Empire: Total War announced...

[Zaleukos]

I realise I have the compulsion to turn every post I make about the TW series into a rant over the AI

At one level I think that from a players point of view one can dismiss the inner workings of the AI and treat it as a black box. A simpler model can produce as believable results as a more complex one (in the RPG world I think of Gothic with it's simple schedules vs the more dynamic Oblivion AI) and it's that output that matters. Getting that right is among the toughest challenges in the genres that I play (TBS and RPGs) and the difficulty of the task makes me fairly forgiving, but I at least expect to see some improvements from developers between titles Ultimately I guess one would want an AI that passes the Turing test, but that is pretty darn difficult for a game as multidimensional as TW...

Then I'm simply a bit jaded when it comes to (any) developers' claims regarding AI. In the TW case the AI behaviour has been fairly constant in all the games I've played, which is from Medieval 1 onwards. I also dont think the problem merely lied in the underlying model (even if it was flawed in the "divided" sense), but also in CA:s idea that challenging the player means constantly throwing hordes of whatever the AI has (if only peasants) at him, and at least in Medieval 2 the problems were made worse by horrible tuning. Changing the AI framework will not necessairly resolve all the issues.

That said I'll of course be very happy if the new model turns out to be an improvement in practice. Two weeks to a month of dedicated players dissecting the game should be enough to know if the game is less suicidal.

 

[Prime Junta]

Oh, I agree -- it'd be a whole new experience if TW had campaign AI on par with Civ IV, for example. But then Civ IV doesn't have those beautiful real-time battles, culture-specific and highly intricate tech trees, or families that have members with personality that develops over the years. The crummy campaign AI never stopped me from enjoying any Total War, any more than having a stealth bomber intercepted and shot down by a prop fighter is stopping me from enjoying Civ.

 

[zakhal]

Turn-based alternative to Total War called "Crown of Glory: Emperors edition" is going into release today. It has turn-based HoI style map where you move diplomats, armies, navies, handle economy,etc and turn based Fantasy General style land and naval combat.

Screenshots:
http://www.matrixgames.com/files/games/366/20090204111412.jpg?width=800&height=600
http://www.matrixgames.com/files/games/366/20090204111436.jpg?width=800&height=600
http://www.matrixgames.com/files/games/366/20090204111342.jpg?width=800&height=600

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/366/details/Crown.of.Glory:.Emperor’s.Edition

The new Emperor’s Edition is a sequel to the acclaimed Crown of Glory and improves on the original in every area, immersing the player in the epic events of the Napoleonic era. A beautiful strategic map with more than 200 provinces covers all of Europe and North Africa, with scenarios and campaigns from 1792 up to 1820. Players take the role of one of the crowned potentates of any of the eight Major powers as well as having the option to play as a minor power such as Poland or Portugal.

* Emperor's Edition Improvements:
* New strategic map including a network of roads connecting provinces
* 70 new movement areas on the strategic map
* New “Simple Economy” mode for players who want to concentrate on military / diplomacy
* 6 new minor powers
* 101 new historical events such as “Reign of Terror,” “Janissary Revolt,” and “Assassination of Paul I”
* Map zooms in and out smoothly on strategic and detailed combat levels
* Nations gain Experience and Naval Experience and use these to purchase national upgrades, advanced units, and special training for units
* Improved orders of battle in all scenarios with historical names for hundreds of divisions and ships
* New scenarios for 1803 and 1812
* New scenarios that allow Portugal, Bavaria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Poland to be player-controlled
* Changes to strategic A.I. to create more historical decisions for certain nations
* New “Path of Napoleon” victory condition in which player must try to accomplish all of Napoleon’s goals
* New rules for inflation and mobilization limits to better model wartime effects on the economy and to limit army sizes to historical levels
* New rules for march attrition
* New interface screens for strategic overview, unit and province lists
* Ability to fight detailed battles at division or brigade level
* New system of in-game help
* New music and sound effects

* Improvements to Detailed Land Battles:
* Cavalry units can deploy cavalry screens in detailed battle
* Units can set a reaction radius in detailed battle that allows units to fire at enemy units, to move to intercept them, or to change rotation to face moving enemy units
* New system for handling threat zones and formation changes
* New “Pursuit Phase” at end of combat
* Completely new A.I. for detailed battle
* Can now give long-range movement orders to units and to entire military groups

* New Detailed Naval Battles at the Ship Level!
* Wind speed and direction affects movement and combat
* Ships have five different sail states
* Damage to hull, guns, carronades, rigging, crew, leaders
* Fire round shot, chain shot, or canister shot
* 20 different critical hit types to ships, such as “fire” and “rudder shot away”
* Grappling and boarding

Im going to propably buy both this and the new total war. Allthough Im sceptical if the TW AI can offer any challenge at all. In the last game of the series I conquered the whole europe on first game with minor nation without loosing a single battle. And I used the mod "AI improvements" even.

 

[Prime Junta]

Try installing Rome: Total Realism and playing as the Gauls or the Scythians. Not easy. (Not because of the AI, but because your starting position is tough.)

 

[zakhal]

Try installing Rome: Total Realism and playing as the Gauls or the Scythians. Not easy. (Not because of the AI, but because your starting position is tough.)

Ive played with many mods of Rome including total realism. The only problem I had with them is that they always crashed sooner or later. They did have pretty challenging difficulty though especially with the minor nations. The gauls were not that hard though iirc, I crushed roman armies from the start.

Yesterday I got the shogun gold to work. Apparently my new graphics card or new drivers finally fixed the mouse issues I had with the earlier total war games. I tried two years to make the game work with my 8800GTS without any success but now my new gtx 280 runs it smooth as silk.

I might just replay the whole series from total war eras to mediaval2 while waiting these new games. The earlier games were truly hard. I dont think I ever won a single game even.

 

[Prime Junta]

Ive played with many mods of Rome including total realism. The only problem I had with them is that they always crashed sooner or later. They did have pretty challenging difficulty though especially with the minor nations. The gauls were not that hard though iirc, I crushed roman armies from the start.

Really? Which version? From 6.0 up RTR never crashed on me once. You are playing at the hardest difficulty, right?

 

[zakhal]

Really? Which version? From 6.0 up RTR never crashed on me once. You are playing at the hardest difficulty, right?

Combat was hardest but economy was normal or hard. Simply giving more money to AI to make it challenging feels like a cheat. Also the continious revolts were too annoying.

 

[Prime Junta]

Combat was hardest but economy was normal or hard. Simply giving more money to AI to make it challenging feels like a cheat. Also the continious revolts were too annoying.

I don't think the hardest level gave more money to the AI; I think it just didn't give it *less* money like at the easier difficulties. It's also a good deal less aggressive, which means that it won't throw itself into stupid wars -- but also that you can't afford to completely ignore weaker enemies, which makes fighting the bigger and richer ones more challenging.

It totally changes the nature of the game if you're playing as the Gauls, for example -- since your cities are dispersed all over the map, you're going to lose many of them quite soon simply because your bigger neighbors will assault them all at once. (Which is, incidentally, pretty much what happened to the Gauls in reality too.) That means that your only winning strategy, even against the dumb AI, is to decide which region you're going to keep, tax the rest for everything it's worth until you lose it, and try to consolidate and expand that base. In effect, you're starting with only one or two cities that are worth a damn, and those in difficult neighborhoods -- either resource-poor and with long distances (Gaul) or surrounded by aggressive neighbors (Asia Minor).

IOW, you've been playing against a dumb AI that's also been handicapped. No wonder you've had it too easy. I always play at the hardest difficulty, and I certainly don't get the impression that the AI has access to any more resources than I do. I strongly recommend that you do so too -- it's a whole different experience. (And until you do, I won't be taking any more whining about the AI. )

The bottom line about the campaign AI as I've experienced it is that it's highly predictable and largely "random" -- if it sees land it can grab, it grabs it, whether it makes any sense or not; it never launches serious naval assaults; it never attempts to build alliances that make any sense, and it breaks alliances also when it makes no sense; it's absolutely no good at defending relatively unprotected heartlands, seizing strategic choke points, or what not. As in, if you're playing as the Romans, you can just fortify the Alpine passes and watch as wave after wave of Germans and Gauls breaks on your legions, but it'll never try to do the same.

But: it's aggressive, as in you can't afford to ignore your neighbors; it fights between itself, as in you can take advantage of these "secondary" wars; and, if it gets into a lucky position, it's expansive, which means that it can get onto an exponential growth curve before you do, and if that happens, you're in for a real challenge, dumb or not. At the lower difficulties, it's much, much more passive -- it basically expands until it hits its neighbors and then sits there to wait for you to conquer it, which is not much fun at all.

 

[zakhal]

I don't think the hardest level gave more money to the AI; I think it just didn't give it *less* money like at the easier difficulties. It's also a good deal less aggressive, which means that it won't throw itself into stupid wars -- but also that you can't afford to completely ignore weaker enemies, which makes fighting the bigger and richer ones more challenging.

From RTR forums:

On VH campaign AI factions get +10000 denarii a turn. On H campaign I guess there is a similar money boost somewhat less, probably half.

On H and VH combat the AI troops get +4 and +7 attack and moral boost repectively.

Autoresolving is determined by campaign difficulty.

Best settings depend on faction; personally I never play anything less than H campaign and as the Romans battles are on VH (because Romans are so uber in the game anyway). With quite hopeless factions like Pontus and Numidia I say N battles unless you feel especially masochistic.

Hope this helps.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=113675

So if I played on VH combat and H campaign AI got full bonuses in combat and more money. I did try the VH campaign too but I found that the AI simply had too much money. Its too much of a cheat.

 

[Prime Junta]

OK, I stand corrected. Perhaps the extra money is what's driving their extra aggression, too.

But in any case, it's a whole different game, and a much better one for it, no matter how it's done. I've won on VH/VH multiple times and with multiple factions, and I felt like I had to work for it.

 

[Prime Junta]

By the way, I just found out that the difficulty levels in Civ IV work the same way: Noble is the "fair" one, with either you or the AI receiving bonuses at higher or lower levels. No wonder Prince is so punishingly hard.

Strangely, I *have* gotten the feeling of unfairness in Civ IV at Prince that I never got in TW at the highest campaign difficulty level. Perhaps it's because Civ's AI isn't rock-stupid like TW's. I'd say that TW at the hardest level "feels" about as hard as Civ IV at Noble.

 

[VPeric]

Try installing Rome: Total Realism and playing as the Gauls or the Scythians. Not easy. (Not because of the AI, but because your starting position is tough.)

Let me also recommend Europa Barbarorum (wiki article). Definitely challenging and interesting, and even has a much more logical recruitment system. Admitedly, I haven't played RTR at all, but I got the impression it was just the original done better, while EB is different (also, better ).

 

[Zaleukos]

OK, I stand corrected. Perhaps the extra money is what's driving their extra aggression, too.

This is most likely the case. One reason for crummy campaign performance in M2 and Rome was that the AI always ran out of money because it recruited as much as it could on a per turn basis, rather than teching up first and aiming for balanced stacks. This is also one reason that M2 saw a simplified (more linear) tech tree and recruitment that didnt draw from the population.

But in any case, it's a whole different game, and a much better one for it, no matter how it's done. I've won on VH/VH multiple times and with multiple factions, and I felt like I had to work for it.

Sort of agree. We wont be able to build an AI that can outsmart humans anytime soon (unless the game can be reduced to a search tree like chess or reversi), so games have to cheat to be challenging. The trick is to make the cheating believable (again I think the Turing test is a good guideline) and not too transparent

Let me also recommend Europa Barbarorum (wiki article). Definitely challenging and interesting, and even has a much more logical recruitment system. Admitedly, I haven't played RTR at all, but I got the impression it was just the original done better, while EB is different (also, better ).

Europa Barbarorum has a location based recruitment system that appeals to me. I find it weird to be able to recruit Macedonian companion cavalry in Belgium. A culture system like in the Britannia campaign of the M2:Kingdoms expansion would be a better base for recruitment of non-generic units, but culture should change much more slowly than in that expansion...

I've also found that the best way to get interesting battles in Medieval 2 was to more or less mod away the tech tree. Creating a very crude renaissance mod (simply making the tech tree start with city level units and feudal knights) was the only way to get the AI to field interesting stacks. I had the HRE attack Rheims with a force of Handgunners and Imperial Knights supported by pike militia Without such alterations one wont get to field the cooler units against their historical opposition...

 

[Remus]

Empire: Total War just released. Received 9.5 rating at IGN PC and 9 on Eurogamer.

What's your impression and comment guys?

 

[Prime Junta]

Haven't played it... yet. All in good time...

 

[zakhal]

Sort of agree. We wont be able to build an AI that can outsmart humans anytime soon (unless the game can be reduced to a search tree like chess or reversi), so games have to cheat to be challenging. The trick is to make the cheating believable (again I think the Turing test is a good guideline) and not too transparent

It doesnt help that they have made the game more complicated for AI. The new overland map in RTW might have been more fun for human player but its way harder to create an AI that can handle it.

I totally agree with making cheating believable. As long as I dont know its cheating (or its not outrageously obvious) then it doesnt matter if it does.

Play.com mailed my game today. Special forces edition with the uss preorder ship ~45€. Have to wait for next week.

Empire: Total War just released. Received 9.5 rating at IGN PC and 9 on Eurogamer.

What's your impression and comment guys?

Sounds like a paid review. Many players have given negative feedback about the demo. Ill wage that after week or two of play the game feels just like yet another total war game worth of 70-80% score.

 

[Zaleukos]

It doesnt help that they have made the game more complicated for AI. The new overland map in RTW might have been more fun for human player but its way harder to create an AI that can handle it.

Yep. I dont think they changed the AI much at all between Medieval 1 and Rome, but what worked (reasonably well) for a risk-type map didnt work on a full overland map. That it continued to count proximitiy in terms of provinces rather than in actual distance is IMHO one sign of this. CA never got around to fixing the problem of the AI leaving armies out in the wild (a problem that didnt exist for the risk type map of Medieval 1). The diplomatic lunacy was roughly the same, but with the risk map the AI at least could get it's forces to the action zones quickly. Interestingly enough many of the AI mods for Medieval 2 (and the Kingdoms expansion) tackle this by increasing movement points on the overland map.

 

[txa1265]

Just an FYI - GoGamer has it this weekend at $35.90

I thought I saw it for $50, not $40 ... not as good of a bargain as I thought ...

 

[Remus]

me ordered the Special Forces collector's edition; hopefully tomorrow it would arrives...

How is the installation goes... Some peoples have problem with it since you need Steam; but once activated you could play it offline.

Is really the game need to be on the same drive/partition which you have the Steam installed on?

 

[Bladeheart]

Could anyone who has the game and played it, please confirm whether you have to be online in order to play TW:Empire regardless of mode?

Dawn of War 2 stated on the box cover that you need internet connection to activate that game, as does TW:E. However, I have discovered that you also have to be online in order to play DOW2 in any mode, including single player!

As a point of interest I too have all the other TW games and previously have pre-ordered the latter versions; this latest development has caused me to reconsider.
I find myself wondering how long it will be before I am being charged to play games online?