The comp pulled a good one

[Oaty]

I'm playing the Egyptians and had quite some years going and had just entered the high era. So needless to say I had plenty of mangonels in my army. I had some Hungarian troops besieged in a wooden fort upgraded with motte and bailey. I figured no sense in waiting 2 years for it to fall considering I had 5 mangonels in that army. (well I would of done it without the mangonels but makes it a bit easier as you can nail the men in the fort and stay out of range of there arrows) So I had put the siege weapons to the left and in back of the fort and put them at fire at will and quickly took out the tower in the middle as that had the longest range arrows I believe and left the mangonels out of range of shot. Well needless to say I figured I'd put the game at full speed and wait for them to exhaust there ammunition til I spent my troops on taking the fort.

To my surprise after ripping the walls apart from missed shots against there troops (I had obliterated 3 sides of the fort) I saw some troops marching out of the fort so I quickly put the game to normal speed and the mangonels were almost out of ammunition. I wondered what the heck the comp was doing so I just stood there and watched with my troops standing well out of range of the fort. It then dawned on me those bastards are sneaking out and withdrawing from battle so they can go on and fight another day AHHHHH CHARGE Noone else leaves alive.

Just unbelievable for once it was'nt me gaming the game it was the comp gaming the human lol OK I really do'nt try to game the game but I'm just wondering is it the comp that beat us humans to this sneaky little trick or has someone else actually done this before.

Didnt even know this was made possible in the game but the comp showed me. Unfortuanately it didnt even dawn on me to save the replay, did'nt even cross my mind because I got tired of having hundreds of replays saved in my files

[Couscous]

I see this from time to time in seiges. It tends to be that the AI is withdrawing the crew from a seige weapon once they have spent all the ammo. Occasionally I've seen other units wandering around outside the castle. One time, the enemy king & his bodyguard were prowling around at the far edge of the map outside the castle.I believe it's some kind of bug, but it's never bothered me enough to find out more about it.

Btw, if a unit does withdraw, they will be counted as 'captured' if your castle assualt is successful.

[Theodoret]

I've also noticed the AI sometimes deploys troops far from the castle when they are beseiged.

Not sure if its a bug or not. It forces me to split my force into a beseiging and a pursuing force so its quite an effective tactic really.

[hoom]

Theres a few things going on here that I can see from my experiences assaulting all the time:

When a defending siege engine is destroyed, the crew tries to retreat off the map.
If you chase them down with cavalry, when they run they try to run back to the castle.

On many occasions, there is insufficient room on the map to fit all the defenders' units in the castle so they turn into reinforcements that come on from the edge of the map.
I have had this myself in a defence of a siege at least once.
I think it may be related to the fact that most units are split into 2 for defending a siege.
Reinforcements also run-away to to the castle.

The AI is not averse to sallying forth to take out undefended siege engines.
I often find a few units harrying my siege engines.
Though they hardly ever make full use of the surprise element & just stand around by my engines & not attacking.
I think these are mostly reinforcements but I've also personally seen cavalry leave the castle gate & approach.

How to deal with it:
Keep an eye out for sallies/reinforcements/retreats.
Always have at least one unit of Royal Knights or better present & mounted during assaults, they can be used to fend off sallies/reinforcements and to chase down fleeing siege crews.
Don't leave siege engines unattended by at least one unit of vaguely capable infantry.
Even if you miss spotting the sally/reinforcement, the presence of a unit of infantry near siege engines is normally enough to dissuade the normally depleted AI unit from attacking.
Keep an eye out for sallies particularly when withdrawing your own siege engine crews. They are prime targets for sallies.

[Red Harvest]

Quote[/b] (arrrse @ Aug. 23 2003,07:25)]The AI is not averse to sallying forth to take out undefended siege engines.
I often find a few units harrying my siege engines.
Though they hardly ever make full use of the surprise element & just stand around by my engines & not attacking.
I think these are mostly reinforcements but I've also personally seen cavalry leave the castle gate & approach.

I taught the AI this trick Yes, I forget sometimes that the AI might have units showing up as reinforcements and they will approach my engines. Fortunately I keep some ranged fire units nearby so by the time I realize they are there at accelerated speed, my ranged units have already killed them.

If you have the AI assault your castle you will find that it might have units to support its engines, but it rarely moves them up in time if I actually attack. So I will usually send cav out to destroy the engines and runaway before enemy support can engage. Brave Sir Robin heads up this detail.

[katar]

had it happen to me as well, had started banging away at the walls with the speed at 70% when i suddently noticed my knights dropping from 20 to 3 in a few seconds

three units of longbows had suddently popped out of nowhere and made mincemeat out of my general`s unit

with my general dead the computer decided it was a good time to sally forth and the damned machine routed me

needless to say i always bring more infantry support these days.

[Duke John]

The AI has certainly improved with VI. Last night I was outnumbered abit, but I though I could make it. The I saw a Knightly unit make a circular movement, ok then I defend my rear with a spearunit, but while his main forces where attacking he waited with the cavalry. So I send the spears into his main force to strenghten my line and there comes the enemy cavalry right into my rear. I must say I was astounded at this move.
The AI is not perfect but I would be surprised if a game can actually reflect the human mind. Kudos to CA.

Cheers, Duke John
ps and then my king died two years later at the age of 56...

[some_totalwar_dude]

The AI once pulled a 1066 hastings on me

I was defending a Hill, I had no archers, some feudel spears and a little cav. The enemy was shooting at me with his archers. they didn't realy harm me so I wasn't plannig of going anywhere else, so did the AI

Then suddenly the feudel men at arms and the royel knights supporting the archers withdrawed from battle leaving the archers behind. First I thought What the heck, how stoopid can you be?
Then I charged down the hill, easy I thought I'll just run over those archers and hit the MAA and royals in the back.

Half way the hill I realized I gave up my stronge position, I stopped the infantry and let the cav charge on.
At about the same time the enemy MAA and royals turned and began charging back.

I won the battle eventualy
But the AI was never so close at beating me with an slightly supirior force.

[Duke John]

Yes, it seems to me that the AI is constantly recalculating it position. This is most clearly visible when fighting a Horse Archer unit with Spearmen. He will withdraw when you charge, then you turn your back and he will charge. If you turn back too soon he will withdraw again, if not he will continue his charge.

This approach continues on an army level. Your positition was too good, so he didn't press on his attack. After a while he retreated since the battle was not winnable at the point. Then you charged down and suddenly your army was in a less favourable position and the AI send his army back to the battle.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Duke John @ Aug. 29 2003,20:56)]Yes, it seems to me that the AI is constantly recalculating it position. This is most clearly visible when fighting a Horse Archer unit with Spearmen. He will withdraw when you charge, then you turn your back and he will charge. If you turn back too soon he will withdraw again, if not he will continue his charge.

This approach continues on an army level. Your positition was too good, so he didn't press on his attack. After a while he retreated since the battle was not winnable at the point. Then you charged down and suddenly your army was in a less favourable position and the AI send his army back to the battle.

If you watch my battle replay of the Battle of Kiev in the HRE Campaign you will see a great example of how the AI recalculates its position time and again during a battle... The Mongol Horse Archers did on ocassion go into melee when it suited them (a couple of units of mine got isolated from the main group and they moved in on the flanks)

The Mongol Heavies regularly marched forwards but then ran back recalculated their position and approached from a different angle.

After studying these movements I saw that the Mongol Heavy Cav started to be "Disheartened by constant retreat" after falling back more than once sometimes... So in the end such a careful strategy of re-organisation worked against the AI in the battle.

Still the AI can come up with nasty shocks at times... and is ready to capitalise on any mistake or weakness on your part (even if it does not take half as many risks as the Human Player would)

[Foreign Devil]

Quote[/b] (Theodoret @ Aug. 23 2003,05:06)]I've also noticed the AI sometimes deploys troops far from the castle when they are beseiged.

Not sure if its a bug or not. It forces me to split my force into a beseiging and a pursuing force so its quite an effective tactic really.

I've seen this too. I think it happens when there isn't enough room inside the fortification to hold all the defenders. I've killed all the men inside the castle, and the battle isn't over, and I'm like... what the???

The AI always seems to wait for me to find them, however. It would probably be an effective tactic if they used their sallying force to attack me while I was assaulting the castle.


PS. Been gone for a while, on account of my roommate losing my VI cd. Its good to be back

[GilJaysmith]

There's only a certain amount of room in the castle, so the AI fits in as many units as it can, giving priority to artillery, and then the rest show up as reinforcements as soon as the battle starts.

The AI reassesses its overall tactical position approximately every six seconds, but will react on a faster timetable to immediate threats.

In theory the AI should only leave a defended castle if it thinks it outnumbers the attackers... if your assault artillery runs out of ammo this will count as a reduction in your strength.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (GilJaysmith @ Sep. 02 2003,09:30)]There's only a certain amount of room in the castle, so the AI fits in as many units as it can, giving priority to artillery, and then the rest show up as reinforcements as soon as the battle starts.

Really? I thought that if any forces cannot retreat to the castle, they either retreat to a nearby province or are captured...

So how can you have more castle defenders than what the castle can take? Or am I just getting confused?

[GilJaysmith]

Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ Sep. 02 2003,09:20)]Really? I thought that if any forces cannot retreat to the castle, they either retreat to a nearby province or are captured...

So how can you have more castle defenders than what the castle can take? Or am I just getting confused?

If the stratmap says one thing about the castle's size but the map design happens to feature a smaller castle than will sensibly hold that many units, for example. It's supposed to just be a safety measure, really, but it occasionally happens.

Relieving forces should always appear as reinforcements, ditto third parties allied to the defenders.

[The_Emperor]

Oh right, I didn't know that the strat map has some alrger castles than the physical map... Makes sense though, especially with the larger citadels.

Cheers Gil

[hoom]

Quote[/b] ]but it occasionally happens

Quite frequently for me.

I think it is in number of units rather than number of men, so while the strat map allows x number of men made up of a bunch of small unit remainders, the battle map goes 'too many units'.