NWN2 AI issue?

[JusticeZero]

been poking on NWN2 for a bit. Having an issue with the AI.
The default AI is.. meh, but it's okay for most situations. (It is mitigated by the enemy being equally dumb, and most of the time, i'm totally fine with "hey, there's a fight, ima go hit something".)
Problem is, there are a couple of places where the AI is horrible. The bandit camp early in act 1 in particular has enemies scattered everywhere with bows, so the party spends all their time running from one edge of the map to the other and occasionally hitting something in passing while being chewed up by archers. Last playthrough I basically just soloed this, but this time i'm a bit more puny. HOWEVER, if I turn off the AI, or give commands so that the rest of the party does things in a slightly more controlled way? I can never get the intelligence of the original AI back.
From then on, it seems like i'm cursed to play a tactical RPG, insofar as I have to use party command all for everything, and if a fight breaks out, all I see are "Do I attack? Do I attack?" unless I tell them to attack everything, in which case they start aggressively scouring the map until they drop dead.

I detest tactical RPGs.

How do I give the companion characters their minds back?

[Waar]

It has been a while since I played NWN2 but I think there is a button for that, probably in the in game UI (probably the same button that you pressed to turn the ai off)

[Kish]

Welcome to why I never got very far in NWN2.

[warty goblin]

The solution to the AI issues in NWN 2 is to not play NWN 2. Remarkably, this solves all the game's other issues as well.

[JusticeZero]

Well, i'd play NWN1, but it keeps freezing up. There just really aren't that many games I feel like playing, and it isn't helped when I can't play some of them for odd reasons.
(I can't play Grimrock because of the torch movement, for instance.)

[Kish]

If you have Windows 7, I find it works well to play NWN1 in Windows XP compatibility mode.

[Ailurus]

(depending on which expansions, if any, you have) there should be a behaviors tab if you pull up the character screen.

Make sure puppet mode is turned off - if its turned on, then they'll only do what you specifically tell them to do.

Additionally, make sure defend master is also turned off. I suspect that's the cause of the whole 'run from one side of the fort to another' behavior, because if its turned on it makes the whole party forget what they're doing and go rush off to attack anyone going after the selected character.

Third, I'd stop using the global commands, since using them makes the whole party go do whatever you said, even if you only wanted one character to do it. Its better to select the character you want, and then give them the orders individually. (You can queue up something like 5 or 6 actions per character at once, to somewhat mitigate needing to micromanage the battles).

That being said, though, given your expressed opinion of tactical RPGs, I'm doubtful you'll enjoy the game in the long run. The typical D&D linear fighters/quadratic wizards situation comes into play (though not as bad as in tabletop) and relying on the AI to handle high level spellcasting will almost certainly result in extreme frustration. (You can get around it in the original campaign by just resting after every second or third fight, but that's got its own kind of frustration to it. Plus, that's not a viable option in either of the expansions).

NWN1 (if you can fix the freezing) or Dragon Age would be the closest in feel while cutting back on the need for active battle management I think.

[Kesnit]

TonyK's AI hak. (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id=141) It fixes the AI, and lets you adjust it however you want. You can set it individually for each NPC, and for the PC (for those times you want to control an NPC). Also adjusts monster AI. I think part of it was put in an official patch, but the full pack gives better control.

[JusticeZero]

If you have Windows 7, I find it works well to play NWN1 in Windows XP compatibility mode.
Yeah, it seemed to work until I went into the prison district and started crashing incessantly. I'm not sure what it is about that part of town.