Applying RTW's Rome AI to EBII's Rome?

[Aodh Mór Ó Néill]

I've seen it expressed a couple of times on this forum that AI Rome is far too passive. Made me think of the homicidal Rome AI in RTW, and that maybe the Rome AI of EBII could be altered to make it similar to RTW?

Would that be possible to implement? As a submod obviously, I know that it would be too unbalanced for the main mod.

[Shoebopp]

You could tinker with the "faction personality" in descr_strat.txt. Here's the entry for Rome

faction f_rome, fortified knud ;normal faction personality

I guess that "fortified knud" is very passive? Since that is the personality used for most if not all EBII factions, this makes the entire campaign AI passive as well.

Here's a guide from totalwarheaven

These control a set of AI production personalities, which contribute a bias towards building and training (but not retraining or repairing). This bias is fairly small compared to game-generated factors such as "the enemy is attacking me with lots of cavalry, build me some spearmen". Explaining the weighting system which drives the production AI in full is beyond the scope of this document as it would take several days to write.

So in short, the building construction personalities are these: (ranked highest to lowest - therother)

balanced - biases towards growth, taxable income, trade level bonuses (roads), walls and xp bonus buildings

religious - biases towards growth, loyalty, taxable income, farming, walls and law

trader - biases towards growth, trade level, trade base, weapon upgrades, games, races and xp bonus buildings

comfort - biases towards growth, farming, games, races, xp bonus and happiness

bureaucrat - biases towards taxable income, growth, pop health, trade, walls, improved bodyguards and law

craftsman - biases towards walls, races, taxable income, weapon upgrades, xp bonuses, mines, health and growth

sailor - biases towards sea trade, taxable income, walls, growth, trade

fortified - biases towards walls, taxable income, growth, loyalty, defenses, bodyguards and law

These biases are towards building properties, rather than buildings themselves. The game does not know what a "Blacksmith" is, for example, it only knows that it is a building which provides a weapon upgrade, and hence a Craftsman AI would be more likely to build it than another AI personality type.

These are then combined with a troop production personality, as follows:

smith - exactly level

mao - biased towards mass troops, light infantry

genghis - biased towards missile cavalry and light cavalry

stalin - biased towards heavy infantry, mass troops and artillery

napoleon - biased towards a mix of light and heavy infantry, light cavalry

henry - biased towards heavy and light cavalry, missile infantry

Caesar - biased towards heavy infantry, light cavalry, siege artillery

Not sure where Knud falls in there

[Aleksander the Average]

This thread on M2TW AI personalities may be of some help: https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-Personalities

There's also a great page on the WIKI: https://wiki.twcenter.net/index.php?title=AI_Personalities

Here's a handy table from the Wiki Page:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So if you're going for a truly homicidal AI... maybe try "Fortified" (for land-based aggression) or "Sailor" (for more naval invasions?) for the first variable, and either "Caesar" (aggressive with an appropriate heavy infantry focus) or "Genghis" (even more aggressive) for the second variable.

Let me know how it works out... I love little experiments like this.



edit: looks like someone already made a submod for more aggressive AI a while ago, but unfortunately it's now outdated: New-CAI-PiterAI1-3-(artificial-Intelligence)-(eb2-1b

[Aleksander the Average]

From the Wiki:

Available in both Rome: Total War and Medieval II: Total War

smith
mao
genghis
stalin
napoleon
henry
caesar

Available in Medieval II: Total War only

richard
heinrich
subotai
knud
guy
doge
robert
wyvadslaw
vlad
roger
alfonso
arslan
tahar
saladin
tzar

The second list includes names of historical leaders or leader titles (from various time periods) of the factions in Vanilla M2TW. So maybe "Knud" is representative of the AI of the
Denmark faction in Vanilla?

Honestly... it's been so long since I've played Vanilla that I can't remember anything about Denmark in that game.

[Aodh Mór Ó Néill]

Mm, I might trying fiddling around with them. However it begs the question as to why almost all the factions have the same personalities though

[Aper]

Instead of tinkering with faction personalities that are not yet fully understood after so many years and may do nothing, you could give some secondary hit points to the roman infantry, it would change nothing on the battle map but it would give them an unfair advantage in autoresolve and so help their expansion as an AI faction.

EDIT: and increase the movement points of armies so that they finally may find it worthwhile to march to damned Rhegion