Greatest let-down battle and another rant

I just had one of the greatest battles I can remember in all my time playing the Total War series since Shogun was released. Or, it would have been the greatest...

Anyway...

Hard campaign, very hard battles.

I had pushed the Byzantines out of Constantinople as the Turks and was building up the rest of my empire, which was just short of Jerusalem to the south. Simultaneously I was building up another army, with two stacks of reserves to ship accross the ocean so I could start an invasion of Sicily (I thought it would be fun)

I had two armies guarding Constantinople, both consisting of a mixture of militia, professionals and horse archers (I try to play a fairly historical mixture rather than using all the best units) The reserve army was directly behind the first army so it could support me in battle; Six stacks of Byzantines massed on my border told me I would need them.

The inevitable happened, they invaded and attacked with three stacks.

At the start it was just a 1 v 1 battle, with my usual charging of thier missile troops to kickstart the A.I into action (stupid passive A.I). All was going well, with thier first army taking a pounding and being outnumbered thanks to the ridiculous over-use of catapults and trebutchets.

Thier second army arrives and heads directly for me. Again, thier army has wasted 5 unit places of useless artillery.

The battle starts to turn in thier favour, since I did not have enough shock cavalry and most of what I did have had already been severely butchered after taking out the siege engines. I feel the battle's lost when thier third army enters the battlefield.

I have three units of janissary heavy infantry fighting the massed remnants of the second army and a unit of 20 horse archers well away from the action, having just rallied. Just as the third army routs my Janissary's, my A.I controlled army enters the field.

So I run my remaining unit of horse archers back to the allied A.I and watch the action.

Since the third Byzantine army also had 5 or 6 artillery pieces they were also lacking in numbers and they were completely destroyed by the charging Turks. The combat was over in mere seconds, which is another sign the stats and morale need to be tweaked.

It was a battle that should have been lost by me, but due to the A.I's ridiculous use of artillery in thier armies I came away with a hollow victory. What should have been an awesome battle was let down by bad programming (yet again)

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In this campaign I spend just as much time trying to kill heretics as I do anything else. It's getting seriously annoying and ruining the game for me. Sure, I can easily cleanse the lands of them, but they have an inexhaustable supply. It got old after killing the 30th one.

Other than the fixes in the patch, the following mods will increase the enjoyment and flow of the game immensely. For me, anyway:

Remove Heretics and inquisitors completely. I'm sure I am not the only one totally sick of these fellows. They're a chore to deal with and don't add anything to the game except punishment. Annoyances.

Remove siege equipment from the game. The A.I does not know how to use these correctly. It's not historical to use these in field battles. Even if you don't care for historical accuracy, the A.I severely weakens its field armies by including them instead of regular units, which decreases difficulty to the point where it's a walkover. It's not like trainable siege equipment is even needed to assault a castle or city. They should have been only trainable at the same time as siege towers and battering rams.

IMO, with the patch and these few mods the game will become far more enjoyable to play.

Whilst I can sympathise with your frustration, I personally have messed up my army composition several times. Especially when trying to move loads of the same types of troops that can only be produced in one province and have been slaughtered when ambushed by the AI with a well balanced army.
You coulkd be being a bit tough on the AI?? - (or I could have mis-read your post and be sounding like an idiot)

Is it is a bit tough to blame the AI for having too many artillery pieces when it was coming to retake a city?

But I do agree that perhaps a "game selection" bar at the start of the game could be a good idea. I am not a fan in any way of the Inquistors or heretics or to be frankly honest merchants (I know that this is additional detail, and detail is what sets these games apart) but if you could tick a box at the start of the game to not have these a part of the experiance it could make many people enjoyment more. It is not that much different to selecting the difficulty setting????

I agree with the rant about the siege equipment. Its ridiculous to march towards an army expecting a good fight only to see that its full of ballistas and catapults and 4 peasants. Its almost not worth the fight just because of sheer monotany. Not to mention if you autoresolve, there's not telling what the AI will do for you. Probably just use the passiveness and let your men get slaughtered.

I agree with you about heretics, merchant, inquistiors and rest of the merry bunch. After 100 turns, you get so much of them that micromanaging just becomes a pain in the rear.

And to think that CA didn't do anything to help you micromanage them.
Is it so hard to create a list of all your agents (separate for priests, princesses, merchants) , where you can see where they are, are the doing someting (trading, traveling to... , preaching, counterspying, spying), their respective skills etc...

Also, a button to highlight resources come to mind...

I think the siege engine heavy AI is one of the most ridiculous elements in the game.

Some fixes I guess could be made to adjust the cost-effectiveness factor that AI uses to pick troops that it builds. It seems that siege engines are somehow favorable to the algorith that the AI uses in troop building.

Simple way to fix this it to raise the cost of artillery units which should decrease their favorability for the AI. Human players would not mind paying couple hundred florins more for arty as they are still useful and necessary additions in making assaults on settlements without sieging first.

Another fix is to require more top tier buildings for siege weapons so the AI has less opportunities to build them.

Yet another fix would be to make all artillery into mercenaries which would prevent a huge stack of them just because there are not enough of them to go around...

The second ridiculous part is the inability of the AI to build certain buildings and thus also troops. I have never seen AI controlled longbowmen in the campaign game... Fighting the english in campaign is a joke because of this.

I am not sure why this building freeze occurs, but it could be that the AI overbuilds troops based on florins/turn and then never has enough florins for buildings over a certain cost. AI practically never builds citadels or huge walls either.

The latter problem might be somehow related also to the 0.5 timescale I use, but I think it was also true in my first campaign where I used the default 2.0.

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Originally Posted by Sarmatian

I agree with you about heretics, merchant, inquistiors and rest of the merry bunch. After 100 turns, you get so much of them that micromanaging just becomes a pain in the rear.

And to think that CA didn't do anything to help you micromanage them.
Is it so hard to create a list of all your agents (separate for priests, princesses, merchants) , where you can see where they are, are the doing someting (trading, traveling to... , preaching, counterspying, spying), their respective skills etc...

Also, a button to highlight resources come to mind...

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Did you try right-clicking on the agents tab in the campaign main screen? Or are you talking about a seperate list for each type of agent?

Two points.

1. The agents list is not user friendly. First, it displays too few agents. Second, it runs right up to the top of the list when you select one.

2. Siege engines would ideally (i) not count toward the unit limit for stacks and (ii) not generally be usable except in sieges until gunpowder is invented. Until this is done, a workaround is to make them sufficiently expensive that the AI won't overdo them.

I find the use of catapults as early battle artillery particularly irksome, principally due to their high rate of fire. Attacking a battery of catapults last week with my mounted sergeants felt like the charge of the light brigade, especially with the flaming ammunition.

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Originally Posted by Beefeater

1. The agents list is not user friendly. First, it displays too few agents. Second, it runs right up to the top of the list when you select one.

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I agree. This second point is the most irritating - you have to search for where you left off on the list, everytime you use it...

I am baffled with the AI seige gear issue...seems a bit daft really. And the crossbowmen most of an AI army thing too....

I dont mind ballistas etc..as they have some use..but trebs are not meant for killing men...they are for bashing walls down!

I too have had some great battles..right down to the wire...just you have to bite your tongue a bit with the passive AI and other unit issues...

I just hope it all gets fixed and balanced properly.

Agent list: what I miss from RTW is the "progress bar" that made clear if that character's movement/turn has been already spent.

Heretics/witches on campaign map: minor nuisance, as they can be eliminated without effort by a fresh priest. But if it would be much more difficult to fry them, it would become, IMHO, a major nuisance.

Arty on battlefield: AI always uses their machines against me, with somewhat surprising accuracy. I really get worried when AI catapults target my general...

Arty in sieges: I don't get the time to eliminate them with a counter-charge. Soon after siege machines start firing, the walls collapse, before units that sally out can redeploy and attack.

Missiles against artillery: found it pretty ineffective, AI artillery seems to have discovered a kind of invisible Star Trek shield and wrap it's machines in it. I need Klingonian phasers against, still looking after those.

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Originally Posted by Vlad Tzepes

Heretics/witches on campaign map: minor nuisance, as they can be eliminated without effort by a fresh priest.

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There no problem when you've got a little empire and its early game late game though its a different matter. I own the UK, France, most of Germany, Itialy, Spain, Portuagal, North africa and the Holy lands. And its a pain in the arse having to go over the whole map every single turn looking for heratics and then theres the added problem of the heratics all having a piety of 8 minimum.

I must be playing a different game from most of you. I'm around my 100th turn and I've seen maybe 4-5 Heretics and 1 (one!) With in the whole game. I burned two Heretics the others were dealt with by other peoples Bishops/Priests.
Also Inquisitors have not yet been bad for me. Only one general was ever tried and killed. The only thing that bothers me about them, that I always thought the pope would send them in as punishment if don't fulfill one of his missions. But they just appear out of thin air and stay forever! Well until they've died of old age. Other than that I have yet to fear the almighty Inquisition burning my faction leaders and heirs.

I agree on the agent list thing and the Artillery over-usage though.
Battle sounded nice too!