Matrix Games Forums

I only have ever played a couple of Matrix games and the AI has been fine, but I am interested in some other titles. I was wondering what some of the more experienced people thought was the game with the best AI in their opinion? And by best I mean it puts up the best fight, doesn't make many mistakes, doesn't need a lot of advantages to be competitive, etc.

Conquest of the Aegean has the best AI I've ever seen (Both friendly and enemy). It's predessesor Highway to the Reich is also outstanding.

SSG's Carriers at War.

ORIGINAL: The Plodder

Conquest of the Aegean has the best AI I've ever seen (Both friendly and enemy). It's predessesor Highway to the Reich is also outstanding.

+1 [&o]
And both are awesome games, besides! [:)]

I've not yet played it extensively, but thus far I've been quite pleased with the AI in Armada 2526. It's not only pretty smart, but it also plays in a very human-like fashion, at least more so than in most games I've played.

Officers offers a tough challenge and will keep you on your toes. I also think CoG:EE very good, a hard game to actually win. 

Just remembered, the AI in SSI Battles In Normandy is pretty tough to.

ORIGINAL: jaxpac

I was wondering what ... was the game with the best AI in their opinion? And by best I mean it puts up the best fight, doesn't make many mistakes, doesn't need a lot of advantages to be competitive, etc.

Conquest of the Aegean.
The upcoming "Battle of the Bulge" (probably 1st quarter 2010) will be even better, as a lot of AI tweaks and new AI behaviours had been implemented.
This engine's AI puts up the best fight and surprises you quite often. It features high replayability, as the AI behaves differently each time you launch a scenario, and often even each time you fire up a given savegame. The latter would not mean that the AI will halt/cancel attacks that were well underway when you had saved the game, but that it may reassess the overall situation some time after you have reloaded the savegame, which may result in the AI giving adequate new orders to its subordinates. Such features (among other features) make the AI unpredictable. I always hated predictable AIs, so that was the ideal game for me.

While the AI certainly tries to achieve the mission objectives defined by the scenario designer, just like the human player, the AI is able to cull objectives, in case it does not have a sufficient amount of troops to contest all of them. In turn, if reinforcements join the fray, it will reassess the situation and may just send its precious fresh armor to trash your flanks.

Although playing this game versus a human opponent may be the ultimate challenge, just like in many other games, this AI gets as close to a human opponent as an AI in a simulation can get. I have yet to see an AI with a similar list of capabilities.

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

SSG's Carriers at War.

2007's CAW ? If you're referring to that one, I'd have to disagree. It's a solid game, with an appalling low amount of scenarios (where I, and other people who bought it, referred to it as a game with a lack of content, in the CAW-forum), and a neat AI, but I wouldn't call it superior or even "best".

My 2 cents

Wow, some good consensus on Conquest of the Aegean.  I'll have to check that out.  I normally am drawn to the more grand strategy type games but if the AI is that good I will give this a try.  Thanks all.

+1 for the Panther Games (COTA and HTTR). You need to keep in mind they are "real-time" pausible, so if that's not what you're looking for (aka have a strong preference for classic turn based) the superb AI may not help you much [:)]

ORIGINAL: jaxpac

Wow, some good consensus on Conquest of the Aegean.  I'll have to check that out.  I normally am drawn to the more grand strategy type games but if the AI is that good I will give this a try.  Thanks all.

Excellent choice-you will be pleasantly surprised.

grand strategy are tough to design IA for... U cana tweek AT and by giving the ai help make it very hard to win some scenarios.. great big picture/combined arms title for what its worth, a bargain too...

As a strictly AI player up to now of many titles the past 15 years, nothing has come close to Conquest of the Agean. I never played its sister game: Highway to the Reich, but I'm looking forward to the new one: Battles for the Bulge.

Grand strategy as I define it would go to AT WWII for the Matrix titles. I like COTA and it does have good AI but I wouldn't call a company level game a grand strategy game. But hey, that's not a big big deal.

If you can tolerate more abstraction, I'd say take a look at Empire Deluxe Enhanced Edition. The AI will give you a good run for you r money in that one too. It's not a Matrix title, but you can check it out at www.killerbeesoftware.com if you're interested.

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

I like COTA and it does have good AI but I wouldn't call a company level game a grand strategy game. But hey, that's not a big big deal.

COTA isn't a grand strategy game, correct, but it isn't a company level game either. [:)]
COTA is an operational warfare sim, where the player, depending on the scope of the scenario, controls formations ranging from a regiment up to several divisions. For the big scenarios, the supreme unit is usually either a Corps HQ or an Army HQ. The friendly AI does best on regimental level, imho. The player can detach each and every unit in order to micromanage single companies, but he doesn't have to do that, as the friendly AI will pass orders even down to the smallest unit in the hierarchy. In general, a company would display the lowest unit level in the game hierarchy, with some exceptions, eg. in cases where the Germans attached their divisional AT Coys to the battalions (platoon-wise), so you'll find some AT platoons here and there, too, for example.
The focus is on divisions (and regiments in smaller scenarios), though.
While "Closed Combat" is a tactical wargame, I'd say it's just below company level, as the missions, with the actual number of platoons being involved, reflect a typical engagement of an INF company.

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

I like COTA and it does have good AI but I wouldn't call a company level game a grand strategy game. But hey, that's not a big big deal.

COTA isn't a grand strategy game, correct, but it isn't a company level game either. [:)]
COTA is an operational warfare sim, where the player, depending on the scope of the scenario, controls formations ranging from a regiment up to several divisions. For the big scenarios, the supreme unit is usually either a Corps HQ or an Army HQ. The friendly AI does best on regimental level, imho. The player can detach each and every unit in order to micromanage single companies, but he doesn't have to do that, as the friendly AI will pass orders even down to the smallest unit in the hierarchy. In general, a company would display the lowest unit level in the game hierarchy, with some exceptions, eg. in cases where the Germans attached their divisional AT Coys to the battalions (platoon-wise), so you'll find some AT platoons here and there, too, for example.
The focus is on divisions (and regiments in smaller scenarios), though.
While "Closed Combat" is a tactical wargame, I'd say it's just below company level, as the missions, with the actual number of platoons being involved, reflect a typical engagement of an INF company.

Hrrmmm, I sem to recall the introductory scenario with units having a "coy" identifier.

Anyway, it's not important.

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.
Hrrmmm, I sem to recall the introductory scenario with units having a "coy" identifier.

Anyway, it's not important.

The units are nearly all company's. However, with the number of company's on the map you are looking at corps sized battles in many cases.

There are multiple battles which have well over 300 units-counting both sides. As a typical battalion has 4 or five company's, that's a whole lot of battalions.

Most scenarios are smaller, but if you want corps sized battles, those are there for you.

ORIGINAL: jaxpac

I only have ever played a couple of Matrix games and the AI has been fine, but I am interested in some other titles. I was wondering what some of the more experienced people thought was the game with the best AI in their opinion? And by best I mean it puts up the best fight, doesn't make many mistakes, doesn't need a lot of advantages to be competitive, etc.

I would say Spartan and possibly Troy (never played Troy) have a very challenging ai if you play world conquest game instead of the scenarios setup rules and victory conditions. Play on hardest or impossible and start out as I think it's crete or athens and see if you can last. The Persians and Romans usually gave me the best run for my money.

I also like and think Panzer Command:Kharkov has a good ai as well at least it is not as brainless as the Combat Mission ai by battledefunkedgroup.

Tin Soldier:Caesar is pretty good as well although it's main difficulty lies in the time limits and over abundance of units the ai gets vs you but I believe it is balanced out nicely to give you that edge of the seat feeling each scenario.

For Civil War Forge of Freedom can't be beat. I like the ai in it and it has more setup options that you'd probably never play them all but certainly can find your comfort level of difficulty with it.

ok, best IA, not best game... no ? Guns of August

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

Hrrmmm, I sem to recall the introductory scenario with units having a "coy" identifier.

Anyway, it's not important.

A rule of thumb when doing real military wargaming (on preparation of a plan) is that you always go two levels below your own command level. Hence "playing" on a regimental level would force you to look into what problems your companies will encounter.
This method of scale have been developed over many years and been built on common sense in combination with a lot of bloody trial and error. The choice of this is IMO yet another brilliant choice done by Panther Games for their simulations.

The only thing that I lack in the series is a PBEM multiplayer mode to be able to play against something other than an AI. I rarely have time to sit through real times sessions, but the AI in COTA have not let me down yet.

I would really like to see a WEGO mode as in the Combat Mission games running for the Command Ops system to solve this. Today you can run the game a set number of minutes and hours forward to simulate turns, but this AFAIK can´t be done when playing in multi-player mode.