Peninsular war scenario: 100% passive AI

Ryben · Post by **Ryben** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:09 pm

I´ve just played the 1808 Peninsula war scenario as French. And i say played because most of the time i´ve just clicked on "next turn" waiting for something to happen.

Settings were standard. In a few turns i moved my forces to the north of spain where a small spanish force was garrisoned. The AI didn´t try to attack me (although our forces where equal). After destroying them i´ve moved to the south where i wipe the rest of the forces and take Gibraltar too. Both Spain and Portugal surrendered. This happened around turn 11. I spent rest of the scenario clicking on next turn, fearing a massive British counterattack. Nope.

1808 Peninsular war (French side)

AI doesn´t build any troops.

AI doesn´t try to counterattack

AI doesn´t move ANY british forces into Spain.

So...what´s happening here? There was no beta-testing on this scenario? This one needs a HUGE revamp. Developers, please take note!

wooman99 · Post by **wooman99** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 1:26 pm

Hmmm after reading your post i started a game as french.
Had the allies on moderate and i saw no problem.The english were
moving troops from england to land in spain and the the others where moving to engage me.

1808 campaign worked fine for me. As it has the last 3 times ive played.
Im waiting for the patch for the 1805 campaign where the AI IS PASSIVE!
CHEERS!

Ryben · Post by **Ryben** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 2:20 pm

Very strange! I´ll play again with the same settings...maybe i´ve done something that triggered a strange AI response.

joerock22 · Post by **joerock22** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 7:29 pm

I actually had the same passive AI problem on the 1808 campaign, so Ryben wasn't the only one. Spain has inferior troops, but what I want to see is Britain send substantial reinforcements like they did historically. That definately didn't happen when I played. I, too played on standard settings.

Bern · Post by **Bern** » Sun Oct 12, 2008 10:18 pm

I think with any of the scenarios you have to give the AI side the fullest advantage - doesn't work too well yet with the grand camapign, but the smaller scenarios provide a decent game. I think the human is always going to get an easy victory with standard settings.

Bern

wooman99 · Post by **wooman99** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 4:27 am

Yeah,the AI in this game from what ive seen does not give much of a game.
I have not played this one on standard because the AI pretty much sucks on that.
Even on high i never lose or come even close to lossing.But atleast the dam AI MOVES
in the 1808 campaing on meduim or high. I must say that im starting to think i wasted
my money on this game, but ill wait and see what they do about it.

Bern · Post by **Bern** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:57 am

Oh yeah - I certainly think it's worth waiting and seeing what the updated AI brings. I'm fairly confident that we will end up with a great game.

Bern

Happycat · Post by **Happycat** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 3:49 pm

wooman99 wrote:Yeah,the AI in this game from what ive seen does not give much of a game.
I have not played this one on standard because the AI pretty much sucks on that.
Even on high i never lose or come even close to lossing.But atleast the dam AI MOVES
in the 1808 campaing on meduim or high. I must say that im starting to think i wasted
my money on this game, but ill wait and see what they do about it.

Have faith, I'm sure Slitherine and associates will come through. I can assure you that this was beta tested thoroughly, and my own experience during beta, with the AI, supports what Bern says---give the AI an advantage. I must confess that a large part of my own focus was on PBEM, because that is where both CNAW and CEAW shine brightly.

I consider myself to be a competent (not dazzling) war gamer, tracing my roots in the hobby back to the 1970's. I am currently involved in PBEM's with more than one opponent for CEAW, CNAW and also SC2-PDE. It is valid to compare the PBEM experience of different games, because while I find both Slitherine games to be fantastic PBEM experiences, I find SC2 to be mediocre. And yet, others rave about SC2's AI (which is also mediocre imo).

But getting back to your point---I appreciate that not everyone has tons of time on their hands to play PBEM, and thus prefer to play a couple of hours against the AI, and of course that AI needs to be moderately competent. My first two campaign games against the AI during beta were at "no advantage", but still I lost. That was early on in the testing. Unfortunately, as I think Iain or Johan mentioned elsewhere, something that was fixed later for the final release broke something else in the AI.

These guys don't turn their backs on their customers; so I know you will ultimately feel that your money was well spent.

If you ever have time for a PBEM, feel free to PM me your email address. I think I can give you a better experience than the AI