Gamecentral on Metro UK Preview and Interview

[MonTeZuma]

There is a preview and Interview on the UK metro website, from reviewers who are usually very strict on games and are diehard total war fans.

Apologies if this has been listed already but I could not find it.

http://metro.co.uk/ents-tech/gaming/

He asks some funny questions about the A.I in the interview and acknowledges that is the series weak point.

[Plautus]

Very interesting.

An Article that actually praise the AI (while other mags dont or say the opposite) but says the Graphics were not that good and didnt blew them away while playing.

[MonTeZuma]

Very interesting.

An Article that actually praise the AI (while other mags dont or say the opposite) but says the Graphics were not that good and didnt blew them away while playing.

Yeh its kinda the opposite of what everyone else is saying

[Rhaegar1]

From Strategy informer which is in my opinion probably the best site to look up anything of TW games. They are not talking about the battel AI but the Campaign AI seems to be doing some stuff pretty good. Of course, just like the battle AI this is all based of the introduction campaign. There is no real way of knowing how far the prologue is scripted there.

Observation One: The AI might actually have a brain

AI programming in Total War games has always been lovably naff, especially on the campaign map. Every year the guys at Creative Assembly will assure us they’ve been working on it, and sure, in some areas you’ll see strokes of brilliance, but it’s mainly in the tactical battles. Eventually, you begin to intuit what the campaign AI may or may not do in any given scenario, making it unfortunately easy to ‘game’ at times. I’m happy to report that, finally, the campaign AI may have been given a kick up the bum.

Granted, this is based off of a limited play-through of the game’s opening mini-campaign, but it’s encouraging. On two separate occasions, the campaign AI surprised and pretty much out-manoeuvred me on the campaign map. The first instance was when, having secured a town, I sent my army via sea to secure another less critical town (which is covered in #2). Literally the next turn, another enemy army appeared out of nowhere to threaten my recent acquisition. I had to turn the army around, and it was only the fact that the enemy force decided to attack my troops instead of just taking the town, that I didn’t end up having to go through the whole process again.

On the second occasion, on a separate play through, I was smart enough not to make the same mistake twice, and kept my main force guarding the only land route whilst I trained an additional army to give myself some more mobility. So the AI, in a startling display of strategy, decided to go round to the coast, load up onto ships, and approach the town from the sea! I managed to spot it in time, thankfully, and the second army managed to get into position to defend the settlement. The AI kind of broke here, mind, as the enemy force then didn’t seem to know what to do with itself. For reasons lost to the mists of time, it decided sail off into the fog (of war), never to be seen again.

[MonTeZuma]

From Strategy informer which is in my opinion probably the best site to look up anything of TW games. They are not talking about the battel AI but the Campaign AI seems to be doing some stuff pretty good. Of course, just like the battle AI this is all based of the introduction campaign. There is no real way of knowing how far the prologue is scripted there.

Observation One: The AI might actually have a brain

AI programming in Total War games has always been lovably naff, especially on the campaign map. Every year the guys at Creative Assembly will assure us they’ve been working on it, and sure, in some areas you’ll see strokes of brilliance, but it’s mainly in the tactical battles. Eventually, you begin to intuit what the campaign AI may or may not do in any given scenario, making it unfortunately easy to ‘game’ at times. I’m happy to report that, finally, the campaign AI may have been given a kick up the bum.

Granted, this is based off of a limited play-through of the game’s opening mini-campaign, but it’s encouraging. On two separate occasions, the campaign AI surprised and pretty much out-manoeuvred me on the campaign map. The first instance was when, having secured a town, I sent my army via sea to secure another less critical town (which is covered in #2). Literally the next turn, another enemy army appeared out of nowhere to threaten my recent acquisition. I had to turn the army around, and it was only the fact that the enemy force decided to attack my troops instead of just taking the town, that I didn’t end up having to go through the whole process again.

On the second occasion, on a separate play through, I was smart enough not to make the same mistake twice, and kept my main force guarding the only land route whilst I trained an additional army to give myself some more mobility. So the AI, in a startling display of strategy, decided to go round to the coast, load up onto ships, and approach the town from the sea! I managed to spot it in time, thankfully, and the second army managed to get into position to defend the settlement. The AI kind of broke here, mind, as the enemy force then didn’t seem to know what to do with itself. For reasons lost to the mists of time, it decided sail off into the fog (of war), never to be seen again.

Very interesting article and gives me some hope.