why the ai being slaughtered in plaza is a good thing

as we all know the ai, will stand in the plaza and be massacred to a man by human missile troops rather than move. let's face it. the ai can't reason like a human, it doesn't know whether the troops attacking it are just the first wave, or all of the human player's effort. for the ai to be truly responsive, it would have to be able to compare all of its troops in the plaza in different permutations to not only the human player troops at the plaza, but the other human player troops that were streaming in from the walls and also reinforcements arriving for both sides. after all that was done, then it would be free to decide on chaser units to attack the missile troops attacking it in the plaza. i just don't see CA's ai or anyone else's ai for that matter being able to make good judgements like that anytime soon, maybe in several years, but not right now.

if the ai as it presently is, was allowed to leave the plaza it would be so easy to have it fruitlessly chase after one of your depleted units throughout the city while you just occupied the plaza until time ran out. and that would be far too easy. so instead, CA made the plaza a continous morale replenishment center and made it so blatantly obvious, that the player would be able to figure out how to exploit it and chose whether or not to exploit it. so it isn't that the ai being able to get massacred by missile weapons is a good thing, its just that the alternative, [the way things currently stand] would be far far worse, and we would all be complaining about how easy it is to bait the ai with a few troops and run the timer out.

However, I do encountered when my archers are too near to the plaza, the enemy may charged.

So your explanation comes down to:

The AI is smart to stand there and be slaughtered without a single enemy kill because if it did something else, it might lose? And you don't see a problem with that "logic"?

Defending the square is only useful if you, as the human, don't bring any missile units. A very simple "If you are in the square, and being pelted by missiles, attempt to engage the missile unit" would be effective. Even if it was HA, and they couldn't catch them, they couldn't have a worse response than doing nothing.

Bh

I think the square thin is a great feature. That's your (or the AI's) last stand place where you still have a chance to win the battle even if all else is lost. If you manage to hold for the last three minutes, which last an eternity in some cases, you win the battle. I think it's fair when the enemy generaly outnumbers you 3 to 1.

I had a siege where my only units left was my general, with all his bodyguards dead or dying, and two exhausted and dangerously understrenght principe/hastati units. I managed to take the square from the 'overly nice greeks' but their last unit of fresher archers kept on entering the square and changing the flag back to theirs, thus reseting the stopwatch every time I chased them out.
When I realized I could run out of time if the enemy would enter the square one more time I sent all my men but the general in an all out chase, losing half the men I had left due to melee/misiles but I was finaly victorious.

Had to exterminate the population after that to avoid a riot but the people rebelled anyway because I had too few men left and had to take the town with another army a couple turns later. :duel:

Great feature. ~:cool:

Bhruic, I think he means that the AI won't chase becasue it would be too easy for us to simply lure them out one by one, which would be easier than it is now. The logic is that if you have chased the enemy to the square you shouldn't have too many arrows or javelins left, and that is true enough, but now people make an effort to save those weapons and then the point becomes moot.

Ok, I won't ask for too much.
Just for the unit in the center square to turn and change their facing when getting shot from the back. Then at least they'd get the shield bonus and that'd make them last a bit longer when getting shot at. It just doesn't make any sense that a unit would willingly turn its back to the enemy and stoically endure getting shot in the back for fun.

If CA has more time they can also code the case where if 2 units are going to shoot at them from different directions, they should back off quickly to a corner of the square if by doing so they can avoid short range missiles like javelins and then readjust their facing.
If the short range skirmishers enter the square to get into range then as usual a charge is in order.

Or (if they have extra coding time) they could simply just get the AI to make a charge anyhow to the edge of the square when getting shot at, which would necessitate a temporary retreat by the ranged units. You could then engage with your infantry and other troops but that'd defeat the purpose of shooting them first to whittle them down.
If the ranged units don't retreat then continue the charge and engage. If the ranged units do retreat, either stay in place at the edge or hurry back to the center and readjust facing.

I am not asking for the AI to run circles around your troops and trying to delay the victory until time runs out (for non-siege battles). As time is tight in certain battles, that's not really very fair.

Anyway, I think giving some suggestions on how exactly the AI should behave in a particular situation is fair. We can have a decent discussion on merits for each tactic and who knows if CA finds our alternative AI scripts better/less exploitable they might even decide to code them (if possible).

It only bothers me a little that they stand there and take it. The rest of me zooms in close to watch the little beggers fall off their horses or off their feet when hit with spears/arrows/rocks. I admit it, I am a sick little puppy.

The only alternative I can see to using square-control as the objective, would be to go to "last man standing". I reckon for most sieges that would be OK, but what about the sieges where defenders actually get stuck between buildings, in walls, etc. I learned early on, that when the computer asks if you want to "end battle" during a siege, you better say yes. LOL You can't kill them when they're stuck somewhere. Even archers usually can't hit them. So, you now occupy the city with 1500 troops, but you can't win because one lone chariot is stuck in the side of a building? And if you have the timer disabled, how does it ever end? Hit escape and exit battle? Not much of an option there, neither. Unit movement and pathfinding can be horrendously bad on some of the siege maps, which I'm sure is one of the things to be patched. But until then, I like things the way they are.

The whole solution to the siege problem is to allow the option to turn the timer off, and then allow the option of "last man standing" victory conditions for sieges. This would allow the AI to play in a way that showed some instinct for self-preservation.

It's pretty obvious that the R:TW designers were told to pick up the pace in tactical battles and make them more "exciting." That explains just about everything that's questionable in realism terms: Foot units that move too fast, excessive kill rates, murderous archers. I also think that's what's behind the friendly fire problem and the disappearance of the spear rank bonus, because those aspects penalize the time-honored tactic of setting up a spear wall with a bunch of archers behind it, making battles more "fluid" and "exciting." It certainly explains the goofy "flying horses" or "horses as projectiles" effect in cavalry charges.

for one, i think, the timer should be kept for seige battles (the time alotted to each particular attack is discussable though and some extra slack in this regard would be an improvement in my opinion). without the timer, i, as a human player, am tempted to exploit the situation by taking all or most of the walls and annihilate the AI forces using their own castle defenses... with the timer on, i just do not have enough time to accomplish this: the strike has to be surgically precise carrying the wave straight to the city square... and once there, i better have sufficient forces in reserve to keep it clean (even from routing enemy units which rally in the square) for three minutes.

all in all, i like the current system. however, i'd like a tad more time to be able to accomplish more epic seige attacks. as it stands now, the timer seems to set ridiculous time limits which in no way correspond to the engaged army size and wall defenses... i have had attacks in which i have only 20 minutes to take a fully garrisoned huge city and, at other times, i get 45 minutes to batter just a couple hoplite militia units...

as to the central square issue: with the timer on, one just runs out of time to shoot down the square defenders.

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Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson

The whole solution to the siege problem is to allow the option to turn the timer off, and then allow the option of "last man standing" victory conditions for sieges. This would allow the AI to play in a way that showed some instinct for self-preservation.

It's pretty obvious that the R:TW designers were told to pick up the pace in tactical battles and make them more "exciting." That explains just about everything that's questionable in realism terms: Foot units that move too fast, excessive kill rates, murderous archers. I also think that's what's behind the friendly fire problem and the disappearance of the spear rank bonus, because those aspects penalize the time-honored tactic of setting up a spear wall with a bunch of archers behind it, making battles more "fluid" and "exciting." It certainly explains the goofy "flying horses" or "horses as projectiles" effect in cavalry charges.

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I whole-heartedly agree with this statement. I still think the game is very fun, but the tactical engine is very very different than the MTW one regarding how to lead your units in battle.

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Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson

The whole solution to the siege problem is to allow the option to turn the timer off, and then allow the option of "last man standing" victory conditions for sieges. This would allow the AI to play in a way that showed some instinct for self-preservation.

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While I posted recently to the effect that the time limit is so short as to make it virtually impossible to assault huge cities, I don't think removing the time limit is the answer either.

Consider the situation where an army decides to sally from a city with stone walls or greater. Unless the besiegers have a great numerical advantage and siege engines, they will be unable to destroy the city. However, the sally is only successful if the besiegers all either die or rout off the map. If the sallying forces rout back into the city, the besiegers can try chasing, but they will most likely be killed off by the arrow towers, burning oil and units rallying in the city square. In this situation, the only way for the besiegers to win is for the time limit to run out, after which the siege continues. This is as it should be.

Personally, I think the best solution is to double the timer for assaults and sallies in minor cities and triple it for large or huge cities.

Of course, it would also be good if failed assaults didn't have the bizarre effect of also lifting the siege and forcing the besiegers to withdraw as far as they can, but these things need to be dealt with one at a time.

Lord Ovaat

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I learned early on, that when the computer asks if you want to "end battle" during a siege, you better say yes. LOL You can't kill them when they're stuck somewhere. Even archers usually can't hit them. So, you now occupy the city with 1500 troops, but you can't win because one lone chariot is stuck in the side of a building?

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Once you hit the continue button, the battle is already won and all you have to do is hit ESC and exit battle. No extra losses on either side when you do this. Same as MTW once you got the message the enemy was fleeing you no longer had to fight you just would'nt get any extra kills

As far as the central plaza I do'nt think it's too bad. When it's 10 ormore units against 1 or 2 it would have been a surrender more times than not historically.

Heres an assault I had against me. Tons of Gauls against my 3 hastati and 1 equites. I had the bumrush the gate tactic set up. Well there archers dictated otherwise. I fell back to one of those minisquares on the streets. Something the A.I. will do but will come back again. The problem here is the human can set up a free entry but they wo'nt let me have free access to the front of the city so I just keep shooting until they all finally fall back.

How the A.I. needs to set up to defend the wall, if they get shot at fall back and STAY there. Heck it might even be better for the A.I. to just set up at the town square and rush forward once a certain range limit comes into effect. If they get pushed back they are on or close to the squre so the rout won't last long.

Another solution is all units inside the city (defenders only of course) have unlimited morale but elimination of the enemy or holding the townsquare for 3 mins should still be the key feature.

Also maybe a little help on the town square deal as skirmishers esp chariots can be a pain. If the attacker has a 3 to 1 man ration on the town square for more than 3 mins it is won. That way that 1 worthless guy that keeps running around wo'nt reset the timer

There is an extremely simple solution which also has the benefit of being historically accurate: Disable Missile attacks into the city square.

I wasn't there at the Fall of Troy or in the closing stages of any other ancient city siege, but there's nothing in the literature that suggests it was anything other than a mano-a-mano slaughterfest. You could probably make a pretty good case for extending this prohibition to the entire city, since end-of-siege missile warfare between armies inside cities seems to be almost a physical impossibility (maybe from walls down, but certainly not at street level), and again I can't think of any historical instances where we know this occurred.

But I'd be willing to settle for a city-square prohibition - and would further suggest that AI troops in that position automatically default to "Fighting-to-the-death-since-escape-is impossible" mode.

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Once you hit the continue button, the battle is already won and all you have to do is hit ESC and exit battle. No extra losses on either side when you do this. Same as MTW once you got the message the enemy was fleeing you no longer had to fight you just would'nt get any extra kills

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Oaty, you're absolutely correct, and the same applies to field battles. But I wasn't referring to losing the battle. I was referring to the hour plus that I once lost trying to get at two defenders who were stuck between two buildings. OK. I can be obstinate and stubborn. But I never did get them. Perhaps a normal, sane person would have given up long before. One definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. That's why my shrink insisted I stop trying to get every last defender during a siege. ......but I still want to.

i like zhuge's idea of better ai scripting on the plaza. obvioulsy if is possible to program the ai to make those responses, that would be great and that would be the best possible solution, but i think CA's abilities and/or the abilities of the ai are pushed to the max as it stands right now. i would love to be proven wrong. i really like kull's idea of disable missile fire in plaza or within the city mode.

i think 'last man standing' would be extremely tedious. and the reason for that is the city size. last man standing was the way CA designed siege battles in the two other previous games and i assume thats how they started this one too when they were building it. if you have last man standing, there is no need for the plaza. lets say you break into the city and there are 6 ai controlled units in there. there is no real reason for the ai to keep all its units together, they can't be outflanked. so you have to fight 6 mini battles, and you cause a cav unit with 3 men in it to rout. then you have to chase it down the street hoping to catch up it. but of course it may be faster than your unit, so you have to put up blocking units across the street where it is likely to flee to. and if you have to walk on a street that goes near a tower, you take losses, so you'll have to put units on the walls to take every tower.

so i think they created the unhistorical plaza design and timer so we can have 1 big city battle instead of us having us chase depleted units all over those huge cities in a lot of minor skirmishes.

The "hold the square" approach is a perfectly fine system for facing infantry and cavalry. Perhaps not optimal (because it allows the player to position his troops wherever he wants, and doesn't really respond), but not terribly exploitable, because however you do it, you're going to have to charge the square and fight it out.

The "exploit" comes in versus missile units. So when looking at AI behaviour, that really is the only thing that needs to be taken into consideration - what to do when an AI unit is in the square and is being attacked by missile units.

Now there are a few different possibilities about how that might go down, but only two are relevant (the others are just variations).

Scenario 1) The player has overwhelming force able to be brought to bear against the unit(s) in the square. In this case, almost nothing the AI can do will result in a won battle. So, the AI might as well charge and make a glorious end of it and try and take a few men down with them. Or, it could surrender, although that might be hard to work in.

Scenario 2) The player has roughly equal force with the AI. In this case, again, the best idea would be for the AI to try and engage. Sitting there and waiting just results in a diminishing of their force without hurting the enemy at all.

The only issue is whether the player can 'lure' the AI out of the square and take it. It should be possible to do a time calculation. Basically, the AI knows that the player needs 3 minutes to take the square. So have the AI attempt to engage the player, with an eye on the clock. If it's unable to engage, or if the player looks to be able to take the square, have it retreat to the square again. All it needs to do is step in, and the player is blocked from the win. If the player manages to swing a unit in to prevent the AI from returning, great, that's tactics, and isn't an exploit.

So to sum up: If the AI is under attack by missiles, it attempts to engage the unit(s), returning to the square only if it looks like the player is going to capture it.

Bh

Bhruic

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So to sum up: If the AI is under attack by missiles, it attempts to engage the unit(s), returning to the square only if it looks like the player is going to capture it.

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No point in trying to retake the square due to that fact if the A.I. can't route the skirmishers, since the town square unit is usually in a fresh status and the skirmishers will be winded usually.

After more thinking the fight to death seems the best option as it is going to be there woman that are raped. Now to stop the A.I. from being abused there should still be the town square but with a bit different aproach as I mention before, 3-1 odds for the attacker wins it. This would make it hard to reset the timer wich annoying skirmisher can occasionally do. Also maybe skirmishing should automatically be off like it was in MTW as I have had skirmishers get mutilated because they tried to skirmish into a building..... the human can work around this from experience unfortanately the A.I. ca'nt.

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Originally Posted by oaty

No point in trying to retake the square due to that fact if the A.I. can't route the skirmishers, since the town square unit is usually in a fresh status and the skirmishers will be winded usually.

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Well, remember, the AI wins if the timer (battle timer that is) expires. So it actually is in their interests to not have the player win by taking the square. If the AI does a "fight to the death", then it's too easy to expoit as the player - just lure the AI out, and run away, while your other unit(s) secure the square. If the AI is coded to return to the square before the timer expires, then as the player, you are going to be forced to engage them to stop that from happening. Which is what should happen, imo.

Bh

Well granted the 'stand still whilst being slaughtered by missiles' is a bit off, but I really don't see the problem for people here.

If you don't want it to happen, then don't do it, no ones forcing you, wheres the dilemma?