The question the sender asked is something I've been wondering for a while. I typically play on normal and have experienced the AI making a bee line to exactly where my units are hiding.
I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s possibly you’re hiding in a really predictable place. As Legend says, in the absence of any targets they start to advance and search hiding places… and even if they can see a small force, they won’t commit everything to it. They’ll certainly use cav/fast movers to scout the woods. So if they’re only a few woods to scout, they’ll find you pretty quick without something else to draw them off. Likewise, stalking units right in the middle of your deployment zone or at the crossing points of rivers will be found just because they’re places the enemy was going anyway.
@@discountdavyjones5002nah its because ai just b lines you. I was hiding in bigger forests(not these lil patches of trees) and they would still sometimes just b line me even tho it would make 0 sense to go immediately there
@@imma5761 hello. I am sad to say this but this is true for nearly all strategy games. the AI is fully aware of anything that is happening on the map and they are programmed to ignore it to some extend. clearly, in wh3, this is not executed well and they forget that you are stealthed very quickly.
I once had the same thing happen to me, two battles in a row. And no, I was not hiding at the start position or in a forest. After that, I completely gave up on fully stalking armies. I much rather have a few stalking units, that guarantees fooling the AI from my experience. I just don't wanna invest in something whoose main thing is very unreliable
Sometimes AI is just tired of pretending they know nothing. Happened to me a few times with different armies. Last was my lord and two engineers, all stalking, hiding in a corner part of map, but not really corner, on the hill with bad access, no trees, nothing and rest were copters. All the army just rushed at my lord. somehow able to pathfind there. No spreading like if they look for me, just rush in a line, mimicking a snake. Before that, I had rangers army (with some engineers, everyone snipe/stalk) and a lord + a thane (those were tanked out as much as possible and very visible). We did not even get close and AI started to just spray my stalking units with magic. I play on hard/hard only (frogin cassual)
It’s easy to tell that the ai knows. Every time I hide a single unit in some trees on the opposite corner of the map with my army exposed the Ai will always send a unit to go uncover my hidden unit.
@@DameonRaeth40 How would they know if your army wasn't spotted anywhere around the area? Something I have find out is if you hide army just on the border of another province, they are more likely to attack the settlement, so they probably have Public Order Military Presence stat visible, among other things.
@@jannovy7229 you'd need to find out what the fog of war looks like for the AI. Either way, I go into ambush stance before moving just incase it makes a difference
Easy way to see how much the AI cheats with hidden units. Play a siege as an attacker with some stalk units. Have non stalk units sit outside the walls, and send the stalkers in on the opposite side of the map over the walls. AI doesn't react to you placing ladders on walls, but as you move through the settlement, avoiding capture points, the AI will start moving units towards the stalking units, sometimes directly at them, which is something it shouldn't do. If you didn't have the stalk units, the AI wouldn't move inside the settlement at all unless your outside units are moving. You could sit for hours and nothing will even budge an inch. As soon as your stalk units are in the settlement, that changes. tl;dr, AI doesn't "go looking" for stalk units, they actively know exactly where they are and pretend not to, sometimes not even doing that.
I had Chameleon Skinks waiting on pretty much the opposite side of the map as I went to fight Ikkit. He dropped a nuke on them without revealing them with surgical precision. They never even got close enough to see them.
I do remember recently, I was playing dwarfs and I've hidden a blob of units in a forest, leaving only one visible in hopes of baiting Ikit's nuke. I deploy, 45 second pass, he pops menace from below right on top of my hidden blob and nukes it
14:07 Denial of combat is not "cheese", it has been a valid military tactic through the ages, from Scipio at Zama to the British at Dunkirk to name but a few proeminent exemples amongst many.
Scipio himself didn't use this tactic. Some other roman generals did, Scipio was conquering carthigian lands in Spain and then headed to Africa, while hannibal was marching back and forth in italy. Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy but by the time Hannibal faced Scipio in Zama, Hannibals men were old and tired having marched back and forth in Italy looking for a fight, the romans were denying them this fight, the tactic you are referring to, for 12 some years. Scipio easily beat Hannibal at Zama. Hannibal knew how to get a victory but not how to use it.
It's just a running joke at this point. There is a pretty large contingent of Total War players who think using any kind of historical tactic beyond "group up your guys and charge at the enemy" is somehow invalid.
I have experienced the AI on normal turn 90 degrees to beeline my hiding army while my fast units were visible and actively skirmishing with the enemy. The AI absolutely isn't working as intended here because they turn and directly move to attack your units.
Tbh, its common in games to have ai see the whole map at all times and just pretend it doesnt see you. Its just easier to code it that way and final results are pretty much the same
The thing is, if the ai is supposed to pretend yet still bee lines it to your units then its not pretending well. The AI should return to the searching behaviour, i.e. spreading out, checking forests n shi Once they spotted your units once it would make sense to maybe seperate a search party of two units while it maintains the frontline. That said coding AI is hard and what the Total War devs can do is already incredible!
@@Stiftoad As you said, its an issue when ai isnt pretending well. And no, it shouldn't return to default search pattern (then stalking units could cheese the ai as hell), it should look at the detected unit speed and calculate the area how far this unit could reach in x amount of time, then search this area with its units while also attempting to cut them off the rest of the map if manpower allows and only after certain amount of time, should they return to default search pattern. So it could often look like they are still following your units, but it would still be possible to outmanouver them.
In cases like Valkiia I hook the flying boss on some gyro, bring it to the main force and then land the gyro. The boss lands and I have some much easier time dealing with it. Except army loss cases of course!
Landing is underrated. Also really good for when playing with the little blue horror caster lords on the their disks. It's really easy to keep flying over armies even when harassed by flying cavalry, since you can land or feign dives towards ground targets if you get surrounded in air. Swooping doesn't do damage anymore, but still good for changing elevation and evading projectiles and hits.
I was using Bugman rangers with snipe too. Belegar as lord, 2 Thane, 1 Engineer with snipe (from item) and 1 organ gunner with snipe (from rune), it was funny before the encounter with Ikit claw. His doom rockets definitely knows where you are.
So thats what boggles my mind. Creative Assembly made "Alien: Isolation". So they are capable of creating an "Director AI" and an "Alien Ai". Two separate scripts/ algorithms. I do not understand why they do not use this system for the Total War Games series. This way the Director AI could decided what Information to give to the Faction Computer AI or the human player as well and which to keep to themselves. The computer faction simply cheating is just plain stupid in the 21st century.
any game involving fog of war or cloaking/invisibility the ai automatically knows where you are, thats just how game design works. its up to developers to create the illusion that the ai player doesnt know. and if the enemy ai is supposed to mimic human tactics and strategy then it makes sense that they wouldn't stand there and ket your stalker units hit them with impunity
honestly it's more an issue with snipe being a flawed mechanic. it's kinda game-breaking to have an entire army full of unspottable sniper dwarves. especially in sieges. fun for a bit, then you stop playing, and do a different race :P
One of the most frustrating things is spending the time to set up your army before the battle and deploying one or two stalking units in the enemy’s back corner or vanguard in a small patch of trees. Only to start the battle and have half of the enemy just b-line straight towards your hidden units. Despite the fact your army might be in front of their face or my ABSOLUTE favorite when the ai just magically “wanders into the correct patch of trees” without checking any other patches of trees. Like damn that unit of huntsman was so useful firing 1 volley before getting shredded by 4 units of dire wolves.
I thought this was well known? Jezzails are very easy to see it, when you're on offense, the instant your stalking jezzails are in range, the enemy responds.
Most people who play, pretty much auto resolve because they will have fewer casualties that way (I'm one of them) so not everything regarding in battle stats, is known.
@@deathweeler8028Auto resolve will almost always give you worse results than fighting manually. It's impossible for it to calculate for proper magic use, items, abilities, formation utilization, flanking, etc.. Basically all the autoresolve does is crunch the flat calculations of your unit's stat lines vs the enemies, and take into account things like hero levels, items, army abilities, status effects, etc. as positive or negative 'weights' to the math. Then it spits out the winner and damages all units in the armies evenly according to the casualty results. It's very rare that I encounter a battle that the autoresolve unfairly weights in my favor, one that I know would be worse to fight manually. So no, in most cases players take the auto resolve knowing the result is likely worse than a manual battle. It's just that 70% of the time you don't need to worry about perfect victories since you'll get a turn of replenishment before the next fight anyway.
Playing TW:W2 yesterday as Krog-gar. Doing a siege offensive and deployed all my hide-able forces on the eastern side hidden in a forest while my lord and dinos were on the western side. Every single enemy unit deployed on the eastern wall...
I don't really ever invest in stealth armies but in the few moments I'm hiding a smaller force while waiting on reinforcements It's noticeable how much the AI knows where I am (rather ironically) while "searching" and then very obviously avoiding my hidden army to the point its almost comical watching a unit that was headed straight for my hidden force suddenly decide that direction must be no good and do 90 degree crank in direction.
This doesn't jsut happen on VH/VH (maybe because that's what legend plays on so that's why he notices it only on VH?), it happens at all difficulties. The AI knows and while it won't send all of its units, it send the majority of its forces EXACTLY where you're hiding (as if it knows). It's a dumb fix honestly, but it's been confirmed by CA that this is the new "AI Cheats" since they gave the option for the statboosts CA has instead decided to make the AI do things the player can't. You'll notice the AI can control single entities within a 100 entity unit and spread them across your entire front line. Its something i've brought up to their devs multiple times and every time it's just "we can't fix that" or "working as intended". Really kills the fun honestly. Manor lords has filled the void that TWW3 has left
just play multiplayer lol AI sucks not just in stealth but in sieges too. Online campaign with simultaineous turns makes the experience unbelievably poggers with memorable battles nonstop.
I’ve had the AI beeline it toward stalk units sitting in random spots on the map. Not forests, literally say a far away corner or even behind them in another corner. Their pathing is stupid.
Truth be told, it's a situation of "You may know what I'M going to do, but that won't help you because I know what YOU'RE going to do...STRANGE, ISN'T IT?!"
Whenever I make a Gyrocopter Army the AI is looking for my Lord and hero (in general one lord and 1 or 2 engineers). In an field battle they always spread out and search for them, while I shoot down the priority targets.
I had the same problem just yesterday. Played Alith Anar with a Shadow Warrior spam, attached wth a noble and heavens wizard (chose her because she had a barrier). I did NOT know that valkia is basically "immune" to missile fire so I had to repeat that battle a few times before I came to the same conclusion that fighting er is utterly pointless. I had a second army of Lothern Sea Guard spam so it was 2vs2. Used the roiling sky ability of my heavens wizard and let Valkia chase after a few of my shadow warriors, since my noble wasn't fast enough to outfly Valkia without her being slower from roiling skies, only being able to tank so much dmg, while defeating the rest of the army thus army lossing her.
Battle sender : So, they know where our units are? Legend : Yes Battle sender : But then, it's useless! Legend : Unless you use their knowledge against them. Battle sender : :O
Baffled as to why you’d not have a Master Engineer in that army. The benefits provided far outweigh losing one Ranger, and it is not like the Engie is going to be a liability in combat since you can easily get them Stalk from a cheap Oathgold item right off the bat.
Why are you baffled? He's playing the masters of innovation and he recently confederated grombadil. The ai didn't build an engineer building and the player wanted to prioritize rangers, which the ai most likely had a building for already. It's turn 29.
Reminds me of WARNO and before Steel Division 2 where AI would always know your hidden units or attack them without warning, they would be wiped by the time you realise.
They will even do this on normal as well, I'm still new and learning so that's what I play on (campaign and battle, pls don't judge). It's not as often, every once in a blue moon whoever I'm up against will just send a small task force after my hidden units no matter how far or out of the way they are to go discover and attack them. Even the units threat level doesn't seem to be a factor, I've had single well hidden units of chaos warhounds get sused out for seemingly no reason while a raging frontline clash can be going on.
They definitely b-line for you, even on normal battle difficulty, sometimes I'd have units flank through forests and even though they were hidden the ai would "Search" for hidden units EXACTLY where my units were even though the majority of my army was engaging them in the front. Company of Heroes 2 has a similar thing for their AI, they can see invisible units regardless, even without spotter units, they move exactly towards them so that they get close enough to spot them and activate abilities on them, I had to specifically disable this cheat in my "AI doesn't cheat" mod.
In fairness, if we are bringing a little reality to a fantasy, someone is going to notice where the bullets/arrows are coming from unless they are invisible munitions. The obvious real work around to this would be the range and sight factor but again in reality the only units in RL that snipe are snipers of course and artillery or tanks but tanks are usually easy to spot from the size of them and muzzle flash/smoke. Artillery is usually pinpointed, again by looking for the projectile trail and sniper detection has a lot of variables such as sound, scope flash etc. I think so long as you are distracting the enemy they usually leave your snipe units alone, which is fair enough otherwise it's back to wanting invisible arrows again.
I play normal battle difficulty for multiplayer campaigns and the AI always knows where your stalking units are. when everything is hidden they send units to all the hiding places but if your units have stalk they can literally be anywhere without the need for trees or LoS but yet the AI still goes straight towards you. Very frustrating when you're fighting large battles and have something like sneaky gits or stabbaz that you want to flank with and the AI will just send their cav directly at them.
My personal experience is that usually they will ignore stealth units if there is at least one unit they CAN see. However if there are no visible units, they basically just automatically know where all your units are and act accordingly.
even in Warhammer 2 it still could be fucked... Had a normal difficulty Oxyotl campaign, Malestrom, did the final quest battle. That one is doable with just Oxyotl itself if you have enough Ammo. So I ran around, snipped the targets, but when the last 2 before Taurox came in with their armies, their armies straight up walked directly, where Oxyotl was, even tho, I wasn't detected once. Managed, but Oxyotl got caught once, so I had to pull it out for healing, and had to deliver relief with my Chameleon skins army. If they hadn't done this shit, I would have won that whole battle 100% with just Oxyotl.
How dare you cheese, you must meet Valkia and her overwhelming forces of Khorn in melee combat like a true Roman! While I jest, I actually do think it would be fun to see in these disaster battles how the fight would have gone if you had stuck to conventional combat and met the enemy equally, just to show us all the extent to which the forces you're given would normally be slaughtered, then show us your solution with clever tactics and dividing up the enemy into manageable waves.
Valkia is just a nightmare to fight she gives me PTSD from my early RoC campaigns as kislev A small single entity that is extremely spell resistant, a melee powerhouse, armored, has physical resistance and can heal in melee she will solo your entire army no problem.
Legends treatment of Valkia reminds me of how I dealt with my ex wife edit: holy shit that lord gained 9 levels from that battle. he went from level 21 to 30. never seen that before.
Always had the AI spread out to search for my hidden units in 1 & 2. Now if I have even one hidden unit well away from my main army the AI sends a detachment of a perfect counter to kill it.
I mean, that was necessary. With Warhammer II you could just abuse AI "forgetting" to a point where it was chasing you back and forth, and you could win any battle with timeout, no matter the AI advantage
I think it’s specifically Bugman Rangers that have this issue, I had this exact problem playing a Belegar run Bugman Ranger stack in my Malakai campaign… it doesn’t help that their range is pretty unimpressive
It's AI design like this that makes me actively avoid playing CA games, makes me distrust all strategy games universally forevermore, and makes the strategy genre to the standard gamer overall look bad and unfun to play if there's a chance that the AI can just break the rules of the game. The *entire reason* I play Singleplayer games is to avoid cheaters. Straight up having AI cheat and break the rules of the game to make a difficulty hard is just F-Tier Lazy Game Design that tells me CA has no idea how to make an actual "Very Hard" AI or they just doesn't wanna put in the effort (probably the latter). The player doesn't get to know where the AI's stalking units are, so why does the AI get to know the the Player's stalking units are? If we're gonna break rules, break rules equally ffs. Make the AI actually harder to play against that uses better strategy and progresses faster, not just make the AI a straight up cheater that doesn't have to play by the same rules as you have to. It's not rocket science.
There are mods that fix this problem, and it’s obvious why it’s coded that way. The AI tends to be afk if it can’t see your units, even if they’re being shot at.
Valkia's biggest strength are her ridiculous animations. She moves so much it like she's got additional melee defense and missile dodge while she's in melee.
Not related to the video, Soooo... kazarak attacks boris, sits in settlement, over end turn tries to delcare peace with me, i decline, then he marches right threw my army in ambush stance, attacks another settlment, somehow brings me out of ambush stance then goes into well encamped hidden. Or something like that. Does he have a very high ambush defense chance naturally or something?
if he had a gun line, I'd say shoot at valkia, but without the speed of missiles and armor piercing of guns, she's not really a good target for ranged units
I will load a map 20 times and the enemy army is always in the same position, the moment I move a hidden unitd near a target, that's when the AI moves the entire army formation during battle position phase
Ive had Skarbrand with his bloodthirster summon go right on top of a couple of stalking units in the corner of the map with a gyrocopter army. So I think there is some bugs with it.
People keep talking about vlad being hard in manual. I think valkya is sooo much worse. At least vlad is slow early on but you can never get away from valkya with her flying and speed.
Every battle with Valkia becomes about trying to kill her army instead of her and hoping you do enough damage to get the army loss without ever actually fighting her. Truly hateful character.
Never tried with an entire army but usually they split using fastwe units to scout if nothing is visible (both hiden and stalk) when normal or very hard.
The statement "the AI knows where your stalking units are but just ignore s" is pretty nonsensical statement. The AI is one part of the program. Your stalking units are also a part of that program.
"ai doesnt care about stealth" yeah it is known AI doesn't work with stealth/sieges/pathfinding etc Just play online campaign, it is the ultimate total war experience. It even has simultaneous multiplayer, no other total war has it - the devs knew the AI sucked so they made the best online!the AI sucked so they made the best online!
The question the sender asked is something I've been wondering for a while. I typically play on normal and have experienced the AI making a bee line to exactly where my units are hiding.
yeah i was gonna say the same, i play on normal too and the AI's ability to walk towards my units is _uncanny_
I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s possibly you’re hiding in a really predictable place.
As Legend says, in the absence of any targets they start to advance and search hiding places… and even if they can see a small force, they won’t commit everything to it. They’ll certainly use cav/fast movers to scout the woods.
So if they’re only a few woods to scout, they’ll find you pretty quick without something else to draw them off. Likewise, stalking units right in the middle of your deployment zone or at the crossing points of rivers will be found just because they’re places the enemy was going anyway.
@@discountdavyjones5002nah its because ai just b lines you.
I was hiding in bigger forests(not these lil patches of trees) and they would still sometimes just b line me even tho it would make 0 sense to go immediately there
@@imma5761 hello. I am sad to say this but this is true for nearly all strategy games. the AI is fully aware of anything that is happening on the map and they are programmed to ignore it to some extend. clearly, in wh3, this is not executed well and they forget that you are stealthed very quickly.
I once had the same thing happen to me, two battles in a row. And no, I was not hiding at the start position or in a forest. After that, I completely gave up on fully stalking armies. I much rather have a few stalking units, that guarantees fooling the AI from my experience.
I just don't wanna invest in something whoose main thing is very unreliable
That just means that a Stalker is stalking my Stalkers.
We need to find that Stalker stalking Stalker and stalk him back!
But who will going to be the Stalker that find that Stalker stalking the Stalker
@@Apocalypse21OG Who do you think the first stalker was stalking?
@@scorpixel1866
We need Tariff to make this meme to real
Get out of here stalker
Sometimes AI is just tired of pretending they know nothing.
Happened to me a few times with different armies.
Last was my lord and two engineers, all stalking, hiding in a corner part of map, but not really corner, on the hill with bad access, no trees, nothing and rest were copters. All the army just rushed at my lord. somehow able to pathfind there. No spreading like if they look for me, just rush in a line, mimicking a snake.
Before that, I had rangers army (with some engineers, everyone snipe/stalk) and a lord + a thane (those were tanked out as much as possible and very visible). We did not even get close and AI started to just spray my stalking units with magic.
I play on hard/hard only (frogin cassual)
It’s easy to tell that the ai knows. Every time I hide a single unit in some trees on the opposite corner of the map with my army exposed the Ai will always send a unit to go uncover my hidden unit.
Or the AI somehow knows you have a large hidden army in its path and just suddenly stop going to your undefended settlement
@@sharpasacueball you can do the same thing as long as you have vision of them during the end turn.
@@DameonRaeth40 How would they know if your army wasn't spotted anywhere around the area? Something I have find out is if you hide army just on the border of another province, they are more likely to attack the settlement, so they probably have Public Order Military Presence stat visible, among other things.
@@jannovy7229 you'd need to find out what the fog of war looks like for the AI. Either way, I go into ambush stance before moving just incase it makes a difference
Maybe your troops were discovered on global map? There was an army of 11 units, and there are only 10 on battlefield. I would start searching too
Easy way to see how much the AI cheats with hidden units. Play a siege as an attacker with some stalk units. Have non stalk units sit outside the walls, and send the stalkers in on the opposite side of the map over the walls. AI doesn't react to you placing ladders on walls, but as you move through the settlement, avoiding capture points, the AI will start moving units towards the stalking units, sometimes directly at them, which is something it shouldn't do. If you didn't have the stalk units, the AI wouldn't move inside the settlement at all unless your outside units are moving. You could sit for hours and nothing will even budge an inch. As soon as your stalk units are in the settlement, that changes.
tl;dr, AI doesn't "go looking" for stalk units, they actively know exactly where they are and pretend not to, sometimes not even doing that.
Remember towers inside the settlement remove stalking!
@@maartencuyvers6017 within a small range that you can see by hovering over the tower.
@@maartencuyvers6017towers which they shouldn't build if they don't know there's stalking units in that corner of the settlement
-rep furry
I had Chameleon Skinks waiting on pretty much the opposite side of the map as I went to fight Ikkit. He dropped a nuke on them without revealing them with surgical precision. They never even got close enough to see them.
I do remember recently, I was playing dwarfs and I've hidden a blob of units in a forest, leaving only one visible in hopes of baiting Ikit's nuke. I deploy, 45 second pass, he pops menace from below right on top of my hidden blob and nukes it
"The calnrats revealed your units🤷♂️"-CA
14:07 Denial of combat is not "cheese", it has been a valid military tactic through the ages, from Scipio at Zama to the British at Dunkirk to name but a few proeminent exemples amongst many.
Scipio himself didn't use this tactic. Some other roman generals did, Scipio was conquering carthigian lands in Spain and then headed to Africa, while hannibal was marching back and forth in italy. Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy but by the time Hannibal faced Scipio in Zama, Hannibals men were old and tired having marched back and forth in Italy looking for a fight, the romans were denying them this fight, the tactic you are referring to, for 12 some years. Scipio easily beat Hannibal at Zama.
Hannibal knew how to get a victory but not how to use it.
Also known as the Fabian strategy
It's just a running joke at this point. There is a pretty large contingent of Total War players who think using any kind of historical tactic beyond "group up your guys and charge at the enemy" is somehow invalid.
@@jessedijksma3442poor Fabian. He basically set up the defeat of Hannibal but doesn't get any credit for it in the modern public eye
@@BlacK40kWhile he isn't well known he is sort of immortalised in the phrase "Fabian Tactics", he certainly deserves more recognition though.
AI does this on normal too Legend. Wish it was not
I have experienced the AI on normal turn 90 degrees to beeline my hiding army while my fast units were visible and actively skirmishing with the enemy. The AI absolutely isn't working as intended here because they turn and directly move to attack your units.
9 level ups. That's something I did not manage to see!
I didn't even know you could get beyond 10.000 exp from a single battle
I once underestimated valkia, she soloed my entire army and had like 1k kills.
how i felt fighting Vlad my first time, i killed his whole army but then Vlad just would not die with his health regen lol
@@xHuie Well vlad is not a 110 speed flying entity with a shield...
seems lore accurate
Tbh, its common in games to have ai see the whole map at all times and just pretend it doesnt see you. Its just easier to code it that way and final results are pretty much the same
I mean ai cant properly pathfind sometimes let alone would it be smart to code it with disability of not seeing your stalk/snipe units
The thing is, if the ai is supposed to pretend yet still bee lines it to your units then its not pretending well.
The AI should return to the searching behaviour, i.e. spreading out, checking forests n shi
Once they spotted your units once it would make sense to maybe seperate a search party of two units while it maintains the frontline.
That said coding AI is hard and what the Total War devs can do is already incredible!
@@Stiftoad As you said, its an issue when ai isnt pretending well.
And no, it shouldn't return to default search pattern (then stalking units could cheese the ai as hell), it should look at the detected unit speed and calculate the area how far this unit could reach in x amount of time, then search this area with its units while also attempting to cut them off the rest of the map if manpower allows and only after certain amount of time, should they return to default search pattern. So it could often look like they are still following your units, but it would still be possible to outmanouver them.
@@Stiftoad already incredible? ...this is terrible. the AI barely functions and you call it incredible?
@@Stiftoad they intentionally make the ai dumb, i think they could do more if they really wanted to
"All wars are won by the tastiest cheese."
- Sun Tzu probably
In cases like Valkiia I hook the flying boss on some gyro, bring it to the main force and then land the gyro. The boss lands and I have some much easier time dealing with it. Except army loss cases of course!
Landing is underrated. Also really good for when playing with the little blue horror caster lords on the their disks. It's really easy to keep flying over armies even when harassed by flying cavalry, since you can land or feign dives towards ground targets if you get surrounded in air. Swooping doesn't do damage anymore, but still good for changing elevation and evading projectiles and hits.
That Lord went up 9 levels! Great video as always!
Imagine being one of gyrobombers pilot and Legend says to you “ok, keep Valkia busy, while other troops won’t shoot her”
"This is where the fun begins"
I was using Bugman rangers with snipe too. Belegar as lord, 2 Thane, 1 Engineer with snipe (from item) and 1 organ gunner with snipe (from rune), it was funny before the encounter with Ikit claw. His doom rockets definitely knows where you are.
So thats what boggles my mind. Creative Assembly made "Alien: Isolation". So they are capable of creating an "Director AI" and an "Alien Ai". Two separate scripts/ algorithms. I do not understand why they do not use this system for the Total War Games series. This way the Director AI could decided what Information to give to the Faction Computer AI or the human player as well and which to keep to themselves. The computer faction simply cheating is just plain stupid in the 21st century.
any game involving fog of war or cloaking/invisibility the ai automatically knows where you are, thats just how game design works. its up to developers to create the illusion that the ai player doesnt know. and if the enemy ai is supposed to mimic human tactics and strategy then it makes sense that they wouldn't stand there and ket your stalker units hit them with impunity
honestly it's more an issue with snipe being a flawed mechanic. it's kinda game-breaking to have an entire army full of unspottable sniper dwarves. especially in sieges. fun for a bit, then you stop playing, and do a different race :P
One of the most frustrating things is spending the time to set up your army before the battle and deploying one or two stalking units in the enemy’s back corner or vanguard in a small patch of trees. Only to start the battle and have half of the enemy just b-line straight towards your hidden units.
Despite the fact your army might be in front of their face or my ABSOLUTE favorite when the ai just magically “wanders into the correct patch of trees” without checking any other patches of trees. Like damn that unit of huntsman was so useful firing 1 volley before getting shredded by 4 units of dire wolves.
You can also cheese this knowledge by using sacrificial units to distract some/half of the army while you destroy the rest.
@@MrLaz0rz because cheesing the AI even more is definetly needed.....
@@Dr.AvenVon It's called Defeat in Detail, valid military strategy!
I thought this was well known? Jezzails are very easy to see it, when you're on offense, the instant your stalking jezzails are in range, the enemy responds.
Most people who play, pretty much auto resolve because they will have fewer casualties that way (I'm one of them) so not everything regarding in battle stats, is known.
@@deathweeler8028if you're getting fewer casualties in auto resolve most the time there's something fundamentally wrong with your tactics
@@darrenheeney5551 I suck at battles, so you're not wrong lmao. I only fight when the AI says ill lose, when I shouldn't
@@deathweeler8028 only going to improve by fighting manual more
@@deathweeler8028Auto resolve will almost always give you worse results than fighting manually. It's impossible for it to calculate for proper magic use, items, abilities, formation utilization, flanking, etc.. Basically all the autoresolve does is crunch the flat calculations of your unit's stat lines vs the enemies, and take into account things like hero levels, items, army abilities, status effects, etc. as positive or negative 'weights' to the math. Then it spits out the winner and damages all units in the armies evenly according to the casualty results.
It's very rare that I encounter a battle that the autoresolve unfairly weights in my favor, one that I know would be worse to fight manually. So no, in most cases players take the auto resolve knowing the result is likely worse than a manual battle. It's just that 70% of the time you don't need to worry about perfect victories since you'll get a turn of replenishment before the next fight anyway.
Playing TW:W2 yesterday as Krog-gar. Doing a siege offensive and deployed all my hide-able forces on the eastern side hidden in a forest while my lord and dinos were on the western side. Every single enemy unit deployed on the eastern wall...
I don't really ever invest in stealth armies but in the few moments I'm hiding a smaller force while waiting on reinforcements It's noticeable how much the AI knows where I am (rather ironically) while "searching" and then very obviously avoiding my hidden army to the point its almost comical watching a unit that was headed straight for my hidden force suddenly decide that direction must be no good and do 90 degree crank in direction.
I remember once count nocti used his unique ability on my stalking akshina ambushers with snipe unlocked
This doesn't jsut happen on VH/VH (maybe because that's what legend plays on so that's why he notices it only on VH?), it happens at all difficulties. The AI knows and while it won't send all of its units, it send the majority of its forces EXACTLY where you're hiding (as if it knows). It's a dumb fix honestly, but it's been confirmed by CA that this is the new "AI Cheats" since they gave the option for the statboosts CA has instead decided to make the AI do things the player can't. You'll notice the AI can control single entities within a 100 entity unit and spread them across your entire front line. Its something i've brought up to their devs multiple times and every time it's just "we can't fix that" or "working as intended". Really kills the fun honestly. Manor lords has filled the void that TWW3 has left
How is manor lords even close to comparable?
just play multiplayer lol
AI sucks not just in stealth but in sieges too. Online campaign with simultaineous turns makes the experience unbelievably poggers with memorable battles nonstop.
Love the fights where the lord is unbeatable, really mixes up the strats you gotta use
Great thumbnail.
...
Did anyone notice that person who send this managed to bring Kraka Drak back, and get an alliance with them?.
I’ve had the AI beeline it toward stalk units sitting in random spots on the map. Not forests, literally say a far away corner or even behind them in another corner. Their pathing is stupid.
Truth be told, it's a situation of "You may know what I'M going to do, but that won't help you because I know what YOU'RE going to do...STRANGE, ISN'T IT?!"
man 20 minutes of running away from Valkia is such micro hell because of course they ignore your order to run away because why wouldn't they
Whenever I make a Gyrocopter Army the AI is looking for my Lord and hero (in general one lord and 1 or 2 engineers). In an field battle they always spread out and search for them, while I shoot down the priority targets.
I had the same problem just yesterday. Played Alith Anar with a Shadow Warrior spam, attached wth a noble and heavens wizard (chose her because she had a barrier).
I did NOT know that valkia is basically "immune" to missile fire so I had to repeat that battle a few times before I came to the same conclusion that fighting er is utterly pointless. I had a second army of Lothern Sea Guard spam so it was 2vs2. Used the roiling sky ability of my heavens wizard and let Valkia chase after a few of my shadow warriors, since my noble wasn't fast enough to outfly Valkia without her being slower from roiling skies, only being able to tank so much dmg, while defeating the rest of the army thus army lossing her.
Battle sender : So, they know where our units are?
Legend : Yes
Battle sender : But then, it's useless!
Legend : Unless you use their knowledge against them.
Battle sender : :O
Baffled as to why you’d not have a Master Engineer in that army. The benefits provided far outweigh losing one Ranger, and it is not like the Engie is going to be a liability in combat since you can easily get them Stalk from a cheap Oathgold item right off the bat.
Why are you baffled? He's playing the masters of innovation and he recently confederated grombadil. The ai didn't build an engineer building and the player wanted to prioritize rangers, which the ai most likely had a building for already. It's turn 29.
I had recently a stalking unit nuked by Skryre, coincidence?
I don't think so.
There are no-no coincidences © skryre master Oogway
Yeah the army abilities have been targeting hidden units like I've had summons pop down on top of them.
@@phantomthunder203 yeah happened to me too
2 units in the middle of the forest at the corner of the map
skavenslaves get spawn on them
nice
Reminds me of WARNO and before Steel Division 2 where AI would always know your hidden units or attack them without warning, they would be wiped by the time you realise.
25:50 My God, that slayer lord's Mowhawk is amazing.
They will even do this on normal as well, I'm still new and learning so that's what I play on (campaign and battle, pls don't judge). It's not as often, every once in a blue moon whoever I'm up against will just send a small task force after my hidden units no matter how far or out of the way they are to go discover and attack them. Even the units threat level doesn't seem to be a factor, I've had single well hidden units of chaos warhounds get sused out for seemingly no reason while a raging frontline clash can be going on.
They definitely b-line for you, even on normal battle difficulty, sometimes I'd have units flank through forests and even though they were hidden the ai would "Search" for hidden units EXACTLY where my units were even though the majority of my army was engaging them in the front.
Company of Heroes 2 has a similar thing for their AI, they can see invisible units regardless, even without spotter units, they move exactly towards them so that they get close enough to spot them and activate abilities on them, I had to specifically disable this cheat in my "AI doesn't cheat" mod.
I play on normal both battle and campaign and the AI definitely knows where my stalking units are xD
In fairness, if we are bringing a little reality to a fantasy, someone is going to notice where the bullets/arrows are coming from unless they are invisible munitions. The obvious real work around to this would be the range and sight factor but again in reality the only units in RL that snipe are snipers of course and artillery or tanks but tanks are usually easy to spot from the size of them and muzzle flash/smoke. Artillery is usually pinpointed, again by looking for the projectile trail and sniper detection has a lot of variables such as sound, scope flash etc.
I think so long as you are distracting the enemy they usually leave your snipe units alone, which is fair enough otherwise it's back to wanting invisible arrows again.
I play normal battle difficulty for multiplayer campaigns and the AI always knows where your stalking units are. when everything is hidden they send units to all the hiding places but if your units have stalk they can literally be anywhere without the need for trees or LoS but yet the AI still goes straight towards you. Very frustrating when you're fighting large battles and have something like sneaky gits or stabbaz that you want to flank with and the AI will just send their cav directly at them.
My personal experience is that usually they will ignore stealth units if there is at least one unit they CAN see. However if there are no visible units, they basically just automatically know where all your units are and act accordingly.
Valkia, The Bloody is my favorite!!!
Playing Highway to the Danger Zone while Valkia chases the gyros.
16:16 he's one step closer to the edge, and he's about to break
I'd be terrified too if i was in a gyrocopter and a giant demon with a spear chased after us after taking down half our force
even in Warhammer 2 it still could be fucked... Had a normal difficulty Oxyotl campaign, Malestrom, did the final quest battle.
That one is doable with just Oxyotl itself if you have enough Ammo.
So I ran around, snipped the targets, but when the last 2 before Taurox came in with their armies, their armies straight up walked directly, where Oxyotl was, even tho, I wasn't detected once.
Managed, but Oxyotl got caught once, so I had to pull it out for healing, and had to deliver relief with my Chameleon skins army.
If they hadn't done this shit, I would have won that whole battle 100% with just Oxyotl.
How dare you cheese, you must meet Valkia and her overwhelming forces of Khorn in melee combat like a true Roman!
While I jest, I actually do think it would be fun to see in these disaster battles how the fight would have gone if you had stuck to conventional combat and met the enemy equally, just to show us all the extent to which the forces you're given would normally be slaughtered, then show us your solution with clever tactics and dividing up the enemy into manageable waves.
Valkia is just a nightmare to fight she gives me PTSD from my early RoC campaigns as kislev A small single entity that is extremely spell resistant, a melee powerhouse, armored, has physical resistance and can heal in melee she will solo your entire army no problem.
Legends treatment of Valkia reminds me of how I dealt with my ex wife
edit: holy shit that lord gained 9 levels from that battle. he went from level 21 to 30. never seen that before.
dwarf lategame gets massive exp boosts, a battle with a mentor 3 lord can get twelve lvl10-30 lords to level two or three times each.
They know where you ambushes are too now. Stopping just outside your circle repeatedly.
Always had the AI spread out to search for my hidden units in 1 & 2. Now if I have even one hidden unit well away from my main army the AI sends a detachment of a perfect counter to kill it.
very interesting. i too always wondered how AI handles stalk/ambushing armies/ snipe ,etc .
Holy F this weekend i ONLY play dwarf the update really super duper good
Putting some vanguard units in an outlying forest to deal with artillery works very well for me currently.
The ai also knows if you Set up a ambush.
Thanks for the video
When playing dawi, remember: AGE!
Always Get a Engie in your army!
Always Get an Elgi (for target practice)
not always. If the engineer had been discovered in this battle he would have died since the ai likes to snipe your heroes.
AI is basically queenpwnzalot doing blindfolded challenges :)
I mean, that was necessary. With Warhammer II you could just abuse AI "forgetting" to a point where it was chasing you back and forth, and you could win any battle with timeout, no matter the AI advantage
They know where i am? Good, then they know what places to avoid
I think it’s specifically Bugman Rangers that have this issue, I had this exact problem playing a Belegar run Bugman Ranger stack in my Malakai campaign… it doesn’t help that their range is pretty unimpressive
Valkia's pov: How to cheese Legend with one unit
I've had stealthed units across the map who haven't fired a shot have enemies beeline for them.
Cheese for the cheese god!
This arthritis inducing battle I swear...
Is the same on normal difficulty
It's AI design like this that makes me actively avoid playing CA games, makes me distrust all strategy games universally forevermore, and makes the strategy genre to the standard gamer overall look bad and unfun to play if there's a chance that the AI can just break the rules of the game. The *entire reason* I play Singleplayer games is to avoid cheaters.
Straight up having AI cheat and break the rules of the game to make a difficulty hard is just F-Tier Lazy Game Design that tells me CA has no idea how to make an actual "Very Hard" AI or they just doesn't wanna put in the effort (probably the latter). The player doesn't get to know where the AI's stalking units are, so why does the AI get to know the the Player's stalking units are? If we're gonna break rules, break rules equally ffs.
Make the AI actually harder to play against that uses better strategy and progresses faster, not just make the AI a straight up cheater that doesn't have to play by the same rules as you have to. It's not rocket science.
So what is the point in stalking and trees. If A I know what's the point
mostly cover from ranged
Don't worry Legend, I won't baguette
That lord gained _nine_ levels in one battle.
There are mods that fix this problem, and it’s obvious why it’s coded that way. The AI tends to be afk if it can’t see your units, even if they’re being shot at.
Valkia's biggest strength are her ridiculous animations. She moves so much it like she's got additional melee defense and missile dodge while she's in melee.
Which sucks because I noticed back in 1 and 2 they had trouble finding hidden units.
what did you study in philosophy today? "if the enemy pretends they cant see me, am i hidden?"
most of my stalking units were just fine stalking tho
More helpful tips nice
Not related to the video,
Soooo... kazarak attacks boris, sits in settlement, over end turn tries to delcare peace with me, i decline, then he marches right threw my army in ambush stance, attacks another settlment, somehow brings me out of ambush stance then goes into well encamped hidden. Or something like that.
Does he have a very high ambush defense chance naturally or something?
if he had a gun line, I'd say shoot at valkia, but without the speed of missiles and armor piercing of guns, she's not really a good target for ranged units
I will load a map 20 times and the enemy army is always in the same position, the moment I move a hidden unitd near a target, that's when the AI moves the entire army formation during battle position phase
@ 03;15 If a dwarf stalks in a forest, but there's no one there ti hear them, does it makes a sound?
They definitely are easy to derp around with on easy mode in warhammer 2. I Always beeline for queek and snitch when i play a chill malagor campain 😂
19:24 That is such a cool detail that I have never noticed before.
that face on the thumbnail says it all
Ive had Skarbrand with his bloodthirster summon go right on top of a couple of stalking units in the corner of the map with a gyrocopter army. So I think there is some bugs with it.
I recently played a maliketh legendary campaign and went with a shades doomstack and it felt like stalk was never on.
People keep talking about vlad being hard in manual. I think valkya is sooo much worse. At least vlad is slow early on but you can never get away from valkya with her flying and speed.
P.Diddy just got caught, so i think hiding is useless tbh.
Every battle with Valkia becomes about trying to kill her army instead of her and hoping you do enough damage to get the army loss without ever actually fighting her. Truly hateful character.
Never tried with an entire army but usually they split using fastwe units to scout if nothing is visible (both hiden and stalk) when normal or very hard.
on normal difficulty the AI typically wont react to hidden units till they are close
The statement "the AI knows where your stalking units are but just ignore s" is pretty nonsensical statement. The AI is one part of the program. Your stalking units are also a part of that program.
was there a Linkin Park reference
Ai have had map hacks since the first iteration of Totsl war Warhammer
Ig currently the only stalk does against the AI is prevent counter fire
Level 21 to level 30 is insane lol
"ai doesnt care about stealth" yeah it is known AI doesn't work with stealth/sieges/pathfinding etc
Just play online campaign, it is the ultimate total war experience. It even has simultaneous multiplayer, no other total war has it - the devs knew the AI sucked so they made the best online!the AI sucked so they made the best online!
This guy is playing MOI and not doomstacking Gyros vs Valkia.
Does a tree fall in the wood if AI pretend to never hear or see it?