The seige of Staufen

Ok, I've been playing this game for almost 26 hours straight now, so sorry if this doesn't come out very clear. I just finished one of the strangest battles I've ever played in my Total War "career" (I've been playing since Shogun), which shows alot of AI strangeness and general bugs in M2TW - the siege of Staufen.

Playing as the Spanish on H/H, I've conquered the Iberian peninsula, and started expanding north. I declared war with Milan, who had taken territories from France and the Holy Roman Empire. I've been pushing northwards for quite some time, and almost reached Denmark by now. After pulling the bulk of my forces south to finish of Milans italian holdings, the Hungarians appeared out of nowhere. They promptly attacked me, laying seige to Staufen, a fortress I had recently taken. The assault that followed was... strange.

My rather meager defenses, consisted of two units of peasant crossbowmen, two units of javelinmen and one unit of almughavars. I was also joined by my allies of the Holy Roman Empire, who contributed one unit of spearmen, one catapult and... some peasants, I think. The hungarians had about six units of spearmen, some mercenary crossbows, a general and some frankish mercenary knights. The plan was to deploy all my men except the almughavars on the walls, and have the almughavars at the gates.

The strangeness started as soon as I wanted to deploy my men. For some reason, I wasn't allowed to. The battle started right away, with my troops scattered all over the place. I've read other people reporting this, and had it happen to me once before.

So I tried to run all my people to the gates, hopefully in the deployment I wanted. That wasn't so bad - everyone except the almughavars arrived at their stations in time, if a bit tired. I had noticed before that the AI had built one battering ram, and one set of ladders. For some reason he wasn't moving his ram - the ram was manned, but just kinda... stood there, while the rest of his forces followed the unit with the ladders. Ok? He's got me outnumbered, and he wants to attack at... one spot? With ladders?

So the crossbows fire on him, javelins fly, the ladders go up, and the fighting starts. The javelinmen, armed with swords, cut a bloody harvest through his spearmen, but they're outnumbered. Realising that the gate is in no danger, I send up the almughavars to the walls. Now, this is a great, great looking game. At this point there are no real orders I can give to improve my situation, so I sit back and watch the fighting. I see my men get covered in blood, I follow one javelinmen kill ten guys before a spearmen first stuns him with a shieldbash, then runs him through with his spear. It's all very cool.

Then, I notice that the hungarians aren't reinforcing. The red tide isn't rising - the spanish yellow are slowly taking back the walls. Are they all dead, I wonder? I also notice that the game seems to be slowing down. FPS rate is way, way down. So I take a look beneath the walls:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ister/0000.jpg

There's still alot of hungarians down there, surrounding ONE of the ladders, but not climbing up. My computer - a fairly high-end rig - is slowing down even more as I watch this. Eventually, the hungarians start to reinforce again, like this:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ister/0001.jpg

Using ONE ladder, they slowly trickle up to my walls. These are the mercenary crossbowmen, though, and they're armed with swords, so the fighting is a bit harder. I'm starting to wonder if I can win this, so I remember my allies and decide to check on their progress. The peasants, the general and the catapults are slowly, slowly, walking - towards the city square, seeminly (cowards... what about helping ME?). The german spearmen, though:

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ister/0003.jpg

...are stuck on a wall. They've been running into that walls ever since they arrived in the city. Surely the germans having been drinking too much beer to be relied on, so I commit my crossbowmen to the fighting. My computer GRINDS its way through the fight, but the framrate improves as the horde down by the ladders thins out. It works - we kill the invaders (some flee down the ladders again, which was pretty cool) and have won the day. I wait for the hungarian cavalry to retreat, and leave me to celebrate the victory.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ister/0004.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ister/0005.jpg

Which they don't, of course. They just sit there, next to the manned battering ram. Feeling bored, I decide to try to goad them with a unit of javelinmen. I run them out, and the cavalry attack and kill them all.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ister/0006.jpg

Then the cavalry pull back and sit there and WAIT again - and OH, LOOK, WHY IS THE GATE STILL OPEN!? I waited for five minutes, but it never closed again. Despite having the opportunity to run in and take the place (which would've been easy, since all my men were on the walls), the hungarians decided to just sit there, while I went to take a shower and let the timer run out.

Damn, this was long. I don't know really why I posted this... just needed to vent, I guess. It certainly shows that the siege AI has alot of work left. Since the battles are about 50% sieges, I'd say that's a pretty big problem.

Ugh, I'm tired. Going to bed. Also - yay, first post!

I'm also experiencing the massive fps slow-down during sieges. Fps will go from 50 to 1 or 2 and become unplayable. Same situation as you're experiencing whereby the AI decides to congregrate several units around the base of a set of ladders or siege tower.

Screenshot here:
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e65/Taelok/0003.jpg

Another thread at TWC center here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...02#post1315402

hopefully this patch will help with this, I think it was almost smart to release the game a little early the way they did in some places all the TW veterans are going nuts over any glitches, talk about a quick reponse on a beta test.