Played a few campaigns now as the Union, I've noticed Athena doesn't seem to care enough about protecting Richmond.
She seems to transfer a lot of troops West. I can take Richmond by Summer of '63 with any idiot at the helm of the Doomstack of the Potomac. She doesn't defend forward, only leaves a powerful force at Richmond. Makes no attempt to defeat isolated corps, or take back key locations, which she abandoned, even when weakly garrisoned. (ie Fredricksburg and Williamsburg)
There is probably something to be done with the new possibilities on AI Agents, but we can't devote much time on them, as the official team. Now, this is easy to do, it just needs some will and a few hours at most for a volunteer.
Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."
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Cardinal Ape
- General of the Army
- Posts: 619
- Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:59 am
I know the true awesomeness of AGEOD's games lie in PBEM but the AI still needs some love. A whole lotta' love.
An AI that is incapable of defending its primary objective is broken. To read about the CSA not leaving anything between Washington and Richmond except for a fixed garrison sounds kinda bad... But to play through it is genuinely horrible. You spend a lot of time and brain power recruiting, moving, and organizing troops and leaders until you are finally ready to take on the end game objective. So after all of you preparation you make your move only to find that out there is zero opposition. The feeling... It totally sucks... Its like you spent all morning and afternoon making a great feast for all your friends but no one showed up for the meal. You try to console yourself. You think my friends must have been busy doing something important to miss this great feast of mine. You phone them to find out. They tell you that knew about your feast but they decided not to attend. Instead they felt it best to take a 147 day hike through the mountains of snowy Appalachia to go to a hot-dog stand in Wheeler Pennsylvania. And to top it off: none of them brought any cash or credit with them so they need me to wire them some funds so they can actually eat when they get there. What a bunch of jerks.
Yes, that was a weird way to phrase it.
I've always thought that AGEOD games have been pretty good. I have also always thought that AGEOD games would be among the best strategy games on the market if they had an AI that could offer a decent challenge to a seasoned gamer. Please do take more company time to improve Athena. Thanks for listening.
An AI that is incapable of defending its primary objective is broken. To read about the CSA not leaving anything between Washington and Richmond except for a fixed garrison sounds kinda bad... But to play through it is genuinely horrible. You spend a lot of time and brain power recruiting, moving, and organizing troops and leaders until you are finally ready to take on the end game objective. So after all of you preparation you make your move only to find that out there is zero opposition. The feeling... It totally sucks... Its like you spent all morning and afternoon making a great feast for all your friends but no one showed up for the meal. You try to console yourself. You think my friends must have been busy doing something important to miss this great feast of mine. You phone them to find out. They tell you that knew about your feast but they decided not to attend. Instead they felt it best to take a 147 day hike through the mountains of snowy Appalachia to go to a hot-dog stand in Wheeler Pennsylvania. And to top it off: none of them brought any cash or credit with them so they need me to wire them some funds so they can actually eat when they get there. What a bunch of jerks.
Yes, that was a weird way to phrase it.
I've always thought that AGEOD games have been pretty good. I have also always thought that AGEOD games would be among the best strategy games on the market if they had an AI that could offer a decent challenge to a seasoned gamer. Please do take more company time to improve Athena. Thanks for listening.
AI Agents are advisors added to a leader and restraining him to operate in a given area or seeking particular objectives. This is used in several games now but the module was not there when CW2 was released.
You have some infos here:
http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/AI_Agents
EAW use some if you want to check.
You have some infos here:
http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/AI_Agents
EAW use some if you want to check.
Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law."
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John Sedgwick
- Colonel
- Posts: 389
- Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2011 11:15 pm
- Location: NL, Canada
Cardinal Ape wrote:Yes, that was a weird way to phrase it.
Heh, that's a good analogy.
The AI really is hopeless at the moment, much worse than in AACW, and even then I had to play the CSA in the 1864 scenario before I was even remotely challenged by the AI. My first time out of the gate with CW2, I annihilated the Confederate armies in the east and took Richmond before the end of 1861. It was like Athena was trying to lose. Luckily I'm only really interested in PBEM, the singleplayer game is a total dud, but hopefully it will be improved in time.
"I'm ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
Pocus wrote:AI Agents are advisors added to a leader and restraining him to operate in a given area or seeking particular objectives. This is used in several games now but the module was not there when CW2 was released.
You have some infos here:
http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/AI_Agents
EAW use some if you want to check.
Pocus:
I am interested in trying to develop some agents. I looked at AGEWiki and understand the basic principles, but I can't find any information on how to set up the file structure. I don't own EAW yet, so I am wondering if there is better documentation available in order to get started. The documentation I have found so far is too fragmentary for me to make sense of it.
"Thank God. I thought it was a New York Regiment."- Unknown Confederate major, upon learning he had surrendered to the 6th Wisconsin.
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ArmChairGeneral
- AGEod Grognard
- Posts: 997
- Joined: Thu Nov 21, 2013 9:00 am
- Location: Austin, TX, USA
Ditto. The wikis are tantalizing, but leave us just short of being able to actually write and implement agents.
Perhaps a start-to-finish tutorial on something simple, like ability optimization would help. Show, step-by-step, how to write an Agent that tells (for example) a Training Officer to move to a specified, high build-likelihood region and take command to increase his chance of having upgrade-able units under his command each turn. With something like that to go on it would be easy to then write something for Militiamen, or possibly even Patriots if the scripts could somehow search Loyalty values.
If ability optimization is already hard-coded, perhaps an invasion path for Grant into Tennessee would be instructive. An amphibious path into KY/TN would be particularly useful as a tutorial, since it would highlight more of the edge-cases in the rules as well as show how to weight behaviors (since amphibious invasions should probably not be the most common plan).
Perhaps a start-to-finish tutorial on something simple, like ability optimization would help. Show, step-by-step, how to write an Agent that tells (for example) a Training Officer to move to a specified, high build-likelihood region and take command to increase his chance of having upgrade-able units under his command each turn. With something like that to go on it would be easy to then write something for Militiamen, or possibly even Patriots if the scripts could somehow search Loyalty values.
If ability optimization is already hard-coded, perhaps an invasion path for Grant into Tennessee would be instructive. An amphibious path into KY/TN would be particularly useful as a tutorial, since it would highlight more of the edge-cases in the rules as well as show how to weight behaviors (since amphibious invasions should probably not be the most common plan).
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tribeticus
- Captain
- Posts: 191
- Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:05 pm
- Location: Ocean, NJ
I'm disappointed that there would not be an official update to upgrade the AI based on thsee agents. It's odd to rely on fans and customers to make this important change. Playing the AI is boring and I'm disappointed in the lack of desire to improve this game.
Not all of us want to play by email and there should be a competent AI to play against. I can beat this game in 1861 without really using the depth of the strategies otherwise available to this game. It takes away from a game that should be great and covers my favorite time period of history. I know many many others feel the same way.
Robert E Lee hangs out in Richmond and never leaves. This in itself is deplorable and the opposite way this great general would behave. Lee should at least do something after being unlocked in 1862!!!!
Not all of us want to play by email and there should be a competent AI to play against. I can beat this game in 1861 without really using the depth of the strategies otherwise available to this game. It takes away from a game that should be great and covers my favorite time period of history. I know many many others feel the same way.
Robert E Lee hangs out in Richmond and never leaves. This in itself is deplorable and the opposite way this great general would behave. Lee should at least do something after being unlocked in 1862!!!!
tribeticus wrote:I'm disappointed that there would not be an official update to upgrade the AI based on thsee agents. It's odd to rely on fans and customers to make this important change. Playing the AI is boring and I'm disappointed in the lack of desire to improve this game.
Not all of us want to play by email and there should be a competent AI to play against. I can beat this game in 1861 without really using the depth of the strategies otherwise available to this game. It takes away from a game that should be great and covers my favorite time period of history. I know many many others feel the same way.
Robert E Lee hangs out in Richmond and never leaves. This in itself is deplorable and the opposite way this great general would behave. Lee should at least do something after being unlocked in 1862!!!!
No, Lee gets activated by '62 (sometime that year), and then you get to use his prowess in the game. Prior to that, RELee is an adm. fixture in Richmond.
In general, I have not yet experienced the ease of taking Richmond, since Athena has held 3,000-5,000 CSA troops there. Yes, I've experienced Athena's failure to delay my approach to Richmond, which is odd since she always delays my attack against Washington. Perhaps, more value should be attached to the cities between Alexandria and Richmond.
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tribeticus
- Captain
- Posts: 191
- Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:05 pm
- Location: Ocean, NJ
Yes I understand he is an adviser locked in Richmond until 1862. Maybe I should rephrase by saying "in my experience Lee stays in Richmond and seems to never leave", as I have never fought a battle against him outside of Richmond.
I have played way too many times with Lee never leaving Richmond, even by 1864 on higher difficulty settings. I would say when I won in 1861 it was on Sergeant which I can understand and maybe I got lucky, however on higher levels I have not noticed Lee taking an aggressive move after he is released in 1862. I have played until 1864 and 1865 with Lee never leaving the capital city, not even to back up other Generals, and when there is 6k or 7k force in Richmond with 10 generals under Lee. He could have left another guy in charge of Richmond and come out with a 2k army and left 4k or 5k in Richmond for the moral value. But yet he seems to always stay there.
Gray Fox suggested a few settings to try in the General Posts, so I will try that out, but I agree that there should be more value attached to the cities in between Washington and Richmond. There were many battles fought and little ground gained by either side in the war in this area, so that makes all those cities extremely important, and it should not be so commonplace for the CSA, especially Lee, to settle for hanging out in Richmond especially while the early battles in 1862 are hot.
I have played way too many times with Lee never leaving Richmond, even by 1864 on higher difficulty settings. I would say when I won in 1861 it was on Sergeant which I can understand and maybe I got lucky, however on higher levels I have not noticed Lee taking an aggressive move after he is released in 1862. I have played until 1864 and 1865 with Lee never leaving the capital city, not even to back up other Generals, and when there is 6k or 7k force in Richmond with 10 generals under Lee. He could have left another guy in charge of Richmond and come out with a 2k army and left 4k or 5k in Richmond for the moral value. But yet he seems to always stay there.
Gray Fox suggested a few settings to try in the General Posts, so I will try that out, but I agree that there should be more value attached to the cities in between Washington and Richmond. There were many battles fought and little ground gained by either side in the war in this area, so that makes all those cities extremely important, and it should not be so commonplace for the CSA, especially Lee, to settle for hanging out in Richmond especially while the early battles in 1862 are hot.
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