 Tuesday Jun 24, 2008
Empire: Total War AI DiaryHi, I’m Jack Lusted a Games Tester at the Creative Assembly UK and this blog will detail my part in the Battle AI development process and how the AI testing works. This blog compliments an upcoming video development diary on the Battle AI. First a bit of background on myself. Now I’m sure many of you from the community will know me (so you can just skip the next bit), but for those who don’t I used to be an admin of Total War Center, one of the biggest Total War fan sites. I’ve been playing the series since Medieval: Total War was released back in 2002. I’ve been working here at the Creative Assembly UK since June last year as a Tester and secondee to the Empire design team. As a tester, I have a wide range of tools available to me with which I can see exactly what the AI is doing and thinking. This makes it easy to spot problems with the AI, and helps Richard Bull (Battle AI programmer) more quickly fix any problems that are found. There are a variety of battles that we have set up that we use to test the AI on. Most battles will consist of me trying a variety of tactics against the AI to see how it reacts, and noting what it does and doesn’t do well. Other times we will run the game so the AI controls both sides and fights itself, to see how well it does in that situation. That is also one of the most useful ways of exposing flaws in the AI. As the project goes on, the AI will be tested under a wider variety of situations to make sure it plays well in all battles. During each battle, we can play with all the AI debug information being shown. This lets us see exactly what each AI unit is doing and what tactics it’s engaging. This allows us to get a very clear picture of the AI’s overall strategy and so makes it easy to see where it could be improved and where it isn’t quite behaving right. Every fortnight myself, Richard and one of the Designers will meet up and discuss the progress of the AI. We’ll talk about the issues with it, new things that have been added in and other progress that has been made since the last meeting. We’ll also make suggestions for improvements by discussing how the AI should react in certain situations and how it should play. For instance some new code has recently gone in based on an idea to try and improve the organization of the AI during the later stages of battle. After each meeting we’ll generally have a few specific areas of the AI that we’ve been asked to test before the next meeting. The close link between myself as a tester and the battle AI programmer is new for Empire and this process of regular meetings and constant testing helps ensure that the battle AI is always moving forwards. The process will carry on right up until release, and things are looking very promising already. Also for Empire, I’ve written a series of design documents on how the AI should deal with certain situations and general things it should do based on how myself and others play the game. These documents are constantly updated as more is added to them, new tactics are included and situations arise which have AI design implications. This ensures that there are always up to date documents detailing how the AI should play both generally in battles, and more specifically for certain situations. This helps give clear goals for how the AI should progress, and means we are aiming towards an AI that plays a lot more like a human and so should provide more of a challenge to both our experienced players and those new to the series. If you’ve got any questions on this blog, please do send them in. Jack.
Posted by Mark in CA Updates on 3:04:13PM Jun 24, 2008
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Comment # 1
I am a 21 year old college student at the University of Texas at Dallas I have been playing Total-War games religiously since Shogun Total-War haha good ole days chasing down archers with samarai! Anyway I found Rome and M2TW very frustrating in the fact it was never challenging enough even after the crusades expansion. I would conquer the game and give all the provinces to one faction and keep maybe 3 or 4 for myself and also give the faction all the florins I wished using a cheat to do so. I could still win from that situation simply by destroying them at the gates or breaches in my walls when they attacked me. All you had to do was put a whole lot of spearmen in the way and crowd them altogether then blaze em with archers or attack the flanks with swordmen/mountedknights. Keep in mind I would always play with the hardest setting turned all the way up, where every alliance was turned down and I would make bitter enemies with all my neighbors at the start of the game. There were strategies you could learn that the AI would fall for everytime. I really hope Empire can bring a whole new challenge that could really set me at a loss.
A few things I would like to see…
Extremely detailed city management ie: assigning patrols to increase security, but costing more in wages
Complex trading systems and able to attack trade ships with your navy
Pirates????
Stealing other countries sailors like England used to do to the U.S.
War with indians?
Invade China/Japan
Extremely more complex AI characters ie: princesses, princes, retinue, assasins.
Note on assasins, please make them more useful!
I would train about 100 assasins and then just have them keep killing eachother till one killed all the rest, then he would be high enough to have a 30% chance to kill an enemy general!
Would be nice if there was a mode where you can make it so hard the other players would get two times the florins you do
Posted by Jordan Dobbs on June 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Comment # 2
I am very happy to hear the AI is getting closer attention as I felt this was lagging in Kingdoms. One suggestion is to have the AI have several tactical setups or concepts. This would keep the gameplay fresh. In Kingdoms it became too predictable how the AI would attack me. Also, I felt the AI would not adapt and make counter armies to my armies - it would just continue to make the same type of troops.
Anyways I am sure you guys will do a good job! Keep up the good work. I am really looking forward to this one!
Posted by Marc on July 1st, 2008 at 1:56 am
Comment # 3
Hello Lusted, I hope battle AI will now work in larger context - doing delaying battles(minimize losses) if reinforcements are coming/odds are against, regular battles(limit losses) if forces are even/battle is just for battle or all-out battles(ignore losses) if it’s playing strategically important battle!
Posted by llib on July 1st, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Comment # 4
I’ve been playing Total War since Rome and am now a diehard fan of the series, needless to say i’m very excited for Empire’s release. But I’m not sure which is more exciting to me; the idea of naval battles or commanding 18th century style land armies. Is it more challenging to program the Battle AI for land or sea battles?
Posted by Levi Bilton on July 1st, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Comment # 5
Will the battles be fought (by the AI I mean) as they were historically during the period of the game, or will this be partially disregarded as to make it more appealing to players?
Posted by Fran on July 2nd, 2008 at 4:03 am
Comment # 6
went will we be able to see the units for empire totalwar on the totalwar site
Posted by adam on July 3rd, 2008 at 1:08 am
Comment # 7
How will you base the difficulty of the AI? Will it be based on the player’s skill level? Or is it a general basis like in the past Total War games?
Posted by Brandon on July 3rd, 2008 at 2:44 am
Comment # 8
hello, my concern with the AI has to do with allied generals charging into battle and getting themselves killed more often than not. I have played every version of total war and I love the newest feture of AI reinforcements. not only has it totally increased the scale of battles It has added more control. However, I have found that wenever I place an allied army in attack formation the controlling general usally reaches the enemy way ahead of its forces. this is not supprising sense most generals are calvary. This is most unfortunate due to the value of a good general that is wasted uslessly. what if anything is being done about protecting valuable units like this
Posted by justin on July 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Comment # 9
Hi Jack, Its good to hear so much efforts going into the AI. I myself play online but mainly offline in Skirmish mode. The best games always have a human feel to the AI, with some exceptions.
Can I ask about the later in the game AI you mentioned, will I see the AI regroup, fall back, will the AI care if units are half strength?
Also, so to make the battles seem real with lined up infantry etc just like how the real batte tactics played out, Will the AI move using these tactics. I didn’t much like the ‘Bar brawl’ battles of Age of Empires 3!
Thanks for listening
Posted by graham on July 7th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Comment # 10
Ehrm, just 1 question.. Will the game be like THE WHOLE WORLD?! Omg, this game is going to rock. I love you guys for making this game… And just one thing i would like you to add: Can you do so that you can put Artillery on the walls like cannons… It would be a good thing when someone attacks your city/castle or something, it would be very nice. And also, you should make like so, when a city/castle is under siege, you should make like the Civilians is running around and are screaming because they’re afraid, it would be awesome, thanks guys.
Posted by TotalWarLover on July 8th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Comment # 11
will there be a faction with pikemen because Even late 1700s the obsolete pike would still find a use in such countries as Ireland, Russia and China, generally in the hands of desperate peasant rebels who did not have access to firearms.
Posted by Lydon on July 10th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Comment # 12
Dear Mark. How do you define the behavior and points (plus or minor) of the units and unit formation and different terrain. There are a lot of battle diferences between a medieval battle and a 18xx one
(and we have a lot of information about it)
Please give my thanks to Total war designers for the previous games
Sorry by my English (I goint to play Spain and I will surely lose , 1800 was a bad time to us, but …is my fate)
Posted by alberto rodriguez on July 10th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Comment # 13
You guys should release a trial demo with one or two battles before releasing the game ,so
total war fans have at least something on what to distract themselves while they wait for the complete game
Posted by Nem on July 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm