Strategy map design choices to cater to the AI?

[Langer Kerl]

After some time spent in my first campaign, I had my head scratching about some of the design choices regarding the strategy map and where they came from - so here are some theories I have which Id like to discuss:


- Units may only move under the command of a general; generals are limited

The AI was known for spreading out forces of singular units and had trouble concentrating military power. This change forces a faction to always move units en masse no matter what.



- Citys automatically have garrison troops, potentially quite a lot of them and quite capable ones, which cannot be moved

The AI was also known for leaving cities undefended when going on a campaign. With this change, you can never take over a city without battle, even when the city was left completely unguarded.



- Factions can survive without territory

This is not really a complaint as I can definitely see good reason for this, but in older titles AI factions often got destroyed while still having massive forces left when they lost all of their (often undefended) cities



- Land armies can move freely over water

The AI had trouble building fleets to move its armies over bodies of water? Lets give instant free ships to everyone. Also, make transport ships quite capable - a fleet of peasant levies on transport ships still have a good chance of sinking a bunch of your ships by simply mass ramming them - no easy way to stop them.




For someone familiar to the older games this really leaves me thinking. Do you think CA did things like this to genuinely improve the game overall or do you think they had to change features to help out a flawed AI that couldnt be fixed otherwise?

[MathiasOfAthens]

How does it work crossing the danube and the Rhine? They are navigable right? That is ships can go through them?So if an army wants to cross it has to become a fleet first which takes a whole turn leaving your ships vulnerable. I like that feature. I do think the transport navies are a bit too powerful. All they have to do is board the enemy fleet of how many triremes and you win. I hate how ships explode into pieces. Id rather see them sink slowly or fast in some cases after a ramming. Like how they sunk in ETW. I also hate that you cannot capture ships. Worse feature ever. Completely stupid not to be able to capture warships. Once the point in fighting anymore? I also hate that you cannot build forts. You need a general who enters a fortified stance. Which isnt a fort. This removes the ability to set up garrisons on borders and leave a few units. Like how Roman historically created fortress garrisons. Obviously, one can have a few generals fortify on the border but you wont have a lot of generals to leave in forts.

[wulfgar610]

For someone familiar to the older games this really leaves me thinking. Do you think CA did things like this to genuinely improve the game overall or do you think they had to change features to help out a flawed AI that couldnt be fixed otherwise?

The AI isn't flawed, it's simply that is all the AI is capable of. It's the same in other labels strategy games. Unless they set up the game to suit the AI then it doesn't play well. It is essentially the same AI that was in the earlier TW games.

There's only been minor advances in what they term "Artificial Intelligence" since the PC business took off. The Japanese thought spectacular AI was just around the corner and spent fortunes on it in the 1980's for very little result.