The AI hordes... Did anybody ever come up with a solution?

Hello everyone, not been on here for a while. I just watched Gladiator, and after i stopped crying at the end, i realized it had given me a craving to play to play a Romani campaign in EB.

Last time i tried this i got too frustrated at having to fight 5+ stacks of Germanian barbarians every turn, making my turns take no less than about an hour and a half, which stopped me from getting to even the Polybian reforms, which ruined the campaign and the experience.

I remember a thread where people were talking of lowering the amount of money handed out to the AI every turn, and i tried a few of them, but all it seemed to do was make the AI crash economically and stand still without conquering or going to war.

So, has anybody come up with a solution to fix the endless hordes of AI stacks? Or are we all still fighting 10 battles each turn?

Check the unofficial mod subforum. "Sheep" is currently testing AI money adjustments.

Hi Dayve

Try auto resolve and only fight the major engagements where something will be achieved like a clear path to a city or something.

I send diversionary cheap stacks to hold up hordes in passes to auto resolve and take my main force on an unconventional path to hit the enemy where it hurts the most. It takes alot of planning, but thats what this game is about right?

Mega

auto_win defender/attacker...

That should do it. You get around 10% casualties which is historically the casualties plus wounded that a normal victorious, hard fought battle would yield.

There are 3 ways of dealing with Horders:

1st: RUSH 'EM!!!! nuff said...

2nd: Once they start a war with you... Attack, take over the settlements, exterminate, keep moving to the next settlement, all they way until they agree to a Ceasefire/Protectorate or u Destroy that faction.

IF your Role Playing...

3rd: Keep an eye on them with your spies and prepare ur settlements to wistand siege and train stong units. If they start getting too strong send "Raiding" armys to destroy a few of thier cities and abandon them soon after. That way they don't get too strong too fast, and let you RolePlay the wars with the other factions.

ex: In my current Aedui campain I am at war with Epiros. BUT I don't want to move in into Greece until after the Reforms of 220, have a BIG FAT economy, and have at least 3 full stacks ready to make an ASSULT all the way to Galatia & beyond maybe.

So, I have a 2/3 stack ready to repulse any Epirote incursion, BUT I have made 3 incursions into Epriote lands and destroyed 3 of thier cities so far. This is to BUY ME TIME and also to keep the Epirote forces in check.

ex: in my old Romani campain, I was role playing an the Aedui decided to attack me. Rather than let them send stack after stack after me. I sent in 2 Legions to Plunder Gaul and return. The gauls retook their cities, and needed about 10 years before they could bother me again.

Or, hold a river crossing and let them do their 5 attacks a turn on a bridge and die horribly each time. The side effect is that this drains their whole empire since the AI has a really nasty habit of pulling every unit it has and throwing it at you.

But i've done all this before... I held mountain passes, rivers, destroyed 5 Sweboz full stacks every turn for about 15 game years... Exterminated their cities and withdrew... It didn't slow them down one bit. They just kept sending them, it ruined my game and i quit the campaign.

It's annoying, I know. The same thing happens with the Seleukids if you play anyone that shares a border with them. We're working on the script right now unofficially. Feel free to test what's posted there and add your thoughts and critiques.

It isn't just money. Settlements in Germania can grow to enormous size, spewing out endless hordes of low-grade spearmen.

I have just finished a KH campaign where the Romani had taken over Germania and the Baltic coast. I invaded Sicilia and worked my way up the peninsula World War II style.

The classic Romani mix of Triarii and Pedites Extraordinarii soon gave way to an inexhaustible supply of full stacks of Lugoae(sp?) and Baltic spearmen and axemen.

I tried raiding Germania to exterminate the mega-cities down to reasonable size, but I found this was a dangerous strategy. I got a CTD when Carrodunum rebelled, so I had to settle for a bit of shadow boxing in Germania, advancing and withdrawing, hoping to draw the hordes off while I completed my Victory Conditions.

In summary, I think the best solution to this problem is to reduce population growth rates, especially in Germania. Let the AI have its money, but don't let it have unlimited numbers of recruits.

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Originally Posted by Juvenal

It isn't just money. Settlements in Germania can grow to enormous size, spewing out endless hordes of low-grade spearmen.

I have just finished a KH campaign where the Romani had taken over Germania and the Baltic coast. I invaded Sicilia and worked my way up the peninsula World War II style.

The classic Romani mix of Triarii and Pedites Extraordinarii soon gave way to an inexhaustible supply of full stacks of Lugoae(sp?) and Baltic spearmen and axemen.

I tried raiding Germania to exterminate the mega-cities down to reasonable size, but I found this was a dangerous strategy. I got a CTD when Carrodunum rebelled, so I had to settle for a bit of shadow boxing in Germania, advancing and withdrawing, hoping to draw the hordes off while I completed my Victory Conditions.

In summary, I think the best solution to this problem is to reduce population growth rates, especially in Germania. Let the AI have its money, but don't let it have unlimited numbers of recruits.

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Would the City Mod take care of that problem? Seems rediculous that these villages in barbarian lands can grow to the size of Rome...

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Originally Posted by Dayve

But i've done all this before... I held mountain passes, rivers, destroyed 5 Sweboz full stacks every turn for about 15 game years... Exterminated their cities and withdrew... It didn't slow them down one bit. They just kept sending them, it ruined my game and i quit the campaign.

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Did you really exterminated most of the Sweboz cities and destroyed all thier buildings. Leaving only a couple Sweboz cities untouched so the faction wouldn't die??????:inquisitive:

Why do I ask that question well....
in .74 I played a really good/long KH campain. I was at war with AS, seeing that it would be imposible (due to unrest) to hold all thier cities and keep pushing I though about stopping the territorial expansion once I took Jerusalem. HOWEVER, after seeing the many settlement that AS had, and the speed at which they pupmed out troops I send in 2 full stacks and a 2/3 stacks deep into Iran and bordering Afganistan. I destroyed about 5 or more cities, before I said it was enough (I didn't want to border Pavhla and Backtria both allies of AS) and pulled back. For about 3 year AS could only send 1 full stack after me with Pandaroi (sp) and Persian Archers. Another 2-4 years later I started seeing a few phalanx guys. A few years later I saw AS massing 3 stacks, then I decied it was time for another Pushiment session.

So far I've done this 3 times in 3 different campains. And all 3 times it bought me time, and give me $$.

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Originally Posted by NeoSpartan

Did you really exterminated most of the Sweboz cities and destroyed all thier buildings. Leaving only a couple Sweboz cities untouched so the faction wouldn't die??????:inquisitive:

Why do I ask that question well....
in .74 I played a really good/long KH campain. I was at war with AS, seeing that it would be imposible (due to unrest) to hold all thier cities and keep pushing I though about stopping the territorial expansion once I took Jerusalem. HOWEVER, after seeing the many settlement that AS had, and the speed at which they pupmed out troops I send in 2 full stacks and a 2/3 stacks deep into Iran and bordering Afganistan. I destroyed about 5 or more cities, before I said it was enough (I didn't want to border Pavhla and Backtria both allies of AS) and pulled back. For about 3 year AS could only send 1 full stack after me with Pandaroi (sp) and Persian Archers. Another 2-4 years later I started seeing a few phalanx guys. A few years later I saw AS massing 3 stacks, then I decied it was time for another Pushiment session.

So far I've done this 3 times in 3 different campains. And all 3 times it bought me time, and give me $$.

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Ah, but the difference here is the cities over there are very spaced out, especially the Seleukids. Sweboz cities are VERY close together... They pump out the soldiers, merge them all into an army and have it on my doorstep quicker than you can say SCREW YOU DIRTY GERMANS AND ALL THE BAD THINGS YOU WILL DO IN THE FUTURE!

EB does also have a script that repopulates AI cities after recruitment because they tend to overrecruit. You can probably reduce or remove this. It might damage the AI overall, but you wouldn't get so badly spammed.

and

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quicker than you can say SCREW YOU DIRTY GERMANS AND ALL THE BAD THINGS YOU WILL DO IN THE FUTURE!

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is probably not appropriate for the forum.

[QUOTE=Orb]EB does also have a script that repopulates AI cities after recruitment because they tend to overrecruit. ....QUOTE]

Ahhh now this might explain your why the Hordes keep comming.

But guys... I really have to ask you something.... IF the Sweboz and Aedui/Arverni just keep sending hordes after hordes, why don't you just get a couple of full stacks and 1/2 stack of reserves and conquer all the darn territory??? Why are u guys holding out when being faced with Full stack after full stack?????:dizzy2:

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It's annoying, I know. The same thing happens with the Seleukids if you play anyone that shares a border with them. We're working on the script right now unofficially. Feel free to test what's posted there and add your thoughts and critiques.

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Yes,it is deeply annoying.And I love this game...just too many battles it gets boring.
Thanks! :)

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Originally Posted by NeoSpartan

But guys... I really have to ask you something.... IF the Sweboz and Aedui/Arverni just keep sending hordes after hordes, why don't you just get a couple of full stacks and 1/2 stack of reserves and conquer all the darn territory??? Why are u guys holding out when being faced with Full stack after full stack?????:dizzy2:

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Because you can't conquer many cities with just couple of full stacks. You siege a city, and either wait for it to surrender or take on the garrison. Then you set up the temporary admin... and realize that the place is full of strange people speaking gibberish. And they are NOT happy about being your newly made subjects. You can see the next city a turn or two's march away, but to take it you'd need to remove your army from the newly conquered settlement. Which will make the locals kick out your governor and magically zap up a bunch of either nasty elites (if you didn't trash their MIC) or nasty triple-gold-chevroned levies (if you did trash their MIC). And what's much worse, the settlement didn't went to the Eleutheroi, it went back to the faction you just took it from :wall:

In other words, you'd need to build up a horde of garrison troops to actually KEEP the provinces you capture. Which is really too expensive to do, unless you're swimming in money for some reason. It takes a long time of constructing infrastructure in the captured settlements before you can keep peace with a reasonably small garrison. By that time, the AI faction will have spammed you with several more big armies.

This is, I think, simply related to the crazed, fanatic obsession that the AI can sometimes (usually) get when it comes to pointlessly, endlessly warring with the human player to the bitter end. I don't think it spams other AI nations with quite the same furious endless waves of attackers.

You can definitely conquer many cities with only a few armies. You just need to be efficient with their use. Running up and besieging a city with your main army is not efficient at all.

I've faced the 45 province Seleucid juggernaut who was only at war with me before, and frankly if you are attacking them with your full power it's not really that bad, about just what you'd expect from an empire that large. Probably 15 field armies in the beginning and making 3-5 every year to face was pretty reasonable until they lost half their empire, then they were stuck producing garbage. The problem is when you continuously sit on the defensive and have conquered some province of theirs that they want, you will not get rest period. Two full, strong armies a turn showing up in Asia minor was not fun for 20-30 years, as well as small groups running around.

While I agree that large empires get too out of hand in EB, a lot of the people complaining don't seem to be taking the right approaches and are just giving up. Realize immediately that until the money script is fixed you will not win if you just sit on the defensive (though frankly you can tweak the money script yourself mid campaign with good results). If you don't want to conquer their territory, you must either use the force diplomacy mod by Jarado and hope they get involved somewhere else (otherwise it's annoying, but you can just hole up in your homeland and force a ceasefire every other turn when they try to besiege your cities), or you must be offensive against them. The problem is that, afaik, you cannot give provinces to the rebels. Thus, if you raid Germania for example and exterminate their cities and leave them to rebel, there's a good chance they will rebel right back to Germania. The only way around that is to give those provinces to a nearby power to act as a buffer and get the Germans off your backs for awhile.

If you aren't content to do either of those things, then a quick offensive is a must. And so is auto win. Auto win any battle you know you will win if you assume command and isn't of vital importance, like taking a key city or such. Furthermore, you cannot just use the seemingly standard but poor approach of attack moving your army to their city with a huge garrison and either besieging it for the way too many turns sieges are in this game, or fighting against a big disadvantage (I'd heavily suggest using MAA's city mod as well. It's definitely been great on my two recent campaigns as it limits the unrealistic population/settlement size).

Divide your forces into your main armies with your best troops and smaller auxiliary forces with either mercs or basic levy troops. Your regular armies will completely ignore the cities and just seek out and attack every enemy army outside a city, so long as you don't have to fight on a heavy terrain disadvantage (like mountain or river). But even if you can't attack these armies yourself, just sit there deep in enemy territory and the a.i will attack, and it will drain its city reserves to attack these armies. That is when you send in your levy/merc armies to besiege the nearly empty cities, make a ram, and auto win it asap. If the populations are unrealistic and making it too hard to govern, don't hesitate to use add_population cityname -0-4000 however many times is needed. Bring your governors from the homeland provinces over and just keep it up. I assure you this works, and here is my example (liberal use of add_population here since it was .80 so no city mod and absurd population sizes):

https://img223.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rome2ae0.jpg

https://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rome9sw5.jpg

https://img512.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rome13rw2.jpg

You shouldn't be in Germania before 240 BC anyway...doesn't anyone Role Play?

If you grow slowly, build serious infrastructure, you can meet the Germans with legionaries or at least Polybians. Trying to conquer Germania with anything less will probably be a nightmare.

On another note- isn't it weird how crowded Germania is when Greece and the Middle / Near East seem to go neglected?

I like to keep my armies (or rather, army :yes: ) relatively small, so i tried to prevent those AI mega-stacks by disabling the money script (yes, before i started the campaign).
However, it did nothing: i had nearly destroyed the Aedui, leaving them with one town and 6 units in it, thinking they won't be a threat. Then, 3-or-so years later, i happen to check their town, and behold: they had a full stack in the town, plus another standing next to it :no:
I checked the ''faction comparison'' page, and they'd been in debt since turn 2.

Anyone know how the hell that happened? :dizzy2:

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Because you can't conquer many cities with just couple of full stacks. You siege a city, and either wait for it to surrender or take on the garrison. Then you set up the temporary admin... and realize that the place is full of strange people speaking gibberish. And they are NOT happy about being your newly made subjects.

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That's okay. Just exterminate, raze all their MIC buildings (possibly others as well) and move on to the next. They won't be able to build any elite guys for quite a while there, and you can keep up the pace. Once you've taken a tour de Sweboz and knocked them back to the stone age, you can elect to use your armies to set up more permanently in some of the settlements with little interference.

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Originally Posted by Imperator

You shouldn't be in Germania before 240 BC anyway...doesn't anyone Role Play?

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Why is that? Because you are playing as it happened in history or are you actually role playing in the mindset of a Roman?

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Originally Posted by Conqueror

Because you can't conquer many cities with just couple of full stacks. You siege a city, and either wait for it to surrender or take on the garrison. Then you set up the temporary admin... and realize that the place is full of strange people speaking gibberish. And they are NOT happy about being your newly made subjects. You can see the next city a turn or two's march away, but to take it you'd need to remove your army from the newly conquered settlement. Which will make the locals kick out your governor and magically zap up a bunch of either nasty elites (if you didn't trash their MIC) or nasty triple-gold-chevroned levies (if you did trash their MIC). And what's much worse, the settlement didn't went to the Eleutheroi, it went back to the faction you just took it from :wall:

In other words, you'd need to build up a horde of garrison troops to actually KEEP the provinces you capture. Which is really too expensive to do, unless you're swimming in money for some reason. It takes a long time of constructing infrastructure in the captured settlements before you can keep peace with a reasonably small garrison. By that time, the AI faction will have spammed you with several more big armies.

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What I like to do is accompany my main army with another army of peasants/skirmishers/levy archers for the sole purpose of garrisoning the city.

regarding facing the same problem vs the seleukids - playing as the baktrians i did intitially fight all my battles but as my empire expanded i started to use auto_win attacker for some battles that I knew I was going to win + were not going to be much of a challenge.
I actually particularly do this with rebels, half stacks of persian archer-spearmen dont mae for regularly esciting battles.
as long as you are fairly strict with yourself about when to use it, i would consider this a time saving device rather than game-spoiling cheating.

For sure it saves time, but when you are doing in 3-4 times a turn, that is too much. Also, you still lose some men using auto_win, and after a few turns your army is trashed and needs to be retrained. I always find that my missile units in particular are wiped out when if I had been commanding, I wouldn't have lost a single man.

Better to figure out a way to avoid having all these stacks come at you.

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Originally Posted by Imperator

You shouldn't be in Germania before 240 BC anyway...doesn't anyone Role Play?

If you grow slowly, build serious infrastructure, you can meet the Germans with legionaries or at least Polybians. Trying to conquer Germania with anything less will probably be a nightmare.

On another note- isn't it weird how crowded Germania is when Greece and the Middle / Near East seem to go neglected?

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Originally Posted by abou

Why is that? Because you are playing as it happened in history or are you actually role playing in the mindset of a Roman?

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I do RolePlay as well as i try to play as historical as possible (depending on the foreign policies of the other factions).
Problem with Germany/Sweboz is as follows:

1. if you play on M/M-setting the Sweboz don´t have enough money to build troops besides their starting stacks...=> they don´t attack neighbouring provinces => they don´t expand => Gauls expands to BlackSea/Greece

as long as there is room to expand any AI faction will expand!


2. if you play on VH/M (as suggested by EB), the Sweboz get additional money and so they keep expanding to the east and south.
=> they come to you!

in my current campaign they are at peace with the Gauls but rolled over the Getai and pushed back the Sarmatians. Thank god, the KH controlled now most of the regions around black sea so they are able to hold the Sweboz off their lands.
=> my current war as Romani with the Sweboz began 220BC and is now (180BC) not at an end. for 30 years fighting was mainly around patavium, but now i was able to capture Segistica and Dalmion from them. this gives me more room to operate. :sweatdrop:
the losses so far (i play on huge setting, 60% autoresolve battles):
Sweboz ca. 100.000 people, mostly from killed troops
Romani ca. 50.000 people, thereof 10.000 killed in patavium, 40.000 killed in battle

during the whole time i fight carthage in africa and spain (from 218BC), and was at war with the Gauls but only little border raids occured. :juggle2:

as long as they have free soldiers/people the AI will train them and send them to you!


but let me say one thing:
i will always choose option 2 because i like a challenge. for sure its annoying to always fight multiple full stacks but the other way would be too easy.

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Originally Posted by bovi

That's okay. Just exterminate, raze all their MIC buildings (possibly others as well) and move on to the next. They won't be able to build any elite guys for quite a while there, and you can keep up the pace. Once you've taken a tour de Sweboz and knocked them back to the stone age, you can elect to use your armies to set up more permanently in some of the settlements with little interference.

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Exactly... Also like Intranetusa bringin in a back up army of levies to do garrison duty is also a good idea if you want to hold on to some of the cities.

I would like to point out something.

When u siege a city the AI will imidiatly send reinforcements in an effort to break the siege. It is in that battle that you BETTER kill every unit, especially KILL ALL the garrison units that show up for the battle. Once that is done, you took one city in 1 TURN!. Finaly you destroy all the buildings, exterminate the population and MOVE to another city IMMIDIATLY.

So if a city Rebels, SO WHAT???? It will only rebel with 1/4 stack of units, plus it will need 3 turns before it can build an MIC level 1 and pump out levies. ALSO, with the extra boost in cash you can train new troops back home AND/OR hire local mercenaries and continue the a** kicking. Additionally, on your way back home you can retake those cities that rebelled and exterminate the population again. :smash:

If your RolePlaying thats good. But sometimes the AI doesn't want to roleplay and you may need adjusts things a lil' bit. Letting the AI send stack after your cities, and you just sit there on the defensive is NOT going to deter the AI. And complaining that the AI gets too much $$ ain't gonna help either. :no:

I dont recommend you autocalc battles when ur playing VH/M, or H/H or H/M because you will loose a LOT more soldiers than nessesary. If ur smart, you can take on an enemy full stack and only loose a few soldiers. Letting you fight another 2 full stacks before u need reinforcements or buy mercenaries.

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Originally Posted by NeoSpartan

I dont recommend you autocalc battles when ur playing VH/M, or H/H or H/M because you will loose a LOT more soldiers than nessesary. If ur smart, you can take on an enemy full stack and only loose a few soldiers. Letting you fight another 2 full stacks before u need reinforcements or buy mercenaries.

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yeah thats clear
but it´s somewhat annoying to have a battle every turn on the same place with mostly the same units.
and it takes some time.

and AutoCalc has one other effect for me:
if i command battles, my generals have "very confident troops" etc. traits
but they rarely get a command star.
if i autocalc battles they get a star more often PLUS my troops get experience more quickly (because they also lose some men)

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Originally Posted by AngryAngelDD

yeah thats clear
but it´s somewhat annoying to have a battle every turn on the same place with mostly the same units.
and it takes some time.

and AutoCalc has one other effect for me:
if i command battles, my generals have "very confident troops" etc. traits
but they rarely get a command star.
if i autocalc battles they get a star more often PLUS my troops get experience more quickly (because they also lose some men)

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Umm, command stars are really not as good as morale traits. The morale traits give the morale bonus to all your troops on the field, while the command stars only give the morale bonus to those near the general. Forget about command stars and look after your morale traits. We also prefer morale traits because we can make them dependent on situations such as fighting deep in enemy territory, which is the only way we can represent logistics.

Foot

I believe I saw on a CA developer diary once that command stars give a small bonus to attack rating to nearby troops in addition to morale boost. Which is all the more reason to restrict their numbers.

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Originally Posted by bovi

I believe I saw on a CA developer diary once that command stars give a small bonus to attack rating to nearby troops in addition to morale boost. Which is all the more reason to restrict their numbers.

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I think testing has proven that wrong, but I might be mistaken. I get confused about all the bonuses. :dizzy2:

Foot

ok
good to know :2thumbsup:
personally i don´t care about command stars to much (if i command my armies by myself)

BUT they help my army when i choose auto-calc.

I did change the amount of money every faction and the rebels get each turn and the amount they get to help them in the early turns. It gives me a very good result on playing the game, no more as many stacks every turn.They still attack me but in a much less amount. It still needs fine tweaking of other triggers involved ( if not hard coded) i think because the AI makes to much use off money for armies and does not get the city's on a growing level that is necessary. I am not so good in these things, so except from some experiments i think the best option for me is to wait until the Europa Barbarorum team as done with most off the game and as the opportunity to do the tweaking. I know they have been and are the team who can get this on a higher level of historical evidence.