Is there any official word on whether or not the AI will be revamped?
I haven’t seen any official word on this Amazingly Important topic.
Will the .cty / .per / .ai text system remain or change? Will they reuse the old AI’s, make all new ones, or a mix of both? What can players expect? What can modders expect? Will they cheat? Will they negotiate?
There was a lot of unused AI interaction text in the original game. I’d love to see an AI that’s more personable, and will say something other than “Your petty offerings will not sway my determination to crush your empire!” If you’re really lucky, you can tribute one >1000 gold and he says “Your empire is worthy of my allegiance” and becomes your ally. But there’s a lot more text for the AI to use than those two lines, it would be cool to see it resurface in AOE DE.
They probably will improve the AI from the original game like they did with AOEII HD, I do hope they give us the option of playing with the old AI too.
I assume that they will be looking at revamping the ai already available, and I do think it needs to be done regardless.
That said, remember that the underlying engine is the same engine used in age 1, and although it is going to see upgrades, I’m not sure how much it will stretch when it comes to improved ai. I am hoping for a much improved ai, and hopefully improved system as well for creation
One of the most pressing issues I think they need to solve with Unit AI (Unit AI, not AI) is the targeting. If you look at the small clip on the AoE website, focus on the centurion/phalanx in the center of the screen - he takes LOADS of damage without fighting back, because his pathing gets stuck when trying to get to a unit that’s too far away. If this was fixed so that units would target whatever units were closest instead of picking a far away target (meaning more time is spent walking and taking damage, less time spent fighting), this would greatly improve the combat.
@RWNorthPole said:
One of the most pressing issues I think they need to solve with Unit AI (Unit AI, not AI) is the targeting. If you look at the small clip on the AoE website, focus on the centurion/phalanx in the center of the screen - he takes LOADS of damage without fighting back, because his pathing gets stuck when trying to get to a unit that’s too far away. If this was fixed so that units would target whatever units were closest instead of picking a far away target (meaning more time is spent walking and taking damage, less time spent fighting), this would greatly improve the combat.
In the original the AI always targeted the unit with the lowest HP. In some situations this worked very well. It was always hard to keep low HP units, as enemy archers always targeted them first. But that also made it possible to bait enemy melee units by hitting and running with a single low HP archer while killing the enemy with all the other units.
I think the optimal way for the AI would be to attack the weakest unit within a certain range, so they can still pick off the weak units first, but so that their slow melee units will no longer chase after individual bowmen while ignoring all the melee units right next to them.
I think if they are going to improve the AI, it is necessary, you can not do a remastering that when playing a map of islands we enemies do not move from the initial island.
@RWNorthPole said:
One of the most pressing issues I think they need to solve with Unit AI (Unit AI, not AI) is the targeting. If you look at the small clip on the AoE website, focus on the centurion/phalanx in the center of the screen - he takes LOADS of damage without fighting back, because his pathing gets stuck when trying to get to a unit that’s too far away. If this was fixed so that units would target whatever units were closest instead of picking a far away target (meaning more time is spent walking and taking damage, less time spent fighting), this would greatly improve the combat.
They have announced that AoE DE will feature an attack move option i.e. units that are commanded to “attack move” a certain point will attack everything in their path e.g. a unit pathing its way.
One thing that needs to be fixed is the game victory conditions relating to computer players. In AoE RoR, when the victory conditions are set to “conquest,” the computer player still tries to win the game by building a wonder.
@RWNorthPole said:
One of the most pressing issues I think they need to solve with Unit AI (Unit AI, not AI) is the targeting. If you look at the small clip on the AoE website, focus on the centurion/phalanx in the center of the screen - he takes LOADS of damage without fighting back, because his pathing gets stuck when trying to get to a unit that’s too far away. If this was fixed so that units would target whatever units were closest instead of picking a far away target (meaning more time is spent walking and taking damage, less time spent fighting), this would greatly improve the combat.
That’s actually the difference between a defensive move and an attack move. Concerning the AI they should include the battle wave experiences of AOE Online and how you can control this as a player against AI or other players.
well, i would think that the ai MUST be improved. my own experience w/ higher population cap is that the AI tends to not give a crap and use the same number of units. even when i downloaded the Age of Empire HD mod (look it up, this is a thing. they improve lots of thigns) and it has improved AI and pathfinding, and villies no longer break and crowd on a cliff, stuff liek that. and even with the improvements made by the modders, the ai still couldn’t cope w/ 255 population limit. so i’d say that you would NEED better ai. ■■■■ the ai in AoE2 is up to teh task. when i gave THAT ai 500 cap to use, it practically covered the map. i saw two ais going at it and it was freaking world war BCE on the screen. it was glorious.
I hope that the AI gets improved like in the HD edition of AoE II. I think the best way, as some people already said, is to implement the old and the new AI into the game.
@LordCookiefox said:
well, i would think that the ai MUST be improved. my own experience w/ higher population cap is that the AI tends to not give a crap and use the same number of units. even when i downloaded the Age of Empire HD mod (look it up, this is a thing. they improve lots of thigns) and it has improved AI and pathfinding, and villies no longer break and crowd on a cliff, stuff liek that. and even with the improvements made by the modders, the ai still couldn’t cope w/ 255 population limit. so i’d say that you would NEED better ai. hell the ai in AoE2 is up to teh task. when i gave THAT ai 500 cap to use, it practically covered the map. i saw two ais going at it and it was freaking world war BCE on the screen. it was glorious.
Population capacity is not the only important element regarding AI. Sometimes it can be harder to play a campaign with a limited pop capacity. At those times you are forced to fine grain your control of the units, you can’t destroy a base at once e.g. I think diversity in attack waves and how they attack is more important, and not the high pop cap numbers. Also certain new defensive measures of AI can make the game more challenging. Most important it must be fun to play, but also easy to start with if you want to reach a brand new audience and generation of AOE players. Because the king is back and he’s here to stay for a while.
While Unity may have given you this impression there is no magical checkbox that gives games “Good AI”. And there is no game that has ever been made where someone said “wow we should make the junkiest AI possible, fire all the AI guys and throw Igor the Intern on that”
As long as the AI actively seeks out targets to invade in large groups, it will be pretty difficult. Especially on the higher difficulties. They will also pick the deadliest units too and utilize everything.
