AGEOD Forums

It has been almost three months since the release of RUS and still one of the major campaigns lacks a proper AI.

I have tried to push for an answer by concluding posts with a silly Cato variation:

OneArmedMexican wrote:Ceterum censeo intellegentiam artificam in Drang Campaign necessariam esse.

And in a more serious way:

OneArmedMexican wrote:Does this mean there won't be a proper AI for the Drang Campaign in the near future?
You guys did a good job, ironing out most of the bugs so far. But frankly, one of the major campaigns in a game lacking an AI is a big deal for me.
I am fine with serving as a paying beta tester, but I would be somewhat pissed off if the RUS developpers were to simply leave that campaign as it is.
We all know that AGEOD and now SEPRUS are very small companies, but marketing a strategy game without an AI is like selling a shooter without guns or publishing a RPG lacking chunks of dialogue.
IMO, the AI in RUS is its strongest asset. I hope the last campaign will get one, too.

Neither got me any reaction. So once again my question: Dear SEPRUS team, will you include a proper AI for the Drang Campaign in the next patch?
This campaign has huge potential. However, without some work done on the AI this campaign will hardly be played - except for the occasional PBEM. That very few bugs have been reported for this campaign just proves this point.

I'm with you. I thought it looked totally kewl, loaded it up as the Reds, and prepared to be steam-rollered. Sort of Barbarossa avant la lettre. But the Germans just let themselves get slaughtered. I was beginning to wonder why they hadn't mapped the rest of Germany so I could bring the benefits of Communism to Western Europe.

Edit: from something he said on another thread, I think Clovis is working on this now. If so, this is good news as Clovis is a real wizard at AI design. I look forward to this scenario.

I'm rather interested in the answer as well.

I have not played RUS much ( just finished another AACW campaign :cool , but I would be surprised if Drang scenarion has no "proper" AI. Most probably, it has the generic Ageod AI, which is pretty good, unless you deliberately exploit her weaknesses. What it lacks is Clovis's scripts...
As to Clovis, he is MIA, apparently (burnout after RUS release ?) I just hope his absence is shorter than the last one...:love

Regards

Franciscus wrote:I have not played RUS much ( just finished another AACW campaign :cool , but I would be surprised if Drang scenarion has no "proper" AI. Most probably, it has the generic Ageod AI, which is pretty good, unless you deliberately exploit her weaknesses. What it lacks is Clovis's scripts...
As to Clovis, he is MIA, apparently (burnout after RUS release ?) I just hope his absence is shorter than the last one...:love

Regards

Indeed the Drang Campaign is able to use the generic Ageod AI, however if you play a few rounds, you will notice that it is unable to come up with anything more than passive behaviour in this mammoth of a campaign. Like TheDoctorKing mentioned in this thread, it is waitening to get slaughtered.

I wouldn't be this insistent if I didn't remember the promises of the developpers to provide an improved AI. First, they said it would be a matter of one or two weeks after the release. Then it was supposed to be part of patch 1.01. And now there is just silence ...

Sorry, but I am starting to feel treated like a fool.

Hang in there, OneArmed, I just realized that Clovis has remain active, under a new alias: "Athens" (you probably know this, though... )

http://www.ageod-forum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=293

I believe more patches are to come but 'its been so quiet' since Clovis left ....

I was informed a patch will come early next week.

Thank you! All I wanted to hear was some reassurance that the SEPRUS team has not given up on filling this last huge gap in what is already an excellent game.

A related aspect is that I believe the Drang Campaign might be an excellent testing field as to how the AGE engine is suited for WW I scenarios. Something which might be advantagous for the development of PoN which seems to contain such a scenario.
Personally, I suspect that some basic rules of the AGE games might not fit in that period. In particular, attrition due to harsh weather forces you to take winter quarters in regions with structures. This feature will most certainly prevent the simulation of static fronts in trench warfare. Instead of being deployed in a continous linear front troops would have to be concentrated in the major cities to get them through the winter. Therefore, it might be worthwhile considering whether a high entrenchment value shouldn't protect from attrition due to harsh weather.

OneArmedMexican wrote:Personally, I suspect that some basic rules of the AGE games might not fit in that period. In particular, attrition due to harsh weather forces you to take winter quarters in regions with structures. This feature will most certainly prevent the simulation of static fronts in trench warfare. Instead of being deployed in a continous linear front troops would have to be concentrated in the major cities to get them through the winter. Therefore, it might be worthwhile considering whether a high entrenchment value shouldn't protect from attrition due to harsh weather.

Here comes a question i had in mind for a long : Why can't we entrench the units up to level 8 in RUS, when we're already in a WWI trench warfare period ?

In AACW, the high level entrenched units survive quiet well to hard winter, except maybe in Missouri/Arkansas, but it is still OK (it should have anyway a cost to let big concentrations of troops far from any structural logistic helps like towns/ports/railroads/depots). And if you really want to protect them perfectly, it's still possible to invest in a depot in each region of your front (depot which are much less expensive than in AACW, BTW)...
Maybe let the trenches be at least level 6 or 7 and it will solve this problems.

andatiep wrote:Here comes a question i had in mind for a long : Why can't we entrench the units up to level 8 in RUS, when we're already in a WWI trench warfare period ?

In AACW, the high level entrenched units survive quiet well to hard winter, except maybe in Missouri/Arkansas, but it is still OK (it should have anyway a cost to let big concentrations of troops far from any structural logistic helps like towns/ports/railroads/depots). And if you really want to protect them perfectly, it's still possible to invest in a depot in each region of your front (depot which are much less expensive than in AACW, BTW)...
Maybe let the trenches be at least level 6 or 7 and it will solve this problems.

simply because Russian troops were poor at entrenching during ww1 and the RCW.You're reasoning in abstract.