Useful "Hands Off" AI Playing Campaign Function

[Shatstaffel]

This is useful for testing aspects of the ai and other changes in the campaign progression by watching how the AI acts with no human involvement -

In your .cfg file change the multiplayer section so it looks like this:

[multiplayer]
playable = true
hotseat_turns = true
hotseat_scroll = false
hotseat_autoresolve_battles = 0
hotseat_disable_console = 0
hotseat_disable_papal_elections = 0
hotseat_save_prefs = 0
hotseat_update_ai_camera = 0
hotseat_validate_diplomacy = 1

I did this in both the TLR Beta .cfg and Medieval 2 .cfg. Then when you load the game and start a new campaign make sure only 1 faction icon is highlighted at the top; if you did this right there should be two factions highlighted. when the campaign loads, open up the console and type:

control timurids
control (faction you control) ie England if you chose England

this makes you take control of the timurids and lose control of the faction you start the campaign with, and as the timurids aren't on the map yet the campaign will automatically run. even though the cosmetic names of the factions have changed I found that the basic names are what controls them in the console. To step in and take control of any faction at any point, open the console and type:

control factionname.



I did this with TLR beta5 for awhile just to see progression of the AI and if there was a pattern of countries being too powerful or being restricted.

So far I've seen only The Danes be relatively non expansive (probably due to the behemoth HRE) and AI hardly ever takes Osolo, Stockholm, Uppsala and byzantine not expanding as much into turkey as they can. Also portugal seems smothered and not doing much as its cousin Spain who often goes into southern France instead of south to the Moors. As for Scotland, since they are usually bottlenecked at York their expansion is limited as well but besides Ireland I do not see where else they could go Of course each game can be a little different. Theres lots you can learn just from watching AI, plus its pretty fun and you can jump in as a faction to play, or play for awhile then let the AI take over while you watch or just let turns run by so you can see the ultimate results Very nice for testing purposes and whatever else you may fancy!

[Ivniciix]

Scotland...where can they expand if they don't go after England? Obvious places early would all be sea invasions - Western France and Scandinavia - but can you force the AI to do that? I dunno

I guess that's why I consider Scotland a disposable faction. Historically, they were only a concern to England and would perhaps best be modeled in the game as a very strong and expansionist rebel faction. Their only other real moment of glory might have come just after the games time period when, allied with France, Mary Queen of Scots might have challenged Elizabeth I.

[Máel Coluim]

Scotland...where can they expand if they don't go after England? Obvious places early would all be sea invasions - Western France and Scandinavia - but can you force the AI to do that? I dunno

I guess that's why I consider Scotland a disposable faction. Historically, they were only a concern to England and would perhaps best be modeled in the game as a very strong and expansionist rebel faction. Their only other real moment of glory might have come just after the games time period when, allied with France, Mary Queen of Scots might have challenged Elizabeth I.

Boooo!!! (Sorry for my helpful contribution.)

Torn is it possible to edit the AI goals for Denmark so they do expand into northern Scandinavia?

[Ivniciix]

Boooo!!! (Sorry for my helpful contribution.)

Torn is it possible to edit the AI goals for Denmark so they do expand into northern Scandinavia?

I should clarify my point. A player can make something out of Scotland but I've never seen the AI do much with it.

[tornnight]

Nope. You just have to make it more lucrative like make the garrison weaker. Noone really knows exactly why the AI will choose one rebel province over another.

[tornnight]

I havn't seen them do too much since the EDU rebalance. They used to have some wildly powerful units that won too often in autoresolve. Now they require a human to help them get an edge.

[Averroës]

It varies a lot from game to game.

I've seen Portugal do nothing and I've seen Portugal expand immeditately to Lisbon and then make war on the Moors, to the point of driving them out of Iberia entirely by 1110 or so and then crossing and taking Ouhran and Algiers etc.

Scotland's fortunes depend entirely on what England does. If England goes for York and takes it first, then Scotland seems to lock down and stagnate. If Scotland takes York first, I've seen them kick England off the isles altogether.

Denmark is the only faction which seems intent on doing the same thing over and over. Even with Tornnight moving their starting field army up near Uppsala, they still go for Lubeck and Stettin and ignore Uppsala, Stockholm and Sweden. Even strengthening Lubeck doesn't help. They and the HRE just beat themselves senseless against it until it falls or they run out of troops. At that point, the HRE is in a better position financially to recover. The only thing I can think of which might help is just giving them Oslo at the start. This might force the AI to take Stockholm and Uppsala. They'll still try to take Lubeck, though. The AI always wants to take the closest rebel settlement and that is Lubeck, both to Arhus and to Copenhagen. And it's not entirely historically incorrect, either. The Danes did, in fact, spend a lot of effort dealing with the pagan Abodrites and Wagrians and Wends along the Baltic coast there.

[Máel Coluim]

It varies a lot from game to game.

I've seen Portugal do nothing and I've seen Portugal expand immeditately to Lisbon and then make war on the Moors, to the point of driving them out of Iberia entirely by 1110 or so and then crossing and taking Ouhran and Algiers etc.

Scotland's fortunes depend entirely on what England does. If England goes for York and takes it first, then Scotland seems to lock down and stagnate. If Scotland takes York first, I've seen them kick England off the isles altogether.

Denmark is the only faction which seems intent on doing the same thing over and over. Even with Tornnight moving their starting field army up near Uppsala, they still go for Lubeck and Stettin and ignore Uppsala, Stockholm and Sweden. Even strengthening Lubeck doesn't help. They and the HRE just beat themselves senseless against it until it falls or they run out of troops. At that point, the HRE is in a better position financially to recover. The only thing I can think of which might help is just giving them Oslo at the start. This might force the AI to take Stockholm and Uppsala. They'll still try to take Lubeck, though. The AI always wants to take the closest rebel settlement and that is Lubeck, both to Arhus and to Copenhagen. And it's not entirely historically incorrect, either. The Danes did, in fact, spend a lot of effort dealing with the pagan Abodrites and Wagrians and Wends along the Baltic coast there.

In my current game where my wars are elsewhere, I'd made an easy raid to take Oslo and gift it to the Danes. 20 turns later they have the bare miniumum garrison and unfortunately no troops headed anywhere around that region.

[Averroës]

Yeah, in a game I started last night, playing the HRE, I immediately allied with the Danes to keep them off my back. The Danes took Lubeck, Stettin and Thorn and then Peremyshl of all places. They completely surrounded the Poles leaving them no option but to attack me. So much for allying with the Danes to make my life easier. Buggers!

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

I ran several AI only games with 1.9 beta5 on VH/VH to evaluate the mod and here are some of my findings. Hope this can be usefull to improve your very fine mod.

(1) At the end of the game many cities still have only wooden walls which I don't think is very historical (...but I'm not a historican). Maybe you should lower the population requirements?

(2) The AI builds very little fleets and therefore you see near no naval invasions. Ireland and the other islands stay unoccupied most of the time.

(3) The AI never recruits any mercenaries, most probably because it lacks the money to do so.

(5) AI recruits no artillery (scottland recruits some because of their AI personality but most other powers do not). While I don't like too much artillery in the game a bit more wouldn't hurt.

(6) Mongols and Timurids can get into severe debt (in one game the mongols had < -2 000 000 !!) because there starting units are no longer free of upkeep . This makes it very difficult for them to build up an empire.

(7) Egypt usually looses Kairo early on in the game to the first crusade because all other valid tagets are in rebel hands and it looks like the computer pope does not choose rebel cities as targets. Anyway, egypt is often crippled because of this.

(8) The turks have a very weak starting economy and a hard time to get going. On difficulty levels below vh they may loose provinces because of heresy which they can't counter early on.

(9) Because of 6, 7 and 8 the middle east usually gets dominated by a european power. Only the Moors - after losing spain - can develop unchallenged in northern africa (no sea invasions from spain or sicily).

Overall I think the AI needs more money which may help with some of the points above. Making ships and artillery units a bit cheaper may help too. The Turks need a better starting economy, and Mongols and Timurids either upkeep-free special starting units or more money through the script.

[tornnight]

I've played 100s of complete games on my computer durint the deve;pment of TLR. Sure is useful huh.

1. Population requirements are low. Not all provinces should be completely developed. They weren't historically either.

2. I agree that the fleets may cost a tiny bit too much right now. It's very hard to get it right because the AI has a tendency to produce too many of them.

3. The AI sure does recruit them. I see it every game I watch. It used to recruit them more because the costs/attack values were out of balance making mercenaries too good.

5. Do you mean gunpowder artillery?

6. Needs to be fixed.

7. Agreed that Egypt always gets targeted first.

8. Maybe a little.

9. There will be more islamic factions in the future to counter the plethora of catholic factions.

[jaklei]

(1) At the end of the game many cities still have only wooden walls which I don't think is very historical (...but I'm not a historican). Maybe you should lower the population requirements?

Its a DARTH AI issue, the AI is more willing to destroy its economy. They usually take no measure against rebuilding it especially if the neighbours have more and better troops.
but are you sure that the big money factions didnt have upgraded settlements?

[tornnight]

I'm sure most settlements were upgraded, just not all the way. I think he meant not ALL were upgraded which I'm glad is true.

Everyone having a citadel would be rather silly.

[numerosdecimus]

Just a question. From what I understood you are you using your own AI, but it's a slight modification of the Darthmod AI and also of the Ultimate AI(for campaing)?

So what version of these AI do you guys think will be put in 1.9 final?

[tornnight]

It's is a totally built from scratch Campaign AI.

Many portions of the Battle AI are from Darth with tweaks to fix what I thought needed fixing.

1.9 is beta only.
2.0 will have the same campaign AI with improvements.
The Battle AI will change drastically because of CA's 1.2 patch addressing it.