AI can't play other maps anymore

[Bennoni]

Hey guys, did you notice it too?
The AI can't play most maps other than Arabia anymore.
I play mostly with friends vs AI and we all noticed it many times. Especially hybrid maps. The AI produces big fleets in a puddle. And just now we played Aftermath, a pretty normal map, right? But the AI didn't even build a barracks, instead 2(!) markets, the 2nd AI did not make military until extremely late, only did 6 random towers to protect a remote woodline.
When we played Baltic or Isthmus the AI makes one fishing ship that stands still in a corner all game. They make military ships but never attack.
Only improvement, the villagers have stopped to come for your gold (while they leave their's untouched). But do other random stuff now like taking berries without mill 20 tiles away.
This and many more weird and simply bugged behaviour.
It hasn't always been like that.

Does anyone know more about that? Are the devs aware?
This needs to be fixed. Only guaranteed working map is Arabia at the moment.
Pretty much every other map we play turns out to be a waste of time.

[Mercenaru]

You forgot to mention the Ai's difficulty.
Different difficulty has different scripts and triggers to follow.

Does this happen when you increase it as well ?

[James3157]

Do not play against standard or easiest AI at least most of the time, because they suck at skirmishes. Moderate difficulty is not really that difficult either if you make more villagers than your opponents and even if you were to play a 1v7 skirmish besides maybe on arabia maps. If you want a real challenge against AI on skirmishes besides island, arena, and hideout (because blocking all gates with walls is a weakness for AI on both arena and hideout maps) maps you need play against hard, hardest, or extreme AI instead of easier difficulty settings. Also, hardest AI seems to act similar to hard AI besides maybe making more villagers than hard AI, but extreme AI seems to act noticeably different than easier difficulty settings.

[Bennoni]

We play Hard difficulty, sometimes Hardest. Usually the normal AI, sometimes HD AI.
The thing is, the AI seems not functioning properly anymore.
I suspect something must've gone wrong with an update.
It used to work fine. Now it's a mess (~since december).

It's like the AI doesn't know anymore which map it plays (I assume it used to know that).
I'm not talking about suboptimal choices, I'm talking about malfunctions.
If I find the time, I'll consider uploading a video on my youtube to show you the proof.

[Hexi]

yeah the ai is pretty bad but its good enough for if you want to try out maps or build orders or practice or whatever. Wish someone would design an ai that plays more like actual players do. It dies so hard to early aggression even on extreme its pretty easy to beat even on arabia. I've found the ai can be pretty tough in post imp situations as its good at making counters and massing units. I'd suggest just sticking to campaigns and pvp play.

[Flakstruk]

It really depends what you want the ai to do.

I'm not interested in playing Ai for a challenge. Ill role play or muck about it instead.

If you want a challenge you need human opponents.

We we really need ai profiles the way other rts have, that have the ai build lots of towers and castle (which normans do with donjons).

Having an ai script thats super agressive on water would go a long way to avoiding a universal script that only works properly 1v1 on arabia. Or surrenders after one big battle

[GABRE GAMING]

magic

[Bennoni]

I feel like most of you are not understanding my point
I'm not complaining that the AI isn't good or human-ish enough.

Unfortunately I already deleted my game on map Aftermath, which would have demonstrated well what I mean.
Well, nevermind, I said what is to say^^

[James3157]

Originally posted by Bennoni:

I feel like most of you are not understanding my point
I'm not complaining that the AI isn't good or human-ish enough.

Unfortunately I already deleted my game on map Aftermath, which would have demonstrated well what I mean.
Well, nevermind, I said what is to say^^

While it might be debatable the AI at least in my personal opinion is good enough on hard, hardest, and extreme difficulty settings. I also think that they are fun to play against overall even with some unresolved issues such as pathfinding and possibly bugs/weird behavior. If you do not enjoy skirmishes then perhaps you might like campaigns (plus historical battles) and/or multiplayer more.

[Crossil]

It is quite map dependent. There is this one map where a windy path connects all players in a line. The AI player at the end of the tunnel usually can't figure out how to reach the frontline and just keeps marching its units into the treeline.

AI also seems to fail on certain water maps, particularly because it stopped using the transports correctly.

[James3157]

Originally posted by Crossil:

It is quite map dependent. There is this one map where a windy path connects all players in a line. The AI player at the end of the tunnel usually can't figure out how to reach the frontline and just keeps marching its units into the treeline.

AI also seems to fail on certain water maps, particularly because it stopped using the transports correctly.

I had noticed AI using a transport on an island map fairly recent from sometime last year of 2024 when I was playing as the Portuguese on a skirmish, but it is rare and I had only seen it happen once. I built stone walls or fortified walls to cut off the enemy on the island, but they once sent a transport ship to reach the other side of the wall with a few military units where I was using that wall as a barrier to snipe the enemy on land with bombard towers plus walls. I have also noticed AI on ported RoR skirmishes using transport ships as well, but seems to be a lot less frequent than on campaigns.

It is unfortunate, but island maps seem to work best for pvp instead of AI on AoE II: DE. The AI only knows how to at least somewhat play on water map skirmishes if the land is connected such as Mediterranean and Baltic maps with no islands to be used as a barrier where they do not need transport ships, but will make other ships on those maps besides transport. However, if it is a water map skirmish that is connected but with an island in the middle the AI is definitely not smart enough to send villagers to that island. This can be used as an exploit over the AI even when playing against hardest or extreme AI where the only thing they could potentially do is put pressure on that island with ships assuming the villagers can be reached and are within range and assuming the AI is smart enough to use aggression with ships instead of using them to play defensively.

[Mr.Frog]

I always play vs hardest AI on Crater Lake. They never go for the gold on the island. Though I usually have to wall my allies out or they flood into my base and build ♥♥♥♥ everywhere. Like 6 different lumber camps with one villager each even though they'll still have tons of forests in their own base.