Feedback and new Ideas AOE 2 DE Extreme AI

Feedback AOE 2 DE Extreme AI
I have tested the AI for a lot of hours and played against it myself and I noticed some things that should be fixed.
I will be very direct and do not want to attack you with it just absolute clarity! So do not take angry :).

The tests were against me, HD AI and the Barbarian AI that you can download in the mods.
Now for feedback:

  • Too late researching Elite Skirmisher technology:
    As good as always I noticed the AI in the Castle Age does not research Elite Skirmisher technology but only in the Imp Age, which makes no sense because the AI builds a lot of Skimisher and it is therefore inferior especially against the Barbarian AI. In the ideal case it should collect so many resources that after reaching the Castle Age it should research it immediately.
    With the crossbow technology it works almost perfectly! Both research directly after Castle Age would be top!

  • Improved Scouting:
    In scouting, the comparison to the Barbarian AI was very stark. The new AI should scout with even more animals (sheep, etc.) in different directions, including the newly found! The scout should not go long but because of the AI gets to see more resources, etc. faster.
    The scout itself should find the enemy faster and run across the map, because very often the enemy is not found and thus the Rushes special Militia Rush does not work. This can be observed very well with the Barbarian AI!
    I as a player also look for the opponent very quickly.
    In the Feudal Age would be when the AI sends several individual units to further discover the map as an example Skirmishers, because they are trash units. The units very often just stand around and do nothing. They don’t have to scout all the time but just discover more in all directions.

  • Disastrous use of land units against ships:
    The AI is so bad against ships especially Fireships. Always the archers, skimishers etc. are in range and can be shot down or burned. The ships have hardly any range no player would just leave them standing there. So many resources are burned which is simply unnecessary. Just check how far the ships can shoot and stand so that they are not hit or simply flee, because some ships are much stronger e.g. Gally, to save resources. Likewise it should withdraw more the Meele troops.

  • Partially catastrophic use of land units against Castels and TCs:
    Often when the AI sees a Castel it just sends all its units to their death instead of retreating or. Especially often if it spots it by accident, but then retreating would be even smarter since you are unprepared. Then come back with the necessary victory Engins and flatten the Castel.
    Sometimes the AI sends 20-30 crossbowmen to their deaths simply to burn resources, which makes no sense. The same goes for TCs especially in the Feudal Age. The troops can check how far a Castel/TC can fire and stay away from the radius. Sometimes the AI has a higher range than the TC and still sends the troops in the firing range of the TC.

  • Better Feudal Rush:
    It doesn’t matter which Rush I take but the Barbarian AI is almost always better as it makes multiple troop groupings and thus attacks from multiple sides. I would also like to see this in the Extreme AI. Often the AI will then attack a building permanently a house or Lumber Camp instead of running around the Town Center to find Villagers or cripple production. Players like to do this with a combination of hit and run tactics, usually consisting of 5-10 archers per group running together and targeting individual Villagers to kill them more efficiently.
    That would be so cool for extreme AI!

  • Questionable Placements of Lumber Camps and Mining Camps:
    In just about every test game, it always builds a building in the enemy base, even though there are so many other resources nearby most outside. Why does she always build these buildings right in the opponent’s base and lose resources and Villagers. Can’t she just use the other resources instead of building them in the opponent’s base, which is way too aggressive?
    It makes no sense to me as a player.

  • Adding Strategy Boar Steeling:
    It would be so cool if the Extreme AI tried to steal the boar from the other player. Would be a good addition to improved scouting! Barbarian AI has the strategy too.

  • Completely fail on island maps:
    On maps like Islands or Archipelago, the AI completely fails. It never sends transport ships to the enemy or even sends transport ships to the next islands to build town centers or just mine the resources.there are transport ships standing around please fix!
    All AIs CD, HD, Barbarian AI are better by far. The new AI just stays on its island and eventually dies. In addition, the AI builds far too few ships to defend and attack. The AI simply cannot play these maps at all, period.

  • Better placement of farms at mills:
    So the “Windmill” buildorder is the best at building farms please adjust the AI to it if it is map technically possible. Often the AI builds it always somehow wrong. Photo follows.

If you have more questions please ask me! I noticed more, but I think that is enough for the first time and also the most important things.
I hope you understood everything.
Greetings Xander10alpha

1 Like

The AI should only go elite skirms if it spots xbows imo. This is one of the problems with Barbarian even is that it sometimes spends resources on the wrong units for the situation.

It should also keep pushing—extreme will wait until the user clicks up to Imp to send its full force at you

I don’t think it should be laming, because then everyone would hate it. I would be ok if laming was an optional setting that it had. I agree with most of these, especially the ones about ships and castles. I personally think that one of the most important things is that it needs to be able to do different kinds of rushes and builds. Currently it normally builds a ton of archers and skirmishers before attacking, and its Castle Age time suffers. It should build a few, see if it gets value, and then determine if it needs more. It should also not go overboard on counter units, and only mix in a relevant number.

The strats and builds I think it should be able to do as top priority:

  • Drush
  • Drush Fast Castle
  • Man at arms/Militia into Archers
  • Archer rush
  • Scout rush
  • Man at Arms and Towers
  • Tower rush
  • Fast Castle
  • Fast Castle Knights
  • Fast Castle Crossbows
  • Fast Castle Castle Drop
  • Fast Castle Monk Siege push
  • Fast Imperial

As well as civ specific strats or variations, like the Lithuanian super drush, or Mongol 19 pop scouts. It should then calculate the most viable strat, especially in the matchup and map, and play like that.