Slitherine

Richard,

Version 1.5.32 (Steam + ALL DLCs; no mods)

This was a campaign game (open battle). Your AI was so slow getting out of the gate with its main line that it never reached my main line. I won the encounter on the clock and the skirmish fight. I have all the saves if you care to review. Turn #24 screenshot below.

Jack,

The same set up game as above with your AI (v2.4) swapped in before running Turn #2.

Your main line also fails to reach my mainline by Turn #24. I will actually win as I will break the skirmish melee in far upper left corner.

Now, your AI did move your main line out of the gate immediately on Turn #2. But it did something very strange. Instead of moving diagonally for a whole mess of turns and then finally straightening out and coming directly down the map; every other turn, it made 1/8 turn in place for each main line unit with no movement. It looked like it had intended to instead of come down the map diagonally, and then break right to come straight down ... that it intended to zig-zag down the map. But it lost 12 turns of travel. It never made contact. Here is a screen shot. I have all the save games if you care to review.

MarkShot wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:47 pm Richard,

Version 1.5.32 (Steam + ALL DLCs; no mods)

This was a campaign game (open battle). Your AI was so slow getting out of the gate with its main line that it never reached my main line. I won the encounter on the clock and the skirmish fight. I have all the saves if you care to review. Turn #24 screenshot below.

2020-10-12 21-36-15 Richard.jpg

The AI is reluctant to attack you in a semi-impregnable position. Essentially it is declining to make a suicidal attack.

However, because people would complain if the AI did not attack at all, it attacks half way through the time limit "to make a game of it".

In SP non-campaign battles, you have to defeat the enemy by nightfall in Open Battles, or count as losing. So adopting a "stand at the back" strategy may not leave you enough time to win.

In campaigns, for various reasons, the victory conditions only require you to have the advantage in points, which means that this check against excessively defensive tactics by the player does not work.

Thus the problem lies not with the AI, which is sensibly avoiding attacking a superior position, but with the campaign battle scoring system that is granting you a win for adopting such a strategy.

I will look into changing it so that you cannot win open campaign battles just by standing at the back of the map and winning the skirmish battle.

Thank you!

Also, you brought this up somewhere ... I am playing 15 games. Winning and low KIA/MIA for my side is resulting in me fielding a Roman SAS Unit.

I did boost my difficulty from +1 to +2, but I am still winning even when I don't sit on the back of the map. I picked up too many fine tips from rewatching YouTube (Mike/Chris) and rereading the game manual. I am just playing a better game.

MarkShot wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 4:12 pm Thank you!

Also, you brought this up somewhere ... I am playing 15 games. Winning and low KIA/MIA for my side is resulting in me fielding a Roman SAS Unit.

I did boost my difficulty from +1 to +2, but I am still winning even when I don't sit on the back of the map. I picked up too many fine tips from rewatching YouTube (Mike/Chris) and rereading the game manual. I am just playing a better game.

Don't forget to set the Campaign difficulty setting to "Progressive".

Sorry for the delay answering. Thanks for the feedback.

MarkShot wrote: ↑Mon Oct 12, 2020 1:56 pm ...
But it did something very strange. Instead of moving diagonally for a whole mess of turns and then finally straightening out and coming directly down the map; every other turn, it made 1/8 turn in place for each main line unit with no movement. It looked like it had intended to instead of come down the map diagonally, and then break right to come straight down ... that it intended to zig-zag down the map. But it lost 12 turns of travel.

This time wasting could be fixed in the current version i'm working on.

I'm interested in the saved games, can you pm me ?

Please note that using Rise Of AI on a game started without it won't give the best results as RoAI records data about formations when playing its first turn. Without this data it could do some weird moves.
Also remember the mod does deploy differently than the default AI, this has an influence on how it plays. The AI deploys before the player does, so as soon as you enter a new battle the AI has already bought and deployed its units.
If you want to compare the AIs on the same battle more accurately, save the game during your deployment purchase phase and use this as a starting point. RoAI won't be able to deploy its units by itself because the default AI has already done it, but at least it will be able to record the formations properly and avoid making weird moves.

I will collect for your tomorrow.

Download your zip from here:

<link removed>

As implemented my own quicksave and checkpoint function your zip contains my who campaign (current) with about 1,500 files.

The saves which were run with your AI have the suffix from in the game x99 (experimental and the turn number). Like this.

Thanks for the save. The behaviour you have reported has been fixed in the version i'm working on.

Jack,

Thank you very much for the AI mod.

One of the other thing I noticed when using it was that shooters/bow (with ammunition) always shot from the earliest turn they could shoot instead of waiting until they were in close range. Of course, waiting for the optimal situation of a stationary target could also result in lost kills due to the increased chance of failing to evade a charge.

So, I wouldn't say this is an outright bug ... still it looked odd from my perspective.

Shooters behaviour, especially skirmishers, has been improved in the version i'm working on.