after going back to rome, i see how bad M2 AI is

i recently grew bored of M2, so as i lost my old disks i went to walmart and got rtw again. as much as i like vanilla for the civil war aspect of rtw i prefer the rtr mod i played with, it was more gritty with its realism and kill rates, although cumbersome with so many cities to manage :juggle2:

but anyway, i had phyrrus in the south of italy, so i trained a few units and marched on rome with a nice army. i fought a roman army that had 4 more units than I...and was promptly spanked

i was pissed and happy at the same time. since i had M2 i rarely on hard difficulty lost a battle, even againsts 2X odds...yet in a "fair" fight in rtw i was spanked

kill rates and routing is reduced in this mod, but if this is what it takes then DO it CA, but even without kill rates, the AI in 1.5 was splitting its forces and being almost brilliant in its attack...was like i was fighting hannibal himself

i will not be so lax in future battles in rtw, M2 made me lazy, and i dont see myself returning to it until RTR platinum and BI drive me to boredom

i have used carls mod to fix shield bug, yet the reduced kill rates with this only made it easier to destroy AI armies

what the hell happened from rtw to M2 :wall:

Agreed. M2TW AI is brain dead. I'm also back to playing RTW/BI until CA fixes M2.

I agree. The "smart" MTW 2 Very Hard Battle Difficulty AI is quite dumb... I suspect it can pull off a trick or two if it has a balanced army at hand. The problem is: the VH strategic map AI does not give it that chance most of the time (creating very one-sided armies easily destroyable by a human player).

Another fault, IMHO is the current implementation of the passive AI fix. With it, a human player can easily play an offensive battle as a defensive one instead... The AI almost never takes up an advantageous defensive position when defending, rather preferring to come to the player even if the player (attacker) is positioned on a hill. :thumbsdown:

I am not thrilled by the RTW AI either though. It's use of phalanx armies was laughable. And the piecemeal reinforcement arrival did not help the AI either.

IMHO, battlefield AI out of all the TW series was the best in MTW. The problem there was that a human player could dominate the strategic map AI too easily and too soon in the campain, leading to superior player armies, which could easily destroy anything the AI could throw at them. On equal footing (quality), the battle AI could be challenging in MTW. I still have to see that happen in MTW 2.

P.S. Horse archer armies can be challenging in MTW2, but these were challenging in all TW series simply because player cannot get to them unless fielding a mainly missile based army.

I have a campaign on both RTW and M2TW at the moment. I see nothing that the RTW AI does that the M2TW one doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Quickening

I have a campaign on both RTW and M2TW at the moment. I see nothing that the RTW AI does that the M2TW one doesn't.

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When facing an overwhelming force with lots of missile units, RTW AI either retreats or goes for an all-out suicide charge... M2TW AI just stands there and gets shot to pieces.

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Originally Posted by rvg

When facing an overwhelming force with lots of missile units, RTW AI either retreats or goes for an all-out suicide charge... M2TW AI just stands there and gets shot to pieces.

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Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

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Originally Posted by Quickening

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

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For me, it usually waits until half their army is gone, and then retreats.

Btw, I know of only 2 differences between the AI's:

1. it does not stand still against missiles
2. it tries to counter my flanking forces with their own. This is something I'm really missing in M2TW, the cavalry just sit behind the infantry waiting for a frontal charge while I sneak around the back... In RTW, they sent their cavalry at me.

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Originally Posted by Quickening

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

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The rebels will just stand there and get killed but actual faction troops charge in my experience.

I suspect a lot of Sabatui pleaser came from the RTR mod; One thing that was discovered was the TW AI works a lot better with a properly balanced late RTW game army. Early on there are huge gaps in the order of battle that stops the AI form doing its thing. The game screws the AI with its built up your cities to get good units. The RTR made it a point to have all the factions start with and be able to build the armies they should have had in 280BCE.

The same thing probably needs to be done for MTW2 in at lest making sure the AI can raise a 1080 army in 1080 insteed of throwing town militia at you.

BTW try fighting a Greek or Macedonian army without Darth’s stuff in RTW and then say it is better than MTW2.

Wow, when MTW came out everyone whined about how much it sucked compared to STW, but stuck around and presumably kept playing it anyway.

When RTW came out everyone whined about how much it sucked compared to MTW, but stuck around and presumably kept playing it anyway.

And now that M2TW is out we hear about how much it sucks compared to RTW, from people who are on the boards here and presumably still playing it anyway.

I can't wait for the next TW game to come out, that will presumably make M2TW morph into a great retro game full of nostalgic chic. CA shouldn't bother with a patch for M2TW since clearly making a new game makes the old ones better far more effectively :idea2:

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Originally Posted by Hollerbach

Wow, when MTW came out everyone whined about how much it sucked compared to STW, but stuck around and presumably kept playing it anyway.

When RTW came out everyone whined about how much it sucked compared to MTW, but stuck around and presumably kept playing it anyway.

And now that M2TW is out we hear about how much it sucks compared to RTW, from people who are on the boards here and presumably still playing it anyway.

I can't wait for the next TW game to come out, that will presumably make M2TW morph into a great retro game full of nostalgic chic. CA shouldn't bother with a patch for M2TW since clearly making a new game makes the old ones better far more effectively :idea2:

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this only points to retrograde direction every new release takes as far as gameplay goes.. too much fixation on graphics maybe?

anyway, try Chivalry mod for RTW 1.5/1.6
it's early era and can be quite fun and challengin'.. better than RTW graphics/models too :beam:

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Originally Posted by sabutai

but anyway, i had phyrrus in the south of italy, so i trained a few units and marched on rome with a nice army. i fought a roman army that had 4 more units than I...and was promptly spanked

i was pissed and happy at the same time. since i had M2 i rarely on hard difficulty lost a battle, even againsts 2X odds...yet in a "fair" fight in rtw i was spanked

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Bizzarre. I've never heard anyone say RTW has better battlefield AI than M2TW until now. I've found it much more competitive (on VH, never bothered trying below that). For example, in our HRE PBM, we've currently killed or captured 10000 enemies for the loss of 1/3 of that of our own. That 3:1 kill ratio does not seem excessive (true, we've never lost but for a braindead AI, it is taking down a fair number of our men). I don't know what kill ratio we got in our RTR PE PBM, but I suspect it was considerably higher.

I wonder if you are just falling victim to RTRs Romans? Look at the stats - the Principes are rather uber, while the rival hoplite types lack bite in my experience. Plus RTR has sky high morale, especially the Romans, so you can be in trouble against a larger high quality army.

The strategic AI in M2TW seems much better. I've observed it keep multiple armies together for mutual support and keep out of reach of stronger armies - ie it actually maneouvres. It is also much more aggressive and capable of snatching poorly defended settlements if you don't pay attention. RTWs strategic AI was so passive and slothful, it was hard to prod it into action even when it was in a superior position.

From what I see, the main problem with the M2TW AI is not its inability to fight on the battlemap but the campaign AI's difficuties in keeping up with teh player techwise.

Add this to the huge effects of cavalry, and a player army of 5 or 6 mailed knights can take out a full army of elite troops without breaking a sweat; and once it has done so, the AI will rarely manage to raise such an army again.

The real issue here is the campaign AI's inability to save money and plan ahead.

I must note that I have limited experience with Medieval II battles... Still, I don't think I've ever played a tactically challenging battle on even grounds in Rome (except HAs) - the same doesn't apply to Medieval II. Yet, it has, to my experience, trouble with initiative against at certain types of armies.

Yes, it often just stands there and lets the merc crossbows whittle down its strength, and charges only when the situation is too dire to save (i.e. his general is dead), and lets at least javelin cavalry circle behind their lines without reacting.

But then again, at times it mounts surprising attacks when an opportunity rises: attacks and collapses a flank when units get bunched together, circles horse archers to the rear of the army far enough that you notice only when its hard to counter them (mostly it's too late then, though). Enemy artillery causes more casualties as well. And at least it keeps the spear wall together better than in Rome, where a dozen phalanxes could easily be flanked individually by slow infantry.

The AI in MTW was quite clever as well, but still quite easily beatable as soon as the right tactic was used. An army of basic spearmen and Jinnettes could easily take out a balanced High army (experimented with low-support-cost stacks years ago), with few losses. Still, in MTW they never just stood there when I circled units of Jinnettes behind their army while my spears stood some 100 steps from theirs, nor let them throw all their javelins.

We can only hope they'll get more aggressive, yet, that it doesn't mean that it will be repeated cavalry charges to elite spears (not that it matters now, as they'll be decimated by the charge anyway).

Honestly down from STW to MTW2, i think MTW get the best battle AI, while RTW get the worst.

In RTW defensive AI is so broken that they cant even hold their advance defensive position at all. You can often use the "round the hill" trick to reform your formation at a distance to the AI, by rotating it step by step, the AI will eventually re-position their lineup from the top of the mountain down to the bottom!!

And not to mention about the unrealistic moving speed in RTW you can just use your carvary or EVEN infantry to round everying on the field.

Also, the battle moral in RTW is so broken that even the toughest professional troop can rout within 30 sec of combact! (as i only play on VH/VH)


Although i cant say MTW2 get very good battle AI atm, but definitely it is way better than RTW in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Quickening

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

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your right all it does is stupidly rush...every time, except anywhere near a defensive structure, then yes ...the ai WILL just sit there and eat arrows either inside or out

if you say rome and m2 are the same, you must be playing a different game than me, m2 ai always does the same thing. 1. battle starts, they stand there for a few seconds 2. the infantry and cav move forward the missles blob behind them 3. the cav charge, usually an inside unit 4. the infantry charge

5. i flank them, chain route them and they die.

this is on hard difficulty, all VH does is give them absurd stats they never ever try to flank me..crushing the ai when i am completely outnumbered is never a problem

maybe its just the formation mod in RTR platinum that somehow gives the ai a great formation to work with so it doesnt have to create one for itself

Econ, it was almost magical the way it moved, principes or not...i wasnt taking barely any losses till i was just outplayed by the ai. i tell you what i saw in that battle was near brilliant play by the ai. elephants be damned...they were going for my flank and rear and nothing was gonna stop them

my 12345 scenario is how almost all my battles in m2 play out, this may be due to the ai just not being able to use long archers/xbows effectively and they tend to field so many of these units

vh battle difficulty just gives the ai insane stats, it doesnt make it smarter, its a stupid system of difficulty

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this is on hard difficulty, all VH does is give them absurd stats they never ever try to flank me..crushing the ai when i am completely outnumbered is never a problem

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VH does not give the ai bonus stats in M2Tw like it did in RTW, in M2TW VH just increases the effects of moral and fatique, as well as the ai behaving differently.

It will be interesting to see how the ai performs in 1.2 with cav charges made less powerful, shield bug fixed and 2 handed bug fixed.

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Originally Posted by Mega Dux Bob

The rebels will just stand there and get killed but actual faction troops charge in my experience.

I suspect a lot of Sabatui pleaser came from the RTR mod; One thing that was discovered was the TW AI works a lot better with a properly balanced late RTW game army. Early on there are huge gaps in the order of battle that stops the AI form doing its thing. The game screws the AI with its built up your cities to get good units. The RTR made it a point to have all the factions start with and be able to build the armies they should have had in 280BCE.

The same thing probably needs to be done for MTW2 in at lest making sure the AI can raise a 1080 army in 1080 insteed of throwing town militia at you.

BTW try fighting a Greek or Macedonian army without Darth’s stuff in RTW and then say it is better than MTW2.

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i am starting to lean towards this theory that its the formations the mod gives to the ai to start with

lusted, since when are morale and fatigue not stats ~;) doesnt play different to me though, seems the same

if its anything like carls mod it made the ai easier to defeat with his fix to 2 hander and shield bug,,,i tended to limit my cavalry to make the game harder anyway as i feel they are waaaay to cheap to buy...but with carls fix they werent killing like before anyway

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lusted, since when are morale and fatigue not stats doesnt play different to me though, seems the same

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It does not give bonus to morale like in RTW, it just increases the effect of morale so units rout more easily, general becomes more important etc. And fatique is more realistic on VH. That is it, not like RTw which gave stupid bonuses to ai units.

The biggest flaw in the RTW battlefield AI IMO is what you could call a "bunching" effect. I noticed it when running custom battles to simulate the results of between player battles in an RTR PBM. What happens is that the AI picks a few of your units to attack and then throws everything at them. The AI units become crowded and many are wasted milling at the back - it's overkill. By contrast, the human with equal numbers can hold off the AI with a handful of men and then use the rest to go at the flanks and rear of AI blobs - murdering them. This AI weakness meant that is was virtually impossible to simulate player vs player battles - even when I just lined up my men to oppose the AIs and did everything I could to engender a "fair" frontal slogging match, whichever side I controlled would win, unless the numbers were overwhelming (I ended up playing from both sides and averaging).

This bunching flaw was never that apparent to me in SP campaign battles, but reading my old battle reports I can clearly see it. In more controlled custom battles, it's painfully obvious. I think the RTW flaw I've mentioned is related to the AIs poor handling of phalanxes. Puzz3D and others noted the tendency of what should be an awesome AI phalanx line to break up at the last minute as the AI seeks good unit vs unit match ups. It should focus more on a battle line, less on unit vs unit matching.

I'm not sure whether this flaw is still present in M2TW - I've had no cause to run custom battles - but it seems less apparent. The M2TW AI seems better at forming a battleline and simply charging straight at you, without breaking up to focus on apparent weakpoints. It's not stellar tactics, of course, but given numbers and/or quality, it can get the job done.

The one new flaw I have noticed with M2TWs battlefield AI is the tendency of the AI to let its missiles get too far ahead of its main battleline when attacking and so be very vulnerable to cavalry.

really? in my games i always see the ai archers in a big blob behind the lines

is there a formation mod for m2? cuz if it makes the rtw ai fight better i'd like to try it for m2

but i dont know if a conquer the world campaign can hold my interst in the medieval time period...especially like others have said when i am fighting friggin armies of militia when i have guns and leet infantry

I am rather inclined to say that RTW AI was betterthan M2TW.

In M2TW I can walk my entire army save the general around the back of the enemy and say hi without them doing anything when outnumbered (outnumbered AI is still VERY passive). The AI only reacts to your general's position when its not engaged, which is a big mistake.

When the M2TW AI feels it has more units than you, it will head on charge you even if you are the attacker. That makes it dead easy for you to stand on a hill far away from the starting position.

M2TW AI almost never (emphasis on almost) flanks you but matches its units up against you. In RTW, it would always send at least 1 or 2 units via the flanks.

The AI now sends archers running (not walking) towards your position so you can run them down with cavalry while they are some 2 army lengths away from the main regiment. It also never cares about its slower pike/halberd units and they usually engage after their main army has been utterly destroyed.

The AI never even tries to defend its siege equipment so 1 cavalry can take care of all their siege in their rear without the army doing much. Also, if you attack a unit in their rear and are of considerable distance away from their main force, the main force will head on charge your main force, even if they are outnumbered and you are on a hill.

Note this is all VH.
The M2TW AI is way too exploitable.

M2TW exploitable? In RTW, I could be guaranteed a settlement victory if it has anything less than stone walls because the ai was so dumb. After u bash through gate, the RTW ai retreats to town center so I put all of my cretan archers right outside the gate and send one melee unit in. The ai sends a few units at it, but I retreat outside right before engagement and the ai retreats again all while getting shot to pieces.

Also, ai would just stay in their town center and not come out even though my cretan archers were just pwning their asses.

I believe, one of the biggest flaws in MTW 2 is it's defensive AI after the passive AI fix. Let me give you an example: Anatolia, I (turks) attack a larger AI army composed of byzantine spearmen with 4 units of turkomans, 1 genera, and one unit of turkish archers. My turkish archers are positioned on a hill in the middle of the map while my horse archers are ready to flank. The general stands with the archers on the hill.

Battle starts: 1) instead of having taken an advantageous position somewhere on hills, the AI charges my turkish archer unit on the hill, half a map away. My general's unit flanks the attacking enemy (the one that was supposed to defend), so do my horse archers.

2) By the end of the manouver: the whole AI army is chasing my single unit of turkish archers across the map, while MOST of my army is behind the AI's army shooting the living daylights out of them.

3) AI continues to chase my single unit of archers until my HA arrows run out.

4) exhausted AI decides to take a rest and forms a line in a valley(!) between two hills. my turkish archers stand on (!) one of the hills peppering the AI with fire arrows.

5) my general unit charges into the middle of the exhausted AI army (still outnumbering me). Mass rout follows. HA's clean up the routers.

And this can be seen in MTW2 over and over again (defensive AI charging into a mindless attack, tiring out and routing from a single charge). And tell me it's not stupid AI... In this situation it would have sufficed for the AI to stand on a hill, weather out my missiles against their shields and wait for my tired horse archers to charge them...

RTW had its faults..no question..

But only stevie wonder would suggest MTW2 has superior AI. Its as dumb as they get........

I have lost less than 10 battles.....in the 2 campaigns I have played..and then only really out of bad luck.

AI is pathetic at seige attacks.......unable to do anything other than drip feed units to the slaughter. On the battlefied....it is indecisive..to the extreme..often sitting and getting shot up with archers.......not all the time but most of it.

Attacks are poorly thought out..and lack any real strategic plan..which in a strategy game is um well.....not really that good.

Sure I lost one battle.......over 2.5 times the no. of enemy..and they had a hill advantage.......but the lost most of their army. Thats not smart..they should have walked it.

Let us hope that the patch does at last resolve the issues......

But honestly people...RTW was a far tougher challenge all over........much as the eye candy appeals on MTW2 ....good AI it doesnt make

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Originally Posted by Xdeathfire

M2TW exploitable? In RTW, I could be guaranteed a settlement victory if it has anything less than stone walls because the ai was so dumb. After u bash through gate, the RTW ai retreats to town center so I put all of my cretan archers right outside the gate and send one melee unit in. The ai sends a few units at it, but I retreat outside right before engagement and the ai retreats again all while getting shot to pieces.

Also, ai would just stay in their town center and not come out even though my cretan archers were just pwning their asses.

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M2TW AI does the same. I can corner the outnumbered enemy in the town square where they'll happily stand while I pepper them with bolts from 5 feet away.

I can even walk up a unit of hand gunners behind a general on an open field map without it moving and shoot them to pieces. RTW AI never let you get that far.

Factionheir, in RTW the enemy would seriously outnumber me, but dont have any missles but would still remain stationary. That was the only way I captured Sparta as Thracians. I killed a garrison of 8 or 9 spartans and 5-6 armoured hoplites with only 2 generals, 9 cretan archers, and 3 normal cav

Here is another example, I just fought. And tell me it's not idiotic AI. AI Enemy (defender): 4 archer units + a turcoman unit. Me - One general, one turkoman and an archer unit. As I enter the battlefield, the enemy has a perfectly nice position on the top of a high hill. To get to them - I have to march uphill.

All they'd have to do, stay where they are and pepper me until I reach them on the hilltop. By that time I would have hardly any troops left. No... instead of staying where they are, the enemy archers start to manouver and get charged by my general before even making a single shot... The AI turkoman decided that the best missile target for it was my foot archer unit. No comment there...

maybe its all in our heads which is better, i guess i dont know

i am playing rtr...so no peasants or crap units to fight..maybe that and the darth formations mod is making it appear to be harder, but i am just speculating...cuz on my celts campaign on vannila BI i was fighting much harder battles than m2 ever offered me

also about ai defending walls, it seems the same as rome..they just as often retreat to center or they give a half hearted attempt to defend the wall then flee

either way, they better get moving on this AI instead of updating the graphics on the same retarded soldiers

you can put a silk hat on a pig, but its still a pig

IMO, Vanilla M2TW is marginally better overall than vanilla RTW.

But then again, my opinion of vanilla RTW is extremely low, so that is in no way a compliment to M2...

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Originally Posted by Xdeathfire

Also, ai would just stay in their town center and not come out even though my cretan archers were just pwning their asses.

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That was fixed in one of the last patches, can't remember which. They changed it so whenever they are peppered with arrows, they charge out of the town square no matter what. They will usually leave some units behind to guard though.