AI Question...

[antisocialmunky]

I've observed that when underfire, the AI will run the unit under fire around (usually towards the firing unit) for a while until it decides that its in close enough range or that the unit is depleted enough to shoot back.

The thins is that the AI does this with skimishing and ranged units that are capable of shooting back. I never noticed this in RTW as the AI would usually elect to go into loose formation and start returning fire when underfire. It's not too bad with archers since the arrows are arching in(which is presumably why it performs this behavior), but with slingers and the shallow trajectory, they get slaughtered very noticably usually around 50% until they start shooting back.

This is VERY noticable when testing missile units against each other in custom battle mode. The AI walks up to your missile units, walks away, walks back and forth, walks away, goes into loose, stops, and then finally starts shooting.

This happens usually when you and the AI have similiar sized armies and they wait for you or try and advance to you. Has anyone else observed this in .81 or is it just me?

[Kugutsu]

I have noticed that the AI will sometimes just stand there and let you massacre them unit by unit. The last Aedui city tried to break my siege, and then their army just lined up and stood there. First I sent in my cavalry to kill their slingers, who tried to skirmish away - away from their own line. The rest of the infantry chucked a few javelins, but made no attemt to attack my horsemen. Then I let my slingers empty their pouches at the gaesatae, while the enemy just stood there. I then pounded the enemy with rocks till my catapult ran out of ammo - still they stood there. Then I got my cavaly to attack the unit on the end of the line. It soon routed and was slaughtered, while the rest of their army just looked on. I then did this right up the line, occasionally resting my cavalry near the enemy when they got tired. I finally marched my cohors right up to the enemy general, emptied my pila at him, then charged with my cohors and cavalry from behind. About 1600 enemy dead, with about 100 losses. It was wierd. They manouvered into a line at a funny angle from mine first, then just stood there and let me kill them all.

[blacksnail]

This happens usually when you and the AI have similiar sized armies and they wait for you or try and advance to you. Has anyone else observed this in .81 or is it just me?
I believe this was a Vanilla 1.5 AI change. Try loading up vanilla and run some custom battles and see what they do.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I've seen the same sort of thing with Vanilla - so should be a standard RTW weirdness.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I think it is a priority target thing that missile units were given (1.5?). They prefer to attack your missiles and sometimes have difficult realizing the preference.