Just let the AI skip the recruitment

[eddiemccandless]

Deep blue in the end was capable of defeating Kasparow.

So given a fixed ruleset it is possible to create an AI to defeat a genius player.

I don‘t expect Taleworlds replicating this, as it wouldn’t be fun for most of the playerbase, but i find it lame and sad to say „just let AI cheat, it doesn‘t work any other way“.

Yeah Deep Blue was playing chess, not Mount And Blade. Also Deep Blue, Stockfish, Alpha Zero and other dedicated chess engines were developed by people that actually did research on artificial intelligence for a living, not game developers. Now don't get me wrong, I am sure Taleworlds has a lot of smart people working for them, but what you are suggesting is more than likely out of their depths. And as I said before, even if they developed such an AI, you would not have fun playing against it. Playing chess against full strength Stockfish is not enjoyable.

Even with that aside, I would rather have a basic functioning game with all features fleshed out, then we can think about having a smarter AI. Honestly it's also not either a dumb AI or AlphaZero, you can definitely have something in between. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the system that was in place for Warband worked just fine imo. It wasn't perfect, but it did the job.

 

[Pejot]

Played a while after recent 1.3 hotfix and I've run into 3 lords spawned in the middle of nowhere with 0 troops. They have no fiefs.

 

[SturgiaStrong]

So you just want comeback of old Warband AI recruitment system. But I remember that people were complaining and talking that this system is boring, when enemy lords had doomstacks even their faction had only 1 holding left.

 

[Maximum997]

Playing chess against full strength Stockfish is not enjoyable.

Good example is a campaign AI fron Total War Warhammer 1 and 2. In 1 he was a lot of smarter, but you felt like he is just want you to delete the game.
In 2-nd he is more stupid, but more fun to play against.

 

[SturgiaStrong]

Good example is a campaign AI fron Total War Warhammer 1 and 2. In 1 he was a lot of smarter, but you felt like he is just want you to delete the game.
In 2-nd he is more stupid, but more fun to play against.

Smarter is always better

 

[Kreu2009]

All strategy games that I have ever played need AI cheats. Once you find out how to beat the AI it needs help.

Age of empires 2 Definitive edition has none cheating AI. Its awesome! Since i played it i can't go back to any other strategy game.
Yes its difficult to make your AI smart enough so it doesn't have to cheat. But its totally worth it if you can do it!

 

[crewsk8200]

I disagree, training should mean that units are Trained. And until they change the names, Trained is T3.

Seems fair.

 

[Maximum997]

Smarter is always better

Nope. Becouse in Tww1 i used only one tactic to outsmart him over and over. And Tww2 i have a lot of different tactics.

And guess what - using only one tactic over and over again can be really boring.

 

[eddiemccandless]

So you just want comeback of old Warband AI recruitment system. But I remember that people were complaining and talking that this system is boring, when enemy lords had doomstacks even their faction had only 1 holding left.

I did say it wasn't perfect. But it was way better than the mess we have now. I would like for them to start with that, flesh out the game more, and then we can talk about how AI can be improved.

We don't even have all the rules laid out yet. Perks aren't working. Build the best AI you can think of now, and you will have to change it after you introduce new perks that affect the lords.

 

[Thelior]

Totally agree, I always play on very hard because of it. But my point is that if Creative Assembly hasnt managed to make a proper AI who needs no buffs in all these years, im sure as hell Taleworlds isnt going to pull it out. In the case of Total War games the issue is that its too simplystic and the player has absolute control on his faction and what he does, so its easy to steamroll when you reach a certain point,

Thats also the point why i don‘t enjoy TW games the way i would like to anymore.

while in M&B you can only have absolute control and steamroll your party, not your entire faction.

Its kinda balanced because the player starts his faction from zero and has to put a lot of effort initially, and even when he gets going and gets similar size to other kingdoms, the only part where his kingdom is OP is the player itself and what he can do, so it is still an OP faction because the other are not smart enough and you will eventually steamroll, but its going to take a while and its not going to be easy either.

Im thinking playing a sandbox, shouldn‘t the player make the difference? Didn‘t like Warband games, when AI conquered 1/3 of the map while i slowly build up my army and a game later AI is useless... But balancing this is not easy, especially because of the wide playerbase. In M&B you have a lot „try hard’’ but also a lot of casual players.

So another mechanic to balance even that would be that if the player gets too big the AI should come together to be more aggressive to him. And in total war games what i feel is that they miss having a proportional balance, like the bigger the player gets, the more buffs the AI receives, only way to make late game interesting even on harder difficulties, because even when I play on very hard I never end my campaigns because I know I won already.

That would be a good approach. The massive AI aggressiveness in early game is mostly an annoyance and in late game it doesn’t really matter. But even there Creative Assembly doesn‘t really care, as long as they can push out new DLC or “new“ games. Im hoping Taleworld isn‘t going down that road.

 

[Thelior]

I did say it wasn't perfect. But it was way better than the mess we have now. I would like for them to start with that, flesh out the game more, and then we can talk about how AI can be improved.

We don't even have all the rules laid out yet. Perks aren't working. Build the best AI you can think of now, and you will have to change it after you introduce new perks that affect the lords.

As beeing a developer myself i can say that such quick and dirty approaches to major problems have an annoying tendency to stick arround, because they seam to work and as consequence they would only be touched if really necessary. I‘d prefer a clean fix even if it takes time. We‘re in EA for a reason.

 

[Thelior]

Yeah Deep Blue was playing chess, not Mount And Blade. Also Deep Blue, Stockfish, Alpha Zero and other dedicated chess engines were developed by people that actually did research on artificial intelligence for a living, not game developers. Now don't get me wrong, I am sure Taleworlds has a lot of smart people working for them, but what you are suggesting is more than likely out of their depths. And as I said before, even if they developed such an AI, you would not have fun playing against it. Playing chess against full strength Stockfish is not enjoyable.

Even with that aside, I would rather have a basic functioning game with all features fleshed out, then we can think about having a smarter AI. Honestly it's also not either a dumb AI or AlphaZero, you can definitely have something in between. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the system that was in place for Warband worked just fine imo. It wasn't perfect, but it did the job.

Yeah, i was exeggarating a bit with this example. But this is because i would prefer such an approach before a „quick and dirty“ fix. And of course because chess is simply a good example for a fixed ruleset, without interpretation.

 

[Maximum997]

Yeah, i was exeggarating a bit with this example. But this is because i would prefer such an approach before a „quick and dirty“ fix. And of course because chess is simply a good example for a fixed ruleset, without interpretation.

Rules in chess are pretty simple. But in videogames they are not.

 

[SmattlePattle]

I want improvement but I get its also challenging. I'm too far removed from game development to know what it would truly take but I sure like the idea of making it work rather than cheesing it. A working system would allow more meaningful nuance, cheesing it will just create a more fake/static game world.

 

[Thelior]

Rules in chess are pretty simple. But in videogames they are not.

I won't argue with that. Chess has, albeit beeing quite large, a limited set of reasonable moves that are available. There is a huge amount of documented gameplay that can be used to train AI's. So it is "easy" to write a appropiate AI.

In a sandbox game like M&B on the other hand you have much more variables to put in consideration for an AI response, with the player beeing the least predictable (unlike in chess, where experienced players just won't make some moves, albeit beeing possible).

My point is, that this "don't even try to fix, just let AI cheat" attitutde is (in my oppinion) just wrong.

Maybe this is a thing that Taleworld won't fix, like in Warband. Be it so. At least i think the improved modding capabilities may make a fix through modding possible.

Of course i hope that TW is going the hard route trying to resolve this issue or else they may fall to the dark side by taking the easy way...

 

[stevehoos]

AI is ultimately predictable. It's only going beat the player unless it has more soldiers or better units=Bonuses. It's as simple as that. I have been modding strategy games for 20 years.

 

[Thelior]

Well the AI should have a bonus in comparison to the player, but only in early/mid game and not by cheating, but by game mechanics. The long streched wars in Warband, where one city kingdoms can field 10 full size lord party's, are just annoying at that gamestage, not challenging.

Therefore i suggested earlier, that the XP bonus to training does depend on the leadership skill (which AI lords have quite the advantage). And restock is possible from militia for owned fief's.

The player has quite a bit of training to do, to catch up with the AI, but in lategame the bonus for the AI isn't really existant to not overstretch the last wars, which the player mostly wins anyway. (stashed elite troops in garrison that are ready to collect, hero character's which the AI has no access to, etc.)

If we are honest enough: no player would start wars he couldn't win. An the little attemps of wars against a new player kingdom are mostly useless, because of the ridiculous stacks of trained man in your "starting" fief's. I don't really see a difference between Warband an Bannerlord in this point. Only if a player rushes his own kingdom without preparing he may get his *ss whopped.

Not to speak of beeing in an EA that, i least hope so, is bound to change quite a bit until release.

 

[Dabos37]

I like the way It works now. It is a mix of AI cheating and at the same time AI uses similar rules than the player. Why change It? I do not get why Lords AI recruiting some units should be removed.

 

[Maximum997]

AI is ultimately predictable. It's only going beat the player unless it has more soldiers or better units=Bonuses. It's as simple as that. I have been modding strategy games for 20 years.

Exactly. AI developer should just make beating AI fun and enjoyeble.

When players speaking about AI they always tell about "F.E.A.R" I played it about year ago, and AI wasnt so great, his actions looks very cool and immersive, yes. But you still can see the patterns and exploit it.

And really good combat AI was in HoMM3 when you fight against heroes.