AI doesnt protect its archers...

[Daveybaby]

Okay, this is, IMO, actually just as serious a problem as the passive AI bug (primarily cos CA have acknowledged the passive problem and will hopefully fix it soon), and when taken in combination with the passive AI bug renders victory over a superior AI force almost a certainty.

Basically, the AI sends its archers out in front of the rest of its army, completely unprotected, thus leaving them completely vulnerable to cavalry charges which pretty much wipe out their missile ability in one fell swoop. The AI usually manages to get its own cav into action just a couple of seconds too late to make any difference, by which time my own cav are on their way back to safety and a bit of a rest behind my own infantry lines.

This eventually results in a bunch of infantry and a couple of cav units sitting there getting slaughtered by my archers due to the passive AI bug.

This is particularly noticable when there is a large initial distance between you and the AI, which, in my case, is usually when i'm vastly outnumbered and have positioned my troops a way back on a slightly more defensible hill. Because the distance to travel is much greater, the AI's archer get more and more separated from the rest of their army, making them easy pickings for your cav.

Has anyone else noticed this? Now i'm aware of it i see it in almost every battle i fight. Last night a 1/2 stack of reinforcements (6 cav, 1 highland inf, 1 peasant archer) got jumped by a full stack of french (about 7 archers, 7 inf, 2 cav) and i managed to rout all of the archers with virtually no losses (and yes, cav charges DO work very nicely), since they got to me waaaay before anyone else - then took out their cav units incl. general) by mobbing them as they tried to chatch up and save the archers, then finally took out the rest of the inf piecemeal by outmanouevering them piecemeal. Each cav unit was about half depleted by the end.

The AI needs to be keeping its archers with its spears and cav, especially when marching.

[Orda Khan]

I posted this find in my initial impression. It is far too easy to kill enemy archers and once you do that your victory is assured

......Orda

[Marius Dynamite]

yep they always do that to me too. Then when I cav the archers, they rush all their army at my cav. Far too late of course, they end up chasing my cav back to my army and then I easily win.

I don't see it in every battle. I think it depends on the map. on flat maps with few features, if I deploy a little further back the Ai doesn't make this mistake.

One thing that bugs me is how the AI 'runs' their army around. Whatever happened to marching face to face with the enemy then charging when close? They run from side to side unrealistically. It looks so silly.

[econ21]

I've started to notice this problem. I think the AI needs to bring its supporting infantry a little closer. Usually in RTW/BI, the supports are close enough that your cavalry will hit them before catching the skirmishing archers. But in M2TW, the gap is sometimes far too large.

[Kobal2fr]

I think the problem is not so much the AI being stupid as skirmish mode not working properly.

Half of the problem is that whenever an enemy unit enters the "we're in danger !" zone, missile units will not run away immediatly but finish their firing cycle (which can be very long if it's a crossbow or musket unit) first. By the time they're done, your cav is already too close, and they're butchered.

In fact you don't even need cav to pull it off - I've had my archers killed by peasants because they kept on firing for too long instead of running away, and ran away too late, letting themselves be charged in the back in the process.

I *think* that particular problem would be greatly lessened if the animations could be interrupted abruptly like they were in MTW, in fact they were in Rome too as far as I know.

The other half is that while it was very easy to move units through one another in RTW, now it takes the longest time to avoid "blobbing" exploits, and so even if the AI reacts in time to your charge by ordering itq spearmen to charge through the archers, the archers block their way, and *they* block the archers way, and it all ends in a slaughter. Again, this point is not an AI problem as much as a mechanics one - I've had archers in loose staying there and getting killed even though they had spearmen *right* behind them, and trying to charge those through the archers like I used to do in Rome (and as far back as STW, for that matter)

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

This AI problem is especially evident when fighitng Russia. Since Russia gets nothing but militia units in early, I'm fighting stack after stack of armies composed of 20 units of archer militia. So the battle starts, and their ENTIRE ARMY just bolts into a mad, unorganized dash toward my cavalry to shoot. They kind of absorb each other into this big amoeba-like mass of men which I quickly surround and charge into from all directions - battle is over instantly with thousands of prisoners to boot. Funny stuff.

[Daveybaby]

I think the problem is not so much the AI being stupid as skirmish mode not working properly.
It's nothing to do with skirmish mode.

If the AI has its archers running out in front miles away from the rest of its army, then they are going to get wiped out by a cavalry charge regardless of whether theyre skirmishing correctly or not, because the cavalry can run faster than the archer can. The gap that opens out between the archers and the inf/cav is just too big for the archers to make it back to safety, even if the start to skirmish back the instant you click on your cavalry to tell them to attack.

Its the top level tactical AI thats at fault here, not the lower level unit AI.

[PseRamesses]

I´ve also found that when you autocalc a battle the skirmish troops takes the bulk of the casualities.

[Ziem]

I am even to lazy to send in the cav. I just let AI archers walk into the kill zone of my own (longbow or muslim) archers. Problem solved in an wiffy. I normally use my cav to crush their flanks.

Something else.

I tried to find some evidence of using catapults or trebuchets in land battles (not sieges). I looked at the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, Azincourt. (all 100 years war) but nowhere even a mention of them. I think it would be more realistic if you would not be able to use them in landbattles.

Z.