AI co-Generals competence ?

[Domitio]

Hi,
Is there any way to coordinate with a "fellow AI General" during a battle involving 3 or more stacks ? My defeats in battle against 2 or more enemy stacks have involved my "AI buddy" running its troops into the woods - dividing our forces - never rallying near my troops - and other assorted acts of tactical stupidity... Am I missing something obvious ? Should I avoid battles involving 3 or more stacks ? Any feedback will be appreciated, thanks.
:hippie:

[Tellos Athenaios]

Nope, none at all that I am aware of. But you can take up command yourself: i.e. the reinforcements will appear drip-fed on the battle field. Especially with missile heavy armies this can be useful, because you could send the missile-men away (i.e. retreat those units) as soon as they've run out of missiles; and thereby exchange them for fresh troops among the reinforcements.

You should uncheck the box that let them command themselves, and not do anything after that but jumping in the battle straight away: checking out enemy unit composition etc. better had be done before the un-checking of the AI-control box. Also note that sometimes the game fails to recognise your un-checking of the AI-box; so you might want to verify and/or repeat this a couple of times.

[Domitio]

Thank you Tellos Athenaios !
I did think about the "unchecked way", but doesn't that imply that my primary stack must have some "unit spaces" available? Also, aren't the drip-fed units random? It would be cool to be able to scroll through reinforcing units, wouldn't it? Anyway, the AI should at least rally to the primary army - it would be simpler to code than the disastrous dumb maneuvers that I have witnessed - hard coded right?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes the drip-fed reinforcements require your army to have free unit-slots available; hence my trick with the missile units.

But no the appearance of those units is not at random, and in fact depends on the formation of the units; and more specifically their distance and marching speeds towards 'the red line' i.e. if unit X is placed on front of the formation, it is likely unit X is first to appear. But phalanx units might take a bit more time to appear than for instance the non-phalanx units on the wings of the phalanx because the others march a lot faster than the phalanx...

Since the formation affects who's first and who's last, certain (especially well balanced armies) will nearly always see the arrival of certain unit types before the others; and this order is (partially) affected by moddable settings in some formations textfile I know nothing of. Only that it's called something like descr_formations_....txt :shrug:

[konny]

I had that yesterday: A battle with two stacks of Romans vs two stacks of Aedui. I had first tried to play with all four armies on the field but my PC couldn't handle it, so I started new with one Consualr army + army reinforcements. I did it in your way, that is withdrawing the depleted missle and exhausted units to make space for reinforcements.

It seemed that these enter the map in the order they are sorted in the line up slot on the campaign map. That was the three generals first, even though there was other cavalry standing closer to the edge of the map, and after that the missle units, even though the slingers were placed behind the Hastati in the default formation outside the map, but they were placed first behind the generals on the campaign map line up. The cavalry of the second army didn't enter the field at all - and that was placed on the last position of the campaign line up.


My own conclusion of that battle:

- When fighting with reinforcements is at hand remove all generals from the reinforcement army
- Change the line up of the reinforcement army and the composition of both armies that it fits your battle plan.


If I would have to fight this battle again I would make it:

1st army:
all 6 FMs, all 4 units of Velites, all 4 units of Accensi, 6 of the 8 Hastati

2nd army in this order:
2 Hastati, 8 Prinicpes, 4 Trarii, all cavalry

[CirdanDharix]

AI Co-General's WHAT?!?

[Pezlu]

- Change the line up of the reinforcement army and the composition of both armies that it fits your battle plan.

Just a question: is this possible? How?
I mean, is it possible to change the order of units in one army? Of course it's possible to change their composition by just moving units in and out of the army itself...

I can't believe I've missed it for all this time :dizzy2:

[konny]

Just a question: is this possible? How?
I mean, is it possible to change the order of units in one army? Of course it's possible to change their composition by just moving units in and out of the army itself...

Haven't tried it in another way than moveing them in and out, but it is possible to pick and move the unit card - so may be, that works?

[Pezlu]

Haven't tried it in another way than moveing them in and out, but it is possible to pick and move the unit card - so may be, that works?

Just to "drag and drop" you mena? In that case I tried and it works only for merging units; you can't change their order. A hot-key may be required, ie shift+click, tried some but nothing happened. I don't know.

Thanks anyway

[Tellos Athenaios]

The order of that army, if viewed as a collection of unit-cards, is directly determined by the order of joining it. I.e. you have unit 1, 2,3,4,5 with 1 being first and 5 being last. By moving unit 2 out and then back in, you obtain: 1,3,4,5,2. That's the best you can do, so this only works very well if you happen to have a basically idle army acting as reinforcements: typically on campaign you've exhausted movement points too much, or are going to use those for a better purpose anyway.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

Also note that sometimes the game fails to recognise your un-checking of the AI-box; so you might want to verify and/or repeat this a couple of times.
Known bug. (Reinforcements Bug)It happens when the reinforcements are commanded by a FM.

You need to keep the box ticked, right click the enemy army, close it, then untick the box and start the battle. Then the bug is worked around.
.

[Pezlu]

ok, thanks

I hoped there was another way of doing it

[Domitio]

Thank you all for the valuable tips !
Regarding battles involving two or more stacks per side, I have been "experimenting" with a different approach: Instead of hoping for some sort of support from the incompetent "AI co-General", I decided to support him instead! I try to position my stack as close as possible to where I guess he is appearing from; then I stay close to him as to avoid an irretrievable "division of forces" and therefore reduce the possibility of getting obliterated - It worked the last time !!!
:hippie: