To Frustration - AND BEYOND!

In my new Parthia campaign I'm having a fun* time. I had a wonderful* seige which laid out in spades the problems with Parthia and horse archer based armies - amongst other things.

First off I figured out why not to assault any cities - you have no city buster infantry. So this seige occured because there were no walls. I assaulted thinking that it would be pretty easy to whittle them down with my HA and having my Cataphracts in reserve to mop up the rest.

The genius AI began their happy running around right in front of your troops getting shot up by my HA's. There's no wall - but the enemy never strayed outside of that area where the wall would be. Eventually my HA's found themselves on that path that the enemy runs along and I tried to get them to come back out and around the city.... somehow there's a special imaginary wall that keeps untis from leaving the air-walled cities. That was the first measure of my frustration - fighting my troops inability to cooperate.

Once I had killed about 600+ of their men with my HA's I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to kill all of the 110 Levy Pikemen in the center of the Square of Death because of lack of Arrows. My Cataphracts weren't looking too keen on fighting a battle of attrition at the beginning of the game either. Eventually after maneuvering through the city I shot the last of my arrows off. Then I quit the battle and lost my army. Wheeeeee .... i can't stand this.

I find myself putting more effort into making sure my troops are doing what I tell them to than paying attention to the enemy and fighting their tactics...

I shudder to think what this game would be like with a good AI and the same lack of troop manipulation.

Hear him, hear him!

I've realized withdrawing is deadly but the comp unfortanately falls prey too. Funny they decide to fight the battle. I come out of the gate to the side and as soon as they see my army in formation in full force marching at them they withdraw. Unfortanately instead of giveing me experience for my troops they withdraw and dissapear.

The real question is you knew about this bug from other posts I have read. If you read your replies to the messages you would have realised that hitting escape and hit end battle would have preserved your troops, just make sure nothing is with the city walls (airwalls) before you do so as I think you lose those units that are inside but not the ones outside the wall.

I'm almost sure this will be fixed in a patch as the human can work around this bug but the comps still falls prey to it making it a gamin gllitch.

The campaign seems to play better if you auto-resolve all the battles.

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Originally Posted by Colovion

Then I quit the battle and lost my army.

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Did you build a camp for your army to withdraw to? This might have saved your army.

In any event ,there ought to be a way to continue a siege even though an assault fails.

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Originally Posted by Colovion

The genius AI began their happy running around right in front of your troops getting shot up by my HA's. There's no wall - but the enemy never strayed outside of that area where the wall would be. Eventually my HA's found themselves on that path that the enemy runs along and I tried to get them to come back out and around the city.... somehow there's a special imaginary wall that keeps untis from leaving the air-walled cities. That was the first measure of my frustration - fighting my troops inability to cooperate.

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-first of all, did you disable skirmish mode? i find that if skirmish mode is on my troops dont follow where i want them to go, instead they go where THEY feel to be a "safer" area. try that.

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Originally Posted by Ky Kiske

-first of all, did you disable skirmish mode? i find that if skirmish mode is on my troops dont follow where i want them to go, instead they go where THEY feel to be a "safer" area. try that.

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it had nothing to do with enemies

it did it whether there were enemies around or not

Ah, the joys of city fights.

I should have checked this thread sooner. I'm falling down on the job as the official forum excuse-maker for horse archers.

This isn't an HA issue, however. This is a pathfinding issue. After all, the HA's appearently killed 600+ people despite severe pathfinding problems.

I find that if I have troops in groups they get all f*cked up trying to move around in cities. So you have 2 choices; take them out of a group and issue each one orders, or click on each one separately and issue orders. Same number of clicks so there is no point in leaving them in a group unless you might need them grouped outside the city later. This is a problem all the time and I have almost quit using grouping. Please CA, release a patch soon!

Hm, sounds troublesome. My city seigeing experiences have been, if I let the PC auto-resolve any defense or attacking battle of cities or towns, I always lose, however, if I personally command, I typically devestating win, especially on the defense side -- those Hoplites with swords on the walls really massacre them -- always target their battering ram with your archers, burn it down with fire, then they'll never make it in the city itself, & if your out numbered you force them to fight on your ground up top of the walls, so their numbers cannot be used against you, all the meanwhile they get fired upon from the unlimited arrow's of the two gate towers.

In attacking, you need foot soliders, to ensure you capture the walls. I typically use two ladders, one or two seige towers, and a ram or two. Use the infantry to move in those, once the wall is captured and you can then open the gates, then send in your other foot soliders or your calvery units. As the enemies rout, be sure to run them down with light calvery or heavy calvery, spare no one, as I do. ~;)

Pfft, you think that's a bad story. I'm playing Thrace, and have an army sitting in Dacian territory. They've got a lot of chosen swords/archers, so I'm outpowered. I've managed to isolate and kill one of their bands, but took some injuries in the process. I'm waiting for reinforcements, so I set up a fort near one of their cities.

I've got a couple mercenary units that got mauled in the fighting. For some reason, it won't let me disband them. Fine, ok, I group them, and send them off to die horribly in combat. They don't quite reach their destination, so I figure next turn.

Of course, the AI attacks them. 42 of my guys vs a full Falxman unit. We kill more than we lose, but we lose. Sadly, I've still got a unit with 15 men left, and he retreats - right next to the fort. So the huge AI stack attacks him, and gosh, darn if my fort commander doesn't think it would be a swell idea to come out of the fort and try to rescue the 15 man mercenary unit that I wanted to suicide because I couldn't disband them. And, of course, since it's led by my faction heir, it's under AI control. So my archer-heavy assault force mindlessly charges into the AI lines, completely routs, and I lose the entire army. All because one idiotic mercenary unit refused to disband.

Stupid AI.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Pfft, you think that's a bad story. I'm playing Thrace, and have an army sitting in Dacian territory. They've got a lot of chosen swords/archers, so I'm outpowered. I've managed to isolate and kill one of their bands, but took some injuries in the process. I'm waiting for reinforcements, so I set up a fort near one of their cities.

I've got a couple mercenary units that got mauled in the fighting. For some reason, it won't let me disband them. Fine, ok, I group them, and send them off to die horribly in combat. They don't quite reach their destination, so I figure next turn.

Of course, the AI attacks them. 42 of my guys vs a full Falxman unit. We kill more than we lose, but we lose. Sadly, I've still got a unit with 15 men left, and he retreats - right next to the fort. So the huge AI stack attacks him, and gosh, darn if my fort commander doesn't think it would be a swell idea to come out of the fort and try to rescue the 15 man mercenary unit that I wanted to suicide because I couldn't disband them. And, of course, since it's led by my faction heir, it's under AI control. So my archer-heavy assault force mindlessly charges into the AI lines, completely routs, and I lose the entire army. All because one idiotic mercenary unit refused to disband.

Stupid AI.

Bh

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If I have two armies in even general proximity to each other, and use the smaller to attack an enemy stack or 'lead out front', I get my general WAY back from the action. What you are describing is the normal case when you do that. After the third or forth experience like that, I just said 'no' to using small formations forward of my main army like that.

And agreed.. the AI has no idea how to handle 'interesting' force compositions. I.e.. its stupid.

When I do that I just keep my General way in the back, I dont even use his unit the entire fight, unless all other units are routing, then I'll fight with him if its a Captain, but if its a heir or family member I have him just rout, so they wont be mindlessley killed for nothing.

Just do like people did in Medieval Total War, keep your General miles away from the army; when the army starts its march at the start, dont select him to move, just let him stand there, best way. Also if the battle goes ill, try to get him out of there, or fight to the death.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Of course, the AI attacks them. 42 of my guys vs a full Falxman unit. We kill more than we lose, but we lose. Sadly, I've still got a unit with 15 men left, and he retreats - right next to the fort. So the huge AI stack attacks him, and gosh, darn if my fort commander doesn't think it would be a swell idea to come out of the fort and try to rescue the 15 man mercenary unit that I wanted to suicide because I couldn't disband them. And, of course, since it's led by my faction heir, it's under AI control. So my archer-heavy assault force mindlessly charges into the AI lines, completely routs, and I lose the entire army. All because one idiotic mercenary unit refused to disband.

Stupid AI.

Bh

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Join the club:

This Has Got to Stop!

Well, the difference is that I'm aware of the fact the AI will control my generals, so I plan around it. But having an idiotic routing army decide to flee and stand next to my army, instead of doing something logical, like, say, joining it, is just plain stupid. Not much I can do about that.

Well, I suppose there is (and was), I reloaded and let autocalc handle the first battle. All of my units died without killing a single enemy. But at least they didn't provoke the mass suicide of my real army.

Bh

Has CA said anything about fixing this stuff? I mean, they can't think this is how the AI should opperate, at least I hope not.

I swear I sometimes feel like I'm talking Latin to my English-speaking Romans, and that maybe that's why, when I tell the cavalry to charge a unit to their side, they trot along beside it, or they loop around the opposite way and blunder into other nme units, all because they were trying to maneuver to the rear of the target before actually attacking. Maybe it explains why, in a narrow pass on the strat map, when I tell my army to attack an nme army two blocks in front of them, the AI pathing mastermind sends them all over east japeepee because I had one of MY diplomats between us. God forbid my army march THROUGH the block with MY diplomat in it to attack the nme...

The reason this game pisses me off is because I spend more time babysitting my cities against being crampt and holding each units hand while it tries to find the least-favorable way of executing my orders than I do building cool armies and fighting "epic" battles.

Rome: Total Micromanagement of Imbiciles

To "Siris"

The closer the general is your troops, the better.
You just have protect that unit if AI gets so smart it attacks the general bodyguard unit.

AI dont attack it if you have few units guarding it. I put one foot unit in left and right side allways as job to guard general. It helps.

The moral boost you get having general close in working. I have had many battles close to defeat, but finally won because my general rally option. (The routing troops gather around the strong general)