AI Assaulting a Caslte

[maestro]

Hi guys,

Have any of you guys EVER known tha AI to assault a castle in campaign mode of MTW??

I must have played more than 10 campaigns to completion and never once have I had to defend from assaulting AI.

Does this EVER happen??

Al'

[Revenant69]

Welcome to the ORG maestro http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I've had this happen a few times. I think your garrison has to be hopelessly outnumbered in order for the AI to assault it, otherwise it will just starve you out.

There is a good thread somewhere out there about defending Khazar with 960 knights sitting in a fortress against the apperance of the Horde.

I forget where it was, just do a search or something.

[Sir Zack de Caldicot]

Well Revenant69

yor lucky for the AI to attack you as the defender as I have never seen the AI attack me, well that might be because Ive only fought two campaighns and never attack them when there in seiege http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-juggle.gif

[katar]

i`ve been playing mtw since it first came out, and it has only happened to me once, that`s how rare it is for me at least.

i found it totally uninspiring. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-zzz.gif

[Basileus]

It has happend to me though mostly in the viking era and when i had just 2 peasant units..seems like it happens only when you dont got alot of troops in the castle.

[insolent1]

In vanilla MTW the AI never assaulted castles without seige weapons, i don't think it changed with the 1.1 patch. In VI & patched VI the AI will always try to assault as soon as possible. Sometimes they might wait a year but they do assault. I have fought a lot of seige defences & the AI is useless at assaulting anything but forts. I have defended geogia with a fortress & 1 lone JHI unit for 4 years. The horde lost i'd say about 4000-5000 troops tryin to take it over the 4 years.

[Sun Tzui]

Tottaly and Utterly rare situation

Only heard about it, never happened to me

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

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Wecome to the ORG, maestro http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

As for the situation you're refering, it never happened to me... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-no.gif

[Voigtkampf]

Funny thing is that some people experience certain game features far more often than the others; personally, I never took notice of rebel assassins, and stated so in a thread few days ago, but ever since I have caught about two dozens of them in various provinces. Odd, indeed.

As for the AI assaulting castles, it has happened to me few times by now, last time it happened was last night, I had only some 30 troopers in a surrounded castle, I believe it was on a fairly low level of a fort or something, and they attacked with some 700 men. I auto resolved, since I didn't want to bother with that.

My personal favor was AI attacking a citadel of mine; two battered units of plain spearmen, each some 15 soldiers, and few other tattered remnants. The AI went after the gate, yet unfortunately - for him, or it… whatever - the AI came from a far side and was forced to walk along my walls while my fire towers reigned death upon their ranks. And since the AI had virtually no siege engines (most unfortunate), I managed to kill some 600-700 of enemy soldiers without one single casualty. It was hypnotizing; one unit would march toward my gates, would waver and rout, return, suffer some more casualties and then it would rout for good, other single enemy unit would step in and so on and on…

[.:vVv:.Monkey]

Hmm, it happened to me once in Sicily. I was playing as the Turks and had Naples, too. The Italians launched a crusade against Antioch, however they couldn't pass Anatolia, decided to retreat back to Rome and then the crusading army, combined with a good chunk of the Italian Army attacked Naples, I withdrew to Sicily to my Keep and the enemy immediately followed me to invade Sicily. So, I retreated to the Keep (I was outnumbered 1:5 or so) and decided to wait a turn or two before I could send some backup from the mainland. However, instead of starving me out, the Crusaders+Italians immediately assaulted the castle (they had 3 catapults as siege weapons) and quickly learnt that 1:5 advantage they had really didn't help them in a castle assault heheheh http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

yeah, charge the castle door with fanatics when I have Saracen and Ghazi infantry defending it with boiling oil...very smart

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif

[thrashaholic]

I've had this happen to me loads of times.....mostly when my castles are poorly defended, and the computer always seems to attack other computer controlled castles. For me they seem to attack more often than not (mind the computer doesn't get many chances to attack my castles...I usually win the defensive battle anyway http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ), I always thought this was normal?

Thrashaholic

[Lord of the morning]

It has happened to me a few times, if you have a large fortress with few units the computer will usualy attac, bacuase victory is almost certain with so few defenders and trining to wait out 200 peasants in a fortress will take lots of time, alowing for reinforcements to go lift the siege.

However since i usualy only build high level forts in my rich central provinces they almost never get attacked, and If I build a high level fort in a border area It will be for defence, and a fort without soldiers is no defence. The high level fort, few defenders scenario is rather unlikley, making for only a few AI assults.

[Mummer]

I have had the AI assault my castles several times, when I was hopelessly outnumbered, and a couple times when I had a decent amount of men. I hate how the enemy will send one unit to fight, sometimes even after they have breached the gates, it makes it EXTREMELY boring.

[Balmont]

It's never happened to me in Shogun, or Medieval.

-Balmont

[Voigtkampf]

Last night my castle was attacked by the Byzantines; they've had a force of some 620 men and I had some 160 soldiers, mostly remains of once a great army. For the sake of testing, I first autoresolved and have lost the battle, killing some 140 enemy soldiers. Then I decided to give it a try (the game setting was expert), fought my way through and managed to defeat the Byzantines, and ended up chasing them with my few feudal knights. God bless those stone walls and arrow towers, as well as my sturdy Italian infantry not giving up those inner gates

It has come to my attention that the castle gets attacked more often now, when I play all my games on expert, than it has happened before when I was playing on normal. Perhaps, only perhaps the difficulty setting has something to do with the frequency of the castle attacks?

[Cazbol]

My first castle defence was about 2 or 3 days ago. I was playing the viking era on expert, which may be the reason. The AI is probably more agressive on expert and knows it also has a better chance of winning an assault because it gets beefed up stats on expert level.

I defended a fort and the AI sent one unit of celtic warriors to break down the wall and slay about 150 defenders, gallowglasses, bonnachts, mounted nobles and royal bodyguards.... and so it did.

This will be the last time I'll play on expert. The game is more challenging which is good but I'll still win the campaign. The problem is that it's challenging for all the wrong reasons. Enemy units simply gain some magic superiority. Armoured spearmen slaughter gallowglasses, a single unit of celtic warriors will wipe out 3 units of gallowglasses suffering only about 30 casualties, archers hold off royal bodyguards in melee. Everything feels wrong. All my units are just peasants in different costumes.

[squippy]

Hmm, I agree strongly with Cazbol there; I've heard the AI is at its tactical optimum at JHard and that is the level I play at. Just giving the AI a blanket morale bonus irks me no end.

I've had LOTS of castle stormings by pretty muchy every faction. I think it may have to do with the estimated casualties sustained by a long siege or a storm. With a small number of units, sure you take casualties taking them down, but this may be better than sitting outside for 10 years taking hits every year.

The other condition appears to be need: that is, the Horde NEEDS to take control of provinces to offset attrition and respawned factions likewise. I had a returning papacy storm a fully developed citadel in Sicily containing Chiv MAA, feudal knights, vikings etc - good quality units. It was bloody work and went on for a long time, but eventually the peasnt-n-pike hordes were driven off with tremendous losses.

[Komutan]

I have VI with the patch installed, and I am playing on expert difficulty.The AI frequently assaults castles.In fact, lately I didn't experience any siege without an assault.

[Voigtkampf]

Quote[/b] (Cazbol @ Jan. 28 2004,02:49)]This will be the last time I'll play on expert. The game is more challenging which is good but I'll still win the campaign. The problem is that it's challenging for all the wrong reasons. Enemy units simply gain some magic superiority. Armoured spearmen slaughter gallowglasses, a single unit of celtic warriors will wipe out 3 units of gallowglasses suffering only about 30 casualties, archers hold off royal bodyguards in melee. Everything feels wrong. All my units are just peasants in different costumes.
Hmmm, I disagree upon this one. I played on all settings earlier, and in the last few months I play only expert, and I cannot support any magical units theory. Perhaps the AI had simply higher valor units? Indeed, it takes longer to rout AI units on expert, and I saw a unit of spearmen fighting down to fifteen men before they routed, but it's just no fun if it's not as hard as possible. Generally speaking, all units are as usual, my CMAA slaughter spears, it's just tougher than normal or hard setting and it takes longer, so your own casualties are higher. I found out that I mostly have one 1:3 my/AI casualties in the battles, while the lower settings mean less casualties on my side.