Bridge Battles

[Oaty]

1 thing I've noticed was that it seemed that The A.I. in Shogun had a much better design in defending a bridge battle. I remember all my assaults on a bridge in Shogun and the A.I. actually seemed to apply Sun Tzu's tactic for defending the bridge, especially if they had a good mix of troops. I have to say in Shogun everytime I had to conquer a bridge province I knew the price would be dear. Everytime I went to take a bridge I always had a majority of the casualties except in a few rare cases I was able to get compensation for killing the routers. Whereas in medieval the comp stuffs the bridge right away, opening the A.I.'s troops up to missle fire right away. Now why in the world did the total war engine take a step backwards. I remember the good old days when I rushed up to 3 units to the otherside and then the comp bum rushes em and the A.I. would almost never attack until your unit got across the bridge and if you tryed to sucker them onto the bridge by falling back as soon as they charge they just went back into position and in some bridge battles as the attacker the archers would get very few shots off.

This came to my attention when I was fighting the Mongols and they were able to defend there bridge strategically because all that was about left of there army was missile troops so they would not stuff the bridge right away causing me to just withdraw my troops and wait another day. I was a bit mad at first getting nailed like that expecting the comp to do the norm and spend every troop possible to stop me from getting across and instead just waited there ready to make some pincushions as troops tried to make it to the other side. Now If only the A.I. could defend the bridge properly and just stand there and wait for troops to get across then attack

[Drucius]

Having just played a few bridge battles in Shogun recently, In my opinion there's very little difference in the AI's tactics, or mine, for that matter. Move a unit over the bridge, wait for the AI to take the bait, halt the unit (on the bridge) then let the archers have a field day. So I'm not quite sure what you mean...

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

I reckon the bridge AI is stupider as well in MTW than Shogun - in shogun it would typically wait until I had a unit almost across the bridge and then send yari units forward, and have the rest of the army backing it up - archers shooting at my units and other yari/ ND/ WM waiting behind.
In MTW often the bulk of the AI army is deployed away from the bridge (esp artillery which should be devastating) and only a small force at the bridge itself, allowing me to cross with relatively light casualties, the deploy adn then fight a normal battle in a restricted area.
I can see the advantage with two bridges but no one. You should shovel all its men into one bridge (which it did in Shogun, while stupidly mostly ignoring the other bridge). Dont know why this is though perhaps the AI sets itself up in the best position within its deployement area without regard to the bridge?

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (o_loompah @ Jan. 12 2004,17:04)]I reckon the bridge AI is stupider as well in MTW than Shogun - in shogun it would typically wait until I had a unit almost across the bridge and then send yari units forward, and have the rest of the army backing it up - archers shooting at my units and other yari/ ND/ WM waiting behind.
Yes, but no I can win bridge battles with the lame trick of sending my daimyo or some yari cavarly over the bridge. By the time my opponent's troops start moving, my cavalry is already on the other side and can easily outrun their infantry. Too make it worse, they usually sent half their army chasing my cavalry, so my other troops have a much less difficult bridge battle.


Quote[/b] ]I can see the advantage with two bridges but no one. You should shovel all its men into one bridge (which it did in Shogun, while stupidly mostly ignoring the other bridge).
I remember a batle in Owari (two bridges) recently in which the rebels took up position on the hill just between the bridges. This meant that neither bridge was guarded well enough to stop my cavalry, but it was definitly more clever then defending only one. As far as I know, that never happens in Shogun. Mind you, I have not played it long.

[makkyo]

Going across the bridges in STW seems a lot easier than MTW. In MTW one must form a collum and march across the bridge but in STW you can simply click on the other side of the bridge and your troops would go across and reform on the other side. Why is that?
Also the A.I. in shogun can hold off almost any army I put into the field. If I do win, the casualties are extreme, the enemy always killing more of me than there are of them. I remember playing one battle where I sent my army across (calvary first) the bridge. The enemie's entire army retreated and eventrually fled, then I killed the fleeing army with my calvary. I took the province, destroyed a formitable enemy force, and took almost no losses what so ever How does that happen?

[Revenant69]

In my MTW experience fighting bridge battles against the AI I did not notice that it was dumb in any way. Everytime it tries to sucker me into crossing by deploying quite far back and when i do cross with a couple of units, their heavy cavalry smashes into them and routes my units quite quick.

In Shogun, it was possible to send a crap unit like ashigaru across the bridge and pepper their counter unit with your archers, slowly reducing their army to crap. Took time but was possible.

In one of my battles against the Byzantines, I brought 4 culverins and 2 demiculverins and loads of chivalric knights, gendarmes, steppe heavies etc. Well, even after pounding the AI for like 20 min with my artillery, they still did not retreat and inflicted HEAVY casualties on my knights as I tried to cross. I lost nearly 60% of them.

So I do not think that the AI defensive tactics for bridges have been dumbed down.

PS oh yes the rivers were also smaller in STW giving the archers longer operating range

[Vlad Tzepes]

You guys are talking about AI defending. But what about MTW AI in attacking bridges? It seems really dumb to me sometimes. Example: playing with the Turks, I get attacked in Carpathia (or is it Walachia?), a two bridge province, by the Polish. I am outnumbered 4 to 1, I've got only 3 Saracen Inf., 1 Muwahid, 5 to 6 units of Turk archers and some horse archers and one organ gun (great for bridge defense, but unbelivable little ammo). They've got basically everything they need, including Feudal Seargeants, Feudal men-at-arms, different types of cav., 3 catapults and lots of Slav Javs. At first I think my troops will get utterly slaughtered - I desperately mass everything I have to one bridge, letting only the Muwahid to guard the other... The Polish do not attack this one, but keep pushing the defended bridge. The organ gun is a wonder, the archers add to the carnage, the Saracens don't even have to bother. It takes about 20 min. to rout all the 4 or 5 waves. I didn't take one casualty, they are in the hundreds. The computer didn't try at least once to attack the second bridge. Their catapults were poorly deployed and didn't fire even one shot. All it did was rallying and routing until the end. It was pathetic... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[Ludens]

Vlad Tzepes, in Shogun, the AI would try to stuff the bridge. This always resulted in mass casualties by archer fire. Worse, if the AI was out of ground troops, it would send in the daimyo (clan leader, the king) and his cavalry guards. They can do nothing because of the mob blocking the bridge, they are pounded by my archers and, when they manage to reach my side, my spearmen kill them quickly.
Why does the AI do that? I've once killed two of six rival clans in 10 turns in this way It is not fun anymore.