AI controlled armies

[Pervy-Sage]

I'm a huge fan of the first Total War: Rome. You had the option of controlling your second army, well I think most people would agree with me if we could get an AI do it.

[DaddyJokee]

I don't. I don't want an AI touching any of my stuff.

[cojax8]

noo ho ho. i made the mistake of letting the AI controll an army in med 2...they got the general killed within the first few min of the fight.

[DaddyJokee]

Same. I bearly ever use auto resolve too. I have an advantage of numbers, something like 300 of them vs 1300 of me and autoresolve manages to get 600 of my guys killed.

[bills6693]

I use autoresolve in Shogun 2, on a tiny skirmish - a full, experienced unit of ashigaru spears and another experienced unit of ashigaru bows. Mind you, I'm playing AS the ashigaru faction, so they are better than normal too.

Enemy, one measly, two-thirds killed unit of samurai. Thats like, 40 samurai vs my 150 spears and 150 bows.

Half my bowmen were killed.

How on earth did one unit of samurai kill half my bowmen? I mean, the bows are able to run away, plus its not like they could flank me, there was only one of them, I wasn't going to have been distracted already.

If anything, some of the ashigaru spears should have died, but the bows should have killed off half the enemy first, and the spears should have made short work of them.

If I let the battle AI take over my units in battle, good god, no. They just advance at the enemy at top speed and run into them head first, with the general leading the charge into the spearmen. No thankyou.

[Pervy-Sage]

I mean say your attacking a Fort, Castle etc... and you have a second legion with you. Like another commander. Would you want them to control that second legion or would you rather manage the extras?

[cojax8]

I would control it no questions asked, even more so when attacking a city. even if i just had it sit and not do anything it would still be better then having the ai control it as the ai just throws troops to their deaths. but maybe, and thats a BIG maybe, if the ai is improved for ur armies then perhaps i would consider it.

[DaddyJokee]

Well, now that you mention if. If I had a second army, I wouldn't mind AI microing the troops around, as long as I could set goals for them. Like, here's a wall. Siege it. AI does it while I siege it on the other side. That type of thing would be ... acceptable...but it would depend on the smartness of the AI. I don't like to see my units die needlessly. If the AI was to just charge head first into the wall and tried smashing through, I would much rather do two separate assaults to soften the fort up.

[bills6693]

Kinda like that, perhaps.

As in, the AI controls the army, but I give it objectives and commands. So, I could say 'stop there' or 'hold position' and the AI will stop where it is. I could tell it to pull back, tell it to retreat, tell it to advance on a specific point, tell it to defend its position etc.

Problem is, at least for now, the AI is just too dumb. I don't see it being smart enough even in R2, even with big improvements, to be as effective as I am at controlling an army.

Where I may string a unit between two buildings, the AI wouldn't think of that. I am quite precise with my gameplay, I'll pause the game and put units into the exact positions I want them. It's possibly a little over the top, but I like them to be in the best formation to tackle the battle. And the AI is just not like that.

[DaddyJokee]

Not really over the top. I do that too.

[Pervy-Sage]

Yea improve the AI intellegance, I personal like the idea of your telling the AI to do something. That has potential to make it good. As for cojax I see where your coming from, but as computers improve so will the AI and NPC armies (units etc...)

[cojax8]

Yeah i know that they improve over time, its just that i can still clearly recall when my ai flanking army ran my commander into a group of spearmen, got himself killed, and then my reinforcing army proceded to rout, thusly screwing over my other army and leading to my defeat in that battle. makes it hard to trust the ai after that.

[Pervy-Sage]

Oh yea, that would be tough to get over.

[El Monstero29]

Yea I gave up on tw ai controlled armies long long ago....You can only watch so many of their "death charges" before you realize you are much better off controlling them yourself. The only problem with this is, if you have a full army under your control already, and you choose to take control of the reinforcing army yourself...you can't. Because you've hit your unit cap so basicallly your "reinforcing" army becomes nothing more than reserves to replace the fallen

I also am very precise in my unit placements and formations. I like to form my units into the best possible formations for upcoming battles and that usually takes a bit of time

[cojax8]

Yeah, but the nice thing with Shogun 2 was that you could command 2 full army stacks (maybe more, but i cant remember), so most of ur reinforcing units wernt just there to relpace the defeated ones.

[Pervy-Sage]

I noticed that to cojax. It always seemed different with the others. As for you bb your going both ways, good and bad.