The AI is afraid

[Inuyasha12]

Okay does anybody know how to change the way the AI works. This is my problem, i have a powerfull army and i invade some territory. The army in that territory is a bit weaker than mine so the ai retreats. Sometimes they give up their whole force. I got this game to play battles not to play the stategic part of the game. Sometimes it really annoys me that they go down without a fight. I've defeated whole factions without a fight and i hate that.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif
Is there any way to give more courage to the AI so that they stand and fight not run away or give themselves up?
That's been happening a lot to me lately and i want to know how to change it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-help.gif

[rasoforos]

I cannot give you a modding tip but a strategic one is to let the enemy outnumber you when you attack. Since challenge is what you see then you wouldnt mind that.

[octavian]

what he said, although i find if i out number them in battles containing less than

400 men per side, i can have appx. 80 to 120 more men than them without having them

give up. in battles containing less than 1000 men per side (but more than 400) that

figure seems to go up, and so on and so forth. that means that in a battle with 100

men per side, just adding another unit spearmen and one unit of cav, may be enough

to cause them to retreat.

also, if all you want are battles, check out MP, battles
galore, and much more difficult

than the AI will ever be.

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

[desdichado]

try fighting all your battles with no more than one stack (ie. 16 units) - makes an interesting challenge as you can't throw your mens lives away for nothing and AI is more likely to stand and fight.

I agree the AI is a pansy too often

[mercian billman]

It also makes the battles more exciting if your outnumbered 4-1 or 3-1. Beating the first wave is easy but, when the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th waves come and, your men are dog tired, and your archers and pavs are out of ammo things start to get a little exciting.

[foop]

This has been annoying me recently, too. I've been mopping up the remains of a Turkish empire in what used to be the HRE. The Turks are crumbling, and rebel uprisings have left them with a lot of isolated provinces containing a single stack of troops.

When I invade them with a single stack (and slightly fewer troops) they almost always retreat to the castle. I've no idea what that's supposed to achieve, because invariably the province is bordered by rebels and no help is going to be arriving in the next couple of years. I'm guessing it's because I'm quite teched-up and they're scared of my pav arbs and mercian billmen, but I'm beginning to wonder how few troops I'm supposed to have not to make them retreat.

[Inuyasha12]

Its just that sometimes i invade with like one stack
But they still run for it
So i have to spend the game changing the general or units in the stack so that they are not so scary. It annoys me to no end that i attecked the last province of the picts and they had like 2 full stacks and he the king along with 2 princes gave themselves up without a fight, to die
What happened to a last stand.
There's gotta be a way.

[Papewaio]

I'm playing expert Turk Early at the moment, I have a Great Health General 4* (was lower) who I try and always send in at 2:1 odds against (trying to get skilled attacker)... havn't yet, but I did accidentally (due to not checking loyalty of a province after he won again) get skilled defender and the one for defending when outnumbered more then 2:1... not quite what I was aiming for.

Anyhow even in Expert if you chose your fights (attack) and chose well (look at the enemy, mix and match your forces to suit) then you can win at 2:1 odds against you.

[ah_dut]

yo Papewaio-sama, 1 stack is nearly always enough in many battles, the AI i find is hope;ess at using reinforcements http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Blodrast]

most of the time i found that even being slightly outnumbered by the AI (for large stacks) is enough for it to make a stand, or even attack.
as long as you outnumber them (with at least similar troops quality-wise), they won't fight. However, the moment they can outnumber you (and it doesn't have to be 2:1, like I said, even outnumbering you by a small amount), they will make a stand - or even counter-attack.
In my last campaign, I kept pushing the Eggys back and have taken 7-8 provs from them without a fight, all the time some of their troops retreating to the castle (and being starved to death), and the bulk of their army retreating to another province. This led to their troops become more and more concentrated into one single province, and when they had enough, they actually counter-attacked ofc they lost miserably, but still, the AI considered it had good chances of winning.

[Inuyasha12]

Depends i invaded the picts with one stack of huscarles and their three stack army turned tail and fled. You not only have to let them outnumber you but if you're soldiers are too elite they will flee.
Sometimes never make a last stand.

[HicRic]

I'm playing my first game through right now and I took almost all of the Egyptian empire by just attacking, they retreat to castle/other provinces, I starve them out, and so on over and over. They only put up one decent fight during my whole offensive http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif (There were a couple of other fights but they stood no chance of winning...and for some reason didn't run.)

[katank]

Numbers aren't everything.

the AI is often scared by elite troops also and definitely overrates cav and all BG units.

a very effective strat on the viking map due to early availability of spies is to force them to retreat into the castles and then to use spies to crack the gates. This destroys their capacity to make war in short order.

[Blodrast]

Quote[/b] (katank @ July 02 2004,16:49)]Numbers aren't everything.

the AI is often scared by elite troops also and definitely overrates cav and all BG units.

a very effective strat on the viking map due to early availability of spies is to force them to retreat into the castles and then to use spies to crack the gates. This destroys their capacity to make war in short order.
i take it on the viking map spies are more effective than on the MTW map ? cause no matter how good my spies were, none ever had the slightest chance to open the gates for something better than a stinking fort...

[Papewaio]

OMG I just realised I have never tried to crack a castle with a spy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Inuyasha12]

Yeah me neither, i always just starve them out.

[katank]

I was messing around by using spies to complement my moving wall to bolster loyalty in recently conquered territories.

then, I accidentally dropped one on a keep and saw a decent chance.

I used all 6 and captured a full blown keep with no casualties.

They are far more accessible on the Viking map.

[Ludens]

I don't know if this works for sure, but I think that the AI will be less cowardly if it's got better units. The AI always has so many peasants and militia because it can't afford anything better. It doesn't build enough farm upgrades and doesn't set up trade properly.

Medmod solves this. I've installed medmod v2.01 (Abbey Road) and I am definitly seeing less crap armies, very few peasants and the AI is more active on the high seas. Result: the AI puts up more of a fight.

You can download Wes' mod on this site Wes Whitaker's Total Modification Site (http://wes.apolyton.net/).
It doesn't require a clean install but runs alongside the non-modded game. I have encountered only one problem so far: the game chrashes to desktop when I try to view the GA's of Novgorod.

[Blodrast]

well, ya know, it's pretty much like the hen & egg problem:
if the garrison is less than, say, a castle, then it's not worth using a spy 'cause i can just storm it. i may not even need arty to do it, and the casualties won't be too serious.
but if it's at least a castle, then you can't really use spies (well, you can, but the odds are less than crap).

btw, out of freakish curiosity (and, after a while, plain old stubbornness and anger), i came into this situation: i had a decent assassin, and sent him to kill someone important (royalty, i think). The odds were 50%. I snickered and sent him to kill the guy. He failed. Reload, try again. Failed.
Again. Fail again. I kept trying this for over 40 or 50 times (i know, a bit paranoid there), to try and at least once get the guy to successfully get his kill. Never happened.
Ok, I know a bit of statistics, but if the odds were _really_ 50-50, then my situation should have been 1 in lots of billions...so i reckon that 50% chance isn't _really_ 50% after all...
oh well.

[katank]

blodrast. the random seed for assasinations are generated already. The assasination will fail no matter how many times you reload.

naval combat, bribery, and inquisition seem to change when you reload though.

[Spartiate]

Just a quick reply to the assassin thingy there. Have you ever noticed that if you send 3 assassins to kill a king from an adjacent province and they all arrive at the same time that the high exp assassin ALWAYS fails and one of the killers with no rating whatsoever gets in to kill the king.Is this because the king has picked up some sort of negative vice between turns(possibly because of the failed assassination attempt)allowing the other hitmen to get in there and finish the job. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[Inuyasha12]

Well the vices for failed assasination are(if i remember correctly) Paranoid, and very paranoid.
There was also another one in wich the king killed the assasin with a kitchen spout?
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Inuyasha12 @ July 04 2004,02:18)]Well the vices for failed assasination are(if i remember correctly) Paranoid, and very paranoid.
There was also another one in wich the king killed the assasin with a kitchen spout?
There are four lines of assasination related vices.

1) Nervous-very nervous-recluse-secret paranoia-paranoid: will decrease health and, at first, valour but increases acumen. At the paranoid stage, you will lose the acumen bonus and the valour penalty, but get a dread bonus and a piety penalty. I am not sure if this vice gives additional protection against assassins: the two V&V listings I consulted didn't mention it.

2) Survivor-strong security-high security-secret paranoid security-paranoid security: gains valour (against assasins?) but cost acumen and, at the final stage, happines.

3) Suspicious-rough justice-secret murderer-murderer--secret mass murderer-mass murderer: gains dread, costs piety. Again, there seems to be no additional protection against assasination attempts.

4) Resilent: gives a bonus valour against assasins.


Quote[/b] (Spartiate @ July 03 2004,22:07)]Have you ever noticed that if you send 3 assassins to kill a king from an adjacent province and they all arrive at the same time that the high exp assassin ALWAYS fails and one of the killers with no rating whatsoever gets in to kill the king.Is this because the king has picked up some sort of negative vice between turns(possibly because of the failed assassination attempt)allowing the other hitmen to get in there and finish the job. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif
Seems unlikely, there is no vice that makes you more vulnerable to assassins.