TrueGeneral: Aimless Steel

[bitterhowl]

Some promo from upcoming Beta "Painless Steel".

Local case of AI attacking tactics when AI has advance over player in ranged weapons. AI destroyed player's army from distance.

[bitterhowl]

Some more promo, AI army with huge predominance in ranged weapons including skirmishers. One note, skirmishers with cannot_skirmish attribute.

https://youtu.be/iaZZwymxy8k

[bitterhowl]

Skirmish cavalry vs sergeant spearmen study for my Westeros submod.

Skirmish cavalry represent Dornishmen with poisoned javelins, with prec attribute and cannot_skirmish parameter.

Note that AI general unit choose player's general unit as a target of charge.

[bitterhowl]

Another today's success - knights in frontal charge.

[bitterhowl]

My Westeros submod is not about phalanx, but there are many other settings where phalanx is important. This is a study of TrueGeneral and phalanx in attack mode.

Looks like I need more changes to make it work as it should, to hold the single line without gaps.

[bitterhowl]

Some phalanx code improved

[bitterhowl]

First draft of EBII battle on medium difficulty

[bitterhowl]

Blood for the Blood God!

Khornites army shocking frontal charge on video. I suppose my submod could represent unique faction's warfare style if necessary.

Test was made on Call of Warhammer 1.5.1 version.

[Wallachian]

Hey bitterhowl, this looks really good! Don't know if anyone has achieved such a level of complex AI behavioural changes.

How difficult would it be to add this BAI to another mod?

I love to see the fact that AI uses the phalanx properly. For example, in Tsardoms we have lots of pikes in the late XV century and would love it if the AI would know how to organise its formations. I can already imagine a properly organised Swiss Pike phalanx fighting against a Landsknecht phalanx.

I think actually the Call of Warhammer video is actually a good fit, because the Warhammer units are inspired from XV-XVI century Europe which fits exactly with our timeframes.

[bitterhowl]

Thanks for attention. The mechanics of implementing code of TrueGeneral is now similar to Germanicus and Skynet, there are modified.xml and show_me script for custom battles and a part of code to add to campaign_script for playing campaign.

Potentially this version of TrueGeneral gives wide possibilities to combine general's traits and army behaviour on battlefield and to implement faction specific style of warfare (mostly in defend phase but in attack too).

At this point I can't create automatic installer so if one wants to add TrueGeneral code into particular mod it's necessary to PM me to compose actual stuff.

[bitterhowl]

Knights charge in Italian Wars setting.

[bitterhowl]

Internal beta testing started.

[bitterhowl]

Mongols and Kievan Rus in Stainless Steel local submod Staluga

[bitterhowl]

Same as above but totally on vanilla BAI, for comparison

[bitterhowl]

I'm continuing my work around BAI, have some videos from tester during internal testing. It's interesting to see how real user performing battle, what behaviour I couldn't predict during coding and what changes in code should be made.

I compare performance with Skynet and Germanicus to see if there's any difference and is there any meaning to continue.
So first video here is SkynetAI/Germanicus BAI in Bulat Steel 2.1.5. There are some copyright restrictions about soundtrack as I understand, so if video isn't available in your region use VPN.

Second video is same battle with my TrueGeneral Beta Painless Steel, no restrictions from YouTube announced so no problems expected with it.

[bitterhowl]

On this video you can see that it's a lot of work to do before Beta will be finalized

This is AI in defence, it's"Painless Steel" but in reversal meaning. Unexpected player's actions still can overhelm AI. But I'm already working on releasing this issue.

[bitterhowl]

This is my progress on dealing with possible player's tricks. Learning AI to intercept missile cavalry scouting.

It's a first draft, I'm working on only AI cavalry reacting on missile cavalry scouting.

[bitterhowl]

So I've dealt with interception of player's missile cavalry, and in reverse trained AI to deploy stakes on a bridge.

Or it's an unfair trick?

[bitterhowl]

This is how it looks in game.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

If players can do stakes on a bridge I'd probably be tolerant of that, but if it's a sort of impossible mechanic that only the ai can do I think stakes on the bridge itself would be a bit far. Rather stakes to make movement tricky, yet not impossible past the bridge.