XBAI: Battle AI and combat feedback thread

[xeryx]

Hey guys, here is where I would like you to post your feedback for battles.

I want you to make sure you use the unit stats to check morale values and watch units for when they break. Also I have noticed joining (from another army) generals and when on horse, will get sometimes get overzealous and get themselves into trouble by attacking the player. There isn't anything I can do about that one.

All feedback is welcome as long as it is constructive. This forum will remain positive as long as I am the moderator.

[Giwrgos Stamos]

I hope i dont be a pain in the a.... with so many comments in one day,so here my battle feedback,i must say that i really enjoy every battle (five of them two of them was a bit ''small ones''),the battle line and the units was really challenging,the battle animations and the formations was beuatifull and i cant wait to play a bit more to see more of the morale system as i found it so far great ps i played at very hard,now to the negative ones,an onager keep moving inside my battleline i guess it was going for my archers that i had them behind the lines at the time.and the other one that every battle it was quicker than my taste but it is not any problem to mention as negative,anyway thats all,trully really amazing job with all the potential of this mod i hope this will get me back in attila.

[xeryx]

Nope you are not a pain at all, that is why I opened up my mod here first. I want feedback! because I know there will be areas that I did not see that need improvement when making the mod.

Can you be a little more specific as to what the onager was doing? Was it an enemy onager or yours? I made them pretty deadly now, and they should be feared as they can wipe out a lot of troops. Are you talking about friendly fire? That is something that I didn't change because there is a mod for that out there and I personally believe that friendly fire happens a lot in battle, so I left it alone.

Battle duration is definitely quicker in my mod, I did this for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, fatigue levels are very important. If battles are too long, all that results are units being exhausted halfway through the battle. Essentially ruining the balance of moral and the fatigue systems. It will make your initial plans much more important and you also have less time to react to situations that develop on the battlefield, plus you will take more losses.

I also found that in many of the slow combat mods, that a human player could eventually out-maneuver the AI in the long engagements. I also really wanted to keep a battle times at around 45 minutes. This will also maintain a high tension level, it is quite scary when your lines get wiped out fairly quickly with better troops. It really makes to think about your choices on the campaign map, if you know that the AI can now win.

Honestly, without being able to change the AI behavior itself, i am limited to work with with a limited "tool box" of Ai moves that it can perform, and it doesn't always make the best choices. Understanding what the AI is capable of is the key to my mod, and I built my mod around that. Due to this, I have noticed significant improvement in the AI's behavior and reactions to the human in XAI.

It was a big accomplishment to get the AI to actually be very mobile on the battlefield. One of the most interesting things I have seen so far, is seeing the AI actually head toward cover in the trees after getting blasted by some onagers. It was using the cover of the trees to flank me! I had never seen any action like that with vanilla, ever. It was always head straight for the line and engage.

Try setting up some ambushes in the trees and scrub and watch the AI. If you do things right you can try to lead them into a trap. If the enemy has horsed or scout units, you will be able to watch them search for your troops. Otherwise you will see the army search for you.

I am glad to hear you are enjoying it, and I hope you do get back into Attila as I think it really has a lot of potential. I am always open to ideas as well. There always comes a point as a modder, where you make conscious design choices. Sometimes you make a choice that makes some people unhappy. My goal is to make the game fun, with a compromise between realism and game play.

[xeryx]

Not sure if this will be an issue but we need to watch fatigue. I see early armies are tiring fast. There are bonuses in skills and such to help with this as you gain experience with the army. Let's keep an eye on this.

But on the good side, I was able to set up a successful ambush. However the enemy slingers really took a toll on my front line. Fortunately, my cavalry came to the rescue and disrupted their slingers enough to regain the front lines and then spring forward with my attackers and flank the units on the front lines. The interesting part was by putting my cavalry behind them the AI was trying to protect its slingers with some spears, keeping them away from the front lines. My cav took some losses, but did their job! and are not overpowered. Ultimately, my trap worked but I still lost 1/3 of my army. This was on very hard difficulty with armies being equal strength. Killing their King however will cause some real issues for their armies now.

Time to advance and seige their capitol

[Giwrgos Stamos]

i dont think that fatigue is an issue i didnt have time to play again but i like the idea of keeping an eye to it,moreso it is one vital role to the battles,though i must get use to the pace of battles,not complaining but i m a DEI fan for years..also i have to say again that i m really impressed from the behaviour of the units hiding in the forest and generally exploit the terrain.trully trully amazing idont know enough from modding but i tried so many battle mods and this is something i see for the first time well done..now the onager that i was telling you i was in a plain fight most of my units were engaged in battle and one unit of my archers and a cavarly unit was going to flank them there i saw that the onager unit trying to pass through a really narrow gap through the other units fighting,i dont really bother by it because so far the enemy cavarly did an amazing jod protecting it,again i didnt have musch time to play today but i have to say so far i m really impressed,keep it going pal you have a lot potential in this mod,also a bit off the thread just to clarify i play with all the files except the XCAI,europa perdita some graphical mods(reskin etc)and two unit mods,i dont see any conflicts,do you think i will have an isuue?sorry for the long post

[xeryx]

Glad there are no conflicts and make them as long as you want! I really recommend playing with the XCAI because I have fixed many things like the difficulty levels, many mods and vanilla are in fact are the reverse of what they should be. This will affect many factors of the Campaign especially if the AI has way too much money. Plus diplomacy is significantly better. The major thing though is the changes to the AI personalities, I gave them budgets and everything! So you should see a huge diffence in the way factions work.

I plan on making a slow combat version down the road.

As units make it to level 3 or 4 they subtract a fatigue level (then another at 7) so I don't think it will be an issue either. I think it is just because I started a new game on very hard to see how long I can survive.

Just put aside some time this weekend, I could really use some good feedback. If you can test different factions too as you play that would be great. I have had no time to test them all.

[Giwrgos Stamos]

will do pal i was planning to give attila a bit attention this weekend,happily your mod turn out,i always play on very hard both campaign and battle in attila and i will start again with Ere with the mods that i mention above and with Langobards or Lakhmids if i have the time.

[Giwrgos Stamos]

finally i lost a battle against the visigoths and i enjoyed it (at very hard)!!the flanikng was impressive not just going arround me,now in the campaign ai is more interesting so far i cant tell much more as im at war with the visigoths and xavham if i remember the name correctly though in the diplomacy now i offered at turn one just from curiosity again to make the sassanids a satrapy and they accepted that it seems to me to be a kind of odd but a couple of turns later some satrapies of sassanids that became mine become hostile and declared war on me,so far so good the only thing is that it is to easy to make satrapies with ere i guess they fear the empire and wait the right time to attack i will continue with my ere campaign for more info..

[xeryx]

When you say "satrapies" you mean a "client state" or "vassal" (language barrier )

Were these acquired through conquering the settlement or through diplomacy?

That might have something to do with the fact I lowered the hatred towards large empires, but I did add in more for the difficulty levels. Are you on VH campaign? and VH Battle, right? because it will make a difference on how easy diplomacy is.

The reason I need to know if it was diplomacy, is because I am working on those tables now, and I will probably need to make that tougher in general. If you can be specific about the numbers of the relations, and what the personalities of the faction you are dealing with, that would really help me out a lot or take a screenshot and post it.

[Giwrgos Stamos]

I mean client state sorry i m not good in vocabulary sorry..through diplomacy yes and also i play VH and VH but for many fatcions it seems quit logical because both empires are are superpowers apart there are at decline anyway its beneficial for some factions to secure their prosperity from invasions or other hostilities and if they are to backstab or something in the future i think its beneficial for both of gameplay and reality i guess,but in my mind as i dont know much from this time period the sassanids it is the only large power that i dont think to bend to the romans throgugh a client state,so if they are to break this later on randomly and not by a scripted file i will suggest to leave it this way or have some restrcitions to some larger faction yes about become client or something,now about personalities it was unreliable traditionalist and something else and i tell you now because you are working on it right now and i dont want when i will play again.(the personalities it is about the sassanids only).also the huns and alani accepted a payed peace treaty but it happened a lot in my previous campaigns also so no worries there.

[xeryx]

I looked at the values and they are some of the few that seem reasonable. I found an error with imperium, so that will affect your game. I will release the patched version today. I don't think you will have to start over.

[Giwrgos Stamos]

no problem i have so many hours in attila with so many mods the past year and i like to see something interesting at least as your work,apart from that i was about 18 turns past.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Hi xeryx,
thanks and congratulations for your mod!
I understand that you would probably do something for AoC in futre, even though you don't appreciate it much.

For now I've got a question: do you see it beneficial to use your Battle AI in the AoC? Especially with the Age of Vikings.
(for instance, the Tuskomod creator says: I had a seperate project for AOC. But in short: It doesn't really need an overhaul, so I didn't risk breaking the experience.)
/both mods are acclaimed ones/

cheers
JoC

[xeryx]

Hello, Jurrand! and thank you it feels good to have made great progress on this game.
The XBAI will benefit all campaigns of Atilla. It should benefit all mods as well, the only issue can be high morale boosts can change the balance, but it won't break it. You should have zero issues using it for any other mod, as long as there are no other battle mods installed. You can use PFM editor to compare the sections of code to ensure compatibility, by making sure there are no duplicated sections.

My disgruntled-ness is founded. The effort to make the other campaigns balanced and good was simply not there from the creators. Due to the way they did many things, you basically have to program many sections of the game 2x for the same effect. I can also safely say there was zero effort taken to make the vanilla game fun or balanced, they feel "slapped together".

If those mods are awesome, then you should have a wonderful time! See there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel here, if someone else has already done the work and made great mods. Then, all I have to do is load them up through Steam!

Obviously, the core of the game needs to be worked on dramatically, and that is what my goal is. Diplomacy, for instance, has always been very drab and predictable and I would like to make a drastic improvement to that part of the game. Let me know how it goes!! and report your findings!!

I spent about 4 hours testing today, and those fixes have really made a difference. There were definitely some lingering conflicts. The XBAI is performing marvelously, considering some of the limitations. I think I will have another look at it soon to see if I can get the settlement troops to sally forth more often because it really makes a difference when they can. I would also like to find a way to give garrisons troop experience over time, but that hasn't seemed to have worked so far. I think if I could do these 2 things, sieges would not be quite so easy, especially for small settlements. overall though the dynamic nature of the AI is really surprising sometimes.

Vanilla diplomacy also seems to be working better with the personalities, along with the slower rate of change of attitude per turn.

[Mroctopus]

Hi Xeryx! I think this is a great mod. You really make AI behave much better. For example, AI now know how to use woods to ambush my flank units and sometimes move an onager to a high ground, so they can take advantages of it. Really make combat interesting!

However, I think onager is way too powerful. They are so accurate and powerful that basically can kill averagely 300 every battle. Even more accurate than North Korea ballistic missiles. IMO they make siege battle less fun since AI don't know how to pull their men down before the wall collapsed.

Second, I think perhaps you can make a slow battle speed submod. It's interesting to see AI falls in traps that I deliberately set up for them. Fatigue system is not a problem cuz it force me to rotate my troops before they engage their second wave enemies. Right now, I only have to use my best two or three units to keep rushing to the AI, then AI will collapsed in two or three minutes, even before my vanguard units get tired.

Third, I always wondering the role of armor value plays in a combat. It is a good concept, but it seems CA doesn't have time to balance it properly. Thus, there are many super power units in Huns and Sassaind empire. They destroy battle balance in the vanilla.

Sometimes, I imagine what will happen if Google teach AI like alpha Go play total war games. Only untill that time, I think AI will be truly formidable for us.

Again, thanks for bringing this great mod. Cheers!

[xeryx]

Thank you Mroctopus for your very first thread, I am honored that you registered to post here!

I do agree with all of your points and I am not done with the battle AI, my work will continue. The Onagers are mostly an experiment, I agree they are overpowered a bit in damage. However, I did not fiddle with their accuracy. Maybe, I will increase their reload times to a much more realistic amount, this will help tone down the frequency at least, especially in a regular battle. We can also increase the cost of the Onagers, because I think their deadliness does make you scared of them.

I will make a slower battle mod version, that is done by slowing down units and increasing melee defense, I will play around with some changes today.

I am really glad you are enjoying the battle AI!! On to fatigue, can you give me some specifics as you play? Do you think the better troops get too much of a anti-fatigue bonus? At the levels of 6-9 they gain -2 fatigue rate. I think I will change this bonus all together. I will also increase the fatigue when they fight by 50%.

Keep a close eye on that stuff, and reporting it will help me a lot!

I have issues with the way units are made, but we have to live within the system they made. I totally feel that we have not yet achieved the sweet spot yet with combat, but with your help I am sure we can get closer.

How do you feel about the archer units? In my latest testing, they seem to be pretty deadly, I am thinking they need to be less accurate as well.

How do you like the movement mod?

[xeryx]

HOLY Jesus help me..what have I done!!

I was just playing a game on Hard, I was sieging the Picts. I did an initial attack on the city because I had an onager. I destroyed some stuff and their reinforcements army in the rear. I thought this will be cake just siege them for a few turns and with our forces fairly even it would be no problem. Well, guess what! my attempts today to improve the CAI included some sally forth increases. So, on the next turn, they sallied forth, and we are on this large mountain and I set up my units for an ambush.

The fricken AI split its forces (reinforcements) and had the majority of them come from the flanks over the mountain while I was engaging a small force. I did manage to ambush the general with spears hahaha. But that was it. Even with my reinforcements on the way the AI slaughtered me! Their swords just chopped me up into little peices. and their Light cavalry wreaked havock on me. This is the biggest surprise ever, I never even thought the AI would do that!!! Literally, it was all downhill from there. It just obliterated my forces with his better forces.... I guess I should have been the Picts!

The AI used the mountain and forest to stay concealed from my onagar and archers then surprised the crap out of me.WOW!!

I may just have to play that one again..to see if it does the same thing.

I replayed it with the same results, but this time I have some screen shots.

Here are the links if you want to see them

Sally forth attack

Setup

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Decisive defeat

That is why the Sally forth is so important when they can beat you!! I guess this should go in the XCAI thread, but since I am the mod, I will let is slide...

[xeryx]

Something funny happened when I was messing around with the XBAI, well I forgot that I needed to change some things for heavy air resistance to take effect with the Catapults. So, when they fire, they only go as far as right infront to the catapult, because the values are 0. Fireballs just dropped on my troops..it was funny. Sorry I had to fix the download and disable them for now till I have time to play around with the air resistances. Sorry for any inconvenience I caused anyone who downloaded. It is now fixed.

"fireballs keep dropping on my head"

[Jurand of Cracow]

Just to report: I've fought a defensive battle in AoC and the overwhelming AI send first the skirmish cavalry against my spearmen blocking the entry to the town. Two units perished before the AI sent the right infantry and beat my spearmen. I believe in the previous games with Tuskmod the AI would send first the missiles and then the infantry - much better solution. But I'm not sure if the current AI behaviour it's the result of BXAI, or just a normal way in AoC, or this very battle.

[xeryx]

You do bring up a good point, and it could have something to do with cavalry units stats. I am sure there are some more variables for me to look at with the XBAI. But so far I have not really come across anything related to a priority engagement system. But I will see if I can find a solution to this issue. The AI really uses its cavalry good in open battle. I think this is a siege specific issue.

Thanks for the report, are you using it with Tuskmod?