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[warhammer651]

For anyone suffering from BSoD on startup: have you updated ALL your drivers INCLUDING MOTHERBOARD AND AUDIO? Apparently that's causing a lot of the problems

[Bobinater]

So apparently the copy I bought at target was limited edition that came with all the pre-order bonuses despite me not pre-ordering it 

[umiman]

I haven't had the nerve to try it yet.

Does the enemy get buffs, or is the difficulty purely AI?

I'm not too sure if they get buffs, but the tactics they demonstrate is very fearsome indeed.

I've seen the AI do remarkable things in combat. I can give an example of a battle I fought against them.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Two equally sized, equally powerful armies. AI is the attacking force. I'm the defending force on top of a small hill surrounded by forest. My archers are all plunked at the top of the hill ready to rain arrows down on the enemy who will have to charge up there to get to me. My spear and katana units are hidden at the foot of the hill inside the forest ready to ambush. Also, on the right flank, also hidden, is my cavalry who will flank and destroy the enemy's archers who will no doubt sit at the base of the hill while firing up.

The AI proceeds as normal and creates this HUGE concave formation that more or less surrounds the entire hill, but stays out of archer range (probably because it can see the archers). Then it starts moving up its own archers but runs into my spears. Immediately he backs off his archers, and sends up his own katana units to attack my spears (it remembers the position of hidden units now). I back my spears off and send my own katana units to fight his, thus every single katana unit is stuck in melee at the foot of the hill.

Meanwhile, his archers split into two groups and each went to one side of the hill to do their original job of hitting my general (he's at the top of the hill too). His own cavalry also comes and tries to flank around the sides in the same direction as the archers but my hidden spears intercept and surround them (this means the AI doesn't cheat and can't see invisible units). So now all my spears and all his cavalry are stuck in melee too.

So, since I saw all our units were all more or less stuck in place, I sent out my hidden cavalry to do their flanking duty. However, as I moved my cavalry into position at the rear of the AI's archers, he repositioned those guys to fire on mine. I charged anyway, but I got intercepted by the AI's spears who had been sitting there in ambush this whole time (!!!). My entire cavalry troupe was thus massacred.

At the same time, somehow the AI managed to send one unit of katana samurai all the way around the entire goddamn battlefield to hit my archers from the rear. Caught me completely by surprise. Also, since both mine and the AI's spear units had finished killing off all the cavalry, we both sent them into the giant fray of melee death still going on between the katana samurai from the beginning of the battle. But the AI did something even better. He sent his general into there as well and used both rally and inspire. I couldn't do the same with my general because I had to use him to kill the AI's sneaky katana units.

Even though I managed to kill those katana samurai, almost all my melee units were dead. All I had were archers without ammo and my general. The AI still had quite a lot of melee units, as well as all his archers. As you can probably guess, I got promptly massacred.

What does this mean? It means that even though I had a superior position, a great ambush, and the ability to freaking pause the game, the AI was simply better than me at flanking and using the correct units for the job.  I was simply outmatched. Not the first time too. The AI is very good at handling its units. The only time I've seen it be stupid with its units is in sieges where I have like 2000 men and the enemy has 100. He just sits there waiting to die.

Edit: I just noticed that a general's painted portrait matches his 3D avatar. That's quite cute.

[Aklyon]

Wow.

[inteuniso]

Sounds like Total War finally did what they have been trying to do for a long time. I want to get this game now.

[umiman]

Wow.

That was my exact reaction. I seriously could not believe I lost. I mean, the AI had before this defeated me before but most of those times it outnumbered me or had better units than me.

Here I was, with a spectacular, couldn't-ask-for-better defensive position, with a great army matched up against an enemy of equal numbers and I got wiped.

I would say that out in the field, the AI can be a real challenge. Sieges though, it's not very good at. Thankfully, in the campaign, you will fight more field battles than siege battles, which is nice. Not to mention the AI likes to sally forth if you're sieging him too, which is also nice.

[Puzzlemaker]

I almost lost during a siege.  The AI was assaulting my walls from several points, and I had to spread out my troops.  Suddenly I had noticed that he had dismounted his general and was assaulted the wall with them.  It got pretty close near the end, there, but I was ultimately victorious.

But yeah, AI improvements are awesome.

[Zrk2]

I'm jealous of you guys now. The only time I've lost any battle where units wer near parity (in medieval 2) were:

A) They AI had dismounted feudal knights to my armoured sergeants.
B) I accidentally sent my cavalry into battle before my infantry arrived, they killed the cavalry, then wheeled and hit my infantry with superior numbers.

[Ivefan]

The game feels quite different from the past Total war games, The AI is better, morale changes faster and there's always lots of dead. I guess i blame the ashigari for the last.
Oh, and in my brief experience of gunpowder units. They seem to be a lot more useful than in the past?

[Bobinater]

The AI for battle seems pretty good but in two siege battles I had I noticed it behaved pretty odd.

In the first battle an enemy army had been sitting outside my capitol waiting for a good opportunity to attack when another clans army charged in and I was then forced to face the combined force of both their armies (fairly smart campaign AI).  I was finishing off the aggressive clans army  when I noticed the second clan was simply waiting back, while it seemed very smart (let the other guy do all the work) they happened to have all their units positioned on the same spot forming a random massive blob.  when I finished off the first clans army the second AI's army still stood in that position for several minutes.  eventually they sent forward archers, and me, lacking any ammunition to return fire with, sallied forth a single unit of suicidal ashigaru to route there archers.  after the quick fight they just stood there in range of my watchtower not doing anything, slowly taking casualties but still standing there unflinching.  after deciding I was too impatient to wait for the battle timer I sallied forth and won after a prolonged brutal melee which I am sure I would have lost where it not for my general.

In a later siege battle the Takeda clan took a great opportunity to attack me when I was focusing elsewhere, taking 2 and a half stacks of units, 6000+ men (great example of campaign AI), they attacked my level 1 castle garrisoned with only 1000 men.  I had barely defeated the first wave when I noticed that all of Takeda's reinforcing units where blobbing together like the first battle.  all of my units where at half strength low morale and no ammo and they where just watching my fort with a force of 3000 men all huddled as closely together as possible.  after turning it on to the highest speed and waiting for 30 minutes the battle ended in my victory.  The only explanation I can come up with is the soldiers of Takeda enjoy spooning with each other more than the chance at honorable victory over the enemy.

despite these two hiccups which I am going to assume is just some bug regarding reinforcing armies the AI both tactical and on the campaign map far outperform other TW games.  even my two examples while showcasing a small issue show some small examples of the AI at work.

Is anyone else noticing anything funny or buggy with the AI though?

[ductape]

I noticed that during a siege, the enemy started to climb my walls. When the first wave of guys made it to the top, I spanked em pretty hard and they routed. At least the guys at the top did. All the rest of the unit was still either on the wall trying to make it to the top, or at the bottom of the wall waiting their turn to climb. One by one, they would climb the wall and as soon as they got inside my first they would run straight for the gate. I withdrew my troops from that area and focused on another part of the abttle and they just kept doing that until each member of the unit had scaled the wall and then fled out the gate. Kinda funny to watch.

Other than small stuff, I have found the AI to be an engaging opponent. Great game.

[Thendash]

I have not noticed the ai having a problem with reinforcing armies, but they do seem to have problems with sieges. I've captured a few cities by amassing all my troops on one side except for a few cavalry on the opposite side. Then while the defenders are busy with my main force I just dismount my cavalry and have them climb the walls to the keep and capture it without the defenders reacting at all.

[Jackrabbit]

Yes, I noticed a problem like that in the demo, where both times I played the castle siege I managed to capture the keep with ninjas without anyone reacting to it in the minute or so they had to react. But I didn't manage it when I tried in the actual game to see if they could fix it, so that's good.

[ductape]

i have been doing some multiplayer tonight. FUN!

[umiman]

Yeah, the AI has some pretty serious problem with sieges. I consider this a handicap however, because it's so freaking good at field battles. I am seriously more willing to autoresolve evenly matched field battles than actually fight them myself. The AI is too scary. I've actually lost more field battles to the AI than won. If it wasn't for the save game function, I'd have committed seppuku about 50 times now.

I really like some of the balance changes they did. Archers for example. They are both ridiculously powerful and ridiculously weak at the same time. It's hard to put it in words, but when I see archers, I fear them yet not fear them. The fire arrow initial burst is so scary that you have to decide who you are going to sacrifice to take that initial hit. After that, their dps over time is low enough that an infantry charge should be able to break them.

But it's so tough as a human to figure out when that time to charge is. You charge too early and the archers will tear you to shreds. Charge too late and well... none of your units will be left alive.

It's great! They aren't overpowered either (try fielding an entire army of archers and see what happens) but the intricacies that come with the unit make it a true challenge to master.