national armies?
 

An army of Ulm:

http://phmalacher.free.fr/Dominions/Ulm.JPG

An army of Man:
http://phmalacher.free.fr/Dominions/Man.JPG

no comments http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ February 25, 2004, 11:22: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Re: national armies?
 

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Re: national armies?
 

Dont understand? Must I point the problem?

Re: national armies?
 

I believe Pocus is trying to draw attention to the sad fact that the AI likes to build massed light infantry (and occasionally heavy infantry) rather than the more expensive national troops.

Re: national armies?
 

Of course the "knowledge" of the troops problem is because there is only one AI. It operates in general Categorys. An AI for Ulm would probably act differently than an AI for Man if there were seperate AIs.

It would be very difficiult to come up with a generalized plan which would fix this problem for Ulm without making a bigger problem for Man, or worse yet for Pangaea.

Re: national armies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It might be possible to put a greater preference on national troops for recruitment - whatever the nation, whatever their type, without greatly hindering the AIs ability to fight. (This is probably already done to some degree, but only the developers know whether the "home troop" weight can be boosted even further)

Even if, God forbid, the resulting force composition was actually worse than the current one (which seems unlikely, but you never know), it would at least result in thematically more different armies, which would make for more interesting battles in SP. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

In an ideal world, of course, the AI would be better at saving up for and building fortresses. Even if we ignore the troop recruiment aspect of fortresses, most of them pay off handsomely long-term when built in high-population provinces simply for the increased gold income. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

(Alas, we do not live in an ideal world, and the buy/save issue is hard to make good rules for an AI to follow)

Re: national armies?
 

as of now the AI put tons of temples everywhere, and dont build any castles. Perhaps some tweak is in order Gandalf. Stop thinking that something is not done, because it cant be done. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Its a game made by a small team, and they cant fix things, if nobody report them. Its a well known problem, and I'm rehashing it, with pictures this time, because it's a problem still overlooked.

Re: national armies?
 

In Gandalf Parkers "Poke in the Eye" map, with its large number of castles, the AI builds quite a lot of national units. I does however seem to go for quantity over quality. It makes sense though since the AI doesn't know what will hit it and a larger number of low tier troops are usually a lot more flexible tp use than fewer, more expensive, troops.

I got nothing to complain about in the summoning aspect of things.

Re: national armies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didnt say it couldnt be done. Nor do I think its overlooked. As you say its all rehashing and I didnt want new debaters jumping in thinking that its only an "Ulm should do this" type of problem as some of the previous discussions went. As has been said by the Devs before, specific quick little fixes will gladly be considered. And as far as I can see many haven been put in. The AI does seem to make better general use of its cavalry and javelins.

I think the best answer will be splitting the AI. And Id love to see them outside scriptable. Until then...

Using indeps to take indeps doesnt seem like a bad plan. After all they need to build home units for staying at home and guarding the capital.
hmmmmmmmm new thought. Maybe the AI needs to swap in indep armies to the capital in order to move capital armies outward? It would slow the growth of the empire but might achieve what people have in mind.

As to castle building we tried to come up with specifics. One I remember is 1 castle in any province where the AI owns the province and all the provinces touching it, and none of those provinces have a castle. It would seem to make maximum use of admin points though low on strategic-placement.

[ February 25, 2004, 16:49: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: national armies?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A gold-maximizing strategy might work better. It is the one case where the AI is sure to get a long term benefit of the fortress, regardless of whether it recruits in it at all. Additionally, it would make it easier for the AI to build more castles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

(Am I the only one who loves high-admin castles for their long-term income boost?)