AI allies will sometimes abruptly stop fighting in the lategame

:arrow_forward: GAME INFORMATION

  • GAME BUILD #: 100.12.30181.0
  • GAME PLATFORM: Steam
  • OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 10

:arrow_forward: ISSUE EXPERIENCED

Sometimes, late in the game, AI allies will suddenly stop fighting and just sit there with all its troops in its base. It will defend its base, but stop going on the offensive. No number of taunts or commands will get them back up again.

AI will still gather resources and build units if pop space allows.

More details in the “Image” section below.

:arrow_forward: FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

  • 50% of the time / matches I play (FREQUENTLY)
    In the particular game whose recording I am attaching , two of the three AI allies just abruptly went to sleep.

:arrow_forward: REPRODUCTION STEPS

Here’s the steps to reproduce the issue:

  1. Play a game with AI allies on Amazonia (I do not know if this issue is specific to Amazonia). In my case it was a 4v4 match will 3 AI allies and 4 AI enemies on Hardest difficulty.
  2. Sometimes AI allies will stop fighting after a while.

:arrow_forward: EXPECTED RESULT

The AI is supposed to be attacking and defending as necessary, not keeping its entire military idle.

:arrow_forward: IMAGE

Here are a few pictures. I have written a short description for each image under the picture.


Note that the Chinese and Haudenosaunee AI have a fixed number of units towards the end as they have stopped fighting.


Here you see the entire Chinese ally AI sitting in its base doing nothing in the lategame. Towards the beginning it was quite active, but suddenly it just froze up.


It has also stopped building ships. At first I thought it’s because the AI has no wood. I tributed Kangxi some wood, and he still didn’t build ships anymore. In the mid-game, he was actually building ships as required.


For some reason the Haudenosaunee AI has garrisoned its canoes inside the dock. However, I think these canoes have units in them, and these units (taking about 90 pop space) are stuck in the canoe, which is in turn stuck in the dock. There are no Haudenosaunee military units on the map, but the timeline says there’s around 90 pop worth of military, so it must all be stuck in the dock! Maybe I should make a separate post about this issue??

:arrow_forward: GAME FILES (SAVE / RECORDING)

Here is the recording of this match (which by the way I enjoyed a lot). It was a 3 hour long match, so the recording is huge. I’m pasting a link here:

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2 Likes

Yes, I can confirm this happens almost every game in late game which is around 45 minutes.

Often all 3 AI allies go to sleep.

The devs really need to dedicate a patch just for the AI imo.

2 Likes

there is 0 wood. The AI can not play without wood.

No, it seems related to player scores. It seems the AI prioritizes agression now based on player score. In late gane, one player gets a lot of score so everyone just stops attacking.

1 Like

How does that make sense, if the score is high, they should attack them no?

No. If the score is too high they just stay in base defending.

Thanks for responding to the thread guys. The score being the issue makes sense. Somehow it only applies to the allies - the enemies attack just fine. Hopefully the devs will take a look at this, since playing against the AI is really all I do to enjoy the game.

1 Like

Enemy AI stops attacking too. I play vs AI ffa, and if i have the lowest score, all AIs will attack me. If I gain score, AI will leave me alone. If I am left with just one AI and I totally outscore it, it will just stay in base, but react when attacked.

Developers,

Is there a plan to fix this issue?

Check this post: ‘AI Builds Walls’ button needs adding to Skirmish :: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Discusiones generales (steamcommunity.com)
Apparently this guy could give the ai the ability to build walls changing one “inactive” with “active”. It also seems in the same file a lot of functions inactive, I’ll see what I can do tinkering with the file.

until these AI issues fixed I reccomend FFA games… they are causal, much funner with people, full of varied skills… you can learn new things, meet new people. etc…

These functions have been in the game since the orginal release 2005. But the functions are disabled for many reasons. Such as the walling is literly garbage. They ignore several stuff like mines and traderoutes, also if you would build a base right next to them ( Some maps have very close spawns ! ) They would wall right thorugh your base, and the other allies too.
The code for walling would need an entire rework, building and rewalling if destroyed.
Personally i´d rather have an AI, that learns to hunt propperly, and starts propperly counter your units.