A letter to CA about possible game improvements

[BMV]

Modder named Steel Faith (an author of Steel Faith Overhaul) has posted a letter on official Total War forums about the current game issues and possible improvements that most people would like to see:
https://forums.totalwar.com/discussi...e-community/p1

Some other modders like Radious and Cataph have already expressed their support.
It would be nice if people that agree with him would show their support there, maybe CA will listen to us again!

[Nflickner]

Definitely agree! This post is getting alot of attention with a potentially record breaking number of "likes" for the original post on the TW forums. Please add your "like" and comments--we are really hoping to get the attention of CA with this!

[♔atthias♔]

support

[God-Emperor of Mankind]

Reasonable requests I think.
I support.

[SkyTrickster]

Great post. Basically it all boils down to "the AI needs to be fixed" (which is already a criticism since Empire, or actually since the start of the series). But it's very nice to see it well constructed, well put into words, and with plenty of examples from the recent game. Hopefully it gets a response from CA. At this point it feels like CA already accepted they can never get the AI right (which to be fair, is extremely difficult, especially to hardcore fans who have very high expectations).

[cwood92]

Support this. Did so on the TW forums and Reddit, Y'all should as well.
Link to reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/co...g_and_playing/

[Samittaja]

I definitely support.

--- At this point it feels like CA already accepted they can never get the AI right (which to be fair, is extremely difficult, especially to hardcore fans who have very high expectations).

I think it depends. I am no expert, not even close. But I have some basic experience in programming myself and some knowledge of the subject, so I will give my speculation regardless of you want it or not

The simplest learning algorithms are easy to program, and some of them WILL reach perfection, eventually. Especially those that imitate the evolutionary process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm
The thing is, I have a strong feeling the time required would increase exponentially as the game would become more complex, and Total Wars are, in the end, very complex games. Perhaps some learning algorithms can be efficient and relatively fast, but I don't know enough of them to give any definite examples.

I think in practise, learning algorithms can be used to improve AI in TW, but they would probably be requiring a simplified version of the game in order to produce usable results in a proper time. At least a foolish AI that ignores some features can be an improvement over plain stupid AI that does nothing properly without cheating. And the process would need to be cut at some point anyways, because playing against a god-tier foe is not fun for most people.

Here I mean that the AI would not necessarily need to be learning while in the end product, but the learning algorithm is used as a tool for creating the AI while in development.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's not impossible in reality CA just simply wants to use as little resources on AI as possible, as AI does not sell games to a wide audience

[Death_Sheep]

Ayyy yeah these'd be nice

[daelin4]

If none of the issues absolutely cannot be resolved with mods then I fully support. Given the fact that the author is a modder, I'd presume that is the case.

Of course, nothing in the post actually point out that the problems presented were outside of modders' scope, so one also has to take it with a grain of salt. They might also have very specific things they want out of a resolution that might require more than mere modding. But that would be like saying you need a new car, and forgetting to mention you also need new insurance and license for said car.

Anyways he's really just saying that his mod is great and that CA should implement them. I don't see why CA would bother, as you'd just show favour to one modder, and everyone who doesn't like the mod's features would just show displeasure and clamour for a mod that reverts the changes, which means someone has to make those mods. The way things work right now already pleases everyone except those that seem to think mods defile the game and that their ideas should take a prevalent position. No point for CA to take the bait.
Ultimately it's just one of those "My mod is so popular, the things in it should be THE game".