Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: STIENER

wow..i would tend to agree headcount slith....sounds like the Ai still needs work....sigh

It is always going to be a matter of opinion. While Tim has constructed a specific case where he thinks the AI should behave differently I (for example) would likely play in the same way in that scenario. A too aggressive AI would be easy to game, and would generate opinion that it wasn't cautious enough.

Alternatively, a decent number of people seem to feel that AI strategy mostly makes reasonable decisions, but it's always going to be, to a large extent, a matter of opinion.

Cheers

Pip

Hi PIP
I would tend to disagree to a point. following the recent posts on this new game I would suggest that players are finding the AI not up to snuff. you guys have a tendancy to down play this stuff...oh..thats an opinion...oh...you cant please everyone etc etc...just like you have here. IMO you need to listen to the people who are buying your game and basically play testing right now.
TBF was touted as a basically single player game with an AI that would give a good fight. I say basically a single player game because theres no continuity on the german side in the GC. [ which I personally don't like or the linerer strat and GC...I like the old start like GTC ect ] it would appear that the AI does not give a good fight. also gun accuracy and spotting appear to be an issue.
your only as good as the people who buy your games....I think you should listen to them and not sluff it off as its just an opinion

"I (for example) would likely play in the same way in that scenario"

Seriously? You outnumber the enemy 17 to 1 and you'd spend the entire 30-minute battle using one team to scout less than half of the area where the enemy could conceivably be, failing to grab two of a possible three VLs in the process?

"a decent number of people seem to feel that AI strategy mostly makes reasonable decisions"

So "job done" - you've no plans to work on the offensive AI?

Well given I am not supposed to know the exact composition of the enemy, only their rough strength (with a Panther being a fairly large plus to the strength in the data that the AI gets), it's not quite that simple a decision. In your article you inaccurately state the AI has too much pre-battle information, and here you seem to be saying it isn't being given enough.

We are clearly happy to take feedback on the AI, hence Steve taking time to answer in detail people's questions, and we will use all the input we get to improve the player experience, though generally based on wider gameplay rather then atypical situations.

Cheers

Pip

ORIGINAL: STIENER

Hi PIP
I would tend to disagree to a point. following the recent posts on this new game I would suggest that players are finding the AI not up to snuff. you guys have a tendancy to down play this stuff...oh..thats an opinion...oh...you cant please everyone etc etc...just like you have here. IMO you need to listen to the people who are buying your game and basically play testing right now.
TBF was touted as a basically single player game with an AI that would give a good fight. I say basically a single player game because theres no continuity on the german side in the GC. [ which I personally don't like or the linerer strat and GC...I like the old start like GTC ect ] it would appear that the AI does not give a good fight. also gun accuracy and spotting appear to be an issue.
your only as good as the people who buy your games....I think you should listen to them and not sluff it off as its just an opinion

We are absolutely not trying to shrug off feedback, in fact every single post is read and then put into a sheet of feedback to generate tasks for improvement. Some of the spotting feedback will likely lead to bug fixes or tweaks. All this and the programming lead coming onto the forums to give deep-dives into what is going on under the hood.

If the broad consensus turns out to be the AI needs to be more aggressive then we will tune it up, but I would argue it's much to early to say that at this point.

Cheers

Pip

"In your article you inaccurately state the AI has too much pre-battle information, and here you seem to be saying it isn't being given enough."

In the review what I actually pointed out was that the attacking behaviour of the CPU opponent was influenced by the number of units you fielded - a pretty unusual feature in a computer wargame. You don't need to be a historian to realise that this is a questionable design decision. The history of warfare is littered with examples where offensive tactics/determination had nothing to do with relative force sizes.

I've no idea how you could interpret my post as a call for the AI to be given more information. As I clearly state in my post "For the record, I love the fact that the AI scouts in CCTBF, I just wish it would do it with a bit more urgency/support when it's aware potential resistance is light."

The "atypical situations" you seem so suspicious of are merely uncluttered test scenarios in which behaviours can be observed more easily.

Glad to hear that Pip. that's good news.
your going to get the most feed back now in the first few weeks after the game comes out ...after that if players aren't happy and they don't see that your actually going to do something to move forward with there concerns...they just put the game on the shelf and move on. you know im right.
so lets not wait too long for your broad consensus to happen. another thing....a large majority of players don't even post that they are liking or not liking the game. ...so you have to only consider and act on those who do post, not on a guess that everyone loves the game and its ok.

ive seen this play out since CC2 pip...every time a new CC game comes out...we play test it for you and you guys don't believe us or say its the way its supposed to be. we love CC the hard core group of us around here but seriously please listen to the players that post and not to the ones that don't.

ORIGINAL: STIENER

Glad to hear that Pip. that's good news.
your going to get the most feed back now in the first few weeks after the game comes out ...after that if players aren't happy and they don't see that your actually going to do something to move forward with there concerns...they just put the game on the shelf and move on. you know im right.
so lets not wait too long for your broad consensus to happen. another thing....a large majority of players don't even post that they are liking or not liking the game. ...so you have to only consider and act on those who do post, not on a guess that everyone loves the game and its ok.

ive seen this play out since CC2 pip...every time a new CC game comes out...we play test it for you and you guys don't believe us or say its the way its supposed to be. we love CC the hard core group of us around here but seriously please listen to the players that post and not to the ones that don't.

We are definitely listening, have no fear - the number of new tasks generated in just this last week attests to it [:)]

Cheers

Pip

I am reading this post to see if AI is good enough to make me buy the game. Panthers on the Fog was the last CC game I purchased and that AI was useless. Is this true with this game? I travel away from home and usually have no or poor internet access. Playing a living player would be preferred, but is rarely an option for me.

What I would like to see is an AI that plays defensively and try's to holds it objective and starts it's position in high ground or good cover. Or have an AI that plays offensively and try's to capture objectives effectively. Changing the size of the force-pool seems a cop-out. A few units taking on many units could be challenging, but not realistic. Besides part of the fun is managing a lot of units and managing them wisely. The AI should have an both a defensive and offensive mode. Maybe the AI should have higher moral and accuracy modes?

ORIGINAL: Jack59

I am reading this post to see if AI is good enough to make me buy the game. Panthers on the Fog was the last CC game I purchased and that AI was useless. Is this true with this game? I travel away from home and usually have no or poor internet access. Playing a living player would be preferred, but is rarely an option for me.

What I would like to see is an AI that plays defensively and try's to holds it objective and starts it's position in high ground or good cover. Or have an AI that plays offensively and try's to capture objectives effectively. Changing the size of the force-pool seems a cop-out. A few units taking on many units could be challenging, but not realistic. Besides part of the fun is managing a lot of units and managing them wisely. The AI should have an both a defensive and offensive mode. Maybe the AI should have higher moral and accuracy modes?

Too Soon for me at least to offer an opinion on the AI. I've been setting up scenarios for testing LOS and accuracy. I've seen it go both ways, the couple of attacks by the AI I setup it advanced piece meal and led with unsupported armor, the armor went racing into town, in fact straight thru town on it's own. But then when I played a battle during the campaign from what I could tell the AI concentrated it force and went after the most important objective, a VP on the highest ridge. It hit the ridge with Arty before assaulting with foot troops and armor in support, I thought that was pretty good. Seems to defend ok, but again it's just to soon for me to judge.

Nobody should expect a miracle AI, especially on attack.

ORIGINAL: headcount_slith

Seriously? You outnumber the enemy 17 to 1 and you'd spend the entire 30-minute battle using one team to scout less than half of the area where the enemy could conceivably be, failing to grab two of a possible three VLs in the process?

I agree with headcount. That seems quite poor. The A.I. has always been a problem. I don't have The Bloody First yet,so I cannot comment upon it. However I have most of the others and the A.I. is not very good.

I will try "what seems counter intuitive" and make the enemy green and my troops elite, as Steve suggests. I am curious how that will work.

The games are quite a lot of fun in Multiplayer. I had always wished there would be a turn based wego system that would open it up to PBEM...........that would be amazing.