I had a 3v3 match of Romans vs Spartans expecting an infantry mash but all the AIs went Knight or Xbow and completly ignored the barracks, no Legionaires or Hoplites just swarms of Cavaliers and Xbows with some Halberdiers later.
Testing it further I played against Romans with two Camel Civs on my side (Hindustanis & Gurjaras) thinking perhaps the Camels would dissuade the Romans from going all into Knights and maybe using that infantry their civ is so known for. This did not work they still focused on Knights but mixed in more Halberdiers. They did train some Centurions later (probably thought it was a Knight)
My estimation of the AOE2 DE AI is it is probably the most competent but also least entertaining of the definitive editions and AOE4 because it seems to play roughly the same regardless of civ.
I wanted to suggest the AI get some more personalities we could choose from to add more variety and let them do more varied strategies even if they are not the most optimal or the AI canāt pull it off 100% effectively.
Things like Defender (builds walls) Infantry/Cavalry/Missile Commander (prefers certain unit types) Rusher, Unusual (likes to build their UU)
Right now the AI seems good if you are practicing before going online but its not that interesting to fight for its own sake for me at least unlike AOE3 DE and AOE4
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Yeah Iāve noticed this as well and it sure gets boring after a while. Always knights and/or archer spam no matter the civ. I think it has to do with the fact that the AI devs know the militia line is not viable so that would need fixing first.
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Maybe it should just be made worth, to give the game more variety, not less
4 Likes
Knights and Xbows are pretty much the meta compared to go for Infantry. I cant really help with that. Having the AI use inferior units isnt really what we need.
I think the AI should at least try to play to the strengths of the civ it is given otherwise the AI might aswell just be disabled for certain civs if its going to stick to the most meta strategy regardless of if the civ they are playing has any synergy with it.
For casual play its very dull to make a team of Viking AI and not get a single Beserk or infantry horde and just get inferior knight spam again.
I never claimed they should not plya into their strengths. Like what happens in multiplayer as well: Many civs default to using knights and/or xbows. UU are sometimes rarely used. Then there isnt a good reason for the AI to use them too. For civs that are relying on their UU, then it makes sense for the AI to do the same.
Just forcing the AI to use UU is a terrible idea.
Feel free to replace UU with infantry or whatever other unit.
Yeah I think the gameās balance needs to be fixed first. Infantry (especially Militia line) is useless and so are a lot of uniques, which IMO majorly sucks and makes the game far less interesting/varied.
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The AI should have more personality they donāt have this problem with any of the other Age of Empires games, in AOE3 it would be like if every civ went for Hussars but instead they try to make use of the stronger and unique aspects of their civ. Does that mean invevitably some AI are better than others? Sure but I think it makes them more memorable and fun.
I donāt think people are playing vs AI for a highly competitive game with an opponent that is keeping up with the meta, at that point you might as well play vs Humans.
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Stupid question but does the AoE2 AI know how to handle Chronicles civs at all?
I played Spartans vs. Aztecs. The Spartans have no unit that can counter Jaguar Warriors at all but the Aztec AI just build Champions, Pikeman and Elite Skirmishers not a single Jaguar Warrior.
Against most civs the Jaguar Warrior is currently pretty useless but they should completely dominate against Spartans.
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Iām not sure if the AI actually knows about the unique aspects of unique units? Maybe it just sees a Jaguar Warrior as an infantry unit and I assume Champions are better in raw stats so it builds those so it canāt connect the dots of Jaguar getting bonus vs Infantry and its opponent is making infantry so it should build those.
This sounds plausible tbh
The AI doesnāt āknowā unit stats nor do they āknowā anything.
AoE AI is just a hand written script. If the script would say to build Skirmishers against Knights the AI would happily do so.
So the Aztec (or AoE2 AI in general) donāt have a reaction to Hoplites or Chronicles UUs coded in so they just fall back to their default unit, the Champion.
At least that is my theory. They could have coded it more generic.
āIf enemy unit type = Infantry train Jaguar Warriorā
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Yes when I say āknowā I mean what instructions it has been fed, Iām aware the AI is not a sentient entity lol. Just using common terms.
I donāt know how AOE2 AI is scripted. If the AI āseesā units by tags ie Ranged, Infantry, Cavalry, Siege it could somewhat react to counter hoplites as it would be tagged as infantry and it would not nessicarily need new instructions