[1.2] AI appears to be blind

As a matter of curiosity, have you started a new game since you updated to 1.2? I've certainly seen all the behaviour you describe in previous versions, however I was hoping this was improved in 1.2. I don't believe you get the new behaviour unless you start a new game, though.

I only started a new game last night so I can't comment on whether the AI seems any better yet.

Yeah this one never used to bother me so much.... but in a game for me just now, Resoln declared war on me.... then Ceresa and a gang of her mates charged into my territory (great so far)... then they happened to walk right on top of a goodie hut (that I had not picked up)... but hey didn't grab it

Then they walked off it.... wander a few squares away then wandered back over the top of it again without grabbing it, ack.

As abob101 says above, I am experiencing this behavior in new games. I'm surprised, because I know AI is Brad's speciality and something he cares about a lot, and the AI here seems to be poorer than any I can remember.

Well in fairness... I'm sure Brad could have the AI grab all goodie huts it comes across if that was what was deemed to be best for gameplay..... I think it is somewhat intentional in that the idea is that the AI leaves some goodie huts behind for the player to pick up late game.  I believe the theory is that if the AI grabbed all the goodie huts it could, there'd be none available to the player beyond the handful near their start point.  

Which is fine in theory, but kinda puts the AI at a disadvantage.  And seems really, really weird when you see it them pass right by one that could easily be grabbed.

Nice to see nothing has changed eversince FE 1.3 in that matter. Just had a game in which even the goodie huts right next to its settlements have been ignored by the AI factions.

I don't care so much about goodie huts, which rarely produce anything very game changing. I'll be disappointed though if the AI still won't attack undefended outposts and cities.

Well, outposts haven't been targetted much in any of my games. Cities however have been attacked a lot in my last one (on Ridicoulous to have  a challenge) ). Though mostly just the ones adjacent to AI's settlements. Not even a sign of AI trying to flank me and attack cities farther away from the front lines...

Star Adder, are you saying the AI is incapable of dominating any faction with multiple cities (even on ridiculous)?

I haven't found the AI to be nearly this stupid in my experience.  They seem to grab the vast majority of goodie huts they come across (always snagging ones I'm close to getting myself constantly (which is a good thing)).  Had my cities attacked plenty as well. 

Although I've never been truly "dominated" by another faction, as far as seeing the AI systematically take my cities one by one until I was truly defeated.  If they are truly still incapable of doing this (especially on higher difficulties), then that's extremely disappointing.  Hope this isn't the case, as perhaps others have found the contrary.

One step at a time! I'll take any attacks as progress. I've seen the AI ignore undefended cities on several occasions, and it's been reported by others as well.

In any case I believe "send an army to attack the enemy capital" is one of the programmed strategies. It's happened to me once where it ignored the city I'd just taken and sent the army to attack my capital. On a couple of other occasions I think attacking my capital rather than my border city was what the AI was trying to do.

The problem has been that the AI didn't seem to re-evaluate its target based on what was around it. So it wouldn't take undefended outposts and cities it passed if the stack was supposed to be doing something else, e.g. attacking a different target. In some cases standing around doing nothing seeemd to be higher on the list of priorites than taking a city two moves away. If the AI has got better at attacking targets of opportunity it will make quite a significant difference to the difficulty. At the end of my last game the AI seemed to be much more effective at targeting my border cities, however that was on a game I started before the 1.2 release, so it may have just been that the old logic worked fine in that particular situation.

I live in hope the AI will get better, its use of strategic spells has gone from zero to occasionally devastating over the last few months. Improving its use of tactical spells would also be nice; Mass Curse or Fireball over Burning Blade every time, please. But as I say, one thing at a time.

Really?  I've never really had an issue with that, AI always seems to be pretty reasonable at grabbing outposts (I'm only on Challenging AI).

Yeah from my experience it's definately more active with strategic spells.  In the game i'm playing at the minute Magnar drops Pillar of Flame and Wither on me whenever I venture into his territory.  6 months ago that never happened.

Agree that a bit more smarts in the use of tactical spells would be nice.  AI sure does love that burning blade

Just played a game where 2 factions were repeatedly stealing an outpost from each other.

Never seen this.

The AI intentionally not taking things it should because otherwise the player would be at a disadvantage is, I hope, NOT in any algorithms Brad is utilizing.

I definitely saw the AI take an opportunistic blow on me yesterday.

It was a fight over a border city which I had just taken. He was heading straight towards it with a big stack, obviously aiming to recapture it. I was just able to reach the city with my sov stack but.as I was about to optimize my sov's gear for the fight I accidentally hit his eject button. As he has 0 movement left I can't get him back into the city this turn.

The AI stack opportunistically hits first my sov, then the city. Killing him on the first archer shot as he has only 1 hp left after the first fight.

That sounds great, that's exactly the sort of thing I was hoping was fixed. It will need some more playtesting, but I'm hoping this will fix the situations I've seen where a large AI army has marched straight past an undefended city. In one game I used the garrison to attack the AI and lost the battle, but the AI then ignored the now almost undefended city (it had no units left, only the basic city defender troops). I might try to set up a similar situation and see if the AI reacts differently in 1.2.

No, I was just pointing out that they usually just attack my border settlements and don't try to sneak up from behind.

And usually I have no probs if I'm only fighting a single faction. Had to give up though when suddenly EACH faction declared war and sent armies of 1000-2000 hitpoints to take my cities from all sides coz I didn't have enough armies to defend them.

HUH?! I am still to witness ANY AI faction using ANY strategic spell on me...

 In my last game I took a run at a big Capitar city with my sovereign in a deadly rated stack and got blasted by Pillar of Flame, knocking my armies health down by about 33%. I was more than 2 turns away from the city at the time, so I scuttled out of his zoc but not before taking another pillar which killed a henchman. This was only on Normal difficulty, too.

I've seen them ignore some goodie huts, though.

Yeah the strategic spells Magnar used on me was pretty neat.  Especially because, I was trying to be sneaky... Magnar had a large force stationed in his closest city to my border.  I had an army nearby that wasn't strong enough to take him on.... but he had a second city further away (deeper into his territory) that had only a small garrison.

I thought, right.... i'll do a sneaky attack, went around Magnar and his large force... and went deeper into his territory heading for easier target.  Once I was a couple of turns in he hit me with Pillar of Flames and Wither, a couple of turns in a row... ouch.  It weakened me to the point I wouldn't have been able to take even the lightly defended city.... so we had to abort the mission and retreat the army was completely destroyed.

Was very cool.