1.3 RTW Comments [Archive]

Red Harvest

10-16-2005, 02:11

I've fooled around with a couple of 1.3 RTW campaigns so far, fought maybe a dozen large battles on VH/VH. I'll start listing some comments, and perhaps add to this later. I haven't looked at stats changes yet. Edit: Bugs/major problems in bold.
1. There are some apparent improvements in fluidity of the campaign map (wasn't giving me trouble before, but it is different now.)
2. Pirates are tough and abundant early on. They rule the seas making land invasions tricky (at least on VH/VH.)
3. AI still seems to do many of the same things on the tactical map. So the differences there are not vast. I haven't noticed the generals being as suicidal, though. Incremental improvement I suppose.
4. Spears do seem to work better vs. cav., and charging spears frontally with cav is now quite dangerous.
5. Still not seeing many storms at sea.
6. Strategic AI still leaving settlements less protected than prudent. I'm finding stacks of Carthaginians doing nothing in forts.
7. Still can't combine fleets sometimes? And then can combine the same fleets later?
8. Ships don't seem any more inclined to sink from combat than before.
9. Roman diplomacy might be more complex, if you ally with nations the Senate views unfavorably you might lose your Roman alliances.

Lots of things to check...haven't explored much at all yet, and no controlled experiments. I probably should try another faction.

Adding Items:
10. Archers still charge infantry at times without really firing. This became apparent when the AI threw its Cretan archers into my meleeing Hastati. I could see this if the Hastati had been alone on a flank, but my unit was backed by cav, etc. What a waste of a great missile unit.
11. The AI still won't skirmish very often. It can't seem to trade javelin volleys or counduct much of an archery duel.
12. Base archer power is still several times greater than it should be. I had forgotten how much better my mods to velocities, ranges, and missile attack made the game feel/look in 1.2. I'm really missing those changes now. I know CA pared down the elites, but they should have whacked the rest to about the level of base slingers.
13. There is a MAJOR memory leak that gets worse as a session continues. Difficult to shut down the game after a few hours.

More items:

14. Marius' Reforms now occur early again. I had them happen in 242. (I would have rathered that CA would have added a second starting period and map to the RTW campaign as part of BI.)
15. I've been listening to the speeches again. They are far more varied and colorful than when I started playing. There are several that I've never heard mentioned before (I had heard quite a few zingers, and some related here.) Something about slapping an ass (as in donkey I presume) comes to mind
16. Wardogs still pose absurd difficulties, because they still can't be targeted directly. Your men end up trying to charge after the handlers, so dealing with the dogs themselves is a passive affair. So on VH, where they have plenty of morale they just keep killing and killing in AI hands. Very annoying.
17. AI doesn't use its war cry at times. In defense it seems to, but when advancing/attacking it forgets to stop and do this.
18. AI archers often won't fire at units within range, even when the archer is stationary. It is most obvious with the longest range archers.
19. AI won't use its pila.
20. Pila can still stop an enemy charge cold--charge doesn't seem to register against them as they raise their weapons. Then they unload into the now stationary chargers point blank. Seems a bit wrong to me.
21. AI is having great difficulty launching naval invasions now. Scipii and Brutii stacks are building up instead, and not being landed.
22. AI still fails to use "overkill" numbers of troops to confront the player (when available.) For example, it might have two stacks within a few hexes of a city it will siege, yet it will send in just enough men to have superiority (based on autocalc.--so with Rome post Marius it might be using far too few men.) While much improved, it is still getting defeated in detail because it won't use full stacks when it easily could.
23. Two new horse skeletons (speeds) have been added. So now we have (fastest to slowest):
fs_fast_horse = light horse
fs_medium_horse = medium horse (and "generals horse") New!
fs_horse = heavy horse
fs_cataphract_horse =cataphract horse New!

KSEG

10-16-2005, 03:01

>9. Roman diplomacy might be more complex, if you ally with nations the Senate views >unfavorably you might lose your Roman alliances.

Isn't this supposed to be a bug?

ChaosLord

10-16-2005, 03:30

7: You still can't put admirals with stars in the same stack as another admiral with stars, really annoying. Its gotten so that even with the rarity of ships with stars if I have one or two already I just disband it.

9: I'm not sure if its a bug or a feature actually. They might have decided the fixed alliances hurt the Houses when expanding. IE Scipii or Brutii making an alliance with the Gauls while the Julii were waging war with them and then making them at peace by default and things like that. I think that even with losing the alliance you can't attack them and keep the line of sight view, so its not a big effect really.

Puzz3D

10-16-2005, 04:53

3. AI still seems to do many of the same things on the tactical map. So the differences there are not vast. I haven't noticed the generals being as suicidal, though. Incremental improvement I suppose.
4. Spears do seem to work better vs. cav., and charging spears frontally with cav is now quite dangerous.
I felt these two things were major problems in RTW v1.2 battles, and make a big different in the RTW v1.3 battles. The AI will attack your cavalry with spears whenever it can so that's more dangerous now, and the AI flanking is going to work better since the front lines will fight longer without the suicide general. Even simply turning a unit to absorb a flanking attack is going to expose its flank longer to other AI units, and the AI tries to take advantage of those exposed flanks. The fixes to the charge and reduction in charge bonuses of many units also means units will not rout as quickly.

nameless

10-16-2005, 06:48

Red Harvest

10-16-2005, 07:28

YOu know you could simply just bring that ship into port and build it into a fleet with warships.

Not a wise move when he has "zero or negative stars." Usually this is a problem with small units that get pounced upon during transfers etc. Better to disband a unit, than rebuild it and saddle it with a crummy admiral who you can't really see.

Red Harvest

10-16-2005, 07:40

I felt these two things were major problems in RTW v1.2 battles, and make a big different in the RTW v1.3 battles. The AI will attack your cavalry with spears whenever it can so that's more dangerous now, and the AI flanking is going to work better since the front lines will fight longer without the suicide general. Even simply turning a unit to absorb a flanking attack is going to expose its flank longer to other AI units, and the AI tries to take advantage of those exposed flanks. The fixes to the charge and reduction in charge bonuses of many units also means units will not rout as quickly.
Yes, battles are a little more costly, but even on VH/VH I'm not losing battles. Okay, I lost one, but it was a wreckelss siege attack against those stone walls of Syracuse trying to get the measure of how things were. I had no business even attempting it with 1 vs 1 manpower and them having greek hoplites, archers, and a higher star family vs. my hastati, some velites and two family members, but I nearly won. I actually would have won, but I let some guys get stranded in a bad spot and cut to pieces while attending the other end of the battle--so I came up a unit short of what I needed. I ended up losing my leader flanking the last full unit of greek hoplites in the square.

Puzz3D

10-16-2005, 14:35

Yes, battles are a little more costly, but even on VH/VH I'm not losing battles.
Something's not right. I'm playing on M/M and loosing battles, and I've been playing total War for 5 years. I won my last battle with 1000 men under a 2 star general against 1400 Britannians under a 3 star general, but it took over half an hour using many hit and run attacks on their skirmishers. I think I actually only won because their general was killed about 20 minutes into the battle. I killed 1000, but lost 500 men.

I'm at 170 BC in this Julii campaign with 28 provinces, and it's extremely difficult to expand due to the economics. I only just now got full control of the Iberian peninsula. I just established a 6k profit each turn, but I don't think it's going to last and Britannia has just started attacking me. I have several cities with 70% happiness and no way to improve it. Brutii attacked Egypt in Asia Minor, but there is no way I can take advantage and take a few cities because I can't raise the troops to go there. It might not be a good idea anyway because Egypt is strong and will kick Brutii out soon.

I don't know what's different about our playing styles, but I'm having a very interesting campaign. I play with no retraining.

IceTorque

10-16-2005, 15:09

I play on VH/M and I have found the battles in 1.3 to be fast and easy with my hastati being able to rout most units with their pilums before they even engage in melee.
I have only played a short vanilla campaign before quitting
and deciding to port my WarMap mod over to v1.3 which i found surprisingly easy to do thanks to alpacaa's HGT converter and the much improved -show_err reporting in v1.3. so no more vanilla for me.

Puzz3D

10-16-2005, 15:47

I play on VH/M and I have found the battles in 1.3 to be fast and easy with my hastati being able to rout most units with their pilums before they even engage in melee.
Why can't my hastati do that on medium? The only units I can rout with pilum are the low quality troops, and even then it takes more than one unit thowing pilums to do it. Maybe there's something wrong with VH.

IceTorque

10-16-2005, 16:48

Why can't my hastati do that on medium? The only units I can rout with pilum are the low quality troops, and even then it takes more than one unit thowing pilums to do it. Maybe there's something wrong with VH.

I also had roman archers behind my hastati and i quit the game well before the marion reforms as i thought it would just get even easier with legionary cohorts and archer auxillia.

screwtype

10-16-2005, 16:51

Something's not right. I'm playing on M/M and loosing battles, and I've been playing total War for 5 years. I won my last battle with 1000 men under a 2 star general against 1400 Britannians under a 3 star general, but it took over half an hour using many hit and run attacks on their skirmishers. I think I actually only won because their general was killed about 20 minutes into the battle. I killed 1000, but lost 500 men.

I'm at 170 BC in this Julii campaign with 28 provinces, and it's extremely difficult to expand due to the economics. I only just now got full control of the Iberian peninsula. I just established a 6k profit each turn, but I don't think it's going to last and Britannia has just started attacking me. I have several cities with 70% happiness and no way to improve it. Brutii attacked Egypt in Asia Minor, but there is no way I can take advantage and take a few cities because I can't raise the troops to go there. It might not be a good idea anyway because Egypt is strong and will kick Brutii out soon.

I don't know what's different about our playing styles, but I'm having a very interesting campaign. I play with no retraining.

I've started a couple of 1.3 campaigns on M/M, and my experience is very different. I am just steamrolling every battle with ease. The last four battles I fought I was actually outnumbered, and didn't lose a single soldier in any of them!

The one thing I have noticed about this game compared to 1.2 is that units don't seem to rout so quick, but then maybe I've just got used to RTW's quicker routing by now. My general's already got more stars than I can poke a stick at so maybe that's why my units aren't routing at all.

I never intended to start a M/M campaign, but I just installed a new mobo and RTW's been crashing all the time, I only started this campaign to see if the game was stable and didn't bother changing any of the options first.

screwtype

10-16-2005, 17:45

BTW, one thing I have noticed with 1.3, and that is that you can still blockade an enemy port and not be attacked by that faction's shipping. I blockaded the port of Carthage with just one ship and even though there must have been a dozen Carthaginian ships within an inch of the port, not a single one tried to raise the blockade. How stupid is that.

I also noticed the same silly phenomenon of your ships running into neutral ships during their move and thus having their movement ended for that turn. What the heck is the reasoning behind that? The ocean isn't big enough for two ships to pass each other in the same turn? I missed completing a couple of Senate missions because of this nonsense.

Red Harvest

10-16-2005, 18:09

BTW, one thing I have noticed with 1.3, and that is that you can still blockade an enemy port and not be attacked by that faction's shipping. I blockaded the port of Carthage with just one ship and even though there must have been a dozen Carthaginian ships within an inch of the port, not a single one tried to raise the blockade. How stupid is that.
Yes, I've noticed that still seems to be the case. I've not yet had my blockaders attacked.

I also noticed the same silly phenomenon of your ships running into neutral ships during their move and thus having their movement ended for that turn. What the heck is the reasoning behind that? The ocean isn't big enough for two ships to pass each other in the same turn? I missed completing a couple of Senate missions because of this nonsense.
It seems to be that neutral always presents the opportunity for combat, so they "square up." Probably reasonable as it represents a defensive posture against a potential threat.

screwtype

10-16-2005, 18:23

It seems to be that neutral always presents the opportunity for combat, so they "square up." Probably reasonable as it represents a defensive posture against a potential threat.

These are six month turns. It makes no sense to me.

BTW the range of ships also seems to be a lot shorter than I remember. I think a ship's range should probably be effectively infinite. Is there a way to mod a ship's movement range? If so, I might have to do it.

Jambo

10-16-2005, 19:10

Puzz3D

10-16-2005, 21:27

My general's already got more stars than I can poke a stick at so maybe that's why my units aren't routing at all.
I guess that's the difference. I don't take my best general and steamroller the AI. The best battles are when the generals are closely matched, and the strongest AI generals I've encounted are 6 stars with most in the 2 - 4 star range. All of the Total War games give too much combat boost to the units via the command stars, and when there's a big disparity in power between the two armies there isn't much need for tactics.

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 06:40

I guess that's the difference. I don't take my best general and steamroller the AI. The best battles are when the generals are closely matched, and the strongest AI generals I've encounted are 6 stars with most in the 2 - 4 star range. All of the Total War games give too much combat boost to the units via the command stars, and when there's a big disparity in power between the two armies there isn't much need for tactics.
I played another campaign today as the Brutii on VH/VH. Not really much challenge in the fights. I fought down a star or two in about half the battles (had some no star guys who I put in action.) I managed to lose two battles in which I had poor odds. The determining factor in both? The AI's flaming arrows caused insta-rout. It is one of the few "exploits" the AI has over the human. Morale differences on VH seem to be behind it, same as it was in previous RTW. It is pretty gamey the way flaming arrows work. I had modded out flaming arrows for a multitude of reasons (historical, gaminess, and performance aspects) and probably will again. Unfortunately, it also makes the AI weaker.

I'm just using normal Roman units and merc spears, mixed forces. The changes to cav/spears are nice, but really only get it to about the point I had modded it to in 1.2.

Haven't had much trouble polishing off the Macedonians and Greeks. The AI might have been trying to keep a line better with its phalanx units, but it was seriously undone by lack of skirmishing. This allowed my merc peltasts and velites (as well as hastati pila) to tear up the incoming phalanx units, mostly routed them at the instant of contact.

It is about time to try this from a non-Roman faction again...

Adding Items:
10. Archers still charge infantry at times without really firing. This became apparent when the AI threw its Cretan archers into my meleeing Hastati. ~:eek: I could see this if the Hastati had been alone on a flank, but my unit was backed by cav, etc. What a waste of a great missile unit.
11. The AI still won't skirmish very often. It can't seem to trade javelin volleys or counduct much of an archery duel.
12. Base archer power is still several times greater than it should be. I had forgotten how much better my mods to velocities, ranges, and missile attack made the game feel/look in 1.2. I'm really missing those changes now. I know CA pared down the elites, but they should have whacked the rest to about the level of base slingers.

Another I forgot:
13. Autocalc is still awful about letting small forces escape. When you pounce on a couple of peltasts or archers with a half stack of cavalry and autocalc, the enemy should be gone, not slinking away to block your path again!

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 06:58

The naval side of BI/1.3 has taken a big dunt with the increase in the pirate spawn rate. Mid-late game there's essentially no AI ships and instead what you have is a multitude of top-of-the-range pirate stacks. Lessen the pirate spawn rate and you find a much more rewarding naval game, blockades and all..
I'm at mid game as the Brutii, and I've swept out the pirate fleets with triremes. I have oodles of money. There aren't that many pirates in the eastern med. The pirates were more a problem in the central med from what I've seen so far.

I like the pirate fleets as a threat to me, but they are clobbering the AI early on. Historically, those pirate fleets were a big problem. Unfortunately, battles on the seas are still not decisive...arrggg. I have to beat the same stack half a dozen times to kill it.

What is still missing is weather on the sea. The real world enemy at sea is the weather. The weather destroyed several huge Roman fleets during the 1st Punic War, full of troops too! The losses were absolutely staggering, the equivalent of losing Cannae several times...and this when Rome was a much smaller power.

I've been seeing a number of small "stranded" AI fleets carrying armies. They sit in the same place for many turns. I think what is happening is the area they want to take is too well defended, so they sit in limbo. (In this campaign the Scipii never could take Syracuse for example.)

And of course we need a naval scale adjustment so that 1 bireme or 1 trireme can transport a single unit of infantry, or 2 of them can haul one cav. Larger boats (two turn builds like quinquiremes) would be allowed to haul more. I'm going to have to use this sort of rule for my own actions to keep the game challenging. (Also should take more than 1 unit to blockade the larger levels of ports.)

Puzz3D

10-17-2005, 13:42

11. The AI still won't skirmish very often. It can't seem to trade javelin volleys or counduct much of an archery duel.
The AI skirmishes me with slingers and javelins when it has them. I haven't seen any AI archers because I've been fighting against Gaul, Britannia, Spain, Carthage and Thrace. Thrace may have had some archers.

12. Base archer power is still several times greater than it should be. I had forgotten how much better my mods to velocities, ranges, and missile attack made the game feel/look in 1.2. I'm really missing those changes now. I know CA pared down the elites, but they should have whacked the rest to about the level of base slingers.
Well I don't kow about weakening archers. They get a lot of kills againt low armored units, but I had 3 archers firing at a sacred band inf unit that was marching towards me, and the archers didn't get a single kill. This was large units, so the archers were 80 men each.

13. Autocalc is still awful about letting small forces escape. When you pounce on a couple of peltasts or archers with a half stack of cavalry and autocalc, the enemy should be gone, not slinking away to block your path again!
This doesn't happen when using auto-calc against rebels. At least, I've never seen it happen, and I always auto-resolve against rebles.

I've noticed a couple of problems in battle with AI controlled units:

They tend to get exhausted in battles where the AI is the attacker. This is really bad in battles where the AI has two armies, and one has to come from a long distance. I just had a battle vs Britannia, who had 300 men under a 3 star general and 1400 reinforcing men under a captain which had to come across the entire map. I set up at the back since I only had 1100 men under a 2 star general, but once the AI's 1400 men arrived they were in no shape to fight and routed easily. In only two battles have I set up towards the back of the map, and I probably won't do that again.

The other issue is that the AI will often send units forward piecemeal, and those units are easy to defeat. I've had some open field battles which I expected to be good turn into easy wins because of this AI tendency. It happens in virtually all battles where the AI sallies from the gates of a city.

Jambo

10-17-2005, 14:23

Yeah, for me fatigue is one of those tough choices as to whether I play with it on or off. Like Puzz I've had some battles against the AI in which I was expecting a real tough fight and in fact turned out to be slaughters.

In one such battle (VH/H) my relatively large garrison defence of 1000 troops killed >5500 (from 3 AI armies) while defending a siege assault from a horde faction. The one army with the siege equipment breached my defences with siege towers, rams and sap points, and so after dealing with the initial army I decided to retreat to the centre square to face the rest...

While I relaxed and regained unit stamina in the city plaza, the other 2 AI armies charged all the way round my wall defences to enter through the breaches. By the time the chosen swordsmen, horde spearmen, etc, reached my plaza they were tired or exhausted and a simple charge from the 3 family members I had in the plaza routed the lot. Several thousand troops routing from the city plaza with 3 family members in pursuit = mass slaughter.

Without fatigue on I would have definitely lost as there's no doubt the charging of the AI reinforcements round the walls was their doom.

screwtype

10-17-2005, 15:13

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 18:06

I've never noticed the AI getting fatigued before. How do you know they are fatigued? Is it just your assumption?

Personally I see the opposite problem occurring. The AI just doesn't hurry fast enough, especially when it's sending reinforcements. I've lost count of the number of AI cities I end up taking uncontested because a reinforcing AI army comes to the city's "rescue" and the defenders then sally forth. Because either the reinforcements or the sallying army or both advance toward you so slowly, it's really easy to destroy one army and then the other in turn, leaving the city undefended. I see this as quite a major problem for the AI, it makes taking cities absurdly easy.
Fatigue is a big factor for the AI. When it has multiple armies, it doesn't wait to connect its forces and attack as a combined army. This leads to defeat in detail of fatigued clumps. Fatigue saps morale and it reduces kill rate as well as running speed. So when the fatigued army reaches the player's line it ends up routing easily. (Many units don't even reach the line.) My units behave the same way if I treat them like that.

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 18:21

14. Marius' Reforms now occur early again. I had them happen in 242. (I would have rathered that CA would have added a second starting period and map to the RTW campaign as part of BI.)

Puzz3D

10-17-2005, 18:31

I've never noticed the AI getting fatigued before. How do you know they are fatigued? Is it just your assumption?
When the enemy units get close, you can see their fatigue condition with a mouseover.

Personally I see the opposite problem occurring. The AI just doesn't hurry fast enough, especially when it's sending reinforcements.
That's another problem I've seen in every battle where the AI has two or more armies. The AI army which is close to you doesn't wait for the other army unless they are very weak. The AI seems to be designed to charge even with somewhat weaker units. This might be good in certain tactical situations, but it's bad in situations where the AI has reinforcements coming up. I think this may also be what's prompting the AI to make the piecemeal attacks with its stronger units. Sallies are particularly bad because the AI units come out of the gate one at a time.

I may do what Jambo suggesed and turn off fatigue to help the AI. This will actually just bring the AI's units onto an equal footing with my units in erms of fatigue since fatigue is never an issue for my units because I play with no timer and can rest as much as necessary.

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 19:56

Well I don't kow about weakening archers. They get a lot of kills againt low armored units, but I had 3 archers firing at a sacred band inf unit that was marching towards me, and the archers didn't get a single kill. This was large units, so the archers were 80 men each.

The Sacred Band have 11 armour with 5 for a shield. Archers shouldn't be too successful against them. I just did a test, same old miserable AI... I suspect you either got unlucky, or the AI stayed in phalanx and took fewer casualties than normal.

Player: 3 Roman archers, AI: 1 Sacred Band
Conditions: Grassy flatland, midday, calm weather, summer, medium

I put the archers in line centering on the front of the approaching SB. I halted the count when my center unit retreated in skirmish mode. Starting with 82 men, the SB fell to 75, 73, and 74 in three successive tests--not taking flank fire as best I could tell. Note: The AI was mostly staying in non-phalanx march although it would lower its spears repeatedly.

Tried this from the other side, wanting to approach in phalanx. The "brilliant" AI of course aligned its three archers into three lines in column--the worst possible formation other than three columns in column. :sad3: It then marched up to skirmish range, jumbled its forces, then scattered without firing a shot. :sick: I then extended into a long line, and managed to clip one of the units and slaughter it as the others finally peppered away at me from the flank and rear. I took serious casualties as I fought out of phalanx. Then more casualties advancing on and pinning the next unit before slaughtering it. With about 35 men left, the AI decided it could whip my SB in melee with its lone remaining unit. :bigcry: I lowered my spears and made short work of it.

I hope that BI's AI is better, as RTW's AI is still AWFUL! RTW's AI simply can't use missile units effectively. Has anyone run a similar test with appropriate units in BI? I would really like to hear what the archers do.

Jambo

10-17-2005, 20:13

Puzz3D

10-17-2005, 20:41

The Sacred Band have 11 armour with 5 for a shield. Archers shouldn't be too successful against them. I just did a test, same old miserable AI... I suspect you either got unlucky, or the AI stayed in phalanx and took fewer casualties than normal.
The AI sacred band did stay in phalanx while advancing. It's possible they had an armor upgrade. I don't know.

I put the archers in line centering on the front of the approaching SB. I halted the count when my center unit retreated in skirmish mode. Starting with 82 men, the SB fell to 75, 73, and 74 in three successive tests--not taking flank fire as best I could tell. Note: The AI was mostly staying in non-phalanx march although it would lower its spears repeatedly.
How is this an argument for reducing archer effectiveness? On average you got 3 kills from each archer. I'll try this test myself later today.

Tried this from the other side, wanting to approach in phalanx. The "brilliant" AI of course aligned its three archers into three lines in column--the worst possible formation other than three columns in column.
In RTW, the shape of the formation doesn't matter very much. If one man can fire then all the men in the unit fire even if they are out of range and all with apparently the same effectiveness. I guess men further back might be a little more likely to miss since they are farther away from the target.

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 21:10

I think judging the AI as awful based on a 3 archers vs 1 sacred band test is a little presumptious. I can't remember ever being in that situation in the RTW or BI campaign. Fight the AI using two standard balanced armies and then judge how the various components interact.
No, it isn't presumptuous, the AI sucks with standard armies too, this is confirmation of what I see in battle. This is a simplified test. If the AI can't handle the force properly in the simplest test, it isn't going to do much better on the field. Hence, the AI charging it's Cretan archers into my Hastati without firing a shot. It is the same problem we had with the AI before in RTW. In fact, the test gets right to the heart of the matter. It's not like I've run one test and made the conclusion. I did the same sort of thing in 1.1, 1.2, and in MANY, MANY battles. I ran the test to try to understand what I was seeing in battle.

The RTW AI can't use missile units with effect. There are a host of issues about that and some of them clearly reveal that those doing the AI design didn't figure out a way to render the skirmishing of the time. Heck, it even showed in the scripting of the demo.

Examples: Look at default army formations, the skirmishers are often in the rear, bass ackwards.

I've not yet done a javelin test of the same, but in a recent battle vs. a nearly all javelin army (with rebel bodyguard general) it used its javelinmen as melee vs. my infantry. It didn't skirmish and try to inflict maximum casualties or disrupt me before being forced to engage.

It comes down to this: Do ranged units use their weapons effectively under AI control? The answer is a resounding "No!" They still close to skirmish range, then go "Oh crap! What am I doing here?" I haven't retested in 1.3, but in previous versions they did the same thing vs. CAVALRY 1 vs. 1.

Red Harvest

10-17-2005, 21:36

How is this an argument for reducing archer effectiveness? On average you got 3 kills from each archer.
Considering these were bottom end archers with no experience or missile upgrades, they inflicted substantial casualties when used frontally against one of the best protected units in the game. From the flanks and rear they of course completely slaughtered them (I let the guys march on through after the test and let it run out without giving any more commands.) Of course, we have the old problem of men firing at extreme oblique from the end of a column as well.

Those archers should be next to useless against these guys frontally. Historically, archers did not have that much impact vs. a formed phalanx. Even the compound bows in use by the horse archers at Samarkand had trouble vs. the phalanx. It was when the men broke that they were cut down.

The problem is not so much with the heavily armoured, as with the moderately/lightly armoured, where the kill rate gets out of hand in a hurry. A couple of volleys, and a unit is useless. In my last 1.3 campaign I found it rather easy to cut down Spartans with a single unit of Cretans--who now have the same missile attack as Roman archers, though more distance.

Vanilla archers should be very ineffective. They represent novices with indifferent equipment.

In RTW, the shape of the formation doesn't matter very much. If one man can fire then all the men in the unit fire even if they are out of range and all with apparently the same effectiveness. I guess men further back might be a little more likely to miss since they are farther away from the target.
Yes, I understand the weakness of the missile model with respect to formation. I don't believe there is distance attenuation; accuracy is not directly modified for distance (there was not any noticeable in 1.2.) The slight attenuation observed was explained best by the angle of the arrow strikes vs. the target--it appeared to be solely a hit box issue since the profile is smaller at and angle than perpendicular. I did some tests with various spacings, ranges and missile velocities and such to confirm this.

Puzz3D

10-17-2005, 22:48

I repeated Red Harvest's test on the flat map, large units with 3 standard archers in a line 3 deep vs an AI controlled sacred band infantry and got the same results. I did not put the archers in skirmish and fired until the sacred band touched my center archer. The had 74 and 75 men left at that point. I didn't count the number of volleys.

Something interesting happened in the 3rd run. The sacred band got stuck about 100 meters or so away from the archers and couldn't advance (raising and lowering their pikes) so the archers got to fire all 7200 arrows. They got 22 kills using all the arrows. That averages out to 0.24 kills per 80 arrow volley. If you shoot into the back of the sacred band with a single archer, you can kill essentially the whole unit with 30 volleys. That's about 2.5 kills per volley.

When the AI uses ranged units as melee, I think this is another consequence of the AI being designed to charge into melee with units that are slightly weaker than the target unit. In STW, the AI does not make direct frontal attacks unless it can beat the unit it is attacking. If its unit is weaker, it always attempts to make an indirect attack. The AI makes attacking decisions using the unit stats in effect at that moment, so there is no doubt about having a combat advantage unless the AI is being tricked into thinking it has a combat advantage by some weighting factor. I can see several tendencies of the AI in battle which suggest a weighting is occuring, and we know that CA used weighting in the auto-resolve so they aren't above designing it into the battle AI to make things more "exciting" I suppose.

Veresov

10-18-2005, 00:45

[QUOTE=Red Harvest]I've fooled around with a couple of 1.3 RTW campaigns so far, fought maybe a dozen large battles on VH/VH. I'll start listing some comments, and perhaps add to this later. I haven't looked at stats changes yet.
Adding Items:
10. Archers still charge infantry at times without really firing. This became apparent when the AI threw its Cretan archers into my meleeing Hastati. I could see this if the Hastati had been alone on a flank, but my unit was backed by cav, etc. What a waste of a great missile unit.

This you can fix by adjusting down the secondary combat attack strength of the cretan archers. If you look at the knife skill, it is quite high. The AI looks at this attack skill and thinks this is a good melee unit. Just lower this strenght and the cretan archer will become an archer. This is fixable bug.

Jambo

10-18-2005, 00:56

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 01:52

This you can fix by adjusting down the secondary combat attack strength of the cretan archers. If you look at the knife skill, it is quite high. The AI looks at this attack skill and thinks this is a good melee unit. Just lower this strenght and the cretan archer will become an archer. This is fixable bug.
I'm not so sure and killing a unit's melee is not really a fix, it is crippling one part to get the unit to actually behave like a ranged unit. I experimented with this a lot in earlier versions or RTW, but can't recall what happened when I tried that type of test.

I've run tests with three Carthaginian javelinmen now, and they do the same as archers, line up three units deep and surge forward, then run before throwing. Three units deep is the worst possible combination: it leads to FF issues, and masking issues, and most importantly it prevents them from using flanking/rear fire. Plus they fatigue faster than the pursuer, and all at the same time, because they keep moving back and forth (since they are faster.) A worse deployment would be almost impossible to find. It gives up all the advantages of having fast, multiple ranged units.

What ends up happening is that if the melee unit pins one of the javs, the other two try to attack sequentially before they've fired all their javs. That is illogical, they should empty their supply before attacking. That is how skirmishers were meant to work. Avoid melee until the enemy has been depleted and can be broken. Even if the ranged unit has a very high melee attack, it should seek to deplete its ranged weapons as much as possible before engaging. It should only melee if it is a "sure thing," forced, or ammo depleted. In MTW the jav units had trouble skirmishing, but archers actually worked.

I did the 1 vs 1 cav test, equites vs. Balearic slingers. Predictable. The slingers walked up nearly the whole way, charging my cav without firing. Same as in 1.2. It's just a dumb thing to do, as a comparison of stats shows the Balearics have no business getting into a melee fight, especially head on. So the Balearics get slaughtered while inflicting about 10 casualties. Under my control I inflicted over three times as many casualties and nearly won the fight. Nothing special, I turned off skirmish and kept shooting until the equites hit my line.

Simply put, the AI is not inclined to make use of its ranged attack if it is moving.

Isn't there an additional problem about the AI not using Pila now? Hasn't been an issue for me so far as I've been playing vs. other non-pila cultures.

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 03:01

Isn't the idea and testing of an army entirely of skirmishers or archers rather pointless? I mean, neither myself or the AI ever seem to have armies so constructed. Anyway, if I had a whole army of skirmishers or cretan archers it's conceivable I might use a few in melee...

Not really, I've had groups of ranged units (especially purchased Balearics as Carthage) get caught during overland transfer or after being dropped almost randomly before I lost my boats. I've also had to put together scratch forces with nothing other than a few javs and perhaps a unit of infantry. By the same token, I've seen all skirmisher/ranged unit type armies fielded by the AI. And in certain regions, the most likely composition of a brigand army is a bunch of skirmishers (like the Illyrians, etc.)

I even used three of the merc Numidian javelins (foot--the weakest unit in the game except for peasants and maybe townwatch), a family member, and a couple of hastati and a unit of Samnite spears to take Carthage which was held by two elephant units, a family member, and various infantry and skirmishers. Carthage sallied, and the "weighting" showed me to be heavily overmatched by about 3 to 1. I beat the main units as they sallied into my waiting skirmishers and infantry. Then I "skirmished" the elephants to exhaustion after they made a long trip around from a side exit. While they mauled my skirmishers and some hastati, the fatigue was too much, and after a lot of jav and pila vollies as well as melee, I routed them back into the city, and took the square. The skirmishers did most of the hard work.

However, that isn't the point. The point is trying to see what the AI thought was the proper thing to do with ranged units vs. melee and cavalry, and to figure out why it continues to charge its skirmishers into the main line. It didn't sit and camp, it didn't advance to the edge of effective range and begin firing. It didn't divide in two to keep the hapless enemy trapped between two fast units. The AI doesn't use ranged units as a screen most of the time.

And when I put my ranged units out front in classical period style, the AI charges at them like a red flag to a bull. I have to back them closely with spearmen because I know what is going to happen with them out front. The spearmen don't deter the AI, but they do make short work of any pursuing cav.

screwtype

10-18-2005, 04:53

I guess that's the difference. I don't take my best general and steamroller the AI.

I got two stars just from Autocalcs! ROFLMAO.

screwtype

10-18-2005, 04:58

Fatigue is a big factor for the AI. When it has multiple armies, it doesn't wait to connect its forces and attack as a combined army. This leads to defeat in detail of fatigued clumps. Fatigue saps morale and it reduces kill rate as well as running speed. So when the fatigued army reaches the player's line it ends up routing easily. (Many units don't even reach the line.) My units behave the same way if I treat them like that.

Okay, but the problem is not just fatigue, it's lack of coordination between the AI armies. They need to start closer together or something. These sally battles are really anticlimactic.

screwtype

10-18-2005, 05:07

I may do what Jambo suggesed and turn off fatigue to help the AI. This will actually just bring the AI's units onto an equal footing with my units in erms of fatigue since fatigue is never an issue for my units because I play with no timer and can rest as much as necessary.

Yes, it's true that fatigue is not much of an issue for your own units. It's not hard to manage them until they are fresh. Heck, even when they are "exhausted" they still seem to perform pretty well at times.

I didn't realize fatigue was such an issue for the AI. Maybe I'll try turning off fatigue too, although I'm reluctant to do so, because fatigue should make the game more challenging, not less. But from what you are saying, this looks like another design flaw.

screwtype

10-18-2005, 05:17

No, it isn't presumptuous, the AI sucks with standard armies too, this is confirmation of what I see in battle. This is a simplified test. If the AI can't handle the force properly in the simplest test, it isn't going to do much better on the field. Hence, the AI charging it's Cretan archers into my Hastati without firing a shot. It is the same problem we had with the AI before in RTW. In fact, the test gets right to the heart of the matter. It's not like I've run one test and made the conclusion. I did the same sort of thing in 1.1, 1.2, and in MANY, MANY battles. I ran the test to try to understand what I was seeing in battle.

The RTW AI can't use missile units with effect. There are a host of issues about that and some of them clearly reveal that those doing the AI design didn't figure out a way to render the skirmishing of the time. Heck, it even showed in the scripting of the demo.

Examples: Look at default army formations, the skirmishers are often in the rear, bass ackwards.

I've not yet done a javelin test of the same, but in a recent battle vs. a nearly all javelin army (with rebel bodyguard general) it used its javelinmen as melee vs. my infantry. It didn't skirmish and try to inflict maximum casualties or disrupt me before being forced to engage.

It comes down to this: Do ranged units use their weapons effectively under AI control? The answer is a resounding "No!" They still close to skirmish range, then go "Oh crap! What am I doing here?" I haven't retested in 1.3, but in previous versions they did the same thing vs. CAVALRY 1 vs. 1.

That's bad. It makes you wonder how they could miss such an obvious problem.

In the previous games, missile units would sometimes appear to choose melee over ranged fire at critical moments. But if they can't replicate that behaviour in RTW/BI for some reason, it would be better if they just made it that all AI controlled missile units must fire all their missiles before engaging in melee.

IceTorque

10-18-2005, 06:24

Bridge battles in 1.3 are worse with the AI's archers drowning themselves,
In one battle i ordered my general and one cav unit to chase the fleeing army across the bridge my general went straight onto the bridge but my cav unit ran to the right of the bridge and drowned themselves with only a handful
surviving.
Also when training cav units i am getting family members instead of the cav unit but these family members do not appear on the family tree, as i am playing a modded version could anyone confirm this in vanilla ?

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 06:40

Did a few more tests 1vs1: Some equites vs. vanilla slingers, vanilla archers, and forester warbands, and dacian archer warbands. Their are a few patterns emerging:
1. High melee archers like the foresters seem undecided. They will pause and stand well within their range, rarely firing, mostly just standing to receive the charge. They will win in melee thanks to their spears and high attack, but a wide horse formation on the charge can inflict very high casualties on them. Still it's a waste not to make the most of the high missile attack and range. When I play as the foresters side, the cav don't even reach my lines most of the time, and when they do they are easily beaten.
2. Most mid or low melee/moderate missile attack archers will stop at about the limit of their range, then restart walking. Sometimes they stop and fire a few rounds. Once, one stopped at the very end of its range and let loose quite a few vollies causing me heavy losses before melee. (Never could get it to do that again--I think it happened because I used 3x and didn't go back to 1x before they hit the outside of the range.) Sometimes they don't fire at all and wait for the charge.
3. Low missile attack/low melee slingers advance, but never try to shoot, they stop at about their range, then turn to run. :dizzy2: Occasionally, they kill 1 or 2 mounted men in melee. Other than that, they are dogfood.

AND THE MOST STUNNING/AMUSING OF THE TESTS...an accident...I took the field with 1 Roman archer vs 1 Roman archer by mistake:
My counterpart walked up through a barrage of fire. He didn't run, he didn't stop at range. He just walked up to within about 40 yards being massacred. After losing about 40% of his force, he decided to go to loose spacing, then walk back to a range of about 70 yards, and trade vollies. By the time he reached that point he had less than half his force left. After a few more vollies it ended with all but 6 of his guys dead. I "suffered" 4 casualties out of 81. :disappointed:

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 06:44

Wanted to add a positive:
15. I've been listening to the speeches again. They are far more varied and colorful than when I started playing. There are several that I've never heard mentioned before (I had heard quite a few zingers, and some related here.) Something about slapping an ass (as in donkey I presume) comes to mind.

screwtype

10-18-2005, 07:21

Yeah I've heard some new speeches. But I'm not sure if they are really new because I've been playing the Julii for the first time, and maybe they always had different speeches. I always played the Brutii before.

Pity about the ranged units though. They sound just as broken as before.

Garvanko

10-18-2005, 08:50

There are a couple of new variations in the speeches, I believe.

Jambo

10-18-2005, 09:38

Well, I'm not sure how much to read into all this. You may have a few skirmisher-only battles, etc, in your campaigns, but they are extremely rare in mine.

I'd be more interested to hear results of tests between a collection of units which are more likely to be seen on the campaign map, e.g. how about a few archers, a few skirmishers, a warband or two and a general? If the missile units still behave ridiculously then, then I'm sure CA might be more inclined to take these results seriously.

As it stands a 1 vs 1 test isn't going to make too much of an impression as it puts the AI in an unusual position which it wouldn't commonly find itself. The 1 missile vs 1 cavalry clearly suggests that to avoid being ran down whilst trying to skirmish the cavalry, the AI has switched the missile unit's skirmish (and most likely FAW) options off. Whilst this seems to happen rarely in battles, I do actually remember seeing this myself (possibly at the end of a large battle). The reason I didn't think anything bad from this is probably because the missile unit had behaved normally up until the point it had been targeted by the cavalry at the end of the battle. NB I'd need to test this more to be absolutely sure as my memory of the exact situation isn't that great.

Judging from the various abilities in the descr_unit file, I'm certain that skirmish and FAW are mutually inclusive and sadly inseparable. e.g. the "thrown" ability means both FAW and skirmish are "on" by default and without it both are off by default. One of things I'd greatly desire as a modder is the ability to preset units with FAW but not skirmish (e.g. for Plumbutari say), something which at the moment isn't possible. :/

Puzz3D

10-18-2005, 13:48

I tried Red Harvest's test of 3 AI archers vs 3 hastati (two in front with the general behind) on the flat map. The archers move into a column, but individually stay in 3 deep formation. They advance into firing range of all 3 hastati and start shooting. The front two archers are overlapped, and the general remains some distance behind. The AI archers distribute their fire evenly amoung the 3 hastati so that they all suffer about the same kills. Once my hastati are each reduced to about 40 men (half strength) the archers charge them frontally, but are routed very quickly in the melee. I think this result indicates that the AI charges because it thinks it will win the melee. It actually isn't even close to being able to win the melee with 240 archers against 120 hastati.

I repeated the test this time with my hastati 3 abreast. The archers moved on top of each other and set up further out because it could target all 3 hastati from further away. One archer ran out of arrows, advanced and waited while the other two continued to shoot. However, their arrows were less effective from this distance, and the hastati were only reduced to about 58 men each. At this point, the two archers which still had arrows moved up to where the archer without arrows was standing, and the archer without arrows moved into a flanking position on the hastai. The other two archers opened fire from this shorter range on the center hastati while the first archer made its flanking charge on the lefthand hastati. The charge was repulsed. The hastati which had been attacked pursued, but I halted it and returned it to the line. It took losses down to 40 men from arrow fire on the way back to the line. At this point the second archer (the AI general) ran out of arrows. The AI setup a frontal attack with the general on the left and center hastati in combination with a flank attack on the left hastati by the archer that had routed and rallied while the 3rd archer supported with arrow fire. This attack was repulsed, and the hastati pursued. When they got close to the 3rd archer, it attacked the hastati trying to stem the pursuit, but was routed. At no time did the AI use fire arrows. I think this shows a pretty sophisticated AI except for the moving on top of each other, but it does overestimate its ability to win the melee with archers vs hastati.

I repeated the test with 3 archers vs 3 archers but I didn't shoot. The AI did the same thing as in the previous test, but this time they charged frontally and did win the melee easily since my archers were decimated to about 20 men each by arrow fire. So, the AI does shoot, and it correctly judged it's ability to win the melee in this case. Of course, it's going to win the melee because these are equal strength, low armored units in this test, but it's interesting that the AI waited as long as it did before charging.

Jambo

10-18-2005, 14:23

Other than the column setup, that's pretty much what I would've done given the same situation and no retreat. There's little point in the archers not attacking as retreating in a custom battle serves no purpose. It would be interesting to see if the same is apparent in a campaign game where retreat is sometimes an option.

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 15:49

Jambo

10-18-2005, 16:08

Yes, the pila issue really is a major greviance. :/

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 16:31

Judging from the various abilities in the descr_unit file, I'm certain that skirmish and FAW are mutually inclusive and sadly inseparable. e.g. the "thrown" ability means both FAW and skirmish are "on" by default and without it both are off by default. One of things I'd greatly desire as a modder is the ability to preset units with FAW but not skirmish (e.g. for Plumbutari say), something which at the moment isn't possible. :/
They aren't completely inseparable, if you set them up like pila wielders they will have FAW, but no skirmish mode. Of course, that makes them melee primary, and AI units don't use pila now...just another thing that is broken.

I'd be more interested to hear results of tests between a collection of units which are more likely to be seen on the campaign map, e.g. how about a few archers, a few skirmishers, a warband or two and a general? If the missile units still behave ridiculously then, then I'm sure CA might be more inclined to take these results seriously.
As for CA looking into this and actually fixing it: highly unlikely. This has been reported for a long time. (Ignoring MTW's problems with javelin skirmish.) I went through the 1vs1 tests illustrating this about 9 months ago. We've discussed the skirmish problems here a lot. When you start adding a bunch of units, you give CA even more wiggle room to explain bizarre behaviour away. No, a simple test is best, particularly when it confirms what is see in larger campaign battles. If the AI can't do the simple properly, then it has little chance of handling the more complex. If anything, I suspect the more complex battles do a better job of *masking* the problem.

And the formations? That is the most telling part, why are ranged units behind the infantry line in typical default? In light of the problems seen with skirmishing and ranged combat two possibilites suggest themselves: 1. It was done as a crutch since the skirmishers don't work well in front. 2. Not much consideration was given to skirmishing's role on the battlefield in AI design. Both might be the best answer.

The whole tone of RTW battles can best be described in one word: CHARGE!!! Subtleties like skirmishing and ranged combat got shorted.

Puzz3D

10-18-2005, 16:44

Say what you want, but in large battles (again last night) the AI is prone to charging some of its archers into melee where it has no business doing so. That's not sophisticated that is "stuck on stupid"...especially when they are charging legionary cohorts. It is failing to use its strengths and instead is playing to its weaknesses.
Yes. Well I don't think the AI was actually coordinating its 3 archers in my tests. It appears to be using each unit individually which is given away by the AI moving all 3 archers to the same spot. It's as though each archer doesn't know the other ones are there. However, the first archer that ran out of arrows advanced and then waited until the hastati were reduced to 58 men. That happened to also trigger the other two archers to move closer.

"Stuck on stupid" is simply that either someone programmed the AI units to charge when they are weaker than the unit they are targetting or the AI is forgetting to take something into consideration such as armor rating which didn't contribute to melee in MTW but does in RTW. I wonder how players would react if the AI always withdrew from battle when it's forces were weaker?

If you are playing on VH, you're going to exacerbate this tendency of the AI to charge. Also, how is not throwing a pila and getting 10 kills on an 80 man unit enough to cause an otherwise equal matchup to loose on VH? One way of increasing the challenge would be to not throw pila yourself since the AI doesn't throw them, and that would solve the pila blocking the charge problem as well.

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 16:57

When the AI uses ranged units as melee, I think this is another consequence of the AI being designed to charge into melee with units that are slightly weaker than the target unit. In STW, the AI does not make direct frontal attacks unless it can beat the unit it is attacking. If its unit is weaker, it always attempts to make an indirect attack. The AI makes attacking decisions using the unit stats in effect at that moment, so there is no doubt about having a combat advantage unless the AI is being tricked into thinking it has a combat advantage by some weighting factor. I can see several tendencies of the AI in battle which suggest a weighting is occuring, and we know that CA used weighting in the auto-resolve so they aren't above designing it into the battle AI to make things more "exciting" I suppose.
I'm sure weighting factors into a lot of the AI combat decisions. You can see some of the weighting by looking at the bar in 1vs1, and it often does not do a good job of representing the actual balance in dissimilar units, particularly when one is a missile unit. CA has a really obvious weakspot with ranged units of any type. I highly suspect their weighting is flat out wrong for melee. Pri/sec bug or the strange charge effect types of issues with the weighting are possible.

In weighting, I'm not sure how much the lethality, charge, and combat bonus parts factor in, nor discipline, morale, stamina, etc. I know fatigue plays a significant role as the bar shifts as fatigue changes. (It is a huge effect down in the "very tired" and "exhausted" range.)

Regardless of the weighting though, there is a bigger issue: Failing to use missile primary units as ranged attackers first and foremost is a major flaw. Whether or not they can win the melee is secondary. If they can win without losses by engaging in ranged combat, then why melee at all? Resorting to melee should be last resort, or used when the weighting (one that actually is correct) says they have a huge advantage.

P.S. Wouldn't surprise me if CA made a simple divisor or sign error. The game/stats have been full of these. Just for the sake of argument the melee test might have been intended as:
If missile unit melee > 2 * target unit melee, then attack
However, the actual formula might have gotten garbled so that the 2 is a divisor or on the wrong side, e.g.
If 2 * missile unit melee > target unit melee, then attack.

Red Harvest

10-18-2005, 17:06

If you are playing on VH, you're going to exacerbate this tendency of the AI to charge. Also, how is not throwing a pila and getting 10 kills on an 80 man unit enough to cause an otherwise equal matchup to loose on VH? One way of increasing the challenge would be to not throw pila yourself since the AI doesn't throw them, and that would solve the pila blocking the charge problem as well.
Don't know, haven't tested the pila on VH, I do testing like that on medium. Haven't yet checked to see if stat bonuses other than morale are being given for VH. Obviously spotting the opponent a 15% manpower advantage on medium is decisive--even accounting for the random incremental combat results.

I haven't yet run into the pila issue in campaign since I haven't been fighting Romans or Spanish/Spanish merc. Without others reports I wouldn't have known about it yet. It will weaken the Roman factions against others however, and there is nothing I can do about that.

Jambo

10-18-2005, 17:09

They aren't completely inseparable, if you set them up like pila wielders they will have FAW, but no skirmish mode. Of course, that makes them melee primary, and AI units don't use pila now...just another thing that is broken.

Hmmm, not sure about this. The "prec" ability (i.e. throwing pila before attacking) indeed no longer works, but a unit with the "prec" ability definitely doesn't start with FAW "on". If I want FAW on for my legions I have to manually put it on. As far as I'm aware all "prec" does is give you the javelin symbol when the cursor is hovered over an enemy unit, which will make it throw a javelin before charging.

So in that respect FAW and skirmish are inseparable, at least for the AI. We of course have the option of deselecting and selecting whatever combination we like.

Puzz3D

10-18-2005, 17:17

The whole tone of RTW battles can best be described in one word: CHARGE!!! Subtleties like skirmishing and ranged combat got shorted.
That's right. So, now I have adpated to RTW v1.3 gameplay with not very smart AI, and I try to play in such a way that the AI has a chance of winning. So for example, if pila don't work for the AI, I won't use them either. The big obstacles to enjoying the game for me in RTW v1.2 were the suicide general, the poor spear performance, the messed up charge which caused units to rout too fast, and the save/load breaking sieges. I haven't figured out what to do about AI sallying, but my solution might be to auto-resolve.

Puzz3D

10-18-2005, 17:26

Regardless of the weighting though, there is a bigger issue: Failing to use missile primary units as ranged attackers first and foremost is a major flaw. Whether or not they can win the melee is secondary. If they can win without losses by engaging in ranged combat, then why melee at all? Resorting to melee should be last resort, or used when the weighting (one that actually is correct) says they have a huge advantage.
In my custom battle tests, the AI did try to win by shooting. Even when shooting at a weak unit like archers, they didn't charge until my archers were down to 20 men. Against the hastati they either waited until I was reduced to half strength or they used all of their arrows before attacking.

Puzz3D

10-18-2005, 23:49

I did the same test with 3 AI Cretan archers (3/6/4 chg/att/def) vs 3 hastati (2/7/14) abreast on flat map. The hastati have not had fire at will enabled in any of these archer tests so they don't throw the pila.

In the first test there was a glitch where the Cretan archers turned 90 degrees and marched off to my right. At about 45 degrees to my right they got stuck and couldn't move although I could hear orders being given by their commander. After 5 minutes of that, I turned my hastati line 45 degrees to face the archers and they started to move as soon as my hastati started to move. After some indecisive right/left movement, the archers organized one behind the other and advanced into firing range. They distributed their fire so as to reduce the hastati evenly by shooting at the unit with the most men. When my hastati were down to 45 men the first archer attacked my left hastati (the general's unit), but was routed. It rallied, made a second attack and routed again with 21 men rallying off to my left were it set up to shoot. At this time the second archer attacked the two hastati on my left while the third archer shot my right hand hastati. The 21 man archer then made a flank attack and my general died. All 3 hastati routed quickly after that.

In the second test, the Cretan archers moved directly forward one behind the other into shooting range. Once again they fired until my hastati were down to about 45 men. This time the first archer attacked my right hand hastati which only had 43 men. The archer routed and the second archer then attacked my lefthand hastati (the general's unit) which had been weaken further by archer fire, although my right hand hastati was the weakest one except it was set slightly bechind the line. The first archer rallied with 36 men and also charged my lefthand hastati while it was engaged and routed it on contact. The third archer (the AI's general) was shooting my right hand hastati this whole time and had it down to about 20 men. The first and second archers engaged the center hastati and routed it, and then quickly defeated the right hand hastati.

It all seems pretty reasonable except that the AI charges when it can't win.

Note: I forgot that I turned off fatigue.

Jambo

10-19-2005, 01:16

Puzz, who's the defender and who's the attacker in your tests? Worth remembering that if the cretans are the attackers then the onus is on them to attack.

Furthermore, it's a custom battle as opposed to a campaign and there's little point in retreating to fight another day. It's win or lose on one battle and that might explain them charging and fighting even though they can't win. I've regularly seen horse archers retreating (not routing) in campaign battles where they can live to fight another day...

Puzz3D

10-19-2005, 02:11

I don't see any explicit attacker/defender designation in custom battle. I was at the top of the mini-map with the hatati in the tests. I repeated the 3 archers vs 3 hastati test with the hastati at the bottom of the mini-map, and the AI didn't do anything different. Since I have fatigue off now, the AI was able to rally more and make more attacks, but the archers still didn't win. Sometimes the AI would attack frontally and sometimes it would set up a flank attack. I tried the same test in RTW v1.2, and it was essentially the same result except the AI archers were more reluctant to charge the hastati. Archer kills with the arrows were less, but the AI set up to shoot from further away.

Red Harvest

10-19-2005, 02:11

Note: I forgot that I turned off fatigue.
That might have some impact on the decision making later, since it would effect "weighting"--which you can observe changing on the bar, but not for individual units above 1v1. However, that doesn't make it invalid as far as seeing what the AI tries to do.

The result with fatigue would likely favor the hastati: since the archers were working before charging, while the hastati were stationary (correct?), they would have reduced combat effectiveness and take higher casualties, as well as suffering from loss of morale. It could/would tip the result most likely. I haven't kept track of how winded (or not) archers become from firing in RTW. In MTW it was significant. I used to pull some of my arbs off of FAW and rest them while doing defense vs. multiple waves. And those duels with desert archers and horse archers...much more memorable than RTW.

The test still illustrates the root problem though: meleeing unnecessarily with arrows still in the quiver.

player1

10-19-2005, 10:04

Puzz3D

10-19-2005, 13:00

There is big difference in custom battles when AI faction is acting like attacker or defender.
If you don't set anything in custom battle they act as attacker, and are playing agressively.
If set to defender, if weaker they will camp on nearby hill, and wait your forces.

P.S.
Yes there is an option, just near team markings (I, II, etc...), the red thing.
Thanks player1. Yes it does say clicking the shield so it lights up red makes the team defender. I clicked the shield next to my faction in the last test, and that's why there was no difference in the AI behavior.

I made the AI archers the defender in another 3 archer vs 3 hastati test, and the archers didn't move. They stood with 2 in front side by side and the general centered behind. When I advanced the hastati, at a certain distance the 2 front archers moved forward to what looked like max range and started shooting. I stopped the hastati and the 2 archers fired all their arrows at which point they moved back to their original position. I moved the hastati forward somewhat and the AI general moved forward and fired all their arrows and then moved back to its original position. The hastati each had about 40 men left.

I advanced to about 50 meters away and the front 2 achers charged. This attack was repelled with the archers having 47 and 45 men left which rallied and returned to approximately their original positions. After that, the archers didn't want to attack and gradually shifted to the sides with the general moving back when I advanced. Eventually, the 47 man archer made a flank attack on my left hastati, and it was repulsed. I sent one hastati forward, and the AI general's unit ran around behind my hastati line near the 45 man archer. Using the hastati on the right, I moved toward the general, and the 45 man archer attacked and was repused. It rallied and came back and attacked the hastati again, and this time the AI general charged in support and routed the hastati. The AI general pursued and ran into my other hastai and lost after some fighting.

So, the AI's behavior is quite different in this testr when it is the defender. I've observed this in my campaign battles as well, but I have had campaign battles where I was the attacker and the AI defender acted aggressively and attacked me.

Jambo

10-19-2005, 13:17

THat's what I thought would happen. From your tests custom battles do appear to be different from campaign battles - in campaign battles missile units will retreat without necessarily resorting to melee, as they can fight another day. Like I said, in custom there isn't this option and it would be frustrating to play custom battles where the AI always retreated.

Red Harvest

10-20-2005, 02:00

16. Wardogs still pose absurd difficulties, because they still can't be targeted directly. So on VH, where they have plenty of morale they just keep killing and killing in AI hands. They are non-sensical anyway, so it looks like I need to mod them out once again. GRRRR!!!!

player1

10-20-2005, 09:30

Interesing.
I thought that first time in BI factions that have them make sense.

Kraxis

10-20-2005, 12:28

Teleklos Archelaou

10-20-2005, 16:33

Can anyone tell me if 1.3 fixed the coastline bug? Where in a battle-map the water close to the coast was turned into a big flat dirt plain? This wasn't there in vanilla, but was introduced with 1.2. I would think 1.3 would fix it, after all the complaining about it, but I haven't had time to try 1.3 out yet and was really curious about this one point in particular. Can anyone answer that?

Puzz3D

10-20-2005, 17:15

Can anyone tell me if 1.3 fixed the coastline bug? Where in a battle-map the water close to the coast was turned into a big flat dirt plain? This wasn't there in vanilla, but was introduced with 1.2.
I've been watching for this problem, and haven't seen it in RTW v1.3. However, I've only fought a few battles near the coast.

Red Harvest

10-20-2005, 18:05

I have actually found wardogs to be less of an issue now.

They take 2 turns to train (didn't it use to be 1 turn?), the handlers need to get a whole lot close to release their little pets and the dogs aren't as powerful or numerous as before. I thought I was bright to bring some with me on rebelhunting against Steppe Raiders... Well, that turned out to be a resounding failure of the dogs.

They couldn't even deplete a single unit of enemy archers despite suffering no losses to archery.

And the AI doesn't use them in important capacity as far as I have noticed.
The impact is primarily morale/flanking/enemy in the rally area. While they didn't seem to kill very rapidly, their ability to insta rout units already in combat and then enter the rear (insta routing a bunch of others) was decisive. If I could target them, it would be manageable. With them causing havoc and running wild in the rear without the opportunity to engage them or keep them out of the rear, I'm crying "foul." The morale hit is too great on VH. Having one unit of wardogs effectively cause the rout of an entire army is BS.

Red Harvest

10-20-2005, 18:07

I've been watching for this problem, and haven't seen it in RTW v1.3. However, I've only fought a few battles near the coast.

I think the coastline bug is gone. I haven't seen it yet. The Roman AI hasn't been as likely to attack my coasts in 1.3 so I haven't had as many battles along there.

Sleepy

10-20-2005, 19:18

I think the coastline bug is gone. I haven't seen it yet. The Roman AI hasn't been as likely to attack my coasts in 1.3 so I haven't had as many battles along there.I've fought a number of battles on the coast with no glitches with the coastline.

Puzz3D

10-20-2005, 20:31

The morale hit is too great on VH. Having one unit of wardogs effectively cause the rout of an entire army is BS.
Well it can't be right at medium difficulty and also right at very hard. Dogs are a nuisance at medium, but haven't been a decisive factor in any battle I've had.

Red Harvest

10-21-2005, 05:04

Well it can't be right at medium difficulty and also right at very hard. Dogs are a nuisance at medium, but haven't been a decisive factor in any battle I've had.
I don't doubt that, VH makes them more of an exploit for the AI. Similar for the flaming arrows. On VH, the AI loves those stupid flaming arrows. It can see the morale and knows when to go after units with them. While I applaud it for making a good decision with its archers for a change, it is in essence making super weapons out of a non-historical use of flaming arrows. Immersion killer. Might as well have Zeus throwing thunderbolts at my army, or maybe Sponge Bob Square Pants annoying them to death.

I wouldn't mind the dogs so much if they could be directly confronted, or there weren't 3 or 4 sets of them in each AI stack at times--eliminating the counter of shooting them to death at range before they release. Druids and Screeching women don't bother me as much.

gardibolt

10-21-2005, 21:00

I have actually found wardogs to be less of an issue now.

They take 2 turns to train (didn't it use to be 1 turn?),

Wardogs have been 2 turns to train since 1.0.

Kraxis

10-22-2005, 12:43

Wardogs have been 2 turns to train since 1.0.
Heh... Ok. I never used them much, and prolly never will.~:)

Red Harvest

10-23-2005, 05:33

Per the lack of missile unit/skirmish unit effectiveness by the AI: it is DEFINITELY a huge problem in the campaign. The AI can't use its ranged units as much more than a nuisance.

Example:
In my Carthaginian campaign on VH/VH, I've had a string of consecutive battles with archers where the archers tried to attack my melee units in melee. My standard mode of operation whether sallying or fighting open field is to put my Balearic slingers in front, backed by spears, then swords, with cav on both wings and general in the rear.

How does the AI handle this? Well, in two back to back battles vs. the Julii, the Romans have had the reforms and are pumped up with early cohorts, archer auxilia, light auxilia, and other auxilia, as well as onagers, scorpions etc. I'm stuck fielding Libyan spearmen, spanish/barb mercs, Balearics, and round/long shield cav in this section of Gaul. In the 1st battle the force ratio was 3:1 in favor of the AI according to the slider (similar number of men, but their stats were WAY better.) The AI actually outnumbered me in the archer auxilia vs. balearics category in several battles. Yet in 3 battles it killed only about 20 Balearics, and most of those were from the 1st battle where I got caught unprepared by an onager.

So what do you think the AI did? Did it: A) Put its archers in front and engage my ranged units with the superior range (170) of the auxilia vs. balearics (120.) B) Hold its archers in the rear cutting the balearics down out of range. C) Rush its melee units forward en masse avoiding the ranged combat altogether. D) Backup the army for a while, then advance 1 archer unit at a time against my 3 partial units of Balearics, allowing the archers to be cut to shreads, sometimes sending a few melee/cav units forward in a piecemeal attack supported by more archers attacking as melee infantry.

If you guessed D you get the prize. ~:eek:

Of course, with its overwhelming force, the AI withdraws a distance when I sally. In doing so, it lets me pepper it with Balearics shooting into the rear of its moving men. It also leaves the slow moving onagers/scorpions/ballistae unprotected vs. my cav. Fortunate, since I don't have a counter to the onager at the moment.

I'm not doing anything gamey. I'm just moving out the front gate and using a logical deployment: missiles/spears/swords with cav on flanks and general in the rear/center.

The openfield battles are a bit different in that a mass rush by the AI is the norm. Again, the AI fails to directly engage my long ranged units with its own long range missile units before charging my lines. The archers have a tendency to engage in melee as they are moving forward in melee support role, rather than seeking good missile engagement range.

The AI is giving up one area where it should be on close to even ground: head to head missile exchanges. I'm not doing anything gamey, simply putting the ranged units in front so that they make 1st conatct.

This is as broken as the AI's failure to use pila.

Puzz3D

10-23-2005, 20:58

The AI is giving up one area where it should be on close to even ground: head to head missile exchanges. I'm not doing anything gamey, simply putting the ranged units in front so that they make 1st conatct.

This is as broken as the AI's failure to use pila.
I'm sure it could be improved, but unlike the pila problem the ranged unit AI works the way it was designed to work. It's not going to seek out an even exchange. It's going to attempt to shoot at units more valuable than enemy ranged units if they are present. The AI definitely rushes exposed enemy skirmishers. I think it uses cavalry for this if available, but it does use skirmishers as well possibly because they are fast moving. Maybe if skirmishers didn't run so fast the AI wouldn't use them to rush. I know in MP that shooting enemy melee units is what players try to do, and they try to neutralize enemy ranged units by charging them with cavalry.

The change in v1.2 to reduce friendly fire casualties causes the AI to stop shooting if its target engages in melee which can lead to ranged units not shooing at anything. I've seen this with my own ranged units which are on fire-at-will. I think that's good otherwise ranged units would be shooting into the backs of their own men.

Since no one in a ranged unit can shoot until all the men stop moving, an AI ranged unit can take a lot of casualties as it marches forward to a shooting location. I noticed in archer vs archer tests in custom battle, that this causes the AI to loose every shootout. So, if you set the AI up to engage enemy ranged units it would loose almost every time.

One thing I notice about the AI is that it doesn't take into consideration possible losses due to ranged fire. It's decision to charge is apparently being made only on a comparison of melee combat stats and possibly unit speed.

Red Harvest

10-23-2005, 23:35

Puzz3D,

There is a far larger problem here. Even with its archer auxilia out in front and stationary, I'm noticing that they are not firing on my approaching slingers (who are within their range.) They are just standing there, until they either start taking fire, or the AI does a formation change. Something is seriously borked.

Doesn't seem to effect jav cavalry as much, they always charge forward then halt. That part is the the AI's way of chasing off other skirmishers. Fairly one dimensional, but not a bad approach.

RTW's AI is fairly well porked when it throws its archers into melee behind other units it charged forward, rather than using two lines of cohorts directly behind it.

Coupled with the lack of pila use, the Roman AI is seriously defanged. It's best ranged units are wardogs. ~:rolleyes:

Puzz3D

10-24-2005, 04:51

There is a far larger problem here. Even with its archer auxilia out in front and stationary, I'm noticing that they are not firing on my approaching slingers (who are within their range.) They are just standing there, until they either start taking fire, or the AI does a formation change. Something is seriously borked.
I just set up a custom battle test with the AI as attacker having 3 hastati and 2 archer auxilia, and me having 3 libyan spearmen and 2 slingers. The AI had 2 hastati in front backed by 2 archers with the hastati general behind. My formation started with 2 slingers out front backed by 2 spearmen and my spearman general behind. The AI played perfectly. I remained stationary and the AI formation moved into archer range and started shooting my slingers. They fired continuously without stopping. I then advanced so that my slingers were in range of the hastati, and started shooting. They actually killed more archers which were close behind the hastati. The AI contined to shoot my slingers even though my spearmen were in archer range. Eventually, the hastati I was shooting stepped back out of range, and the slingers didn't have another unit in range so they stopped shooting. At that point, the AI archers targetted my spearmen. I advanced back into slinger range, and the AI hastati charged with the archers firing at the slingers in support. The archers didn't advance. Two hastati charged my spearmen while the 3rd chased a slinger off to the side for a short distance. That hastati turned back to help in the melee against my spearmen, and the archers resumed firing at the slinger off to the side while that slinger fired into the back of the 3rd hastati.

The AI played very well in this test. I wonder if it's getting confused in larger battles where there are lots of different unit types operating.

Mouzafphaerre

10-24-2005, 05:44

.
In a recent campaign battle I (Carthaga) fought against SPQR, unless I was having an illusion, the AI had the Hastati trow the pila before charging. Their archers were firing, presumably well protected beneath the infantry.

self_plug
{
It didn't help against my heroic victory and destroying the Scipii a couple turns later.

https://img469.imageshack.us/img469/743/00006qs.th.jpg (https://img469.imageshack.us/my.php?image=00006qs.jpg)
}

.

Red Harvest

10-24-2005, 06:50

Had an interesting non-siege battle that reveals the depths of the problem. It was trees and plains, with rolling hills in lower Gaul. The AI was on defense, and I had about 50% more men. I had three partial units of Balearics in front, with spearmen, cav, and some merc spanish infantry, and general. The AI had some legionary cohorts, some auxilia (spears) a heavy cav unit, and an archer auxilia.

The AI had the archer auxilia in the center of its formation in a clearing and I wanted to keep its army out of the woods. I advanced my army through the trees. stopping near the tree line as my balearics reached range. At this point, the archers should have gone to town on the slingers, but they sat there not firing. I let auto targeting hit the enemy infantry. The archers standing just behind took a worse beating than the heavily armoured/shielded infantry. They never fired. Finally the AI turned tail and ran, never firing a shot. I chased down much of the force.

Then again, I had one siege battle where the AI actually engaged with its force of archer auxilia. I started counter targeting its two full units with my 3 partials. At that point it started the traditional charge forward. Not much exchanging going on before it tried to melee. That is unfortunate, because it had the opportunity to give my missile units a pounding.

Puzz3D

10-24-2005, 17:24

The AI had the archer auxilia in the center of its formation in a clearing and I wanted to keep its army out of the woods. I advanced my army through the trees. stopping near the tree line as my balearics reached range. At this point, the archers should have gone to town on the slingers, but they sat there not firing. I let auto targeting hit the enemy infantry. The archers standing just behind took a worse beating than the heavily armoured/shielded infantry. They never fired. Finally the AI turned tail and ran, never firing a shot. I chased down much of the force.
I don't know why the AI archers didn't want to shoot, but it's pretty clear that the AI doesn't realize its going to take casualties from ranged fire. So, it stands there when under long range fire until it's weakened to the point where it runs away. In my custom battle test, the AI hastati charged when I moved my slingers inside their own maximum range. Apparently, my slingers moved within the necessary proximity distance to trigger the charge. Baleric slingers are longer range, and can shoot effectively from outside this proximity distance therefore never triggering a charge. Maybe those slingers are outside the distance necessary to trigger a shooting response as well. STW didn't have different ranges for different types of shooters. All shooters had the same range which meant shooters engaged shooters because melee units would be out of range, and melee units engaged shooters when they moved up within a certain distance. I wonder if the RTW AI is still designed for that situation, and the introduction of vairable ranges is beyond what the AI can handle intelligently.

Then again, I had one siege battle where the AI actually engaged with its force of archer auxilia. I started counter targeting its two full units with my 3 partials. At that point it started the traditional charge forward. Not much exchanging going on before it tried to melee. That is unfortunate, because it had the opportunity to give my missile units a pounding.
It was the other way around in the slinger vs archers tests that I ran. The slingers beat the archers easily despite their shorter range and being under archer fire constantly. I didn't even use loose formation with the slingers and walked into firing position while the AI did switch its archers to loose formation once they started taking losses.

One thing I noticed with archers is that, if there are friendly units in front of them and the trajectory is too low, no arrow is released. However, the archers are still doing their reload and firing animation. I guess this is the result of the high velocity being used for the arrow. In my custom battle test on flat ground, the AI had its archers too close behind the hastati, so when I moved my slingers closer only a few archers who extended beyond the sides of the hastati were actually releasing arrows. It's possible the high velocity was introduced to help ranged units hit moving targets because, in STW, archers could not hit moving targets unless the targets were moving directly away. This helped cavalry beat archers because the archers would overshoot cavalry which was charging at them, and was purposefully designed this way to help the cav > ranged > spear > cav RPS. Some MP players picked up on this and would try to make you waste arrows by moving the units at which you were shooting.

Red Harvest

10-25-2005, 02:38

STW didn't have different ranges for different types of shooters. All shooters had the same range which meant shooters engaged shooters because melee units would be out of range, and melee units engaged shooters when they moved up within a certain distance. I wonder if the RTW AI is still designed for that situation, and the introduction of vairable ranges is beyond what the AI can handle intelligently.
While I didn't mod any STW/MI stats I don't think that is correct. The troopstats file shows quite a few different weapons: the ninja's had very short range, as did the Korean javelinemen and thunderbombers. The two firearms had ranges longer than the bows. The projectiles files show differing ranges and speeds.

One thing I noticed with archers is that, if there are friendly units in front of them and the trajectory is too low, no arrow is released. However, the archers are still doing their reload and firing animation. I guess this is the result of the high velocity being used for the arrow. In my custom battle test on flat ground, the AI had its archers too close behind the hastati, so when I moved my slingers closer only a few archers who extended beyond the sides of the hastati were actually releasing arrows. It's possible the high velocity was introduced to help ranged units hit moving targets because, in STW, archers could not hit moving targets unless the targets were moving directly away.
In addition to the motion effects, the velocities are problematic in that they produce unrealistically flat trajectories and give the missiles too much reach vs. elevated targets. This also allows them to "chase" targets well out of range who are retreating when their firing sequence starts. Accuracy against stationary targets is greater with flat trajectories (imagine looking at a unit's site profile from above vs. head on.) This is the only distance attenuation effect I have noticed by the way, so reducing velocities does reduce hit percentage at distance.

(I think most of what changed with respect to movement vs. archery was actually automatic "lead" targeting in RTW. This is an improvement.)

The "range" stat is actually a "targeting range." It won't allow intentional targeting out of that range, but the extra velocity can be used to hit things out much, much farther when the unit is running away, or if some part of it can be targeted while the center is far away. (You can hit war dogs trainers this way from well over 300 meters using slingers...)

Another issue is the max angle allowed is probably too great (70 degrees). I suspect it should be limited to 45 degrees or so. Otherwise you get some strange "indirect fire" effects as if they were shooting mortar rounds. This probably allows too many units to actually shoot men on walls.

Back in 1.2, I reduced velocities for most rounds and set them to values that would only let them reach a smaller X % above their stated range. I created several new archery rounds with velocities to match. (This way I didn't foul up anything already used for stationary defenses, etc.) Going from memory I had long range archer rounds (composite bows), vanilla archer rounds, and an intermediate for mounted archers with composite bows. I'm going to dust this off and reapply it soon.

Alternately, you can also knock down the range of flaming arrows this way, just reduce the velocity of the flaming round (you can't change its range directly.)

Another fellow was using this trick to put in flaming pila as used by the Spaniards.

Puzz3D

10-25-2005, 04:30

While I didn't mod any STW/MI stats I don't think that is correct. The troopstats file shows quite a few different weapons: the ninja's had very short range, as did the Korean javelinemen and thunderbombers. The two firearms had ranges longer than the bows. The projectiles files show differing ranges and speeds.
I was refering to STW. There are no ninjas, javelins or thunder bombers in STW. Foot archers, cav archers and muskets were range = 5000. The arquebusiers were 4000. All those new ranged units in STW/MI were problematic and had to be completely reworked in the v1.02 rebalance patch. The javelins would never fire because their range was shorter than their skirmish distance. I don't remember if the AI was able to handle thunderbombers or ninja. The xbows were a lot like guns without rotating ranks, and I think it handled them ok.

The 70 degree max angle is so the archers can choose a second trajectory if the low trajectory is blocked. Since the velocity is so high, 70 degrees is going place the arrow so far away I would guess it effectively makes the second trajectory useless for distances inside the normal targetting range. Are you sure archers lead their targets? I can't imagine why the high velocity is being used if not for increasing the chance of hitting moving targets.

There is no reduction a projectile's power with distance in the previous engine and I doubt that has changed in RTW, so there's no attenuation in that sense. Accuracy is a small random error added to a projectile's initial path, so the further away the target the more likely the projectile will miss. The flatter the trajectory, the more likely the projectile will hit a secondary target, and the cross section of the targets will also be greater as you say.

Red Harvest

10-25-2005, 04:40

17. In some instances, the AI fails to use its "warcry." It seems to do so on defense, but not when it decides to attack. I had wondered if I was seeing this right in the campaign. In custom battle the difference was clear.

Example: Scutarii vs. British swordsmen. Fairly even match up. Try playing as the scutarii, toggle Brits to defense at times. When not on defense they advance without using warcry. On defense, they will actually use their warcry, as they stand waiting for you to attack. Unfortunately, they do a lot of other things wrong...like trying to withdraw from melee only to run in circles around your formation. (As either side this is a very easy win for the human 1vs1.)

I think 1.3 *might* be doing a better job of positioning its army altogether, and is less apt to commit suicide with the general, but when it comes to employing the units it actually has taken a step backward. :ahh: It doesn't seem to use key strengths of individual units consistently or well.

Red Harvest

10-25-2005, 04:55

I was refering to STW.
Ok, thought that might be the case, but didn't have the original in standalone install anywhere.

The 70 degree max angle is so the archers can choose a second trajectory if the low trajectory is blocked. Since the velocity is so high, 70 degrees is going place the arrow so far away I would guess it effectively makes the second trajectory useless for distances inside the normal targetting range.
I've seen some really wild "bullets" whizzing by at super steep angles after those wardog handlers. ~D (I swear that once I thought my men were firing straight up as I was doing a "flyby.")

Are you sure archers lead their targets? I can't imagine why the high velocity is being used if not for increasing the chance of hitting moving targets.
Reasonably certain. I was checking a bit with my scutarii's pila tonight as the British swordsmen ran in a circle around my formation. ~:rolleyes: I went ahead and threw with the camera right behind my men and noticed that the pila were being launched with a few degrees of lead. Maybe I'm only fooling myself, but those 25 meters/sec pila appear to be leading the target.

One thing I noticed about RTW early on was the "intercept course" approach that was being used for regular attack (which differed from previous TW lag intercept approach IIRC.) I think the same method is used for missile targeting vs. a moving target.

Veresov

10-25-2005, 15:49

Is 1.3 RTW even worth playing. Reading all these issues discourages me.

In BI this seems also to be an issue right? I have been decimating hordes with just 4 units of archers covered by com's. Even horse archers don't seem to help.

Puzz3D

10-25-2005, 16:38

I have a challenging RTW v1.3 Julii campaign (M/M difficulty) going in 142 BC. I made some mistakes managing my cities which has made it harder, and I might not be able to win now. I find the battles to be much better in v1.3 than in v1.2 where I played a Julii campaign out to 166 BC, but never finished it. My last battle in this RTW v1.3 campaign was with 1487 men under a 3 star general against 1404 Brutii under a captain. It lasted 15 to 20 minutes, and I was just able to win with each side suffering over 1200 casualties. I only had about 50 men on the field at the end. I never had any battles like that in RTW v1.2 except when using Mordred's Community mod, but the broken sieges when reloading and the suicide general killed RTW v1.2 for me. Overall, most of the battles in this campaign have been good with some exceptions. In my next campaign, I will play with fatigue off because the AI doesn't manage its fatigue and is therefore at a big disadvantage. I'll also have to play as Scipii because that faction's strategic AI is not working.

Red Harvest

10-25-2005, 17:07

Is 1.3 RTW even worth playing. Reading all these issues discourages me.
Tough question. I'm asking myself the same thing. There are some aspects that are better, but CA has broken quite a few bits as well. Another very mixed bag.

Some of the good stuff:
A number of the unit stats and misc. mistakes are corrected, command stars work better (you don't end up with max stars after 6 or 7 battles), and the AI does a better job of combining its forces. Traits seem to work better overall. (They were so badly bugged in 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 that it would have been better had they not existed at all.) The save bug seems to be fixed. Coastline bug is gone. Speeches are more varied and interesting (wonder if fixing the traits had some impact there.)

Some of the bad stuff:
The memory leak is a killer. Perhaps it would be acceptable for a beta release before the game is published, but not up to snuff for anything else. If I wasn't running XP I would expect the machine to lock up during shut down. As it is, it takes several minutes just to get out of the game and shutdown after playing for a few hours. So RTW 1.3 fails on technical grounds.

The AI still has trouble expanding. It seems to have lost the ability to conduct naval invasions more than once or twice. (Carthage is much easier as a result.)

Britain and Egypt still are powerhouses. Carthage/Spain still get the short end of the stick infantry wise until fully upgraded.

The AI combines its forces, but still attacks/sieges with undersized forces far too often, when additional troops could be added.

AI can't use many of its units' abilities properly: pila, archers, slingers, javelins, even war cry at times. Ranged combat is about half broken.

Conclusion: Neither good nor bad, just different. Too badly bugged to really feel it is complete. There are some fundamental improvements, but new bugs take the luster off of this patch.

Kraxis

10-25-2005, 20:21

The memory leak is a killer. Perhaps it would be acceptable for a beta release before the game is published, but not up to snuff for anything else. If I wasn't running XP I would expect the machine to lock up during shut down. As it is, it takes several minutes just to get out of the game and shutdown after playing for a few hours. So RTW 1.3 fails on technical grounds.
See this is strange for me.

I experience the leak once in a while, but I can leave the game for hours (or play for that matter) and it is still good when I return. So for me it is at worst a limited nuisance as I have yet to only experience a single battle becoming affected by this (in fact it CTDed).

How much RAM are you running with?

MulusMariae

10-25-2005, 21:15

Kraxis... my:2cents: Yeah, it's perhaps a "limited" nuisance, but it's a "real" nuisance nevertheless.
For what it's worth, I used to just fold down my laptop screen as a "screensaving" move and leave the game running, sometimes overnight. I would swear that even with no actual play that the "memory leak" continues to build up. I have 512MB of memory and I think I have seen BI showing MORE than that in Task Manager when I am forced to kill BI (so I don't have to wait many minutes just to get the GUI up so I can exit more gracefully).
:huh:

Mouzafphaerre

10-25-2005, 22:34

.
I have 512M RAM too and the leak is the rule with no exceptions.
.

Kraxis

10-25-2005, 23:37

Ahh... I have 1GB RAM, so that might explain it.

Red Harvest

10-26-2005, 06:14

See this is strange for me.

I experience the leak once in a while, but I can leave the game for hours (or play for that matter) and it is still good when I return. So for me it is at worst a limited nuisance as I have yet to only experience a single battle becoming affected by this (in fact it CTDed).

How much RAM are you running with?

512. Since you have 1 GB, this illustrates that it is indeed a memory leak. It just keeps using more and more space.

Papewaio

10-26-2005, 06:32

512 MB and I have seen it CTD just at the launch of one battle so far.

Jambo

10-26-2005, 09:25

Last night in a large battle versus the AI Celts in which I had two armies versus their one, they had a tendency to use their slingers in melee situations. It seemed that they also had trouble firing at will when I was clearly in range.

It wasn't consistent throughout the battle, since at times they did manage to shoot and cause damage, but whenever my cav in particular had their backs to them they'd charge and proceed to get massacred as the cav then turned to face them.

I play on Hard battle difficulty so the bonus to attack may play some role in the AI's poor decision making. Does the plus to attack at Hard also get added to the missile attack value? Or is it simply the melee stat?

Strange.

Kraxis

10-26-2005, 12:37

512. Since you have 1 GB, this illustrates that it is indeed a memory leak. It just keeps using more and more space.
Yeah... I will add i to the bug-thread right away. Should have done it earlier but nobody mentioned it and I didn't experience it much myself.

[EDIT] DOH!!! I had already added it...

Puzz3D

10-26-2005, 12:40

Last night in a campaign battle I had 120 Julii men attacked by a 750 man Brutii AI army. I didn't have any ranged units and waited on a hill. The Brutii army moved up in a semi-circle around my army and stopped. They had one archer auxilia behind their line protected by a melee unit. The archer fired at my men for about 5 minutes killing some. The AI then charged with its main line, the archer unit stopped shooting so as to not hit their own men and it moved forward.

Red Harvest

10-26-2005, 15:39

Last night in a large battle versus the AI Celts in which I had two armies versus their one, they had a tendency to use their slingers in melee situations. It seemed that they also had trouble firing at will when I was clearly in range.

It wasn't consistent throughout the battle, since at times they did manage to shoot and cause damage, but whenever my cav in particular had their backs to them they'd charge and proceed to get massacred as the cav then turned to face them.
Yes, that is about what I normally see as well. Sometimes they shoot a little, sometimes they stand there and do nothing, sometimes they charge...often in the same battle. A lot of piecemeal work too, feeding in one unit at a time.

There is definitely an issue with the AI using skirmishers or whatever is close to try to charge the back of cav, etc.

Jambo

10-26-2005, 16:41

Is it just an issue with slingers or short ranged units like skirmishers? Does increasing their range make them operate more cohesively?

The battle I had was rather unusual in that they AI had to split its forces to deal with my two attacking armies approaching from different directions.

Red Harvest

10-26-2005, 18:35

Is it just an issue with slingers or short ranged units like skirmishers? Does increasing their range make them operate more cohesively?

I see the same with slingers, archers, and javelins. Range probably helps, because it makes them more likely to get a "shoot" signal before something else happens closer to them; but all three still prefer to enter melee rather than to stand and shoot.

You can kill off the Numidian missile cav fairly easily now. They come rushing forward at other Numidian cav or skirmishers, trying to scare them away. If you take the men off skirmish, the cav will take some casualties then decide to complete the charge. If you have cavalry behind, etc. then it is fairly easy to charge the Numidian cav and finish them as they make contact. No need to chase them down anymore.

Puzz3D

10-26-2005, 19:59

Last night in a large battle versus the AI Celts in which I had two armies versus their one, they had a tendency to use their slingers in melee situations. It seemed that they also had trouble firing at will when I was clearly in range.
I play campaign on medium difficulty, and I'm seeing ranged units hang back and shoot. Of course, they don't shoot if one of their own units might get hit. I'll watch the behavior of AI ranged units more closely in future battles.

It wasn't consistent throughout the battle, since at times they did manage to shoot and cause damage, but whenever my cav in particular had their backs to them they'd charge and proceed to get massacred as the cav then turned to face them.
I think the AI is overestimating it's chances to win in melee even in frontal fighting. Also when making a rear attack, I don't think the AI considers that your men will turn around once they are engaged. I think it's just looking at the combat comparision of its unit vs the back of your unit which is a huge advantage in RTW. I've watched a lot of individuals fighting in RTW, and it's almost a sure kill when striking at a man's back.

I play on Hard battle difficulty so the bonus to attack may play some role in the AI's poor decision making. Does the plus to attack at Hard also get added to the missile attack value? Or is it simply the melee stat?
I don't know, but, if melee capability is what's being used to make the decision to charge, it doesn't matter if missle attack is affected.

Red Harvest

10-30-2005, 20:48

23. I had forgotten to check earlier, but one improvement with 1.3 is that two new horse skeletons (speeds) have been added. The new ones are:
fs_medium_horse
fs_cataphract_horse

In testing the speed hierarchy is as follows (fastest to slowest):
fs_fast_horse = light horse
fs_medium_horse = medium horse (and "generals horse")
fs_horse = heavy horse
fs_cataphract_horse =cataphract horse

The cataphracts are in between camels and heavy horse in speed. (There doesn't seem to be any speed penalty for cataphract camels though, as there is only one skeleton.

The choices of horse for various units are still a bit different than what one might expect: equites are on light horse for example, meaning they can keep up with Numidian cav and the like, something they were incapable of. However, one now has the power to fix this to a greater degree: (and chariot speeds too, since you can swap out their mounts!)