No more 120 pop limit and cheating AI?

[Benzin]

Its not rethoric, and im not trying to be cynical. I sincerely want to know.

Devs, The thing that drove me away from stronghold 2, was the PATHETIC population limit of about 120.
Trying to build a large city / castle AND having an army was impossible. The game would have been great with a higher (even adjustable) population limit wich allowed us to do more.

And the main problem with crusader 2, was the atrocious way in wich the AI cheated. You could deprive it of rock, food, iron, wood and pretty much every resource, and still it would manage to put out hordes of troops, feed its population, and keep fighting as if nothing happened.

Will these issues be corrected in Warlords? I really want to know.
No point in even adding it to my wishlist if either of these issues will be in the game.

Thanks.

[FireRanger]

AI very bad and weak
So he need to "cheat"
About population limit. If many players in game - limit is low... 1v1 - you can build big army
(because optimization not good)

[Kojema]

my main issue with stronghold 2 was the balance. the walls were basically constructed out of cardboard paper and the xbows inside the warwagon was waaaay too op. yeah they can be countered by flaming ♥♥♥♥♥ but the fact that xbo in war wagon was just click and achieve and the counter reqired precision micro was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Captain Pentium]

Maybe they'll address the AI in the next Q&A video if they have one. I've been asking them a while on YouTube and you should too. Would be nice to know what their plans are for out bot allies and foes.

[Benzin]

@Kojema: Yes, you are right about the walls that is a huge problem as well. It literally takes 2 shots from a catapult, or just a few seconds of some troops with pick hammers to go thru a stone wall. Its ridiculous!
I guess they made them that way to compenstate for removing ladders and assault towers from the game? (removing those things was another bad move BTW).

@That Scribe: I have tried to contact them on YT. They have a video about stronghold 2 steam edition where they say They will "definitely" increase the pop limit on the steam version and i asked them when are they actually gonna do it, but they never replied.

[Electron]

Wtf are you talking about, Stronghold 2 pop limit was not 120 at all !? I've just played a game with 150+ workers and 300+ soldiers.

I agree with you on the "cheating AI" though!

[Benzin]

Originally posted by Electron:

Wtf are you talking about, Stronghold 2 pop limit was not 120 at all !? I've just played a game with 150+ workers and 300+ soldiers.

I agree with you on the "cheating AI" though!

In Kingmaker mode, the max population is less than 120. Thats why there are so many custom made maps wich include houses, so that you can have a slightly higher pop limit.

[Benzin]

Originally posted by Mr. Turtle:

What we need is a neural network AI that gets a pack of data from each game on completion sent to a server from all the players who opt-in to the experiment. This updates the behavior of the AI every week or so on a particular set of maps; perhaps 8-12 maps. Then we can get skynet but with tribuchets! :D Has any developer tried something like this? :/

They did something along those lines in the game Blitzkrieg 3. It braggs that you play against an "advanced AI server", pretty much skynet + the matrix + cyber steroids (according to them). It dint turned out too well.

[Kojema]

sorry but you wont find that kind of advanced ai on a videogame any time this century. that kind of stuff isnt even close to what the govt has yet. no developer in video games that i know of has a large research team and millions of dollars to fine tune an ai for a rts game.

[Blered]

The problem with crusader 2 was...everything. The graphics were barely upgraded from the original. There was less content than the original, and to top it off, it crashed all the time. Terrible game that was rushed and they paid the price for it.

[Adun]

@kojema did you hear about alphastar on starcraft2? :-)

[Kojema]

Originally posted by PlzenCZ:

@kojema did you hear about alphastar on starcraft2? :-)

it seems data mining is about the only way. reinforced objectives is all it is. im sure it works better than most ai's currently but anytime there is a change in the games balance enough to change the meta the mined data will be defunct. also, it will only be for the specific game it was mined from. great but still not ideal.

[OnlyAfd]

Totally agree with u Benzin.Popcap limit is ♥♥♥♥ and even people have a bad pc why not adjustable popcap options where the player decide by their own how many units allowed on battlefield.In sh1 and crusader1 this was epic over 10.000 units especially extreme mode.Best sh games ever.The popcap restrictions kills the game feeling/fun in my opinion.

[Zaidah]

In the last Q&A they said they will/very probably will put an option to modify as we want the popcap for skirmish lobby (and the building limit as well).

[JefferyNothing]

There shouldn't be a limit for anything. Just let people build as much as they want.

[Karabeep]

Originally posted by Kojema:

my main issue with stronghold 2 was the balance. the walls were basically constructed out of cardboard paper and the xbows inside the warwagon was waaaay too op. yeah they can be countered by flaming ♥♥♥♥♥ but the fact that xbo in war wagon was just click and achieve and the counter reqired precision micro was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Bad news for you on walls then they are weak paper walls again watched people play the demo and walls get 1 or 2 hit buy the rocket launcher unit