Re-enforcement deployment Problem

Hello everyone this is my first post.
I've been reading alot of the threads here at EB but so far I haven't found any talk of this problem I have.

I've only been playing EB for a few weeks, but I'm already a complete addict:2thumbsup:, my problem is somewhat similar to the other deployment problems I think but not exactly the same.

When I attack or am attacked by an AI army that has a re-enforcement army every thing seems to go smoothly until the AI re-enforcements enter the battle field. once they cross the red line they completely break formation and split up into lots of little groups or just one unit by itself. they then procede to wander around the battle field with no specific goal.

The main army I'm fighting acts perfectly normal but once I've defeated them I have to run around the battle field and find all the dispersed re-enforcement units who are still wandering aimlessly. More often than not this just takes too long and the battle timer runs out making the defending army the winner regardless of who actually had the upper hand by the end.

this is very annoying because it means that battles that should be very difficult end up just being a joke, because I'm running around the battle field trying to hunt down single units before the timer runs out. I could turn the timer off but I'm sure they would just do the same thing and it would just make the battles ridiculously long.

any way I've played as Casse and KH and it's happend with both. I'm running 7.4. any suggestions would be nice and if there isn't any immediate fix then ATTENTION EB MODDERS!:help: this is something that should be fixed.

thanks all

I haven't had this happen with reinforcement armies that I have noticed, but sometimes it does happen with any unit it seems. I always thought it was a vanilla pathfinding problem - since it could sometimes happen in flat terrain, or terrain with slight hills, or on bridge battles. Also sometimes with a unit trying to enter city gates. Since we haven't fooled around with that sort of stuff (until the newest build, with some city changes), I never saw reason to associate it with EB.

I definitely have never had it affect the outcome or delay a battle though. Not even close.

What are others' opinion of this? Has this happened to anyone else? What could it point to?

I have had this problem too. But i though it's just the stupid AI. It has happened 2 times.

Sometimes the units will go on their walk abouts and then just stop and not really move at all after that except back and forth a bit.

I've had this happen to me on several occasions. The AI reinforcements spreads out just about from end to end a part of the map.

-SOME of the units advance toward my army.
-Or the AI tries to do a REALLY long flanking move with a 1 or 2 units on each side while the rest stay back, (some even stay right behind the red line).

What I do though. Is I move my consentrated force in a horse shoe formation towards the largest consentration of force the AI has on the map. Then as soon as I start scermishing with that force a large portion of the other wandering units strat comming towards me from 3 sides, while others hold back only to advance later in the fighting.

I play VH/VH with Makedon so that may have something to do with the AI finaly engaging. What difficulty do you play?

Simple solution: don't let the AI take control of your units ~;p As I stated elsewhere, the AI is hardcoded and we can't do nada about it.

I have had this problem too. I never let AI control my armies (I always use one stack). However, I often get engaged by multiple stacks especially when I am beseiging cities. In the ensuing battle, whatever units start the battle on map behave normally, even combining together before assaulting my position. This is true for all units except phalanx units which attack erratically, and is a hardcoded AI problem with RTW 1.2. The enemy units that reinforce the starting units have no sense of direction and scatter everywhere aimlessly and often hug the red line facing away. I now never try using reinforcements myself, as I am totally frustrated with how they work in any version or mod. This particular reinforcement issue has only happened to me in EB 0.7.4. I play on h/m with Koinon Hellenon, Iberia, Makedon, and Romani. It seems that every time the enemy reinforces I get this behavior from the reinforcing units.

Exactly! I never let the AI control my units but I can't help it if I'm attacked by more than one army and when that happens they reinforcing army starts doing this really stupid thing.

If its a hardcoded problem in 1.2 does that mean it could be fixed in the 1.5 version of EB?

Its generally a bad Idea to let the AI control your re-inforcing armies, but sometimes you have to.

Specially when you are facing 2 full stacks versus your 2 full stacks in in VH or H Battle difficulty. The trick is to march next your allie armie and having some units protecting the flacks of the AI.

HOWEVER, when you play HVorH battle-difficulty the Enemy AI units will rout your Allie AI 80% of the time. So you have to hurry in destroying the enemy units your fighting so you can relieve your Allie AI.

Otherwise, you will loose a sh*t load of good soldiers.... at best.

I read this other thread somewhere which was a related deployment problem and it gave me the idea to check to see if mine was doing the same thing andf it is.

When the reinforcing army deploys it doesn't make any sound except for the generals unit. the rest of the army is totally quite no marching noises or anything. This seems like it could be related to the whole wierd deployment problem as it happens only to the enemy rinforcing army. Though as yet I haven't had an army reinforce me so I'm not sure if it would happen to my reinforcing army also. Any way I though I should update on the problem.

Does any one even know why this is happening?:wall:

It also happens to your reinforcing armies~:angry:

Why?? I don't know.

I play on VH/VH, and can honestly say that I've never seen that happen. Either they come at me one-by-one (in games where the unts flow in to replace ones i've destroyed or routed), or else they form up and don't attack after I've routed (or barely survived) the first army. But no instances of wandering aimlessly around the map.

Edit: I'm not refuting the experience of others, but it's curious that not everyone sees this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kull

I play on VH/VH, and can honestly say that I've never seen that happen. Either they come at me one-by-one (in games where the unts flow in to replace ones i've destroyed or routed), or else they form up and don't attack after I've routed (or barely survived) the first army. But no instances of wandering aimlessly around the map.

Edit: I'm not refuting the experience of others, but it's curious that not everyone sees this.

---

I agree, it does sound like it might be a difficulty level problem because i play on m/m. But I shouldn't have to be on VH for reinforcing armies to fight with some distinct battle plan. I guess the sound problem could also be related to the difficulty level if you say it's not a problem on VH/VH but I have no idea why or how.~:mecry: :shrug:

Happens to me too, I always play battle difficulty on Medium. It's probably to do with scale, I'm always on huge.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sdragon

Happens to me too, I always play battle difficulty on Medium. It's probably to do with scale, I'm always on huge.

---

not true actually I play on the normal scale size where a regular unit is usually about 40 or 50 men. But I'm beginning to feel very strongly that it is a difficulty setting problem.:wall:

This doesn't sound like a difficulty level problem, this sounds like there's too much going on for your computer to handle/ AI sucks, wait till .8 and hope. Those who can help have already seen the thread, there's no need to post about it in the suggestions for .8. If they can't solve it here, then that probably means they aren't sure, and they're not going to go back to .74 to help, as they are currently working on .8.

ok thanks, I was just getting really frustrated.

Man I can't wait until .8...

Try playing VH/VH if you are a Helenic faction if not then try H/H. Then maybe the AI reinforcements won't be all over the map.

my 2cents to end ur frustration.

I've found a decent way to fix this problem. But I've only tested this on a few battles. I downloaded the standalone Darth formations 8.5 and installed it. THis is a mod that alters the Away the AI thinks in battle and makes it slightly more of a competetive opponent. After installing this and getting in to a 2 on 1 army battle the reinforcing army acted normally and attacked me in a semi-smart way. The main point is that even on m/m difficulty (which is what I normally play) the AI did not split up the reinforcing army and march small groups of units across the map into completely useless places and then never attack. With this mod installed the ai armies work much more intelligently, However if anyone tries this and finds it gives them problems please post here so I can know about it.

thanks and I hope this works for anyone who had my same problem.

Darth mod didn't change afaik the way the ai thinks, it only changes the starting formation.
The AI seems to reakt semi-smart because the troops are deployed in a good way.
AI is totally hardcoded.

It actuall does change more than just the starting formation of the units. And while your right about the hard coded AI. DARTH has tweaked the descr-formations files so that not only does the AI deploy in better formations it also marches in smarter formations and is much better at coordinating its attacks/defences.

The bottom line is that it fixed the problem that has been talked about in the previous posts on this thread and if you are having the same problem I would suggest tryign this, after backing up of course.

whoops...double click

OK this is totaly unrelated to Reinforcement bug but I need the advice:

I luv EB because of its historical accuracy of it. Now I've heard a lot about Darth formations, but I am not sure what they are.

MY QUESTION IS: Are Darth Formations historicaly accurate? And do I really need Darth or does EB already has formations included in it?

EB has already formations included (the sweboz are the best imo), but they didn't work well alltime. I hope they will be tweaked in 0.8.