Disappointed by the AI's cowardice...

I find that the AI is distinctly cowardly when it comes to fighting crunch battles (except against me!)

For example - playing on Hard as the English from the start, about 1150 the Almohads have wiped out the Spanish (who barely fought back, but just kept retreating into small castles and then getting ground down), and the wretched Sicilians have now started to land troops all over Spain.

Both sides have LOTS of full stack armies, but every time one or the other attacks the smaller of the two armies (usually the defending army) just retreats into their castle, with the obvious consequences. Surely it makes more sense to abandon the province if you can't hold it and make a stand somewhere else, or even to make the stand there and then as you can almost always cause the attacking army massive casualties when defending?!!

As a result of this behaviour the weaker of the two powers just commits Hari Kari as its armies get pinned down in castles with negligible loss of men for the attacking forces, and eventually they become extinct without even fighting an epic battle!

Is this just me that notices this?

i find that the same thing happens in my campaigns. some AI put up a fight against other AI, but when i do the same thing i have a challenge.

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Originally Posted by Phatboi

i find that the same thing happens in my campaigns. some AI put up a fight against other AI, but when i do the same thing i have a challenge.

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for example when i play the english, i hit flanders as soon as possible.
i barely win the battle at times. but if the germans hit flanders with about the same troops, the french get decimated.

After playing MTW for years I think your definitely right. The A.I.does not play by the same rules as us. :duel: Sometimes they are tigers sometimes lambs. in the Mod.ing forums you can learn to adjust things a little if one faction keeps getting wiped out.

I noticed the same thing... I find it somewhat funny that the really powerful Germans (who always get the "biggest army award" as long as the Eggies don't have it) will ALWAYS be beaten up by the French, who always have 1-4 enemies and almost no allies while everybody is allied with HRE in every game I play on early. The HRE loses some provinces in the west while several full stacks of them stand in Bohemia or another eastern border province, then they fall into civil war and in the end they stand there with about 5 provs remaining... and then my game crashes. :( I also noticed that in the majority of my games the pope doesn't seem to care at all about all the wars between catholic factions, I only saw somebody being excommunicated (the Italians) once in about 10 campaigns I started since i started to play VI again.

Wow, that's practically the opposite of my experiences with MTW (and I still play it at least a couple days every week). In my games, the HRE is usually at war with 3-5 different factions inside of 20 years. The French are also often at war with multiple factions, particularly the English, the HRE, and sometimes Aragon. It's also fairly common for the Pope to ex-comm various Catholic factions, not just myself--his favorite targets seem to be the HRE, the French, Italians, and Sicilians. I'm not saying he's ex-comming people right and left, but I'd say I receive an average of 1-2 messages every decade or so saying that Faction X has been excommunicated.

the French are incredible...if i play as a Muslim/Byz faction, i always find them at war simultaneously with Aragon, England, Germany and often Spain as well...and one of these factions will get wiped out every 4-5 years or so. in one game the French wiped out Aragon, England and Spain in ONE turn! why can't i be that good???

i agree with the post title though, the AI runs away too often from other AI factions, possibly a response to its behaviour setting (AI defensive/non-aggressive or whatever), and fights like a tiger when confronted by my own armies, even when insanely outnumbered.
currently i'm not seeing anyone getting ex-comm'd, cos the Pope's been wiped out by Sicily in all my campaigns. which is crap when you ARE the French and get all your GA points from crusading.

Its not that the computer is lacking in aggression or ambition, but far too often they retreat into the castle from a medium to poor situation and it becomes a terrible situation they have no hope in! For example, Spain have only 1 province left. Attacked by Italy, and outnumbered 2-1 they retreat into the castle. But if they have no other provinces, why!?! As a defender you can almost always inflict heavy casualties on the attacking army, no matter what troops you have available, but the computer is unwilling to do so, and as a result concedes provinces too easily I feel.

Not quite the same point as above, but similar: I attack the Mongol hordes in Kiev (bridge province) with a large army (1300) vs a smaller one (500). They abandon - probably correct decision, but the next turn they attack me with about 1100 men! The resulting massacre of 10 units of heavy cavalry at the bridge will probably mean that they cannot challenge me again in any province again.

Had they stood against me they would have still lost Kiev, but they would have not lost all their heavy cavalry, and they would have taken a very large chunk out of my army on the bridge, leaving the balance of power still relatively equal in the region!

All this shows the biggest advantage of human player vs. AI: the latter cannot plan ahead. Looking at those command oddities I come to think that the only thing AI focuses on is the chance of winning the battle here and now - without counting in the consequences of eventual defeat or retreat. Thus, AI gets notoriously oblivious of the fact that abandoning the province now may make it royally difficult to reclaim at a later date. Not to mention retreating into the puny fort, where the rest of the army simply has nowhere to go, and the 'lucky' 200 men who have escaped instant capture would last only a year or so... I would consider it a waste if all the best units in my army (sometimes with an heir or other good figure) got crammed into the fort and starved, whereas the rest (say, 400 peasants or spearmen or some other low-level rabble) retreated into neighbouring province - with no effective chance of mounting a successful counterattack. The problem is, the AI considers it perfectly viable. Oh well...
As far as excommunications go, I cannot tell of any serious deviations from the general rule - if you are significantly stronger (say, twice the provinces and/or army) and attack, you get warned, then excommed. Following this rule, The French can exchange blows with The English all the way they like, and the Pope doesn't even sigh as long as things look at least remotely even. Just you wait until your armies begin to trample some smaller buddy (like Aragonese for example, as they like to backstab you every now and then), and the moment later you hear the old crone screech from his sandcastle: "In the name of God, repent, or else...". Yeah, right, old man, just sit tight and don't make noise.
Well, maybe for the French it is not that wise to mess with the Pope after all, since most of their GA are associated with crusading. Thus, in my recent French campaign, I obey and adhere to every single word from the Papal Capital - which in turn blesses me every two years or so with a grand of gold. Not that bad of a cooperation, after all ~:)

I think the ai is more likley to retreat in to a castle when his Ally's have Units in close proximaty to his/her/it's province.
And its kind of expecting it ally to come help eliviate the seige.

I often do the exact same thing..
if i have an all next door and some 1 attacks me. And outnumber me (Even slightly)
I will opt to "retreat to strong hold"
the very next turn i will moove my army out of the castle Or whaever i may have.
I will also try to moove more units (If i can spare them without risking a rebellion)

and my ally Will usualy Well almost always. Come help lift the seige.
this usualy = i get my province back 0 lives lost.

Prehaps the Ai expexts the same,

personally i dont View computer mooves.
So i cant really say ive noticed,
if some 1 attacks my ally and he retreats to strong hold,
I WILL go help eliviate the seige,
Even if it means possible rebellion on my own provinces.

"if you cant help a freind What good are you to any 1?"

Well, IMHO retreating to a stronghold when you have some help over the horizon is actually wise. And when your ally comes to help, things look even brighter, as this means less dead wearing your colours!
Helping my ally is also something I do, if I have a standing army next to a province where my ally just got crammed into a stronghold - especially if losing this province would worsen the overall situation in the region. This way my overlord also gets +1 Influence, which is handy in maintaining loyalty, spawning better princes and making further alliances. MTW politics, although crude, gain a bit of a dimension here...

I've never actually managed to have a real ally yet! They always backstab me at the first possible opportunity, so these kind of scenarios elude me! I just do my best to avoid fighting on multiple fronts and pick off rebel provinces where possible and build up a strong military and when someone eventually does backstab me I farc them up.