CM series: Disappointed in AI

splooger

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The CM series might be good against another person, but I find it really lacking a good AI. It doesn't seem to know how to attack. I bought CM:BB hoping the AI would be improved over the first game but I was burned again :cry: Since I buy wargames for play against the computer, my CM CDs are coasters. I hope they can improve the AI in future games because I feel the games would be great if it wasn't for this flaw.
 

KG_Werfer

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Interesting idea for a topic in itself.....Just how many strategic wargames have EVER had an AI that played well?

KG_Werfer
 

Cheetah772

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KG_Werfer said:
Interesting idea for a topic in itself.....Just how many strategic wargames have EVER had an AI that played well?

KG_Werfer
Yup, Medieval: Total War and Viking Invasions expansion pack. On higher levels, AI can be one nasty opponent to defeat on the 3D battlefields. More than 10,000 troops were involved, and after a particularly vicious swordfight, I won out, however, I lost more than half of my troops to AI's aggressive leaders. So, yes, AI can be very tough in this great game.

Dan
 

KG_Norad

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I agree the ai in Total War is quite good...while not a strategy game in the same sense that Toaw or Campaign Series are...which makes me wonder if these types of game are harder to code ai for or what. I mean in Campaign Series there really should not be any excuse for the ai to drive a leader right up to my front line alone...

I also found to Airborne Assault from Panther Games to be pretty challenging but I have not played it enough to know how far that goes. I got my clock cleaned in the 9 day historic campaign though.

Michael
 

Cheetah772

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NORAD said:
I agree the ai in Total War is quite good...while not a strategy game in the same sense that Toaw or Campaign Series are...which makes me wonder if these types of game are harder to code ai for or what. I mean in Campaign Series there really should not be any excuse for the ai to drive a leader right up to my front line alone...

I also found to Airborne Assault from Panther Games to be pretty challenging but I have not played it enough to know how far that goes. I got my clock cleaned in the 9 day historic campaign though.

Michael
However, while AI in Medieval: Total War is quite good, it does has some strange quirks. For example, when I am outnumbered, I usually defend in wooded area, however, anytime AI attacks, it usually go around my units in woods again and again, having no clear idea how to beat me. At one point, I had just 500 troops battling against 2,000 AI troops, I won out simply because I was in forest beating back waves after waves of cavalry units.

AI got into some very strange formations, and I simply countered by wheeling about my formation to whatever side AI was on. You never see AI double evenlope a player's units, it can try to overturn the flanks on one side, but not both sides. It's rare to see AI to set up an ambush, it usually take on straight-up approach which is very costly if you know how to exploit it.

When you add up little things, then you get a pretty good picture of how AI can suck in some areas.

No matter how good we program AI, the humans will always eventually beat AI, because we're ones who designed AI. :D

Dan
 

Lurker

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Wargame AI is still evolving. If you consider chess AI, in the early days anyone could beat chess programs. Now top programs regularly beat masters and even grand masters, but it took a serious effort to get to this point. I doulbt if there's a similar effort with wargaming AI.
For starters it has many more variables and a potentially unlimited playing field and I think the complexity dwarfs chess AI - for a tactical level game like CM that is.
A high level operational game AI should be easier to program (less variables), while RTS games will also seem much stronger then CM type games. The reason for the apparent RTS strength is the computer doesn't have to 'look' and 'point and click', it just crunches numbers and things happen instantly all over the map without any reaction time-lag.
Looks like us CMers will have to play humans for a real challange - for a while at least :D
 

kellysheroes

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The AI in Total War isn't really improved from easy to expert level, what they did was increase the "morale" values of the enemy AI, thus they don't rout as easily and they "decreased" the "morale" your your units, thus it seems the AI is playing a better game. There are also other modifiers that they increased for the AI and decreased for the player, makes it seem like the AI is "tougher", but, it's really not in the sense of AI, just in power. Peasants can be a challenge to a human player on the Expert setting.

I play Total War on Expert and still wipe the AI even outnumbered 2-1, mainly because the computer AI never protects it's leader/general during the battles, and if it's defending it's so easy to lure it out of it's tactical advantage of forest/trees or high ridge with a calvary unit, mounted crossbow or mounted archers work rather well for this. A heavy calvary/knight unit and one mounted missle unit seems to always do the trick for eliminating or routing the general/leader of the computer AI, even on the expert setting. But, I found a very good mod The Patrician v1.2, it's a roman era mod for MTW and every AI is set to aggressive/expansionist, while the AI is not any better, I often find myself fighting more than I have units to fight with in this mod vs the vanilla version of MTW. All leaders/generals start out as a +7 to +9 leader also. Your offspring can make you or break you in this game.

Now for CMBB and CMBO AI, yup, it's not a great attacking AI, but, you can improve it's chances against you if you will up the amount of men/armor/support it gets by 25% and giving it HIGH level units and +3 advantage. This is the way I play against the computer AI when I want it to be the attacker. Also only give yourself MEDIUM or GREEN units and you will find yourself in a much more challenging game vs the attacking AI. But, on the other hand the AI is pretty strong on the defense, especially if you give it these same settings. None of these settings improves it's tactical movements, but, just the sheer extra numbers and quality of weapons and units makes for a more challenging game.

For games like these and the AI, I would like to see them give it a "Dirty Tricks" file, and randomly from time to time the AI would use these "scripts" on tactics to use against a human opponent. It would need many so there was enough randomness the human couldn't really figure out which one the AI was using right off the bat. Some like stacking all your units to one side of the map and just rolling up the flanks of the human opponent, who's got his men/units spread all over the map. LOL I bet there would be screams of agony if that happened to a human player. Another would be to split it's forces in half, and put one on each side of the map and pincer the human player out of existance! heh, these are just some I have used against the computer AI, poor thing never had a chance! lol
 
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