Siege AI is hopeless

[Cendre]

And I'm not talking about the siege bug... I'm a newbie to the TotalWar series and on my first campaign (Juli). I had great fun with the game until I took on the senate...
I was in a hopeless situation with the Bruti having twice more armies than me and much stronger units. But every time they siege one of my cities I attack them with the units inside my city and the AI just does nothing...
More precisely, sometime they move all their units to the north east corner of the map, in which case I take my cavalry out and hack the Onagers trailing at the back of their column (while the AI units continue walking to their destination like nothing is happening). I have never seen the AI using it's Onagers on my city walls yet.
Worst, sometimes the AI siege without Onagers and then they just get close to my walls to get hacked off by my Archers...
I'm using version 1.2, not using any cheats and no Mods, I'm not a very good player and had great fun against AI on battlefields but the siege business makes the game pointless, and I don't want to have to set myself Ironman rules (e.g. never build archers, etc.) in order to make the game work, I want CA to make an AI that does not have such huge loopholes...
Am I the only one experiencing this problem?

[The Stranger]

no i think you're one out of the many RTW players that think the AI sucks. and i think most of the game sucks in general

[SpencerH]

I noticed that in some seiges with 1.0 (I havent been besieged once with 1.2 so I cant speak to the effect of the patch) that the AI would move across the front of the city (taking casualties as it did so) rather than setting up directly in front of where it would attack. Unfortunately, I have no idea what determines that behaviour. All I can say is that I recall that the gauls did occasionally mount reasonable frontal assaults (all sword units at once with a variety of seige towers, ladders, and rams). Of course, even the best AI assault never made it past the walls nor did they ever sap.

[Turbo]

No, you aren't the only one who has experienced this. The siege AI is hopelessly ineffective and generally incompetent. Even assuming that the AI is able to mount a successful assault on the walls (which won't happen on higher wall structures), a couple of pikemen in the town center can hold the town forever.

Sucks doesn't it.

[QuantumEleven]

Cendre, I've experienced this too - but only when I was beseiged and I sallied from the town. I would start out in the standard position (me just inside the walls, the army in a line a fair distance from the walls). From the moment the battle started, the entire enemy army would move right (from my perspective), across most of the map, and settle in the northeast corner, waiting for me to come and get them.

Which I then gleefully did. Romans rule on the open field, rarely would more than ten or twenty enemies survive (okay, this is on M/M, but I'm a beginner, so...).

The one time when I was "properly" beseiged (in 1.2) was when the Spanish attacked one my settlements (which was defended by 2 Hastati and 2 Town Guards) with a large stack. They built rams, tore down the Palisade (no better defences yet, at that point), made a beeline for the central square, and slaughtered my defenders. Okay, I took quite a few of them with me, but Hastati and Town Guards won't stand up to a huge amount of pain before they collapse... so the AI can seige properly, but perhaps it only does it against low-level walls and/or small garrisons...

[cunctator]

One of the easiest ways to destroy a full stack AI army is to allow it to siege your cities. I never lost a city with stone walls at least. Almost everytime the AI assaults the walls instead of starving them to death. Then horrible things will happen.

Units assigned to rams will not move any further as soon as the ram is destroyed and are killed to the last man by towers and archers. Siege towers moves on strange paths towards the walls. easy targets for archers and towers. One time one of them nearly moved around a quarter of the city until it was abandonded.
The worst thing happens if a spy has oppened the gates. The whole enemy army will rush through one gate, abandoning all other siege equippment. A few units placed behind it can destroy the complete force.

For me thats the weakest point of the game. It`s impossible to loose a campaign even in the most desperate situation.

[BeeSting]

Being besieged is the best way exploit the game for all its worth. Do not counter spy. Purposely let the spies in and allow them to open up the gates for the enemy. Then welcome them with joy, because the entire AI army will rush and bottleneck themselves at the main gate, only to decimated by your missiles and spears.

And whoever coded the tactic of making the AI use the battling ram on a stonewall city was a genius! Forget securing the walls and towers; let them bash through the gates and allow them to rush in only to be deep-fried by your burning oil.

I am absolutely in awe of the level of thought that was put in to AI tactics in this game!

[professorspatula]

I never play siege battles in the campaign now, I auto-calc them. The AI is stupid beyond belief and I no longer wish to cry at the poor state of sieges.

I finally gave up on the sieges when I had 4 stacks of my German forces siege Capua. Over 9000 Germans versus less than 2,000 Scipii and with only a basic stone wall to protect the defenders. Three of my armies controlled by the AI. I knew losses would be big, but at that point I didn't much care as long as the battle was won and it was fun.

My AI friends decided to make sure I failed miserably. With several siege equipment pieces available to them, they used just 1 item each, although a ram was used but got burnt. They spent most of the time standing around in front of the enemy towers, endlessly picking up and dropping the ladders and dying slowly to arrows. Why they didn't want to use the siege towers I don't know. My own efforts to secure victory where hampered by the 'Fighting to the Death' nonsense on the walls, and general idiocy when trying to move men around the city streets.

In the end I lost the battle through time. There were some 7500+ dead Germans thanks largely to the worst and most confused AI I have ever see in a computer game. Nearly every siege I take part in also suffers from AI madness so I no longer bother to play them. Exceptions being small towns with either no walls, or just wooden ones. The AI is on a fairer footing then - providing I don't have lots of phalanx units for them to spear themselves on again and again.

[derF]

Ive often attacked trailing Onagers with cavilry. Some times, the AI sends a unit of soldiers to support the onagers, but most of the times, theyre too far away to respond quickly enough.

The AI is monumentally under-developed.