Deletion of Ultimate AI Mod & AI performance in general?

[Mikey78]

hey King,

I noticed in the readme that you deleted Ultimate AI from Stainless 3.0 as you feel the campaign AI is decent now? Is this because you feel the changes made by patch1.2 make it decent or because those changes in combination with other things you've modded for stainless 3.0 make it decent?

i'm asking because i'm reading a few threads elsewhere feeling ai on campaign map isn't great with 1.2 - better than vanilla but not as good as UAI. In the UAI forum there is a thread offering a version of UAI that is compatable with patch1.2 (torrented version at least) I might have a look at it.

Has anyon run through a long campaign - 200 turns on Stainless 3.0? n have any feedback on AI behaviour?

eg does AI attack enough rather than just be passive?
are AI alliances reasonably reliable and sensible/tactically appropriate?
does AI expand at a good rate to make mid-end game worthwhile rather than a whitewash?
does AI expand and improve cities and castles so it gets them to the highest tier so it can build top level units within a reasonable timeframe?

also on a side-note does anyone know if campaign goals (take 55 provinces including Jerusalem etc) have any effect on AI behaviour or are these goals just someting human player woirks towards n computer factions will ignore?

cheers

mike

[Wolfgrin]

Excellent post, Mikey -- all good questions.

As for myself, I find SS 3.0's diplomacy to be just as irrelevant as in the vanilla game. It means nothing. (No disrespect, King Kong. The rest of the mod still rocks.)

i added Ultimate AI 1.3 and it helps, but (thanks to your post) I'll look into the new patch 1.2-compatible version.

I'm at about Turn 100, and here are some observations, vis a vis your questions. (These are based on a game set on VH/VH without any tweaks to SS 3.0/patch 1.02.)

- AI does expand nicely.
- AI does attack ferociously, just as in SS 2.2.
- AI does upgrade cities and armies.
- AI alliances without Ultimate AI are laughable.
- AI armies are smart and strong.
- AI seems absolutely lost when on jihad. i watched two, full-stack Egyptian jihad armies wander through the Levant and Anatolia without ever asking directions to Constantinople. However, I watched Crusader armies take Toulouse with no problems.
- AI sea-borne invasions seem to make more sense. I (for the first time) watched the Byzantines land a good army at Gaza, which they took.
- AI in battles is much smarter! They make brilliant use of their cavalry and deploy their infantry and archers in an almost human way (scary).

All in all, it looks promising. Still, a lot can be done, especially to diplomacy. If someone can balance it, then M2TW could finally realize its potential and be the game we all wanted.

[GrandViZ]

Your words are like honey! I'm working on a finalization of a 1.2 compatible version of the UAI. The alpha version mentioned above is a quick update from mkk to compensate the impatient users in the meantime.

I would also appreciate if you could offer more feedback on the diplomacy and general ai behavior, e.g. what can be further improved.

Best regards
GrandViZ

[Pachinko]

- AI in battles is much smarter! They make brilliant use of their cavalry and deploy their infantry and archers in an almost human way (scary).

All in all, it looks promising. Still, a lot can be done, especially to diplomacy. If someone can balance it, then M2TW could finally realize its potential and be the game we all wanted.

To me the best and like you said, "They make brilliant use of their cavalry and deploy their infantry and archers in an almost human way (scary).
" They are very scary! I was crushed.

[haggiseater]

im currently playing vh vh with knights templar faction into about year 1206,im stuck in the middle of the turks and egypt being constantly seiged the AI are mostly attaking in 3 stacks on the battlefield they aint to bad however noticed there standing there waiting for the the ammo on the artillary to run out before attaking, they took out 2 walls either side of the gate AI just stood there while the art went onto another bit of the wall also happens when your useing missle units against the AI they stand and wait for artillary ammo to run out before attaking annyoing sometimes i also see AI buying 4 rams for the one army which they are still hanging onto come the end of the battle when i have routed most of there armys.im currently allied with byz and italy had a few of my own units over in the byz section of the map and had quite a few requests from the byz to come over and help them during there turn which is good never had that before.so far not had any alliances broke,when i attaked the germans the italians also went to war with them.
im surrounded by stacks of egyptions and turks but ive upped there starting cash for all AI as i prefer it like that but i may have overdone it a bit as theres stacks of armys every where.
AI has most buildings completed by the looks of it citadel has been built in quite a few AI settlements.
still a couple of settlements that have not been takein next to russia.
[IMG][/IMG]

[Mikey78]

all starting to sound interesting

is anyone noticing any ai effects from the altered victory conditions eg hold constantinople n some of the other more far flung aims like Arguin for england?

Also what effect does giving the ai extra money have? is it needed normally cos it mismanages its finances? or does it just mean wads of cash so they can always build stacks n stacks of armies? any feedback would be much appreciated about how the financial balance of the mod is compare to vanilla - very difficult to balance but if i could get it so ai had good money to build/expand as it should but no so much as to over-create needless piles of armies n so it was vulnerable enough to cleverly targetted blockades/merchant acquisitions, the odd key city being captured etc that'd be perfect. But perhaps a bit over ambiutious to get something that finely balanced?

[Wolfgrin]

@ haggiseater
You, my friend, are a masochist! Not sure how you enjoy a game like that, but if you can pull out a victory, I'd love to know how.

Would you mind posting your Templar AAR in the thread devoted to Templar Experiences? I'd really be interested to hear how it all went down.

[Mike13531]

lol, haggiseater, your SO freakin lucky, my opponents are just bunch of LOSERS, they never attack, pussies, and i don't even see them expanding >_>, and it was on very hard/ very hard. Well, i'm not sure about 3.0, cause i haven't played yet. But 2.2, psh, if you think they attack ferociously, then you must suck at playing this or something x_x

[bobulus]

I' ve lost 2 times with Templars. It seems impossible. Look, If I want to expand, lets say Antioch or some village around then I have to build a large army. But when I start building then come the expenses and upkeep, suddenly I run out of money and start to loose ground. Unable to recruit more, nor fix the damaged buildings. Even this two times a large army which was sent back home to regroup became rebel. Sigh. The AI on campaign and on map is tremendous.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

The AI seems much better to me. I didn't like UAI because the factions were not agressive enough. In my current game, Russia has taken all of the Russian lands, the HRE controls all of the land its supposed to besides a few settlements that Milan has taken, Denmark has Scandinavia and is fighting a back-and-forth battle with the HRE, and the Moors have taken most of Africa and are pushing into the Iberian peninsula quickly. The only bad thing I saw was Portugal is expanding into france far too quickly. Would it be possible to give them Porto and Lisbon and make Pamplona rebel? Its pretty silly to have Portugal overrunning France imo.

[haggiseater]

lol wolfgrin

You, my friend, are a masochist

masochist meaning
1. The deriving of sexual gratification, or the tendency to derive sexual gratification, from being physically or emotionally abused.
2. The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from being humiliated or mistreated, either by another or by oneself.
3. A willingness or tendency to subject oneself to unpleasant or trying experiences.
think your talking about number 3 lol sure m8 al post in Templar Experiences just shortly about to play my saved game.

[King Kong]

Hi Mikey,

I'm sorry that havn't responded earlier to this very interesting topic.
But since they are some really long posts I somehow havn't had time to look through them all and additionally I'm not very quick in expressing myself in English.
And just to explain my decision to take out Ultimate AI:
Of course, the main reason why I deleted Ultimate AI for now, is that Grand Viz has not released a compatible UAI version yet.
Well, I stated somewhere that I think the campaign AI with the 1.2 patch is decent, because the AI is pretty aggressive on the campaign map and it attacks rebel settlements pretty early.
Also I like the balance of fighting and allied AI factions and that they make really "active" diplomacy, meaning that they there's a continous change of war and peace...
I think therefore the campaign is more dynamic somehow and the player can't always foresee what the AI will do next.

also on a side-note does anyone know if campaign goals (take 55 provinces including Jerusalem etc) have any effect on AI behaviour or are these goals just someting human player woirks towards n computer factions will ignore?

This is a good question which I am also wondering about. But I think that it could have something to do in which direction the AI expands more.
However, I'm pretty unsure about that...


Hi Crucifix,

The AI seems much better to me. I didn't like UAI because the factions were not agressive enough. In my current game, Russia has taken all of the Russian lands, the HRE controls all of the land its supposed to besides a few settlements that Milan has taken, Denmark has Scandinavia and is fighting a back-and-forth battle with the HRE, and the Moors have taken most of Africa and are pushing into the Iberian peninsula quickly. The only bad thing I saw was Portugal is expanding into france far too quickly. Would it be possible to give them Porto and Lisbon and make Pamplona rebel? Its pretty silly to have Portugal overrunning France imo

I totally agree with you there! And actually I like your idea to make Pamplona a rebel settlement...


Hi Bobulus,

I' ve lost 2 times with Templars. It seems impossible. Look, If I want to expand, lets say Antioch or some village around then I have to build a large army. But when I start building then come the expenses and upkeep, suddenly I run out of money and start to loose ground. Unable to recruit more, nor fix the damaged buildings. Even this two times a large army which was sent back home to regroup became rebel. Sigh. The AI on campaign and on map is tremendous.

Imo, that's nice to hear!
I wanted to make the Templars a bit more challenging than other factions and I hope they are...


Hi haggiseater,

Awesome screenshot!
This looks like you have really a lot of things to do!
Let me know if you have survived this campaign without cheating, please!

[jaklei]

The trick with templars is to start out with an crusade and then expand fast

[UnderdawgIV]

The campaign diplomacy with the 1.2 patch is fine at least in my Poland Campaign - I cannot say for other factions. Some alliances are actually holding up (on VH/VH, even when the Russians pass a huge army by one of my interior relatively lightly defended garriosns!). And it is more dynamic.

This is about 11 turns in.

[Hamburglar1]

To me it seems the campaign diplomacy defaults on "GO CRAZY"


I am HRE and have not started a single war with anyone besides a Crusade launched against Egypt.

Currently I am at war with:

Egypt
Moors (invaded Italy with a big stack and took my city - kind of cool... kind of)
Byzantines (did the same as Moors)
Spain (tried to do the same as above but failed)
Venice
Denmark
Hungary
Scotland
England
Sicily
Knights Templar (No idea why they did this... I wanted to be their buddy and I GAVE THEM Jerusalem)

It is a miracle that the border with France is rather quiet but I am being attacked from all sides besides them.

It seems that the AI attacks me for no reason. Poland looked like they were goin gto invade me with a full stack so I just gave them Breslau as a gift and they seemed happy with that for awhile but I bet they will invade me.

It seems the AI is in a conspiracy against me. whenever I meet some success on a war front a new war opens up immediatley somewhere else. Its very rough as I need huge stacks on every single border and the AI gets this money bonus so they can keep pumping out armies like crazy. I have no money to do anything.

Anyway it still is the most fun I've had with Medieval 2. The AI armies are becoming more advanced and I am seeing Dismounted Feudal Knights in some of my enemy armies. I am playing on 1 turn per year so I have just started getting them myself. So all in all pretty damn good.

As for AI vs AI...

From what I've seen without cheating. This is less than 100 turns in but

England has turned France into a vassal.
Turkey has captured Constantinople and is well on their way to really hurting the Byzantines who are now declining.
Templars have taken 5-6 cities in the holy land... With my help. then the bastards turned on me. They seem rather strong now so will be no pushover for Egypt - Turkey is leaving them alone.

[King Kong]

Hi Hamburglar,

It seems the AI is in a conspiracy against me. whenever I meet some success on a war front a new war opens up immediatley somewhere else. Its very rough as I need huge stacks on every single border and the AI gets this money bonus so they can keep pumping out armies like crazy. I have no money to do anything.

Anyway it still is the most fun I've had with Medieval 2. The AI armies are becoming more advanced and I am seeing Dismounted Feudal Knights in some of my enemy armies. I am playing on 1 turn per year so I have just started getting them myself. So all in all pretty damn good.

Imo, this sounds pretty good!
Ok, many people complain about how unpredictable the AI is and how they brake alliances for no reason, but I believe most human players do the same.
I think it is just more challenging and fun!
Well, diplomacy should mean a little more, sometimes...

[haggiseater]

damn turks and egypt wiped me out had one settlement left next to the byz one bloody settlement left i couldnt keep up with the constant attaks from the AI constantly seiging me in just about every turn in my starting position 5 citys gone all my building tree was completed on all these settlements that was takein by the AI, my alliance with the byz and italy are gone think it was venice i started a war with so they dropped there alliance i tryed to get a cease fire with the germans but they were haveing none of it as you can see

you are close to breaking was the last part of that .luckily
i have a few stacks scattered about i will regroup and get them bloody byz then take back my Capital but im starting from sctratch with one bloody settlement left only difference being i have a few armys .
think the next time al lower the starting money down nonstop with current settings first time im realy getting owned by the AI.

[FERdeBOER]

I agree that the campaign AI is very improved with the patch, but still lacks of something...

I'm playing as Spain on H/H, France declared me war, then ceasefires, war... etc. I never started the hostillities.
They have made somethings great, like conquering one of my cities, and then placing an army on the woods just in front. And I fell in the ambush.
They also have a huge army plenty of heavy cavalry... but they are not using it for attacking, just as a deterrent, moving it to force me to lift sieges (it works, I still cannot dare to fight such army, but is a waste of military power).

But in the other side, I made an ambush on French territory to a small army of town militia and siege objects... an easy prey...
They also have unprotected many cities and with two small armies I'm taking them... and the huge army still moving without an speciffic objetive, just reacting.
If they would have used that army to attack my cities they would have conquered variuos of them...

Also Portugal, an ally for many turns, sudently attacked me (maybe thinking that my war against France will weak me)... but they are far from having an oportunity!!! They only have one army that can make me worry about... and, when I finish with my actual plan on France, I will crush the Portugesse...
Finally, France never wanted to give me a truce... even when I offered two of their cities as part of the deal!!

The battles are great, very challenging and I have to consider very much my options before starting a fight...

The rest of the countries are also declaring wars, alliances, truces... Besides a bit cracy, the overall situation is plenty of action. Maybe just a little bit of logic and stability would be desirable... but in overall...

[Mike13531]

the compatiblee ultimate AI came out, are we implenting it or what??

[Pachinko]

Ive tried the VH/VH English, France,Hungary and HRE.Its HARD! Real hard. I wuz crushed about 50 turns. Mostly the AI sux. You know that.

So, Ill try the ahum... yes..... Medium/Hard. Its kinda hard too. The best thing its really does work (AI). True but true.