WHo uses the tactical system?

[november]

I've only played two tactical battles and lost both. So the AI is not bad like the AI is bad in the Tiller games. I slaughtered the Confederates in Corinth the first time I played.

Another comparison. I got ridiculously easy wins against the RTS AI in RTW from the very first (on hard).

[Warfare1]

ORIGINAL: Banquet

I just played a tactical battle (as France, vs Prussia + Austria) on Napoleon difficulty level . I can't find any reference in the manual to what that is.. basically the list goes from Easiest to Very Difficult and then goes through 'general' thru 'Wellington' and ends up with Napoleon.

I fought 89000 French against 119000 Austrian and Prussian. I did win but the battle was a lot of fun. The AI deployed skirmishers which I've never seen when playing on easy. Also casualties on my side were higher (but not unrealistically so) and my charges were a lot less one sided compared to easy. I still got great hits on enemy units - over 2000 from one charge, and 1700 from one artillery attack, but I also suffered much higher casualties than before.

By the end of the battle I had lost 16000 men, the AI lost 18000 before pulling back. One thing I noticed is that their army was more inclinded to disorganise/route than mine and also as soon as the battle starts I try to form up my lines whereas the AI comes at me. Not sure if this makes a difference.. maybe if the AI were programmed to be more defensive it would help. Even in battles where I am attacking, it still comes at me, allowing me the luxury of forming a line a sitting in defense.

I reckon a time limit of some sort would help here.. with the AI able to recognise that it is defending where that is the case, letting it form up and wait for me, rather than the other way around.

The battle was a lot of fun though. I think if I'd played at the same difficulty as the British in Spain in my other game, I'd have lost some battles.

I personally wouldn't be put off the game, even if tactical battle are easy.. I don't even know if Napoleon is the hardest level?

If morale is modable, then I think just increasing the morale/rout factor for the AI should provide for much longer/tougher battles, especially if the AI is playing the French.

[Ralegh]

A) I strongly believe that COG is worth buying even if you never used the tactical battles. When learning the game, I added tactical combat last, and loved the strategic game.
B) I now play lots of tactical battles, since with some effort I can do a lot better than the quick variant. It takes some effort though, and I love the challenge of devising appropriate tactics for my forces and the terrain.

Would I like to see the tactical AI further enhanced - sure. But it is plenty good enough. I've been playing for several months: games don't usually keep my interest that long!

[Chaldkydri]

ORIGINAL: bluemonday

Actually, that's not true - you can gain significant advantage by methodically killing enemy troops rather than just trying to break the army because over several battles the amount of attrition can be enormous. The manual even suggests this as a tactic for Turkey: attack the enemy, kill of his weakest units, and then rout off the battlefield yourself! Repeat this several times and you end up with more even odds when you finally fight to the finish. You have to have a lot of cavalry to avoid pursuit losses in this case, but it's a viable tactic. In the large climactic battles of a campaign, killing the enemy and not just routing him can put an opposing power out of the running for a long time if you fight the battle properly. Unfortunately that can take quite a while.

The A.I. usualy doesn't stay that stupid. With limited counters(for soem reason my armies we stuck in constanople i had to get them out by detaching but the armies whould not pop up) you can't really afford to do that as the head past you towards the capital and eventuly you surrender. But really taking them out really is too much work. Get teh high ground distract them with a unt or two then get you hv cav up can charge the disorder untis.. if you line up and hit infatry it's 2500-3000 dead with 500 on your side. then go all out with charges.. Then again this is more for defense. then an active strike agsidnt the enemy..

This also happens to be the reason why i either win or lsoe by dusk the first day.. But i wonder if we're digressing....

Also i tend not to look at the manual for anything to make sure i don't get corrupted by others tactics.. i can't play teh way others do.

[ravinhood]

I therefore challenge him to a new message board game I just made up, and hopefully he will like it.

This is not the place to play silly childish games. Therefore you lose. This is a "discussion" forum, not a playground, so run along to your neighborhood park or pre-school playground now.

At any rate, after 25 years of soundly beating 99% of most AI's, yes, I'm rather obsessed about AI's being improved and better by this time in history of them. I don't see hardly any more challenge level in them than I did 25 years ago and that's the issues I have with most of them. A few games, rare as someone mentioned above have the ability to program an AI even with handicaps and advantages that remain challenging for years, though these are very few indeed.

It doesn't have to be a BLUE, but, it should at least provide years of challenge on the most difficult level of play. It should be so hard that only the very best and unfaultering play would beat it, one mistake and "you could lose". My obsession is not with "losing", it's trying to find computer games which I can lose to "once in a damn while" so I can play them more than once and enjoy them more than once. I have a library of useless games with horrible AI's that just collect dust. Hell I play Monopoly more than most other games, simply because I find it challenging. Even The "Game of Life" or "Sorry" has a more challenging AI than most of these games released nowadays, that's terrible that some "kiddie" games have better AI's than these supposedly "adult" games do. That "Sorry" AI is ruthless and will send all your pieces back to the start in a heartbeat. heh. Winning a game of "Sorry" brings much satisfaction, winning most of these wargames brings another yawn.

My theory is, if you don't complain about it, it never gets fixed or looked at, so I will stick to my theory. I want improved AI's, I want harder higher difficulty levels and/or player controlled difficulty settings in more games like CM/SPWAW have.

My idea of a great difficulty challenge that never ends is to program the combat/defensive/morale/research and/or resources stats of the game to increase after each human victory. There would be no difficulty settings beyond Hard, or Hardest or Extreme, but, the game would still provide a continued challenge even beyond those settings by being programmed to increase some factors if/when the player defeats the pre-programmed difficulty settings. Seems like it would be a pretty simple addition to the end game routine, player wins add ( increased variables) to next game start.

[Ralegh]

Unlike Ravinhood, I only have about 15 years experience with AI (in addition to having studied military history and been an army officer). COG doesn't claim to have significant differences in AI behaviour at different difficulty levels - which I think is a shame. Most of the AI "advantage" at higher levels is improved economic bonuses. I certainly see this as an area that Western Civilization Software should look at enhancing moving forward.

I would like to see different nations having more 'personality' in their strategic style, and using more advanced strategies more effectively at higher difficulty levels - I think Galactic Civilizations from StarDock is the best game I have seen at achieving this.

Tactically, I agree that there are tweaks that can improve the AI in COG, and the designer (Eric) has been interested in gathering that information, and I believe he is committed to making further enhancements to it. When he has recovered from Origins he will probably contribute to this thread. [I know of changes proposed during the beta which he implemented, encouraging units from a corps to stay together, for example.]

Tactically, I would like to see the AI behave significantly differently depending on corps/army allocations and special leader assignments. (ie. poor coordination between corps unless they were in the same army, and then even better with an army commander; always poor coord between armies, or between corps that aren't in an army). That would give France a little more help against human players.

[Cyrano]

I've played LOTS of A.I.s over the years (played my first computer-assisted wargame on a VAX system at the University of Indiana at Evansville back in, what, 1970-something?) and, nope, sure enough, still ain't a particularly good one, just some less bad than others.

"Sorry", "Life" and "Monopoly" don't have a tiny fraction of the tactical choices set in front of an A.I. when playing a game like CoG, that's why they have great A.I. It's kind of why we're still waiting for a good Go A.I. while computers are kicking our butts in chess.

Am I beating the GrandTac A.I. in CoG pretty consistently? Yeah, but it's still putting up a fair fight (no cheating that I can detect) and that counts for something. Moreover, the Strategic A.I. is a bit tougher still.

Bottom line to me is: you want real "I", play PBEM or TCP/IP, it's why I installed a home LAN.

Yours in Defense of CoG,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[wodin]

We all know about Ai's but the problem I read here is that even when outnumbered and at a reasonable disadvantage you can still beat the AI consistently.

If it was a case of beating the AI in a balanced scenario/battle or even if your slightly outgunned then thats fair enough. However to win battles that you really shouldnt have a hope of winning to me means some tweaking is needed.

[Cyrano]

Perhaps I misunderstood.

There were some folks here about saying CoG wasn't worthy of present purchase due to its "inadequate" A.I. It is to them I respond in the hopes that those considering purchase will not be dissuaded by what I regard as inaccurate information, or certainly information lacking perspective and context.

Tweaks? Absolutely. I can think of quite a few already. But this is a complete game, quite playable as is, and well worthy, IMHO, of purchase for someone interested in the period (and even some who are not ).

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: Cyrano
There were some folks here about saying CoG wasn't worthy of present purchase due to its "inadequate" A.I. It is to them I respond in the hopes that those considering purchase will not be dissuaded by what I regard as inaccurate information, or certainly information lacking perspective and context.

While I certainly may have overlooked one or even several comments, I don't remember anyone saying the game wasn't worthy of purchase due to the AI. Wodin has commented that being able to defeat substantially larger forces gave him pause and that he might wait until the first patch before making a decision, but I am not aware of anyone who owns this game who has been involved with the AI discussions recommending anything other than a purchase.

[ioticus]

I'm pretty disappointed about what I'm reading about the tactical AI. I'm going to hold off on buying to see if they can reasonably improve it so it's at least challenging when you're outnumbered. How's the strategic AI?

Also, mega dittos to Ravinhood. I echo everything you've said in this thread. Keep fighting the good fight, man!

[jchastain]

ORIGINAL: ioticus
How's the strategic AI?

The strategic AI is pretty good. It's too early to be able to make definitive comments but thusfar, aside from a few very minor knit picks, it seems to perform reasonably well.

[wodin]

Strategic AI is supposed to be good.

[ioticus]

ORIGINAL: wodin

Strategic AI is supposed to be good.

Koolio, let's hope they can concentrate on the tac AI then.

[Titanwarrior89]

I wished they had left leader deaths in the strat mode for those that only want too play it and stay away from the tac mode.[:D]

[bimbo1555]

I only like playing the strategic mode in these games...the tac mode does nothing for me, and so I always run the quick resolutions.

BUT, there is another reason for that.

If the AI is lacking in the tac mode and I run quick res, then the AI is essentially running both sides, with its own limitations equal to both sides, so the outcome will be more equal in regards to the battle itself as far as there will be no big advantage or disadvantage because a human will not be playing..therefore, the battles will play themselves out the way they should according to the battle parameters, so I have to really make sure I have the right mix of troops, leaders, terrain, etc. before I go into battle....I play this way in all these games and really don't think there should be detailed tac modes in them...for me they take away from the flow, not matter how quick they play out, and if the tac AI isn't very good then its almost like a cheat for the human and makes the strategic part of the game less important.

I like this game quite a bit, btw.

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: bimbo1555

I only like playing the strategic mode in these games...the tac mode does nothing for me, and so I always run the quick resolutions.

BUT, there is another reason for that.

If the AI is lacking in the tac mode and I run quick res, then the AI is essentially running both sides, with its own limitations equal to both sides, so the outcome will be more equal in regards to the battle itself as far as there will be no big advantage or disadvantage because a human will not be playing..therefore, the battles will play themselves out the way they should according to the battle parameters, so I have to really make sure I have the right mix of troops, leaders, terrain, etc. before I go into battle....I play this way in all these games and really don't think there should be detailed tac modes in them...for me they take away from the flow, not matter how quick they play out, and if the tac AI isn't very good then its almost like a cheat for the human and makes the strategic part of the game less important.

I like this game quite a bit, btw.

Something I thought about myself.

[Mr. Z]

Just out of curiosity, for those who have noticed troublingly outnumbered victories, could you tell us a) what nations you were playing and b) who you were fighting?

(FWIW, France can often win outnumbered, and some nations, like the Ottomans, can likewise often be defeated by a smaller force.)

It would also be interesting to know if anyone has experienced this while playing the Balanced scenario. Thanks.

[Reiryc]

ORIGINAL: ioticus

ORIGINAL: wodin

Strategic AI is supposed to be good.

Koolio, let's hope they can concentrate on the tac AI then.

The tac AI is fine.

There really isn't any glaring problems with it aside from nitpicks. You're going to beat it most of the time as I expect any normal human should be able to do. Unless you're the type that considers handicaps given to the computers forces to be strengthening the AI and if that's the case, then as of now, prior to any upcoming patches, the AI doesn't get such handicaps.

[JosephL]

I've found that even with playing tactical battles (and often winning) I am not always in any position to win the game.

Currently playing Russia on very difficult level... I'm in third. Maybe I suck at this game... but Britain is WAY ahead of me (by about 100 glory).

I'm at least in a position to make a comeback by taking out Sweden... but :-/

So... I play tactical battles and it doesnt seem to influence me

-Joe