Is there any way to have actual fun with this mod on singleplayer?

[aaronishappy]

Perhaps, I don't really know what I'm talking about to be honest. But, I do know, as far as TW games go, SS is the best incarnation of one. It is a bit of a shame, even on VH/VH BYGR II I still don't find it overly difficult.

My point to the OP was that you can't complain that it's too hard and not fun, then go off and make a post about how the AI is too easy and stupid. It is what it is, and in this case, it's the best we have, so if someone's not happy, then good luck finding another game as good as Total War/SS!

[The Despondent Mind]

What OP described, it is exactly what I hate in some mods, sometimes it is as if they were designed for hardcore basement dwellers that have all day to fight stack after stack after stack and the CAI that is full ISIS extreme, like no common sense just attack attack attack.

[Pherion]

What OP described, it is exactly what I hate in some mods, sometimes it is as if they were designed for hardcore basement dwellers that have all day to fight stack after stack after stack and the CAI that is full ISIS extreme, like no common sense just attack attack attack.

That only happens on VH settings. That's why I just play on M/M. No point on the other difficulties since the AI is just cheating like crazy xD

[BatGoat]

It isn't cheating. It is only requiring boosts to counter the fact it is playing against human intelligence that can (and should on harder levels) think outside the box and out strategise the AI. It takes a number of tries to successfully master SS and even then, I prefer the odd surprise to derail my plans rather than being able to make a clean sweep from one side of the map to the other. And yes. It can at times be frustrating to face full stack AI armies, but if you take out their training centres, they can't keep sending stack after stack after you.

[Pherion]

It isn't cheating. It is only requiring boosts to counter the fact it is playing against human intelligence that can (and should on harder levels) think outside the box and out strategise the AI. It takes a number of tries to successfully master SS and even then, I prefer the odd surprise to derail my plans rather than being able to make a clean sweep from one side of the map to the other. And yes. It can at times be frustrating to face full stack AI armies, but if you take out their training centres, they can't keep sending stack after stack after you.

It doesn't matter. I played way too many VH Campaigns and achieved victory with every single faction and in the end I ended up bored with it. It's always the same, conquer one region then stay in that region slaughtering 5 or more full stacks of cannon fodder, and then move on to the next region to conquer and repeat. I simply like to skip the "Slaughter house" moment, thus I prefer playing on M/M. Sometimes I go to VH, but the AI doesn't get smarter there, just has more meat for the grinder.

[Schittzo]

Nobody is forcing you to play the game. First you complain that the AI is overpowered and not fun to play to against, then you claim that the AI is too easily exploited, stupid and not good. I don't know what you're expecting. Designing artificial intelligence ready to challenge you on a level of human capacity isn't exactly easy - I'm sure if it was as easy as you make it out to be then developers would be developing such an AI.

Play with what you have, make the most of it. Don't like it? Don't play it.

At what point did I say I didn't like this game? Where did this come from? Obviously no. Developing a good AI is not easy, that's a given. I never even said it was easy. I like this game, I've sunk 500 hours in it. And all these comments that just say yur bad hurrr are kind of confusing. Can no one ask questions about what's better for this game, or a game like this? Are you content to accept that the toughest situation in this entire game, you can simply hide your army behind a bridge, and win. Guaranteed even with low numbers. Now you are right. I did not make it clear what I am saying about the AI. The AI was at no point, difficult. It does cheat, which pretty much makes you cheat against it. You will never be outsmarted or tactically defeated by the AI, you will just simply not be able to muster as much manpower as the AI can and you will lose as a result.

At the beginning of this thread I was pretty annoyed at how many poor games I was getting with this mod. At the end of the thread, all I've gotten in response is you're bad, or you obviously don't know what to do. Neither of these are true, no matter how much you infer this. The AI is bad. It is simply a flaw of this game, which does indeed bring it down. Still a great game, but we live in a world with shades of gray. So things can be good, but flawed. The AI cheats, you hide behind a bridge and the campaign continues. The AI spawns armies out of thin air, to compensate for it's complete lack of strategy.

Now imagine. A FPS game, with enemies that had no ability to shoot. It was simply not in their ai. So you just get armed baddies with no ability to shoot. It's still fun in some other way somehow, but you're kind of a bit bummed out that you're shooting at bad guys who cannot comprehend the ability of shooting back. There's thousands of them, and they still kill you through simply spamming grenades or trapping you with numbers or stuff like that. But you can pull through by just hiding in a corner and gunning them down, since they won't shoot back.

Wouldn't it be kind of nice if they could shoot back?

If that rustles your jimmies so much then guys I can't believe you really like RTSes.

[BatGoat]

No. Can't say I really encounter that problem... until the Mongols arrive.

[aaronishappy]

I actually kind of agree with you now (apologies for anything misconstrued). This was my first SS campaign in years, but come turn 60 and I was most definitely bored of fighting stack after stack. It's still a compromise, but it wouldn't hurt the TW devs to just put a bit more energy into AI development. Because it's not just MTW2, it's every Total War game ever. The AI is always terrible, always. Granted I haven't played RTW2 but as far as I know its not much of an improvement. Give SSHIP a shot, I've switched over and it's a breath of fresh air. There is no stack spamming since public order, finances and diplomacy have all been re-hauled.

Let's face it, TW games are crap without their modding community. I shudder at the thought of ever having to go near vanilla MTW2. I don't even remember what it's like, I haven't played in about 8-9 years.

[Lifthrasir]

Now imagine. A FPS game, with enemies that had no ability to shoot. It was simply not in their ai. So you just get armed baddies with no ability to shoot. It's still fun in some other way somehow, but you're kind of a bit bummed out that you're shooting at bad guys who cannot comprehend the ability of shooting back. There's thousands of them, and they still kill you through simply spamming grenades or trapping you with numbers or stuff like that. But you can pull through by just hiding in a corner and gunning them down, since they won't shoot back.

Wouldn't it be kind of nice if they could shoot back?

Have you ever tried to play a FPS, like FEAR for instance, in multiplayer and without any weapons? I can tell you, that's a great fun
Sorry for the "off-topic" but I couldn't resist

[Schittzo]

If they give you berserk powerups like in DOOM or have kung fu action moves like FEAR kind of does yeah I can see that as being a ton of fun for a bit. I'll always like running up and shotgunning someone though, gore is great!

[TsarBG]

You're not alone in hating cheating AI. Stack spam definitely is a problem. I don't think there really any other defence of it besides the whole "but it'll be too easy for the player otherwise". And yes, it does get tedious. Even on newer Total War games fighting every battle manually would be utter hell, regardless of the result. Now for SS it's even more of a problem with random stacks appearing and that sort of thing. At least there are no surprise garrison, which nearly eliminates any fun strategies like guerilla tactics. I don't really care what anyone says, slogfests aren't the pinnacle of fun or the endpoint of the Total War AI; they get old fast. Even though I think the army limit is too restrictive in the latest games, at least you wouldn't have to fight several different stacks to gain a province or two (as is the case with the hardest difficulties especially in the late game). Ideally there should be several critical battles which decide the outcome of the war. I don't think that makes the game very difficult though unless you're playing with the hardest settings and BGR. It just makes it really, really tedious and sucks all fun out of it by the mid-late game. Even BGR has some problems which give the AI some stupid bonuses. I've seen battle realism mods which overcompensate and the AI only starts routing when 85% of their rubbish militia unit army destroyed even though their general is long dead. They do come close to providing a decent challenge but like I said either the AI is crap and throws units and you endlessly or the AI gets some morale buffs that turns every soldier into William Wallace. ReallyBadAI hardcore is ok for a decent battle despite that, though that doesn't fix the economic boost that the AI gets. Because who plays vanilla M2TW with better battle AI mods

In practice though it is quite difficult to achieve a nice balance. Even though the AI getting units that it really shouldn't until later is a nuisance, that by itself isn't too bad; it's that coupled with the stackspam that makes it suck. I am sure modders are doing what they can. Do they leave the game mechanics mainly as it is and just make it in essence, a prettier skinned curbstomp for the player, or do they make the AI cheat and risk the ire of their fanbase? Obviously the latter isn't working that bad for them. In RTW they tried to compensate for this with stat boosts and later discontinued it. I have some ideas myself but there are many things one needs to take into account to balance the whole system. Whether it's BAI, economy, troop stats, costs, movement, that sort of thing, there is a shitton to take into account to make a mod stand on its own. It's really a controversial topic and despite the grievances of people like you and I, there's no easy and widely agreed upon solution. Especially not for a relic like M2TW, as great as it was for its time.

[Dekhatres]

very low replenishment rates can kinda eliminate the stackspam as it takes a lot of time to assemble a new army, so when inflicting a heavy defeat on the AI he wont be able to cheat to get a new stack in time

personally i am playing with 30-40 turns replenishment for knights and elite units in general, 10-25 for medium infantry and 4-6 for militias, obviously with building upgrades rates increase a bit, it's very pleasant to know the AI cant cheat with that and that once a stack is gone it will take a loooong time for them to build another

but even in vanilla SS 6.4 the only times i remember i had to deal with doomstacks was when i had to fight the pope and the byzantines, usually making allies and fighting 1 war at a time ensures you never face doomstacks one after another

[Schittzo]

I don't know if I said this earlier or not but I was playing on 6.3, and I believe there was no realistic recruiting. Even then, the AI doesn't really play by those rules most of the time. Also I seem to have terrible luck in getting alliances.

[Dekhatres]

I don't know if I said this earlier or not but I was playing on 6.3, and I believe there was no realistic recruiting. Even then, the AI doesn't really play by those rules most of the time. Also I seem to have terrible luck in getting alliances.

6.4 is not very big patch so it's pretty much 6.3 with some upgrades, it is possible that maybe you deactivated real recruitment option ?

btw the replenishment rates i was talking about above are custom mode i made for myself, most people usually hate having to wait so long to recruit units, i presonally love it

the AI can only cheat with money, it cannot cheat with recruitment, if a units takes 40 turns to recruit it will be the same for the player and AI always

try making alliances very early, start making them from turn 1, i've always played with savage AI and never had to pay for alliances early in the game, i can also count on the fingers of one hand how many times i've been betrayed by an ally

[BatGoat]

Yeah, set out early to obtain the alliances, but be very careful who you actually choose. My thoughts run along the lines of a). are the settlements of this faction ones that I need for winning conditions or b). are my settlements part of their winning conditions and c). will this faction piss me off enough for me to want to smash them?

[Strengelicher]

It's been a long time I played this, but it was 6.4 with BGR IV, so supposed to be quite hard, and I had neither problems with endless enemy stacks nor getting alliances. Here is some tips from what I can remember:

As others have said, make it a priority to expand your income asap. The secret here is, among other things, roads/ports and trade (merchants are also excellent if you know how to use them - a single merchant can make more than 6,000 florins a turn, there is a merchant guide somewhere on these forums I wrote some time ago)). If you have a trade agreement in place with a faction you are sharing borders with, this will boost your income. So try and get trade agreements with all neighbours you are sharing borders with. Think twice before going to war with a neighbour, since the trade agreement will go bust and your income will go down.

If you plan to conquer a province, do it in one turn. Build siege equipment and/or use the spy to open the gates and bring enough troops to overwhelm the defenders. The Pope may warn you, but you already have the settlement. Also if you your relationship with the Pope is good (more than five stars), you can ignore his warning and just get a drop in relations, not an excommunication. Please avoid excommunication, it is hard to fix.

Use your money to garrison your settlements with as many soldiers as you need to deter other factions from an attack. The campaign AI will sooner or later attack your settlements if they are poorly garrisoned, and even an ally may be lured to break the alliance if a juicy target seems easy to take. Have enough men in your settlements and your ally will never attack you. Even potential enemies might go somewhere else for easier prey. You will halt the stackspam, and other factions will war between themselves, leaving you in peace. Create and use the free upkeep slots, otherwise this tactic cannot be afforded. And you will need some income on top to have a garrison in excess of those free upkeep slots. Use cheap troops to fill up, as the enemy is counting men, not their strength.

Take care of your reputation. Once it goes down, it will get more and more difficult to find allies. Also nobody will ever ally with you if you are in a war. So make allies in times of peace. Being at war will also lower you reputation, so try to make peace with your neighbours again after you have taken the province you want. Other factions will want to make peace with you if a) you have a good reputation and b) you have allies. Take care to keep some allies at all times. Try and get your first ally right at the start, and if Catholic make it the Pope, if possible. The Pope is your ideal ally as a Catholic, so if you start as Sicily, Genoa, Milan, Venice - move your diplomat to Rome asap and ally with the Pope, ideally on the first turn.

At the beginning of the game, neighbouring factions will want to get trade agreements with you. Talk them into an alliance right away. And if possible, don't make an alliance with the faction you want to go to war against first, as attacking an ally will lower your reputation. Always watch your reputation, if you manage to get "immaculate", diplomacy will become really easy.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

@aaronishappy: With few little extra commands and options the AI could be much better though. The original developers did really miss a lot here. F.E. the AI can't count how many allies it has, how many turns it is at war with somebody, even comparing forces between their faction and another is.. shaky and buggy to say the least.

Sorry I just saw this and had to comment. My understanding is that the campaign AI takes the relation of the human player's alliance vs the AI's alliance into account. I have not checked how much difference it makes, but in principle it does it.

It also compares the sizes of armies locally before attacking and even military strength overall between the two factions before invading. The calculations sometimes fail (in which case the AI stays passive) but I have not noticed a problem with SS. The campaign AI also takes into consideration armies that can reinforce the human player and places stacks to block your reinforcements if possible (at least in some mods, can't remember about SS), for example by laying siege on nearby settlements simultaneously.

Also I seem to remember a SS6.3 Khwarezm campaign, early period on easy difficulty with Lusted in which for over 100 turns I fought no one except rebels and I had trade with almost everyone. Lives passed away without some generals seeing any fight, they just built markets and roads and took measures to combat the plague as I listened to stratmap music and the world grew old.

SS has many options for difficulty, one of these should be right for anyone. If you do not like too many battles, there is the option to edit the victory conditions and set your goal to 5 -10 regions and play on easy.

[BatGoat]

SS has many options for difficulty, one of these should be right for anyone. If you do not like too many battles, there is the option to edit the victory conditions and set your goal to 5 -10 regions and play on easy.

Hahahaha. That's one way of having your cake and eating it, too...

[MWY]

@Geoffrey: Well, I did not say that it doesn't take the strength of an alliance into account. I said that it can't count how many alliances it has. Which is problematic since because of this, there tend to be huge blocks of alliances for some AI's which is historically speaking pretty pretty wrong. And it also doesn't really make sense.

Also, the overall military balance is always correctly calculated. Local strength is MOSTLY not. In fact, as soon as one faction is split between landmasses (eg. one controls an island) the value is almost always terribly wrong. The amount of free strength available is sometimes right, but sometimes feels really random. And I programmed and tested the AI for SSHIP, believe me I know what I'm talking about.

I'm not saying that you can't programm a somewhat reasonable AI, I'm saying that it could have been much better with a few extra commands or a few commands simply working better (both of which would have been possible to add easily).

[reaper101]

I started a SSHIP campaign, and it's much better. Since units are so much more expensive, the AI is restricted to very few troops, even if they're militia. Once you kill that elite stack of heavy cav, it's gone for a while until the AI pulls together the cash to replace it. I don't have to worry about random stacks- if I kill something, they won't have the troops to replace it. Very satisfying.