Empire Total War AI issues

TwoShedsJackson

Anyone noticing some frankly rubbish AI in this? I know the AI in the Total War series has never been too hot, but this one..

Just playing through the Road to Independence mini campaign so far and the French are living up to their reputation for military skill 80 men stand behind a wall as I pour musket fire into them, not a one fires back or moves.

Cavalry charges off the edge of the map for no reason when the battle starts, troops can't turn properly or move around two foot walls competently, and as for the siege stuff..

You can have guys on a fort wall and if you order them to go down to ground level, they'll abseil off the wall to the ground, then open the gate and march in that way, conveniently leaving the gate open for the enemy to pour through..

Ardscoil Ris

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Anyone noticing some frankly rubbish AI in this? I know the AI in the Total War series has never been too hot, but this one..

Just playing through the Road to Independence mini campaign so far and the French are living up to their reputation for military skill 80 men stand behind a wall as I pour musket fire into them, not a one fires back or moves.

Cavalry charges off the edge of the map for no reason when the battle starts, troops can't turn properly or move around two foot walls competently, and as for the siege stuff..

You can have guys on a fort wall and if you order them to go down to ground level, they'll abseil off the wall to the ground, then open the gate and march in that way, conveniently leaving the gate open for the enemy to pour through..

I must admit, I've experienced many problems, but of all the fights I have had, I have never witnessed that before. I have none of the above issues.

Odd.

humanji

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Anyone noticing some frankly rubbish AI in this? I know the AI in the Total War series has never been too hot, but this one..

Just playing through the Road to Independence mini campaign so far and the French are living up to their reputation for military skill 80 men stand behind a wall as I pour musket fire into them, not a one fires back or moves.

Cavalry charges off the edge of the map for no reason when the battle starts, troops can't turn properly or move around two foot walls competently, and as for the siege stuff..

You can have guys on a fort wall and if you order them to go down to ground level, they'll abseil off the wall to the ground, then open the gate and march in that way, conveniently leaving the gate open for the enemy to pour through..

Have you played the main campaign? I'm still on the Road To Independence campaign and was under the impression that it's basically a tutorial, so it's fairly easy to defeat the ememies.

TwoShedsJackson

humanji wrote: »

Have you played the main campaign? I'm still on the Road To Independence campaign and was under the impression that it's basically a tutorial, so it's fairly easy to defeat the ememies.

No I've not gone near the main campaign yet. I know it's pretty much a tutorial but what I'm seeing really has to be AI idiocy, not just it going easy on me during a tutorial.

Another example, the French attack a fort of mine, march three units of muskets about halfway to the fort then just sit there. I put the clock on the 4x setting and win by default when the time expires, they didn't move once.

cherryghost

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Anyone noticing some frankly rubbish AI in this? I know the AI in the Total War series has never been too hot, but this one..

Just playing through the Road to Independence mini campaign so far and the French are living up to their reputation for military skill 80 men stand behind a wall as I pour musket fire into them, not a one fires back or moves.

Cavalry charges off the edge of the map for no reason when the battle starts, troops can't turn properly or move around two foot walls competently, and as for the siege stuff..

You can have guys on a fort wall and if you order them to go down to ground level, they'll abseil off the wall to the ground, then open the gate and march in that way, conveniently leaving the gate open for the enemy to pour through..

When you have an AMD processor and an Nvidia card, these things happen

Sephiroth_dude

I guess we have to rely on the modders to fix the A.I again :rolleyes:

Ardscoil Ris

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

I guess we have to rely on the modders to fix the A.I again :rolleyes:

Yep. In fairness though. Let's all reserve our final judgement until the new patch coming out in the next few days.

Also, for the love God god that patch better add the quad core support or I'm going to be bitterly dissapointed.

Sephiroth_dude

Ardscoil Ris wrote: »

Yep. In fairness though. Let's all reserve our final judgement until the new patch coming out in the next few days.

Also, for the love God god that patch better add the quad core support or I'm going to be bitterly dissapointed.

indeed,also I hope it stops the game from crashing during an A.I Turn.In fairness though we should'nt have to rely on modders to fix things,its the delvelopers job to get it right before they ship the game,anyway lets see what the patch does anyway.

Ardscoil Ris

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

indeed,also I hope it stops the game from crashing during an A.I Turn.In fairness though we should'nt have to rely on modders to fix things,its the delvelopers job to get it right before they ship the game,anyway lets see what the patch does anyway.

It's a tricky issue. I know for a fact SEGA were not happy about the delay and it's them who sets the release day not CA.

That's why Valve always release games with little or no problems. They're their own boss.

Ri_Nollaig

Ive noticed some odd AI stuff too, no worse then the usual total war AI though...
They (large squads of infrantry) seem to get stuck trying to get over walls/knee-high hedges sometimes. A few well placed cannon shots can dislodge them though

But is anyone noticing some flickering with the details both on the game map and the battle maps. Im using a 8800gts, everything is on high or ultra (but i tried on low too). FPS is grand and since i've updated the drivers it doesnt happen as much but still everynow and then. It doesnt have any new graphics feature the 8800 doesnt support does it?
Also anyone noticing if you click a random unit it just stops for a couple of seconds like its loading or some thread has stopped (not loading screen now, just freezes for a few seconds)
Still a brillant game, love the way you update new technologies, very galactic civ like and how you can now open the diplomacy screen for any other civ at any time. Also love how all rebel fractions are now minor nations that you can ally/trade with.
Trying to form an allanice is difficult though, even when its clearly to that nations advantage... guess that goes back to the AI issues once again.

kencleary

Having a lot of the same issues and must admit I'm pretty disappointed with the game overall.

AI appears to have not progressed a single iota. I really don't know what their AI programmers have been at all these years. Load times are abysmal too and the game seems prone to random crashes.

It looks very pretty but honestly this game could really have used another six months or so in development. At the moment I think it stands as the worst installment in the series but here's hoping the modders can polish it up!

TwoShedsJackson

So now I'm about to attack Montreal with 700 men, and another 400 backup in a second army if George Washington isn't up to the job :pac:

The French decide to retaliate via the cunning plan of sending one unit of 80 men each turn to attack 700 plus, umm ok.

Auto resolving results in them being completely wiped out while I lose about 15 men each time, if they keep doing this I can just wait until the lot are gone and march in unimpeded :rolleyes:

Another battle last night saw four units of enemy infantry sit at the bottom of a minor slope and mill about while five units of mine annihilated them without taking a scratch.

There is hope for the French though, as another autoresolved battle of one French Generals Bodyguard unit (15 men) versus 600 odd men on my side, resulted in a huge loss for me as they lost 1 man but killed 475 of mine. Come on.

It's a real shame because I wanted to like this game a lot, and can see how brilliant it would be if the enemy AI was in any way useful, but it's like something from 1995, hopeless.

Just have to hope the patch fixes at least some of the AI and pathfinding issues (which currently make sieges a joke), but given their track record of ignoring requests to improve pathfinding etc. on patches for the previous games, I'm not going to hold out too many hopes.

Ardscoil Ris

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

So now I'm about to attack Montreal with 700 men, and another 400 backup in a second army if George Washington isn't up to the job :pac:

The French decide to retaliate via the cunning plan of sending one unit of 80 men each turn to attack 700 plus, umm ok.

Auto resolving results in them being completely wiped out while I lose about 15 men each time, if they keep doing this I can just wait until the lot are gone and march in unimpeded :rolleyes:

Another battle last night saw four units of enemy infantry sit at the bottom of a minor slope and mill about while five units of mine annihilated them without taking a scratch.

There is hope for the French though, as another autoresolved battle of one French Generals Bodyguard unit (15 men) versus 600 odd men on my side, resulted in a huge loss for me as they lost 1 man but killed 475 of mine. Come on.

It's a real shame because I wanted to like this game a lot, and can see how brilliant it would be if the enemy AI was in any way useful, but it's like something from 1995, hopeless.

Just have to hope the patch fixes at least some of the AI and pathfinding issues (which currently make sieges a joke), but given their track record of ignoring requests to improve pathfinding etc. on patches for the previous games, I'm not going to hold out too many hopes.

They are aware of this and that should be fixed in the new patch coming this week.

magick

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

Auto resolving results in them being completely wiped out while I lose about 15 men each time, if they keep doing this I can just wait until the lot are gone and march in unimpeded :rolleyes:

Another battle last night saw four units of enemy infantry sit at the bottom of a minor slope and mill about while five units of mine annihilated them without taking a scratch.

There is hope for the French though, as another autoresolved battle of one French Generals Bodyguard unit (15 men) versus 600 odd men on my side, resulted in a huge loss for me as they lost 1 man but killed 475 of mine. Come on.

.

Their clearly using Spartan Units!

SeantheMan

Or Jack Bauer is working for them

Sand

Creative Assembly released a gorgeous looking, horribly retarded "strategy" game?

Christ, thats no surprise. I didnt even bother wasting my time on downloading the demo. The AI was always going to be retarded. CA are never going to patch it. And no, modders wont be able to save it because CA hard codes so much of the relevant files.

Just take plenty of screenshots. About the only thing its good for.

Ardscoil Ris

Sand wrote: »

Creative Assembly released a gorgeous looking, horribly retarded "strategy" game?

Christ, thats no surprise. I didnt even bother wasting my time on downloading the demo. The AI was always going to be retarded. CA are never going to patch it. And no, modders wont be able to save it because CA hard codes so much of the relevant files.

Just take plenty of screenshots. About the only thing its good for.

The modders have already cracked the hard coded files.

Sand

Anyone trying to "mod" the game by "cracking" hard coded files will almost certainly find the CA legal attack dogs so far up their ass theyll need to have a tube inserted to help them to breathe.

Modders have been slavering to fix the retarded AI in CA games since .... oh, I dunno - ever. Its legal threats that stop them, not technical issues.

For example, in the mod community for Rome Total War there are hundreds of talented modders [ check out stuff like Europa Barborum] have been forced to sit on their hands and potter around the edge of the problems. Waiting for a solution to the retarded AI in the TW games breaks a mans spirit. Give up now, its easier. Youll learn.

Ardscoil Ris

Sand wrote: »

Anyone trying to "mod" the game by "cracking" hard coded files will almost certainly find the CA legal attack dogs so far up their ass theyll need to have a tube inserted to help them to breathe.

Modders have been slavering to fix the retarded AI in CA games since .... oh, I dunno - ever. Its legal threats that stop them, not technical issues.

For example, in the mod community for Rome Total War there are hundreds of talented modders [ check out stuff like Europa Barborum] have been forced to sit on their hands and potter around the edge of the problems. Waiting for a solution to the retarded AI in the TW games breaks a mans spirit. Give up now, its easier. Youll learn.

What are you talking about?

The Lordz Modding Team (They made the Napoleonic Total War mods) have already started to mod ETW.

CA have stated that they have no problem with people modding the game. They just don't want people unlocking the Special Forces. CA are even releasing modding tools for the community.

Where are you getting your facts?

EDIT: There is already a mini mod out now.

Sand

Ard - back up a bit. I am talking about fixing the AI. You are talking about releasing a mod. It will take more than a mod to fix the AI.

Mods have been released for years and years on pretty much every iteration of Total War. Mods have yet to fix the core, central issue of AI retardation. This is not because the AI of previous TW was awesome, or that modders werent talented enough to fix it.

Ardscoil Ris

Sand wrote: »

Ard - back up a bit. I am talking about fixing the AI. You are talking about releasing a mod. It will take more than a mod to fix the AI.

Mods have been released for years and years on pretty much every iteration of Total War. Mods have yet to fix the core, central issue of AI retardation. This is not because the AI of previous TW was awesome, or that modders werent talented enough to fix it.

Whoa...forget the AI for a moment. You said modding ETW was illegal. I just said it wasn't. That's all.

Anyway, with regards to the AI. That guy, Darth Vader, made a mod that made the AI pretty good.

I don't think the AI is that bad. Besides, multiplayer campaign coming out soon so maybe that will spice up the game.

Sephiroth_dude

Sand wrote: »

Creative Assembly released a gorgeous looking, horribly retarded "strategy" game?

Christ, thats no surprise. I didnt even bother wasting my time on downloading the demo. The AI was always going to be retarded. CA are never going to patch it. And no, modders wont be able to save it because CA hard codes so much of the relevant files.

Just take plenty of screenshots. About the only thing its good for.

Im sorry to say this but your talking a load of bull****.

PaddyTheNth

Ardscoil Ris wrote: »

The modders have already cracked the hard coded files.

Only to a certain extent. It's going to be a much slower process this time around with absolutely everything being hex-encoded.

uglyjohn

how will modding work with steam? will the game have to be run in offline mode to stop it auto-updating back to vanilla?

Ardscoil Ris

uglyjohn wrote: »

how will modding work with steam? will the game have to be run in offline mode to stop it auto-updating back to vanilla?

No idea yet.

pwd

a cavalry unit raided a town defended by an infantry unit. I put the infantry unit in a building. The cavalry ran around the building in a circle while being shot at until it routed. lol.

Polar101

pwd wrote: »

a cavalry unit raided a town defended by an infantry unit. I put the infantry unit in a building. The cavalry ran around the building in a circle while being shot at until it routed. lol.

At least the outcome of the battle sounds realistic, if not the way it was fought.

Sand

Whoa...forget the AI for a moment. You said modding ETW was illegal. I just said it wasn't. That's all.

No, I didnt. Releasing a mod is fine. "Cracking" hard coded files is not fine.

Anyway, with regards to the AI. That guy, Darth Vader, made a mod that made the AI pretty good.

No, the AI was still terrible. Terrible. Because Darth Vader created a formations mod, not an AI fix. If anything, the AI kept racing back and forth from one formation to the other knackering itself out. Just sit back, wait, once their exhausted charge in and mop them up.

Tyrant^

Was thinking about getting this, but witnessed the retardation of the AI in the demo. Can anyone tell me if the AI is significantly better in v1.3 ?

grizzly

Tyrant^ wrote: »

Was thinking about getting this, but witnessed the retardation of the AI in the demo. Can anyone tell me if the AI is significantly better in v1.3 ?

I played a game Monday night with the new patch. I've not played enough pre patch to say if there's a difference. But from the few battles I played I noticed that too many times many of the AI units stood around not engaging my troops even though they were very close and could have turned the battle if they acted. I'm disappointed TBH.

Sierra Oscar

grizzly wrote: »

I played a game Monday night with the new patch. I've not played enough pre patch to say if there's a difference. But from the few battles I played I noticed that too many times many of the AI units stood around not engaging my troops even though they were very close and could have turned the battle if they acted. I'm disappointed TBH.

Im not sure if this is true - but I heard you need to start a new campaign for the recent patch tweaks to come into effect.

Haven't tried it myself yet, although I will soon.