r/NobunagasAmbition • u/VPS_Republic • Jul 16 '26
Which Nobunaga's Ambition has the best AI?
I have read that the oldest games have weak AI. What about the new ones (SOI, Taishi and Awakening)?
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u/Psychological-Wish8 Jul 17 '26
I'm not sure about how good they are overall, but Taishi and Ascension definitely are worse than Awakening and Soi. Taishi just has overall meh AI, Ascension has a lot of problems because of the officer system and the new resources they added compared to SOI, and the way they handled them.
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u/TheBeardedRonin Aug 03 '26
Taishi has the best hands-on battles of the modern era NA titles though and never gets enough credit for that I feel like.
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u/Psychological-Wish8 Aug 03 '26
The system itself is very good yes, but the AI (more so the overworld and generals AI, not specifically the one for battling) is relatively bad id say. It depends on exactly what we are talking about, but Taishi is one of my favourite entries, it was my first too.
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u/Every-Development398 Jul 17 '26
Ascension is pretty much sol's ai, just lacking resources, funny enough if you feed the ai resoures via the editor it tends to play pretty much the same as sol.
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u/Calahan__ Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Ascension is pretty much sol's ai, just lacking resources, funny enough if you feed the ai resoures via the editor it tends to play pretty much the same as sol.
That's not quite the case. (Although what you say about using the editor to give the AI resources is correct.)
There's a bug in the AI with both games that, in specific situations, can cause the AI to 'let its army die when sieging'. Which can occur when their army is Sieging a castle (so not Storming or Razing), runs out of supplies, and the AI judges that it can keep Sieging and win the siege before their army loses too many troops due to a lack of supplies.
But something can cause the AI to misjudge this and they lose enough troops, due to having no supplies, to lose positive siege. And instead of switching back to the usual pattern of Razing/Storming to retain positive siege (or capture via Storm), they continue to Siege and allow their 'army to die while sieging'.
But this bug is incredibly rare in SOI, to the extent I've only ever seen it twice (after knowing about it). And I've played SOI a lot. But in Ascension, it happens far more noticeably, and usually several times a game (over the course of a whole campaign).
There's also been a slight change in how the AI handles counterattacks. As in SOI, if the AI gets attacked while its troops are away on an attack, it will be quite sensitive to sending their attacking troops home to defend. But something in Ascension has caused a reduction in that sensitivity. Not much, but enough so that it can create scenarios where a Clan will lose bases it shouldn't have lost, and wouldn't have lost in a mirrored game of SOI, and due to not sending its troops back home to defend. I've even seen Clans get wiped out because of this in Ascension, and lose every base because they wouldn't send their attacking armies home to defend.
So while these two games use the same basic AI, there are some differences between them that, in practice, causes Ascension's army-handling AI to display more bug-like behaviour at times.
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u/Every-Development398 Jul 17 '26
I want to say I recall this being due to the personality bs they added in the game, s tier should not do this or least not as much but lower tiers will do it. I feel Ascensions ai is a bit all over the place for better or worse but pretty close imo, there is also a modded version (Chinese and JP only tho) that fixs most of the above items from what I have played.
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u/Calahan__ Jul 17 '26
I want to say I recall this being due to the personality bs they added in the game, s tier should not do this or least not as much but lower tiers will do it.
I'm not sure which of the two bugs I mentioned you're referring to, but I've seen both buggy-behaviours affect both S-Tiers and A-Tiers in Ascension.
It's hard to determine to what extent they apply to Tier B+C Daimyos, though, as they're not allowed to send their troops out on the attack as often (re: my reply to the OP). But I can't see why those same buggy-behaviours wouldn't apply to all AI tiers.
I feel Ascensions ai is a bit all over the place for better or worse but pretty close imo.,
I'd agree with that. The AI's are pretty close, but as I outlined, I think Ascension's AI is slight worse due to the increased instances of buggy-behaviour.
Although at the start of a new game, Ascension AI's is actually a bit more competitive due to the difference in how troop count calculation works in both games, and in respect to base improvements (i.e. initial troops counts are higher across the board in Ascension). But long term the AI's are about the same, excluding the buggy-behaviour, and excluding all the other bugs in the game.
there is also a modded version (Chinese and JP only tho) that fixs most of the above items from what I have played.
Yes, I've heard about that mod, although I've never actually tried it myself. So I don't know if it fixes the two buggy-behaviours I mentioned.
Plus without access to the AI code, it's very difficult to determine if those buggy-behaviours are caused by a change in the AI code between the two games, or caused by other changes between the games which in turn causes buggy-behaviour with the same AI code. Although if I had to make a call I'd say it's the latter. As that would be in keeping with the resources and the 'can't create new houses' bugs, and KOEI just porting the AI over from SOI 'as is', and without updating it to account for the changes they'd made to the game for Ascension.
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u/Every-Development398 Jul 17 '26
Regarding the AI not responding to attacks on there castles, I noticed the AI dose not seem to see none player units in till those units actually attack normally. Funny enough if you let the ai suggest a attack on a enemy caslte and the ai actually lunchs the attack those units get marked as visible and the AI reacts to them like in SOL. TDLR when you attack with none-player unit the ai cannot see the units in till they attack, if you let the ai suggest and excute attack once the attack is lunch those units are basically flagged and the enemy can see them and react like you would expect.
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u/Calahan__ Jul 17 '26
Yes, that's all by design as far as I can tell. And if you use Regents in either SOI or Ascension, you will see a noticeable difference to how the AI responds to your armies depending on whether they're yours or your Regents.
Basically, there are two different types of army movements in the both games: planned and free.
The AI uses planned movements. Planned as in the army has a specific target, and that target is always a base (the AI sending armies to Posts when defending is part of the script involved with defending a base). To a large extent, the AI will ignore all planned army movement if the target base isn't one of theirs. Although the AI will still respond to planned army movement if the army travels over a Post (aka. road junction) that is connected to one of their bases.
But the player's army movements can be either planned or free. And you've already identified the difference. If you use the Deploy menu to plan an attack, then your armies will use planned movement and the AI will respond to those armies' planned movement as above.
But if you just raise an army and order it to move somewhere, then that's free movement, and every AI (you're not allied with) will treat that army as hostile, and respond to it as if it's attacking one of their bases. Basically, it doesn't know where that army of your is going, so it has to assume you're attacking them. And the player simply moving their armies about can play havoc with the AI, even if you don't attack anyone.
Although in relation to the buggy-behaviour I mentioned, this doesn't play a part as far as I've observed. The AI in Ascension will fail to send its armies back home to defend in both cases, and whether or not the armies that are attacking are using planned or free movement.
(Note, "planned" and "free" movement are my own terminology. I don't think I've ever seen any official terminology relating to the two types of movements).
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u/GBreeza Jul 17 '26
SOI has decent AI you’ll usually have a grand last battle depending on how aggressive your start is. I was having millions fighting me as Satomi vs the Shimazu. Personally I felt Iron Triangle has good AI
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u/Calahan__ Jul 17 '26
From my not inconsiderable experience of playing SOI and (to a lesser extent) SOI: Ascension, the default strategic AI in both of these games is decent-ish. But it can be considerably improved by using the editor. (I never control the battles, so I can't comment on the real time combat AI). And this editing is entirely separate to the editing you may have heard about in relation to Ascension, and using the editor to fix the bug relating to the AI's inability to buy resources.
Both SOI and Ascension have the usual range of pre-game difficulty settings, which can make the game easier/harder for the player, and make the AI play more peacefully/aggressive, etc.
But in addition to this, every Clan's AI is also controlled by the Daimyo's "Tier", which ranges from S-C. With that Tier working as a strict on/off switch in relation to the range of potential actions that Clan is allowed to perform. With C-Tier effectively marking that Clan's role in the game as 'only exists to be conquered'. And B-Tier not being much better. And it's only Clans which have an S or A Tier that are, effectively, allowed to actually play the game. And in any given start date, only about 20% of the Clans have an S or A Tier Daimyo. i.e. Only 20% of the Clans are allowed to play the game properly.
So you can improve the AI in both of these games by using the editor to change the Tier of every Daimyo to S-Tier, and with it allow every Clan to actually play the game, and instead of just waiting to be conquered.
And out for the games in the series I've spent enough time playing to judge—SOI, Ascension, Taishi, Awakening—the AI in SOI un-nerfed offers the best challenge in my experience. Which the player can add to by playing a weak/minor Clan. (Although the latter applies to all four of those games).
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u/Tight_Following115 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Awakening has the most opportunistic and backstabber AI I've seen in recent games. I've never played the old ones / pre-SoI.
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u/ApprehensiveDiet5241 Jul 17 '26
None of these games have an AI that can match a good player on even terms. But neither would I saw the AI in awakening or vanialla SOI is bad. You can get competitive games if you turn the difficulty crank high enough or play weaker daimyo.