Comments & Feedback

[Ron]

I bought CoG when first released, been playing it continously since and think it is a great game, love the dynamics especially the economic model, but have noticed a few 'general' things that could improve gameplay versus the AI considerably. I wonder if they could be considered and are feasible in a patch. This is based on two full length campaigns('Difficult' level/AI Power +1) - 1796 as Spain and 1805 as France(both patched part way through) and the first two years of the 1792 campaign as Spain with the patch.

1- Military upgrades - The AI doesn't pursue this aggressively enough at all and they are a battle(game) winner as the campaign progresses. Taking the 1796 campaign as Spain for example, within a few years I had upgraded my Army to be heads and shoulders above anything the AI had done. Several nations like Austria, France and Russia have a much larger resource base and shouldn't be having such a problem improving their Armies, yet they don't do it. Does increasing the difficulty level help the AI in this regard?

2- Artillery - In detailed battles Artillery is decisive and I won many battles as Spain with a numerically inferior force simply because I could bring 3-4 Artillery divisions to the battle. In both full length campaigns I never saw the AI do any such thing even when they had years to build some, even a few would have been welcome. Why doesn't the AI build more Artillery to compete?

3- Strategic Movement - Invariably the AI's strategy in a war is to send everything to the enemy's capital disregarding their own provinces and capital. Almost every war I conducted saw this behaviour. Couldn't the AI be programmed to 'save' an Army to protect the homeland or to recall her attacking Armies if the enemy has no chance of capitulating soon and she is?

I also noticed something with Britain specifically in the late stages of both campaigns. She had built a huge Army in London, upwards of 300,000 men, yet she never attempted to bring those troops to the continent even though she had several Protectorates there and the Navy to transport/protect them, preferring instead it seems to only use the Protectorate Armies.

4- Detailed Combat - The biggest gripe I have with the AI in detailed battles is the lack of coordination it displays when manuevering its forces. Everything is done piecemeal and the forces whether Infantry/Calvary/Artillery are all acting independently instead of as a cohesive force. As is stands now selecting a Detailed battle is an almost guaranteed sure win. Tightening up the AI's behaviour in this regard would go a long ways to putting them on a level playing field with the player.

5- Bugs - Even with the patch I am still seeing AI Diplomats frozen at sea and AI Naval Fleets being permanently landlocked. In my current game after Turkey's surrender I decided to take one of their Fleets on loan and it is 'stuck', I am unable to move it at all.

6- Diplomacy - I have never once had a Ceasefire offer accepted. Has anyone? What are the parameters for it to be accepted? The same for 'PressurePeace'; in the Spanish 1792 campaign I built up Madrid's Courts and built a 'super' Diplomat yet even after several months(years?!) it was never successful in this.

I am not a programmer so do not know of the difficilties of fixing bugs or tweaking the AI behaviour to make it a little more competitive. I hope this is constructive and can make CoG a better game. Thanks,




Ron

[ericbabe]

Hi Ron,

These are all excellent critiques of the AI!

When your military units get "stuck" you need to turn on violate territory (right click on the enemy territory and find the violate territory in the popup menu). It's actually buggy though because the game is supposed to turn this on for you but it doesn't always seem to work.

Ceasefires do get accepted, but the AI has a fairly narrow criteria... could be expanded.

The AI does have mechanisms for coordinating in detailed combat, and ironically these mechanisms actually seem to hurt it as it will "hang back" from combat while waiting for other troops to catch up, but while "hanging back" it takes a severe pounding and would probably be better off just wading into battle.

The AI does have other strategies than "attack the capital" but it perhaps does not use them often enough. AI is also supposed to designate one army or corps as the "home defender". This seemed to be working last time I checked it, but there may be situations where it isn't working.

Anyway, thanks for the interest in the game. We're planning at least two more patches, probably three, and I hope we'll address at least some of these issues in them.

[ian77]

[:D]
Good to hear about the continued support, thanks Eric!

[kylenapoleon]

[8D] Great news about the upgrades. I am looking forward to them.

[Hard Sarge]

for upgrades, I think one thing I see, is some countrys start out being decent, once they start to lose land, there level drops way down, so over all, you or somebody else takes a few provinces away, there upgradeing is crippled

(but that don't explain the UK, which most games is land locked and doesn't seem to expand there upgrades)

but have since Russia with 3 levels of Massed Arty, and a decent number of guns

(so may be a Stat that it can get)

I think the AI may build Arty, but uses it in small numbers, most games, over half of my Arty, is somebody elses, we as gamers, tend to mass our Arty, the AI may be trying to make a set formation

[ian77]

Perhaps we need some sort of handicapping for the AI, as Hard Sarge points out, once a power looses a couple of provinces it becomes a dead duck as far as upgrades go, and has not got a snowball in hells chance of beating a teched up human force.... perhaps it could be coded that a nation gets its quota of upgrades in the normal way, or if less than 50% (or whatever) of the power with the highest number of upgrades, then "free" upgrades, still one per quarter, until it has reached 50% of the leaders tech level.

Now, even if Prussia gets hammered, it has a chance to improve, and not just stick at 5 or 6 techs for the whole game .... even having 10 to a humans 20 upgrades will still leave them much weaker, but should help them being vulched by the rest of the AI powers.

Ian

[Hard Sarge]

yea, that is one thing I was thinking, I do not like the idea of backward upgrades

if you are at level 10, and lose a province that had a good barracks in it, you shouldn't drop back down to a level 7.5, you already know the upgrade

and I think it may be a double wammy

were now if the AI rebuilds what is needed (which will cost more) it then needs to relearn what it already had known

not sure how it all works, but am seeing the AI is still gaining upgrades in my current game, Spain, just got one and it is like 1809

HARD_Sarge

[ian77]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

yea, that is one thing I was thinking, I do not like the idea of backward upgrades

if you are at level 10, and lose a province that had a good barracks in it, you shouldn't drop back down to a level 7.5, you already know the upgrade

and I think it may be a double wammy

were now if the AI rebuilds what is needed (which will cost more) it then needs to relearn what it already had known

not sure how it all works, but am seeing the AI is still gaining upgrades in my current game, Spain, just got one and it is like 1809

HARD_Sarge

They do not go back, if they drop from 8.63 down to 5.02 they stay with their existing upgrades until they get back to or above 9.00, when they will get to pick a new tech..... by which time you can be up in the 20's!

Ian

[Hard Sarge]

okay, maybe the way I am trying to say it is wrong

not sure about the math, but something like the number of Barracks and the number of Culture, divide by what not, gives you a base level, now you lose a province with a level 5 barracks and a level 3 culture, that is a good hit

from what I think I see, they have to get that back, before they even start to progress again

HARD_Sarge

[ian77]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

okay, maybe the way I am trying to say it is wrong

not sure about the math, but something like the number of Barracks and the number of Culture, divide by what not, gives you a base level, now you lose a province with a level 5 barracks and a level 3 culture, that is a good hit

from what I think I see, they have to get that back, before they even start to progress again

HARD_Sarge

Spot on, they dont loose the upgrades they already have, but it will take forever to get any more ... hence my suggestion of letting them have a minimum of 50% of the tech leader.

Ian

[Hard Sarge]

well, I not sure they should have free ride either, if they are crushed, they should be weak

the AI getting there POWs back is a good balancer to start with

what Tech level are you at ?

[ian77]

Present game as France, starting 1792, now Nov 1796 and military tech is 28+... troops are still trying to catch up and have only got 22 upgrades in place.. Sweden, Spain, and Prussia are all below tech level 6, and war is now pointless, if I can get my troops into a province with one of their armies even at odds of 3:1 France wins, quick or detailed it doesn't seem to matter.

IMHO the AI powers need help, but not too much, Russia is on about 20 for military tech so in the right circumstances they can compete, but it always seems that if one power gets an early kicking and looses provinces, then that is game over for them...

Ian

[Ron]

Hi Eric, thanks for the response.

In the case of the Turkish Fleet it was stuck in its own province and wouldn't/couldn't move. Are you saying I need to violate territory in this case to get it going? Hmm, I will have to try that then when the situation next arises.

AI Diplomats however are still regularly frozen at sea which is too bad as it takes a lot away from the diplomatic aspect of the game.

Ok like I said I am not a programmer and didn't know the AI already had mechanisms in place to coordinate its attacks in detailed battles. What I am usually seeing then re the AI is an attacking force much too spread out to be effective and then usually another reserve force that hangs back much too far. Things I had in mind when discussing AI behaviors, and yes I may be out to lunch on this, is when the AI attacks it should group its units like human players do if possible. Hard Sarge has displayed several screenshots of battle lines that are very effective, ie when attacking the AI's troops should be adjacent or within a hex of the nearest friendly, that goes for divisions classed as reserve especially as human players will have their reserves close at hand within a hex or two. Now I admit I have seen the AI act intelligently at times, ie Cav and Inf move up together, the Cav forcing me into Square and then the Inf forming a line if possible and firing. It would be ideal if this behavior was the norm instead of the exception.

I saw something last night as Spain in a suprise war versus France that I hadn't seen before. AI France did leave a Corps protecting Paris while attacking me. It also sent in individual Corps/Armies against Madrid while leaving the bulk of its forces on the border ~ 250,000. Very interesting, the Madrid Army fended off the disparate attacks allowing the Main Spanish Army time to return home to battle the Main French Army in Languoc(sp?) And yes it was one of the best battles I have had to date, partly due to the French quality yes but also because the AI finally had some Artillery, ie more than one division(!). It made me smile to see the the French Artillery chew up my bright yellow Spanish line - I was sweating in this one.

Thanks mucho for the game Eric,




Ron

[Hard Sarge]

Hi Ian
over all I think the AI is too fast to go to war, they go at the drop of the hat with no thought or reason behind it

I had treaties and peace with Turkey for 15 years, England offered them 60 bucks and they went to war with me !!!!!

[carnifex]

"You may sign a peace treaty with your enemy, the infidel, but only for 10 years. When he's weakened, you must take back in blood what you previously lost."

Qur’an 9:3 “Allah is not bound by any contract or treaty with non-Muslims, nor is His Apostle.”

See? They gave you an extra 5 years, be happy with that [:D]

[Hard Sarge]

Well, that may be what they were taught, but for 60 bucks, they lost around 750,000 troops and half there empire (well, in fact, they lost there Empire too)

HARD_Sarge

[ian77]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Well, that may be what they were taught, but for 60 bucks, they lost around 750,000 troops and half there empire (well, in fact, they lost there Empire too)

HARD_Sarge

Ahh the good ole VSO hammer troop!

[ian77]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Hi Ian
over all I think the AI is too fast to go to war, they go at the drop of the hat with no thought or reason behind it

I had treaties and peace with Turkey for 15 years, England offered them 60 bucks and they went to war with me !!!!!

Too true!

They could do with some sort of reality check prior to declarations of war... is their combined alliance stronger than the proposed enemy/enemies? OR, is it time for sh*t or bust time for the AI to stop you from winning? Otherwise they just feed you NML and Glory gains, as well as help bump up your troops already "better than them by far" morale...

Ian