Removing gate torching?

[Friar Chris]

Anyone know where to look in the db to simply obliterate the ability to torch gates from the game?

I'm hoping, given the uproar on the Total War boards, that this particularly dumb aspect of the game will be removed in a patch anyway, as it renders fortifications and siege engines redundant, but until the time when CA start to get their act together, it'd be nice if we could sort out a simple mod to banish this travesty.

If there is already one, I've missed it in the mod threads sub-board, do please link me

[.Mitch.]

Not possible, and not to mention the game allows you to attack a walled city without siege equipment, what do you do then? Sit there for an hour, or make the AI sit there for an hour? Gate torching isn't going away, and that's not a big deal gameplay wise.

[sobchack]

Not possible, and not to mention the game allows you to attack a walled city without siege equipment, what do you do then? Sit there for an hour, or make the AI sit there for an hour? Gate torching isn't going away, and that's not a big deal gameplay wise.

i disagree, it more or less negates all siege equipment and tremendously simplifies siege tactics.

[omzdog]

that's not a big deal gameplay wise

You mean apart from the fact that it promotes the AI to mass horde into a bottleneck?

[.Mitch.]

You're right, let them take down walls and storm through the hole or use a ram and storm through the gate so their usage of bottleneck is varied.

Do you own the game omzdog? I feel I know the answer.

[omzdog]

Or you could just be sane and make the AI attack multiple access points with different groups as was the case in history and as should be the case in any game that seeks to emulate siege events that don't turn into mobs larger than Obama's inauguration crowd.

[.Mitch.]

Sure, and they can solve world hunger while they're at it. Everything is easy to do on paper. It must be they made the AI stupid on purpose though right? Go apply as CA lead AI programmer, you clearly have the answers.

[Azim]

Sure, and they can solve world hunger while they're at it. Everything is easy to do on paper. It must be they made the AI stupid on purpose though right? Go apply as CA lead AI programmer, you clearly have the answers.

Ah, the classic "you can't criticize CA because you don't work there." Would you rather that we pretend that this game's AI is perfect because it would be too difficult to fix it? Look, we all know that CA put a lot of hard work into this game, but the fact remains that they made some mistakes. The first step to fixing the mistakes is pointing them out and proposing solutions. If we're all too busy fanboy-worshipping CA to voice any constructive criticism, nothing is ever going to be fixed.

[.Mitch.]

Ah, the classic "you can't criticize CA because you don't work there." Would you rather that we pretend that this game's AI is perfect because it would be too difficult to fix it? Look, we all know that CA put a lot of hard work into this game, but the fact remains that they made some mistakes. The first step to fixing the mistakes is pointing them out and proposing solutions. If we're all too busy fanboy-worshipping CA to voice any constructive criticism, nothing is ever going to be fixed.

Oh I'm well aware we can't just sit here and twiddle our thumbs, I've even gone a step further than proposing solutions too. I've been making them myself. But what have you done constructively as opposed to blindly complaining about AI.

The people like you, omzdog, etc, who sit at their computers crying "fix AI !!!1" while having probably no idea as to the complexity of AI programming are to me.. just embarrassing and annoying. It's as if you think it's possible to fix in a patch a few days after release, or that it should have been easy to do in the first place.
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm pretty sure you aren't retarded, then it'd almost be as if you thought the developers tried to make a bad AI. Cause we all know companies love to make bad products, helps to sell them.

I guess I just wish everyone had at least some idea of what it takes to make an AI that can adapt to an infinite number of situations. As a software engineer myself I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I see the last bastions of unscripted true AI's like in Total War, Arma 3, etc, even if they aren't perfect what they do do is to me astounding.
But alas to a layman, it's pointless trying to explain, they won't grasp the feat. What's that Mark Twain quote about not arguing with people...

[sobchack]

Oh I'm well aware we can't just sit here and twiddle our thumbs, I've even gone a step further than proposing solutions too. I've been making them myself. But what have you done constructively as opposed to blindly complaining about AI.

The people like you, omzdog, etc, who sit at their computers crying "fix AI !!!1" while having probably no idea as to the complexity of AI programming are to me.. just embarrassing and annoying. It's as if you think it's possible to fix in a patch a few days after release, or that it should have been easy to do in the first place.
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm pretty sure you aren't retarded, then it'd almost be as if you thought the developers tried to make a bad AI. Cause we all know companies love to make bad products, helps to sell them.

I guess I just wish everyone had at least some idea of what it takes to make an AI that can adapt to an infinite number of situations. As a software engineer myself I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I see the last bastions of unscripted true AI's like in Total War, Arma 3, etc, even if they aren't perfect what they do do is to me astounding.
But alas to a layman, it's pointless trying to explain, they won't grasp the feat. What's that Mark Twain quote about not arguing with people...

I do appreciate the work you do around here mitch, but I wholeheartedly believe that they could remove gate torching and teach the ai to somewhat competently use the other siege equipment. as david pointed out, medieval 2 after the end of its patching proved this.

i do agree with you that people are way to fast to judge CA around here.

[omzdog]

You've delineated a potential path for me to alleviate the OP's request; however I believe, if I may be so critical, that you have overlooked the matter that I would forgo much about both my personal life and professional habits if I were to suddenly become an AI programmer at a company under directions from an international conglomerate gaming company all to fix siege AI.

Apart from that, world hunger is easy to solve, stop exploiting developing countries as well as the poor and lower middle class in developed countries. Informing CA of that fact would do little to prevent the systematic raping of foreign riches by private business and governments. However I won't let your use of metaphorical symbolism escape me. The task is indeed daunting.

[omzdog]

No no Mitch is right, we could circle jerk ourselves into oblivion until CA realizes their great potential as our dear leaders and conquers the world with battle siege AI programming.
SEGA heil!

[omzdog]

*delete*

[DavidtheDuke]

Medieval 2's AI easily attacked several points. Germanicus showed a TW AI could be much more competent than vanilla, Rome 2 isn't even close to what Germanicus pulled off years ago. Warscape is a different engine, but if they never could've released good siege AI, imo they shouldn't have even tried at all. The bottlenecking issue is almost completely because of the AI hate of using siege engines instead of just torching METAL GATES. It really is inexusable they released it like that (SEGA, CA, or Satan himself, I don't care). Considering campaign map play making battle maps relevant, AI is extremely important to majority who plays single player. And the combat goes so fast even the AI with 20-to-1 odds can't force-push themselves through a torched gate. Regardless, why are gates in TW suddenly torchable? Because they were torchable in Shogun? Imagine how many people wouldn't be complaining about the AI if it simply took different routes to a city square and/or actually build ladders and rams? Why was this so hard to implement?

[Osbot]

Medieval 2's AI easily attacked several points. Germanicus showed a TW AI could be much more competent than vanilla

This is actually funny.

Did you play M2TW at launch?

I highly suggest you google "Medieval 2 total War Passive AI".

Not only was the AI not capable of attacking several points at once, it was not capable of attacking ANY points at launch. This was not limited to sieging. It extended to field battles as well where the AI if it had no ranged units would simply sit there on the defensive and allow you to slaughter them from range.

Ironically, that exact same bug existed in Rome 1. The AI when on the defensive sat and let you mow it down from range if you won the range battle.

In fact, Rome 2 is leaps and bounds ahead of any other TW game released in terms of AI at launch with the possible exception of the magically upgrading uber armies of Shogun 2 (Rome doesn't do that btw). In actuality, the biggest problem with the AI right now, is that there are a couple of pathing bugs, AND the CAI struggles with its own economy.

Play with a mod which alleviates the tightness of the economy and the AI starts throwing large armies around on the regular and they behave intelligently.

Remember Rome? Remember Medieval 2? Remember how the AI would forget what it was doing between turns? So an army that set out to attack point A, would re-evaluate its decision EVERY single turn? Remember how the AI almost never actually used its armies effectively in Rome and Medieval 2 at launch, because they were lost in the woods like Hansel and Gretel? I do. I remember it all, and because I actually remember how those games were at launch, I am absolutely, 100% confident in saying that aside from a few pathing issues, and a few campaign ai economic management issues, the AI is performing better than any other TW game since Shogun 1 and Medieval 1. The only reason those games rank higher CAI wise is that they were highly simplistic risk style boards which made the AI easy to design.

Please refute anything I have said.

[sobchack]

This is actually funny.

Did you play M2TW at launch?

I highly suggest you google "Medieval 2 total War Passive AI".

Not only was the AI not capable of attacking several points at once, it was not capable of attacking ANY points at launch. This was not limited to sieging. It extended to field battles as well where the AI if it had no ranged units would simply sit there on the defensive and allow you to slaughter them from range.

Ironically, that exact same bug existed in Rome 1. The AI when on the defensive sat and let you mow it down from range if you won the range battle.

In fact, Rome 2 is leaps and bounds ahead of any other TW game released in terms of AI at launch with the possible exception of the magically upgrading uber armies of Shogun 2 (Rome doesn't do that btw). In actuality, the biggest problem with the AI right now, is that there are a couple of pathing bugs, AND the CAI struggles with its own economy.

Play with a mod which alleviates the tightness of the economy and the AI starts throwing large armies around on the regular and they behave intelligently.

Remember Rome? Remember Medieval 2? Remember how the AI would forget what it was doing between turns? So an army that set out to attack point A, would re-evaluate its decision EVERY single turn? Remember how the AI almost never actually used its armies effectively in Rome and Medieval 2 at launch, because they were lost in the woods like Hansel and Gretel? I do. I remember it all, and because I actually remember how those games were at launch, I am absolutely, 100% confident in saying that aside from a few pathing issues, and a few campaign ai economic management issues, the AI is performing better than any other TW game since Shogun 1 and Medieval 1. The only reason those games rank higher CAI wise is that they were highly simplistic risk style boards which made the AI easy to design.

Please refute anything I have said.

by the end of medieval 2 and rome 1's patching, the vanilla ai was acceptably competent. i have faith that ca can also patch up rome 2's ai. it might take a while but it will happen, imo

[Osbot]

by the end of medieval 2 and rome 1's patching, the vanilla ai was acceptably competent. i have faith that ca can also patch up rome 2's ai. it might take a while but it will happen, imo

Exactly, but the point was that IMO, R2 is actually starting from a better place than those games did. For people actually playing the game seriously, I would wager that most are actually fine with the state of the AI. Performance on the other hand is absolutely horrific.

[DavidtheDuke]

Exactly, but the point was that IMO, R2 is actually starting from a better place than those games did. For people actually playing the game seriously, I would wager that most are actually fine with the state of the AI. Performance on the other hand is absolutely horrific.

I don't think M2's AI should've done what it did either, but it wasn't predictable gate-burners (and then runs to the flag upon gate-destruction). Siege battles were broken when the game released, and someone had to of known. I know they will probably fix it, however it just seems unacceptable for something so reaching, so huge to just go by like that. Not to mention the decade of experience and knowledge they should have of the AI. I'm no AI programmer, and I'm definitely not that smart for it. I just think CA's experience should've been able to get at least a siege-engine-building AI out the door. Maybe I'm wrong and it really is that hard, but I doubt I could have the gall to release it like that. However I'm not in their office politics and quarterly reports so it's probably a different world.

I wish they just release the AI files like they did for MTW2.. that turned out great because of Germanicus.

[DavidtheDuke]

Please refute anything I have said.

I actually agree. However why should any TW buy a game at launch anymore? I waited a year for Shogun 2, mostly because I didn't care for the period. Maybe CA should do some hand-picked public beta testing with 20-30 trusted, thorough community members. Do this like 6 months before a launch, and they'd at least get an idea of what the major, forum spam gripes would be about (not to mention knocking out lots of hardware issues).

[Friar Chris]

Medieval 2's AI easily attacked several points. Germanicus showed a TW AI could be much more competent than vanilla, Rome 2 isn't even close to what Germanicus pulled off years ago. Warscape is a different engine, but if they never could've released good siege AI, imo they shouldn't have even tried at all. The bottlenecking issue is almost completely because of the AI hate of using siege engines instead of just torching METAL GATES. It really is inexusable they released it like that (SEGA, CA, or Satan himself, I don't care). Considering campaign map play making battle maps relevant, AI is extremely important to majority who plays single player. And the combat goes so fast even the AI with 20-to-1 odds can't force-push themselves through a torched gate. Regardless, why are gates in TW suddenly torchable? Because they were torchable in Shogun? Imagine how many people wouldn't be complaining about the AI if it simply took different routes to a city square and/or actually build ladders and rams? Why was this so hard to implement?

Indeed.

Poor siege AI is no excuse for having silly torches everywhere that make siege engineering and fortifications practically worthless as your levy spearmen go torch the gate in a matter of seconds. If this feature is in to hide AI that can't lay siege, then that's a major flaw in the game which absolutely should be resolved in an urgent patch.

There is no good reason for gate torching to be in-game. It's cheap. As for the auto-resolve and the 'battle on first turn' - they should damn well go too if the attacking army lacks siege equipment, either pre-made (ballistae etc.) or built on-site (rams, ladders etc.). Torches add nothing good to the game, just cheapness.