The AI is terrible

[ArrangedCrown94]

I really hope the devs make this a priority in the next patch.

[CRothlisberger]

There used to always be a slew of small AI updates in patches, I think it has been a few patches though since we have seen that.

Hopefully they do with the season update.

[ArrangedCrown94]

AI just stands still with its villagers and doesn’t do anything with them anymore after a certain point.

[CavaliereNeroIT]

I know it’s not a real fix, but if you use the ‘‘Jakcie AI’’ mod, AI will play waaaaayyy better, even if the modding capabilities are very limited, this modder did wonder, and as an AI only player (600hrs in xd) that’s the only mod I use to tweak AI without giving them random unbalanced buffs

[VisionedTuba52]

I agree . The mod is great. But unfortunately due to the limitations of modding tools AI has a lot of problems although the mod improves the situation a bit.

[TheLiberator236]

Let’s start a new thread for greater reach
AI bad state needs to be fixed!

[VisionedTuba52]

I don’t think that’s necessary because if you need to report about any AI bug you can always describe it in the topic of bugs of the game, and to create a new thread of discussions there is no sense because basically here is collected everything that could only find about AI bugs.
About the greater reach I think this topic has gained quite a good popularity on the forum also this topic constantly rises up the forum if people discuss anything in it

If you want you can create a new Topic but I will not do it …
The more threads on the forum, the harder it will be to navigate through them.

[Darkness01101]

I think same might have happened with AoE2DE. Moderate can be a little too easy, and Hard (the next difficulty up) is a nightmare. I even used a bunch of cheats on Hard to drive 2 enemy AI back with Cobra cars (then deleted them) to give us breathing room to rebuild, and granted me 10K more resources in everything a couple times and AI still came with a formidable, relentless vengeance eventually. We just gave up and used a bunch of Cobras and Photon Men cheats to wipe them out.

Sounds like there needs to be some other difficulty betweeen the two settings in both games

[CavaliereNeroIT]

I personally think that AI in AoE2 is really bad. Not saying it’s not strong, just it’s not fun nor realistic to play against. It’s just perma spam of units till you starve to death, AoEIV AI for how bad it is, it’s at least fun to play against

[Darkness01101]

I agree that it’s unrealistic, and hope it can see more improvement over time and different AI personalities introduced… at least the latter of which has been the hope for years.

I don’t think it’s ‘really bad’, but in its present state where the AI pretty much only know one way to play (perma spam and aggro), I’m okay with it being a little unrealistic because for me to combat that I can plop down a castle or two and watch them unrealistically walk like zombies to my castles, like moths to light, where they keep dying and dying… which helps distract them from my econ and helps me survive. (At least on ‘Moderate’ this works. It’s tougher to do it on ‘Hard’ difficulty since their perma spam technique is on steroids there.)

Sometimes it’s tough to defend even with castles if they spam battering rams combined with support units and repair villys, especially if I’m not ready to defend yet or my civ is weak compared to theirs.

I prefer playing AI because I at least know I’ll win most matches at the difficulty levels I play, but it could use a lot of work still. I’d like to be able to play 1 vs. 2 on Hard, but their perma spam is often just way too much. And they tend to coordinate their timing, so it’s just too much for me … unless I get better. But even if I got better the one-dimensional perma spam personality would still be pretty annoying.

I only played a few games of AoE4 and don’t really care for it. I’ll try more at some point. Just seemed like a bunch of skirmishes with their small blob of military vs. my small blob of military, over and over again until I’m finally able to catch a dip in their sine wave of military power when I’m at a crest and I can get to their home. But come to think of it, it just feels a lot less fun than AoE2 to me with both macro and micro, and its horrible zoom level. I’m really in no rush to play AoE4 again

[VisionedTuba52]

In the next patch that will be released with the DLC Knights of Cross and Rose there will be some AI improvements, but as I understand it is quite minor and small improvements, but I still hope that the developers made more global improvements just did not put them in the list of changes. This has happened more than once.

AI Updates

• AI monarchs will now choose safer paths to shelter when Dominion victory condition is active.

• AI monarchs will now use the Sprint ability when available when Dominion victory condition is active.

• AI villagers will now correctly repair a damaged Town Center when Dominion victory condition is active.

• AI military units will now flee from monks attempting to convert them.

• The AI will now be more efficient on naval maps and maps with small amounts of water, correctly focusing on military or gathering behavior as required.

[Darkness01101]

Since I don"t and won’t play Dominion mode… and prefer land maps, the only points that I’d benefit from there on occasion are the last two – very minor and minimally seen improvements for me, since I don’t make monks either.

So, I hope there are some unannounced improveements, like you theorize

Don"t the vast majority of players play Conquest?

It’s all good if that’s it. AoE2DE is my focus anyways. AoE4 will need a number of changes and improvements to attract me over with any consistency which is why I just long for an AoE5 at this point

[Druidsbrook]

I do like Dominion mode in AOE4 since they changed the elimination rules for conquest where players in a team arn’t eliminated until every player in the team last lost all their landmarks. The change has made big team games with AI very slow as eliminating a single AI requires total extermination. The AI is quite good at defending its allies but not so good at commiting to wipe out a player (possibly becuase it still thinks the old elimination rules are in effect)

Dominion at least means single AI in a team can be picked off if you can kill their monarch. So I’m somewhat happy they are improving their behaviour in that mode although I would prefer to play conquest with the old elimination rules.

[Darkness01101]

I may try Dominion sometime then. I forgot about AoE4’s Landmarks, which I personally don’t care for. Coming from AoE1/2, I just prefer straight up Conquest in that style. I can’t recall if that isolated win method exists in AoE4 without the Landmark thing. Good points about AoE4 there

I’ve never understood Landmarks in AoE4 and wish I could play without them completely. They just get in the way and are annoying to me, all because I just want classic Conquest mode. (Last time I played, I didn’t see any way to remove them from Conquest games… still.)

Landmarks make it feel like there is a sub-element of capture the flag going on, which I absolutely don’t care for. Which is parrty why I don’t like AoE3 and its trade posts and other capture-the-flag perma-buildings

[VisionedTuba52]

Some new AI bugs in the new patch that I’ve discovered so far…

Knights Templar AI:

AI is not using new technology Lettre de Change

AI is not using new technology Treasure Towers

AI does not upgrate Templar Brother to Elite level

Holy Roman Empire AI
For some reason, the AI isn’t using Black Rider.
UPD AI does not use the new Cistercian Abbeys technology and thus loses the ability to stockpile resources in the Monastery and inspire residents near the Monastery to get resources even faster .

All AI Civilization

AI doesn’t upgrade Cupellation technology

P.s If you notice any AI bug, you can post it in this thread, but it’s better to write to support right away and then the bug will be fixed as soon as possible. https://support.ageofempires.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[VisionedTuba52]

For some reason Knights Templar AI became much worse to play after the last small patch
AI often ignores the transition to the next epoch also AI does not use pilgrims and for some reason builds a lot of barracks in the first epoch. In short Knights Templar AI is broken

The AI uses Point of Interest (in certain situations) but if the map size is large the AI does not capture Point of Interest far from its base . Although it often happens that the AI may not capture a point like Merchant Camp even near its base.
AI does not use Lost Ronin fully AI captures this point but does not use Ronin.
AI never destroys Wolf Den for gold
AI rarely captures (accidentally when most likely leading its troops near the point) Forgotten Ruins and never uses villager to mine Relic.
The AI rarely captures (randomly when it is most likely to lead its troops near a point) Abandoned Outpost and does not use this point.

P.s the only point the AI uses is Merchant Camp and it captures it more often to get additional resources.

[HungrySinger511]

I have some AI issues. This is with Hardest AI on Waterlanes. My biggest complaint is that AI cannot handle water, making many maps unplayable. It does not know to make transport ships so when the only gold on Waterlanes main island depletes, it cannot do anything. I don’t even want to try migration. around 30% of maps (which happen to be the interesting ones) being unplayable for the single player player base is an issue.

In addition, the vills will just stop working. A couple wood vills stopped working, then as soon as I hit Castle, the rest stopped. A second later the gold depleted and the gold vills stopped.

Here are many of the same vills doing nothing 9 whole minutes later. Notice 0 wood and gold per minute and 35 idle vills.

I also noticed that when a berry bush is complete, the gatherers, including any long distance traveling vills, would just give up

Also, the map has no fish and yet they make fishing ships. But no transports ;(

[VisionedTuba52]

Please report your problem to AoE 4 support. https://support.ageofempires.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Developers are reading this thread but it will take some time to process the error. It is better to write first yourself, it will be more reliable and faster.

[VisionedTuba52]

A new Patch 13.1.4420 is out and it has some fixes for the AI bugs that were described by me
Yes the changes are quite small but it’s better than nothing.

AI Updates

• AI combat ships, villagers, and military units will now correctly continue to flee when faced with enemy Incendiary Ships, military units and converting monks.

• AI players will now avoid producing fishing boats if no deepwater fish deposits are present on the map.

• AI players will now avoid building fishing boats on maps that do not have fishing spots.

• AI players will now correctly build naval military on lake maps.

• AI players will now avoid building naval military when it isn’t necessary to do so.

• Knights Templar AI players will now age up efficiently.

• The AI players will now be more aggressive after small-scale attacks if their squad is almost lost.