved for demonstrations yet? I don't know, maybe I'm being naive. Whatever, what's the worst that could happen? I pay for a beautiful game with a dumb AI. Kinda like every girl I've dated and that was fun and memorable, so I guess just look on the bright side.

[Mamertine]

[alQamar]

Do you think amazon will get it to their storage 2 days before release to ship the whole world. Naive people here. I am happy with the usual 0 day patch that brings a Pontus in aswell.
Dominantus reading helps What did I say in the quote? Please repeat by word.

[rohirrimelf]

"Well the OP's translation does say the AI "hasn't improved much" implying it is more or less the same as shogun 2. Which is not all that impressive but it is acceptable, to me at least."

Onion head,

Yeah, i can live with an AI as good as shogun 2 at the release of RTW2. They do have some new mechanics in it so that is acceptable for me. The fact that we have seen nothing about how the AI will perform except scripted battles (and empty words) leaves me very concerned. I`m not thinking they keeping it back to amaze us but that we will have a nasty surprice waiting for us on release day. I`m glad this magazine tells us what the game is like at the moment.

[KaufcraftII]

Because there is so much discussion about the AI I want to throw in my thoughts about that.

There a three (a bit provocating) conclusions of my thoughts if the assumptions I make are valid: 1. It is theoretically not possible to programme a good AI before the release. 2. The AI is dumb as bred because the AI programmers are dumb as bred. These to conclusions are mainly the two sides of the same coin. 3. The AI programming of the current state is not final.

I dont know what scripting means but I would say it means something like the AI encounters a special situation and then follows the orders set up for this special situation. This situation is than like that of, what I have heard, what happens for example in a chess computer game and these games work very well. There is however an important difference. Beside the higher complexity in total war chess is a very old game. Meaning, it has been played a lot and everything is recorded, so for any possible situation there is experience. But for rome 2 there is no experience because the game hasnt played yet because it is not ready.
So if the AI is based on scripting and if scripting is what I think it is then AI programming can only be finished to develop after the complete rest of the game is complete, especially the balancing (conclusion 3).
This means that there is no experience in the world to programme the AI before which means the AI is not ready (or even could not have been started) because the game is not ready.
Assuming the game is ready at release it means that experience will start to accumulate at release.
This means if someone try to programme an AI before the release he has no experience and is, thus, dumb as bred (conclusion 2).
Conclusion 1 is then self evident.

Please excuse my english it is not my native language, but I hope I could make my thought reasonably clear.

The result of these thoughts is then, that a really good AI could only develop with the experience of the players which would make it necessary that the developers improve the game after release.

[GrudgeNL]

2. *snip*....The AI is dumb as bred because the AI programmers are dumb as bred....*snip*

I dont know what scripting means but I would say it means something like the AI encounters a special situation and then follows the orders set up for this special situation.

No and *facepalm*. Why do you call people dumb if you've got no clue about coding and scripting yourself? Both are far more complicated.

The result of these thoughts is then, that a really good AI could only develop with the experience of the players which would make it necessary that the developers improve the game after release.

No. Just no.

[alQamar]

true Hopefully we get neutral reviews this time not like with Shogun2 and ETW. I am sure pc gamers will praise Rome 2 anyway with no words of concerns.

[KaufcraftII]

I didnt want to insult anyone. I just wanted to say that the developers cant have any sufficient experience in the game mechanics because they couldnt play the game for years.