AI Scores a Victory!

[Red Harvest]

Even on expert with the hardest factions and no "redo's" the AI is rarely a match. It has been a long time since I lost to the AI but last night I had a massive civil war that made me throw in the towel as the Northumbrians.

I got bogged down with some really horrible heirs after stomping out the Picts and Mercians and suffering an unexpected thrashing in the supposed coup de grace vs. Scots. It was nip and tuck fighting off the Vikings with all this going on and fighting a three front war. Still I had the Saxons on the ropes when the first disaster befell me: the Mercians reappeared in a rebel province, 4000 Saxon huscarles and mounted nobles. I managed to contain them before they did much damage, but it took too many resources. The Saxons bribed powerful rebels stacks and set after me with a vengence.

The Saxons had several stacks with 3 to 6 star huscarle generals and high valour upgraded troops coming out of the wood work. The #$~&/> vikings kept taking single provinces with a 9 star general, then running. While I kept builder virtues and had 4 star influence, my loyalty took a beating from province swapping resulting from fighting four opponents simultaneously. Somehow I managed to prevent 0, 1, and 2 star units from rebelling for ten years. I couldn't afford to disband huscarles in the middle of a major war so I figured out some neat ways to shuffle and reorder stacks to deal with this, delete single man low loyalty remainders, and also did minor successful non strategic attacks just to boost loyalty.) On the turn I eliminated the Mercians again, the Saxons broke through my ragged lines in multiple provinces, the Vikings successfully raided some minor province, and the house of cards collapsed immediately. My empire split into a jagged mass of civil war.

And I was happy, because it was the best fight the AI has given me to date.

[ichi]

Excellent. I know what you mean. The Irish are really giving me fits right now. The Vikings have one province, I have the southern 1/3 of England, and the Irish have the rest.

My superior troops were beating the Kerns and Bonnachts and Gallows, and my well-oiled economy was producing enough to keep up. We traded invasions and lots of hard punches.

Then the AI got me. It wiped out my eastern fleet. I am holding along the west coast, and the Irish are blocking me there. But this last year I lost my last ship north of Sussex. Which means that next years I will see raiders along my coast.

Tempted to go back to the last save, but then I thought . . .
no, I complain that the AI is too easy. So now I'll quit freakin, and see if I can't somehow save the game.

The Irish have 3 Longboats with a 3 star admiral. I think it will be a while before I can consider that flank safe.

Great Post Red.

ichi

[Satyr]

I have only lost one campaign in many months and that was as the Italians when the Sicilians and the Pope both attacked me in the first 15 years of an early campaign. I of course go excommed and the French and Germans crusaded me and that was it.

Now I have installed version 3.14 of the Total Immersion WesMod and I am playing as the French. I eliminated the Brits and the Germans but the AI took advantage of both factions collapses and the Danes and the Poles both became quite strong. I am now surrounded by 4 very strong allies so I have taken on the Mongols via Lithuania instead of attacking an ally. I will need to attack the Almos (who own all of Spain and N. Africa) soon but I expect most of my allies will abandon me when I do. I am afraid that they will attack me en mass then and I will be doomed. Meantime I am trying to keep boat production up to the pace the Danes are setting so that when we do go to war I stand a chance in the sea zones, but it is getting ridiculous with having 8 or 10 ships in some zones. At any rate, it looks like I might lose again and I am very happy to be playing such a challenging new version of my beloved Total War.

[YunDog]

I had my arse kicked as the Norths in the Viking campaign, and another time as the Irish when I let the vikings get too powerful - too many ships and I didnt have the resources to stack men on every province they could raid

Fighting the vikings and the other clans of england at the same time makes playing the non-viking factions quite difficile I would say

good post http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[The_Emperor]

My last English Campaign was lost due to some nice work by the AI.

I managed to claw out a nice Mini-Empire encompassing the whole of France and the British Isles, and I set my sights on conquering Spain... Suddenly the Aragonese attacked me and they had to die, and I got a warning from the Pope but was able to wipe them out quickly.

To make matters worse I got a really weak heir with pathetic influence (three crowns), so to make up for it I decided to Crusade against the Almos in Granada... Passing through Spain to weaken their armies in preparation for my invasion, and boxing them in on all sides.

All went well until suddenly the Spanish Invaded Granada Around 3,000 men were in my Crusade by that time, and I swear they did that to spite me, I got that famous message "The Target province is back in the hands of True Catholics, your Crusade will be disbanded", when we had reached Cordoba

At that time my already petty influence took a nosedive and the next turn I faced a major invasion from my Spanish "Allies" into Souther France After an attempted sally failed, the Pope Excommunicated me

My Empire then tore itself apart with a Civil War, Strangely enough only Scotland (of all places) and Champagne remained loyal (with my King stuck inthe province of Champagne)... the rest instantly became lost to the Rebels.

Then to make matters worse the HRE Sent a Crusade against my new Excommunicated King in Champagne, hopelessly outnumbered my King was slain and the English nation was eliminated.

I swear the Spanish and HRE will pay for that in my next Campaign http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

[The Wizard]

I remember a campaign as the HRE, in MTW vanilla v1.1. Wanting to use its galore of heavy stuff, I went to play it.

All went well, I built up my provinces, managed to push back loyalty problems through good choices in government, succesful marriages of my princesses and succesful alliances with other nations, and even the backing of the Pope.

That is...

The French attacked me in Lorraine and Friesland. No big deal, they were inferior to me in quality anyway. But then the Italians attacked me in Tyrolia. Ah, schmucks. Pushing them back, I conquered Genoa and Milan. Friesland was lost, but I reconquered it the following year. Worried by large stacks of Frenchies led by the infamous Lord of Boulogne, I sent more men to the French frontier. Through a blunder on the battlefield, my army crumbled and ran and I lost Lorraine after all. I sent even more men to counter the French.

Then, the Italians counterattacked in Milan (it was 1098 by then, I think), which was ill-garrisoned, but I defeated them soundly. It took them two years to fell that same garrison. Provence and Burgundy were also lost to the French, but I defeated them at Swabia and managed to hold them at bay.

Then, I made the idiotic decision of invading knight-stacked Denmark. Knowing I had a numerical and tactical advantage, I invaded, but my vikings crumbled under pressure of royal knightly charges. Sigh...

As if sensing my predicament, the Poles invaded as well A four front war, in 1102. Sick The following year my empire dissolved in civil war, and I forfeited.

One day...

[NewJeffCT]

I have not lost a SP game to the AI yet (I play without VI, but do have the original patch). The closest I came was in my very first campaign as the English where I ended up with slightly more than 60% of Europe as of 1453. But, I had bought the game used and the rules did not come with the used copy I had bought in EB (so, they replaced it for me a few weeks later…)

However, I think I am on the verge of losing this time. I am playing as the Polish in Early (all my campaigns start in Early). I had won fairly easily as the Poles a while back and wanted to try it again post-Patch. I started off very well, conquering Prussia, Pomerania, Moldavia and Lithuania fairly quickly, as well as that long, slim territory to the East of Poland. That gave me access to the sea both in the North and the South. From there, I built up my trade and conquered Sweden & Norway. I seemed to be doing fairly well in the late 1100s before the High era rolled around. So, I started sending out my bishops (one of my personal goals each campaign is to have a bishop or alim in every province on the board.). I was shocked to find out that Swabia was held by the Almohads The French had been wiped out a few years earlier, and I had assumed it was the HRE or the English, but it quickly became apparent from my expanding shipping and expanding bishops that it was the Almos that had wiped them out. They held all of Spain, all of France and all of North Africa up to Egypt. They were now pushing into the HRE and had many, many stacks of troops, all seemingly led by 8 and 9 star generals.

They are just chewing up the other factions out there. Soon after steamrolling the French, the HRE fell to the great Almo empire and they entered Wessex and the Italian peninsula. They are the first Muslim faction to attack the Pope – and they wiped him out. The Pope has respawned 3 or 4 times now and has been wiped out easily each time (he even respawned with demi-cannons once in High????)

It is now in the 1230s and my Polish empire has expanded a bit to include Livonia, Finland & Kiev. The Almos have now wiped out every Catholic faction except mine. They hold all of Spain, France, England (except Ireland, which I snagged), Denmark, the HRE provinces (except my Bohemia) and all the original Hungarian provinces. The Turks are fading and just got in trouble with the Mongol invasion of Khazar. The Egyptians are losing ground to the Almos as well (the Almos just snagged Tripoli & Malta). The Byz are stuck in one province in Rhodes.

The Almos are the richest, have the biggest armies and the best generals.

I have never been so threatened in a good 20 campaigns.

[BobTheTerrible]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Some of you guys who aren't being challenged enough ought to try the MedMod. Ity is much more challenging than the vanilla game. Due to the tweaks WesW made, the AI improves much, being much more aggressive and with no peasant-armies.

My first campaign ever I lost. It was as the French, before I even knew much about the game. I attacked England and my king and heirs were all killed in battle.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] ]Some of you guys who aren't being challenged enough ought to try the MedMod. Ity is much more challenging than the vanilla game. Due to the tweaks WesW made, the AI improves much, being much more aggressive and with no peasant-armies.

My first campaign ever I lost. It was as the French, before I even knew much about the game. I attacked England and my king and heirs were all killed in battle.
That's BAAAAAD http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

But you really shouldn't EVER put your King AND Heirs in the same army http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

It was a REALLY BAD move http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[NewJeffCT]

Quote[/b] (Aymar de Bois Mauri @ Dec. 29 2003,12:08)]That's BAAAAAD http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

But you really shouldn't EVER put your King AND Heirs in the same army http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

It was a REALLY BAD move http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Yes, it is bad... but, it was his first campaign. I also learned quickly that you shouldn't have your king & heirs out there in the battlefield, unless you have a few to spare. I think I've only had 1 king die in combat (very early, a Spanish king getting killed by Almos... but, I had a good prince ready to take over.)

[The Wizard]

Bah... my kings are warrior kings. No sons doesn't matter http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

MM is a good mod, but it just mucks down for me when I expand further than my homelands. I really hate that, even though it was the same in real life. I believe it just doesn't work with MTW, albeit it would in RTW. =/

[BobTheTerrible]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Believe it or not, the only campaigns I've ever won were in MM. That's because in MM I was forced to build troops every turn and ship them off to the parts of my empire that need defence. In vanilla, I would build a force and have it attack, and not train any other soldiers until I needed them, which left my starting provinces weak defence-wise.

And yeah, it is really bad to put the King and heirs in the same army and send them off to the front, especially when your battle experience = nothing. The campaign lasted about 3 years before France was kingless. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[MiniKiller]

Quote[/b] (ichi @ Dec. 23 2003,01:50)]Tempted to go back to the last save, but then I thought . . .
no, I complain that the AI is too easy. So now I'll quit freakin, and see if I can't somehow save the game.
I'm glad your not reverting back to a previous save. I know to many people who complain that games are to easy but yet they always revert back to old saved games.

Major thumbs up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[NewJeffCT]

I've never gone back to a save game. The only time I've been tempted was in my current campaign as the Poles. I made my moves and then the Turks invaded one of my provinces. I had just defeated the invading infidel Turks in a tough battle. I had about 500 killed, while I killed maybe 505 or 510 and maybe captured a 100-150 more Turks...

the game crashed and the last autosave was before the battle. No big deal, I thought. I'll most likely do even better in a replay of the same battle. Wrong I got slaughtered next time around - I lost about 1000 and the Turks lost only 200. I must have made a slightly different move, as the AI general was not a 2 star guy, but a 5 star. My overconfidence killed me and I was tempted to go back and replay the turn... but, I said to myself if I had won by 1000 to 200, I probably would not have done it.

[Bezalel]

I just had a pretty bad experience w/ the Byzantines. I had a strong heir w/ super high command, influence, and acumen. I had all of Western Europe, save for papacy. My borders provinces that I extended to were cyrencia, bulgaria, serbia, and georgia. I was raking in tons of money,was really advanced, and had huge armies. Then my formally 200% loyalty provinces all started trying to revolt at the same time. I simply couldn't make enough troops, training every year, to bring their loyalty back above 90%. I eventually lost from having all of my troops wore down to nothing through about 15 straight revolts.