How smart is the AI in Stronghold Warlords, the latest dev diary explains

Firefly Studios have been hard at work on Stronghold Warlords for sometime, showing off units and maps like no tomorrow, but one area that has been left alone, until now was the AI. With this latest dev diary, Firefly Studios’ Designer Stephen Richards and series creator Simon Bradbury reveal four major improvements to AI behaviour, check it out.

AI behaviours related to castle management, skirmish combat and city building have been completely revamped for Stronghold: Warlords, in addition to being able to work with the new warlords system.

“Suffice to say, the AI no longer cheats” said Simon Bradbury, Lead Designer at Firefly Studios. “It no longer needs a helping hand to provide the fun gameplay that a Stronghold game must provide, allowing you to disrupt their economy and pin them down. We know we’ve done our job properly when a warlord coordinates a pincer movement and players sit back thinking ‘That’s what I would have done!’”

Much like the archetypes of the warlords themselves - such as the Ox, Tiger and Crane - each enemy AI will adhere to a distinct style of play over a set of predetermined behaviours. The decisions made by computer opponents will now be made according to map layout, tactical positioning of warlords, available resources, current army composition and their priorities at different stages of gameplay. In practical terms this means less hard coded, predictable behaviours and more flexibility in how AI opponents can outmanoeuvre the player, but also how it deals with the evolving situation within its own castle. Independent of the player, AI will build, sell resources and train their army according to changing priorities over the course of a skirmish match. Just like a human player the AI will adjust its focus between city building and RTS combat, while also battling it out with the player for control over each map’s selection of warlords.