Do you play with battle timer on ?

Hi guys,

That's a history of how a bug can destroy a enjoyable campaign.

Introduction,

I am playing as Byz, 60 turns remaining to the end of the game, about 30 provinces under my control (I love slow games where the AI have time to improve their troops). It's a challenging situation mainly because Timurids are knocking my doors.

At the west, all Italy peninsula is under my control, I have three major armies there. One at south of France taking new provinces for me slowly, mainly because religious penalty. Another is at Sicily destroying the remaining cities of this faction, the third one after conquer Rome is moving to north to support the advance of the first. It's a happy situation and I have good provabilities to reach the 45 magic number.

At east the situation is very different, after a long fight against the Mongols, they were finally destroyed. I did a final effort to destroy their last army and to take Acre from the Venetian Holy land empire, My men were exhausted and needed a some turns to rest and reinforce. In this situation the Timurids arrived.

Jerusalem, Damascus, Acre and Antioch fallen fast. But it wasn't a useless effort, I used this turns to recruit 2 fresh elite armies and a good garrison for Aleppo.

There is a moment in the live of a King that he must draw a line and say "They aren't going to cross it". I drew this line at north of Antioch, moved one of my new armies on the bridge there. Their flank was protected by the fortress of Aleppo. It's the time to STOP the bastards Timurids. And then I hit the next turn button.

What happened ?

They assaulted Aleppo (it was under siege), the garrison were about 14 troops, 8 guard archers and 6 dismounted byz lancers. Not impressive but it MUST be enough. The AI stack were a few Halberd militia, a good number of Mongol Heavy archers, 4 units of Elephants and perhaps something else.

The first AI movement was send a ram, the crew were received heavy archer fire and they moved out of range soon.

The second movement was an assault with ladders and a siege tower supported by the fire of their HA, my infantry moved to the walls and refused the assault. Their infantry routed !!! Hurray !!!! we are going to win !!!! but the battle didn't end.

Their HA kept firing arrows, uh ? horses can walk on ladders so He cannot win ... I moved the speed to x6 and waited. My towers and archers killed ALL their horses but the battle still didn't end.

Out of the fortress there were only the elephants ... wait !!! there was also the first ram with their crew still there, they were doing nothing just waiting ... I was waiting, waiting, waiting for some minutes ... and nothing happened. :no:

It's supposed that their need to control my plaza to win, I don't need to kill all their army just keep the plaza under my control. If they don't retread when it's clear that aren't going to win what can I do ? If I push go out off the battle I'm gonna lost despite I have won !!!

I tried to destroy the ram crew but with those elephants there was impossible ... finally quit the battle and lose, the flank of my elite army was opened and the AI moved another stack to surround them. All my strategy was gone because a DAM bug. :wall:

Final words

Previous of this battle I was fully enjoying the game, then frustrated I quit it and stooped playing. Later when I was more relaxed I checked the last save and luckily is just the turn before, so I am gonna repeat the battle but with the battle timer on. Probably if my last save were to old I would left the game unfinished, really sad because a great experience was frustrated by a stupid bug.

Please fix it !!!!!

P.S. pardon the long post

Precisely because of what your experience I always play with the timer on. I was defending Constantinople (playing as the Turks, sorry) against four stacks. Three of them were normal armies and one was a lonely general (either the king of Hungary or the German Emperor I don't remember). The enemy managed to breach the gate with the second ram (out of four). I defended a breached gate against the three stacks and after that my units were depleted and exhausted. The general was all that was left. Since the gate was breached all he should do was march and attack my exhausted men. He stood still and apparently was stuck by a rock. Although he shouted orders to advance his unit didn't move. My archers had now arrows left and I couldn't reach him with my spears. Since I couldn't kill him the battle couldn''t end. This battle had lasted four two hours and now I couldn't end it. :wall:
It was very late in the evening so I quit end reloaded a save game and did auto_win defender. :sweatdrop: Since that battle I always leave the timer on. :whip:

Its obvously a bug...my son and I have both had it happen to us in our games. The AI should either attack or withdraw, regardless of whether the battle timer is in use. In your case if the AI still had a ram it should have attacked, and if the ram was destroyed it should have tried to use the ladders, but once the AI is out of valid assault options it should simply withdraw from the field.

I was Defending Jerusalem with the Timer off as Egypt during the crusades. I decided that i should bring the fight to them. What i didn't know was that they didn't bring any siege equipment. So my choice was to run out and die or Quit without giving them losses. Being as lazy as i am i just put the game on 6.0x Speed and went to watch TV. I came back and they were still there. My Army was a little more then 10 archer militia and a couple Saracen spears. i was at a standoff with 4 crusading armies. As you can tell they wiped me out. Since then i battle with the timer on no matter what. After that the crusaders went on to attack my other towns and forts since only one could occupy Jerusalem.

Always put the battle Timer on. You can turn it off in game i believe(not sure pulling an all-nighter) for when you are sieging a settlement and etc.

Battle Timer: ~:thumb:

@Savage Smurf
If I am reading your post correctly, then you made a big mistake.

If by 'I decided that I should bring the fight to them' you mean that you decided to launch a sally attack on their beseiging army, then you could not have lost that battle.

Had you chosen instead the Quit and Exit the battle it would have been declared a Draw and you would have kept your city. The only way to lose a sally battle is to allow all your troops to rout.

The passive assault bug only really has an impact if the battle is started by the AI.

I always play battle timer on. If there's an actual battle, it's 99.9999% of the time finished long before the timer expires, one way or another. And it's handy to have it on when the AI attacks you in a siege but then decides that they like the spot where they're sitting, thank you very much.

was wondering... can you modify the battle timer to lengthen it a little? That way if the AI gets stuck the battle eventually ends. I like the timer but id lengthen it a tad.

I normally dont play with time limits, but I have been bitten by the AI seige bug once (and only once thankfully). I have had several epic field battles that I personally took my time on, and was thankful to not have run out of time.

but as didz points out the passive assault bug is AI induced battles only and not every time either as I have had a few seiges with 1.2 LTC where the AI assaulted and was driven back.

However it was always when they had superior numbers.

I suspect that this is one of those rare occassions where a 'Do something' trigger is necessary to override the AI but hasn't actually been provided.

The AI seems to recognise that whilst it has no means to win the battle by attacking, it also has no reason to withdraw as it is actually more powerful than its opponent. Hence, it sits and waits in the hope that the situation will change and allow it to win.

What is needed is a 'Do something' trigger that identifies the situation and overides the AI insisting that it either makes a pointless attack or withdraws.

The only other fix I have had limited success with is to provide the AI with a fresh tactical situation so that it is persuaded to initiate an action itself. Its obviously risky but sometimes its possible to persuade the AI to attack by faking a rout within reaction range of its units, or to trigger the 'Attack missile troops' trigger and then kite the enemy into tower range.

Sometimes just outflanking or moving behind the AI line will be enough to trigger an AI re-assessment of the situation and prompt a withdrawal. I've certainly seen my son do that with his Hungarian Noble Cavalry.

Nevertheless, it is a bug and needs to be fixed.

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Originally Posted by Didz

I suspect that this is one of those rare occassions where a 'Do something' trigger is necessary to override the AI but hasn't actually been provided.

The AI seems to recognise that whilst it has no means to win the battle by attacking, it also has no reason to withdraw as it is actually more powerful than its opponent. Hence, it sits and waits in the hope that the situation will change and allow it to win.

What is needed is a 'Do something' trigger that identifies the situation and overides the AI insisting that it either makes a pointless attack or withdraws.

The only other fix I have had limited success with is to provide the AI with a fresh tactical situation so that it is persuaded to initiate an action itself. Its obviously risky but sometimes its possible to persuade the AI to attack by faking a rout within reaction range of its units, or to trigger the 'Attack missile troops' trigger and then kite the enemy into tower range.

Sometimes just outflanking or moving behind the AI line will be enough to trigger an AI re-assessment of the situation and prompt a withdrawal. I've certainly seen my son do that with his Hungarian Noble Cavalry.

Nevertheless, it is a bug and needs to be fixed.

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Well in practice the trigger does exsist, you have to sally. It might be sloppy from a game play perspective but is it completely unrealistic in some cases?

Sure the general getting stuck on a rock and cant move his unit sucks, but when an army determines that it cant take the castle and waits you out in the battle screen, cant that be considered a viable tactic?

The Ai's chances of winning improve when you sally, at that point, its one thing if the siege is initiated and the AI sits and does nothing. But if the AI attacks gets beaten back and reorganizes and settles on a hill, well that might be a case where it is using the engine to its advantage as opposed to the many ways a human can.

Im not convinced this is viable or fair, but Im trying to be objective.

Battle timer ON for me.
The timer is much more generous than RTW where I alwas had it set to off in case I was attacking a city.
M2TW timer gives you plenty of time to resolve a battle, but safeguards you against those nasty little instances where you feel like you are about to be conned.

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Originally Posted by Odin

Well in practice the trigger does exsist, you have to sally. It might be sloppy from a game play perspective but is it completely unrealistic in some cases?

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The trigger clearly doesn't exist otherwise the AI would not be allowed to just sit there and do nothing.

As you say the only way to end the battle is to push EXIT or sally neither of which is an acceptable solution. What is needed is another 'Do Something' trigger like the one that forces the AI to make futile attacks on missile troops, but which in this instance forces it either to make a futile attack on the city walls or withdraw.

I mostly leave the timer ON... Now and then i will play campaigns with the timer OFF - not anymore.
In a siege initiated by the AI, i managed to beat back the main force. Some of units ran off the battle field and the rest were captured/killed. There was a long reinforcement general waiting there doing nothing... i sallied and killed him but the battle wouldnt end... i waited and searched for lost routing units... found none.. in the minimap i could see on red arrow outside the battlefield... i put all my units in a single line and swept thru the battlefield hoping they would somehow catch the invisible routers... to no avail.. i started scanning the battlefield inch by inch and after a lot of pain found 2 enemy spearmen under a ladder banging against the walls... none of my units could attack them/get close to them!!! Then i destroyed a ladder and to my relief they started running away from the walls and were promptly captured. It took me well over an hour and since then it is battle time always ON!!!

I normally play with the timer off, but i've never had the misfortune of have it happen to me. How long do you get with the timer on? If its long enough, i'll definitely start playing with the timer on.

It "might" have started to happen once when i was under siege as england, the AI sat around and did nothing for about 5 minutes, they had 2 units of trebuchets, 1 Town Militia, 3 units of mailed knights, a General (portugal), and a spy had opened my gates. They built no siege gear.

I had 5 units of Militia Spearmen and 2 of Archer Militia, no general (This was the first battle I noticed I could not deploy them pre-battle without a general...its in another thread I just posted).

As soon as the game started i moved all but one unit to the gate under threat and rushed one of spears over to a side gate i thought they might try to use as well. after I was set up, they still hadn't moved and the artillery was quiet. So the armies sat there for a few more minutes staring at each other. so I moved my archers out of the gate to bring them under fire, and as soon as i started to move them out the knights attacked, the Trebuchets stayed quiet though. One unit of knights move to the side door that I guessed they would use, while the other 2 and the general attacked my Schiltrom'd spears I packed into the gate opening. these 3 cav units were decimated by my spears, the general was killed and the routed off the field.

The other cav destroyed my 1 units of spears, which i thought would happen, but in turn got destroyed by 2 spears i rushed back to the square which did the dirty work, helped by the archers i moved back as well.

After this, all the cav was gone, i had 4 3/4 strength spear units left and two full archer militias. The trebuchets stayed where they were and the town militia did not move. I had to send out my two units of spears that were defending the main gate to finish off the town militia and the trebuchets before I could win.

Hi again,

I have played the Aleppo siege again, this time with the timer on. I am surprised because it takes a long time before ending, great to know. I had it turned off because I tough that it gonna be short like in RTW.

BTW the battle was exactly the same than the previous one, but with one difference I have been able to kill all the elephants with the towers arrows, the AI moved a elephant unit near the walls and start shooting, when all of them were dead moved another one ..., when all of them were dead the ram which has gone back early in the battle has attacked again.

Today I have played some other sieges against Timurids and it seems that it has programed soften the defenders with HA (including elephants) before launching an assault with infantry perhaps they aren't strong enough ?. I don't remember that Mongols did it, not sure anyway.

So probably if I were patient enough I would won the previous battle.

Conclusion the AI weren't inactive just was using (IMHO) a very very stupid tactic which did me though that it was doing nothing, also I though that the AI weren't going to try another assault after the defeat of almost all their infantry with this poor ram crew.

If someone want to check it I can send him the savegame.

Regards.

Game cant handle sieges, time limit on is pretty much a must if you want to avoid situations like "I die if open the gates, battle goes on forever if I do not".

I NEVER ran out of time in a battle unless AI bugged, so having timer on doesnt hurt a bit.

Our playstyles must be very different though, I seem to find passive AI in sieges in about 20% of the fights...









PS: in the rest of the cases, 80%, the AI just, well, sucks....

I can even showe you a graphical animated image of the AI's preferred tactic: :wall:

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Originally Posted by Didz

The trigger clearly doesn't exist otherwise the AI would not be allowed to just sit there and do nothing.

As you say the only way to end the battle is to push EXIT or sally neither of which is an acceptable solution. What is needed is another 'Do Something' trigger like the one that forces the AI to make futile attacks on missile troops, but which in this instance forces it either to make a futile attack on the city walls or withdraw.

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Im thinking this out here, and I am not suggesting its perfect, but if an army seiges a castle, looses a great deal of men isnt then it withdraws. The AI withdraws and waits for you to remove it via sally.

Now you claim sally isnt acceptable, i disagree as its completely realistic in a military sense, if your under seige eventually your capitulate or you sally.

Now the do something trigger, yes i think that should be in there. In MTW if I recall you could "mop up" the battle and the AI would auto calc it at that point based on the avialable forces left. I think thats reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Odin

Im thinking this out here, and I am not suggesting its perfect, but if an army seiges a castle, looses a great deal of men isnt then it withdraws. The AI withdraws and waits for you to remove it via sally.

Now you claim sally isnt acceptable, i disagree as its completely realistic in a military sense, if your under siege eventually your capitulate or you sally.

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I don't agree, a siege is played in both modes, strategic map and tactical battle, the sally or dead stuff is played on the campaign one. If you don't do it in N turns you lost.

If the AI decide to attack then you go to the tactical map and you play a walls assault. The goal of the assault is control the plaza, if the AI isn't able to do it it lost the tactical part.

Perhaps it should be right that the remaining forces of the attacker still keep the castle under siege when you go back to the strategic map, I am not sure which currently happen because usually all the attackers are killed so doesn't remain any men to keep the siege.

But which it's unacceptable is moving this stuff to the tactical map, because if neither the AI or the Human do anything you enter in a buckle without end.

"Now you claim sally isnt acceptable, i disagree as its completely realistic in a military sense, if your under seige eventually your capitulate or you sally."

True but if relief force is 2 turns away and walls are good for 4 turns why come out now? I play with timer off but may change next time I start a game. I had a spear unit sit in my city and not move. My 1 and 3 man units would panic and run back to the square if I approached it. Now if all my friends were dead and the boss wants me to charge 35 spearmen by myself :whip: I think I would run too. SadCat

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Originally Posted by a_ver_est

But which it's unacceptable is moving this stuff to the tactical map, because if neither the AI or the Human do anything you enter in a buckle without end.

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yes thats true, and its shoddy, and I am fine with it resuming on the main map and the seige holding, perhaps thats what I am attempting to articulate here, thank you.

The AI cant win, but still believes it can defeat your garrison, so it withdraws and holds the seige. It should be brought back to the strategic map, and your castle should still he under seige, with the appropriate penalties to you.

My overall point was, as the faction under siege, you should have to break it. The AI shouldnt just run away if it still has the ability to defeat your army, a seige situation should still be in effect.

My disconnect was that it should be on the strategic map, not the tactical one.

Odin that sounds like a great idea. SadCat :book:

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Originally Posted by SadCat

Odin that sounds like a great idea. SadCat :book:

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thanks man.


As I think of this though, I certainly cant be the 1st to have had this idea. I mean this seems rather like common sense to me. A seige should be a serious event, and as the faction being seiged you should have to break it, not just wait out the enemy army (conversely, they should have attrition penalties as well dependent on distance from allied cities, supplies).

I mean, is this moddable? Can we make it so the AI is able to deduce that reenforcements and maintence of the seige is still viable?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Odin

Im thinking this out here, and I am not suggesting its perfect, but if an army seiges a castle, looses a great deal of men isnt then it withdraws. The AI withdraws and waits for you to remove it via sally.

Now you claim sally isnt acceptable, i disagree as its completely realistic in a military sense, if your under seige eventually your capitulate or you sally.

Now the do something trigger, yes i think that should be in there. In MTW if I recall you could "mop up" the battle and the AI would auto calc it at that point based on the avialable forces left. I think thats reasonable.

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Its not acceptable because just as the attacker has the option to suspend the assault and return to its seige lines the defender ought to have the option to let them.

The bug, is that but refusing to either attack or withdraw the AI forces the player into a situation where they have to cede the battle and lose the town. I'm sure you can't claim that that is realistic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by a_ver_est

Perhaps it should be right that the remaining forces of the attacker still keep the castle under siege when you go back to the strategic map, I am not sure which currently happen because usually all the attackers are killed so doesn't remain any men to keep the siege.

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That would be a reasonable solution. If the AI just quit the battle but maintained the city under seige then it has the option to build more seige engines and hire a few mercenaries and have another go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Odin

My overall point was, as the faction under siege, you should have to break it. The AI shouldnt just run away if it still has the ability to defeat your army, a seige situation should still be in effect.

My disconnect was that it should be on the strategic map, not the tactical one.

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Agreed, but thats not the situation at the moment which is why in my opinion its a bug.

I also agree with your comment about attrition, in fact in my opinion any army operating on foriegn soil, whether beseiging or not ought to suffer some attrition every turn.

The timer is vital.

Lets say you're defending and have picked a really good position. There are 2 AI armies facing you. The first attacks and you destroy it. On my game, if the first army is routed before reinforcements arrive within range of the fighting, they just hang around in the same spot. Now I could then go and attack them, rout them and win the battle that way. But Attacking is more risky than defence and I could lose. So with the timer on you can just wait in your defensive position until the timer runs out. Without the timer you have to go and attack them, meaning that the AI could effectively sit in banging defensive positions for every single battle.

Also, the timer gives you more than enough time to fight the battle. As I said before, the only time it ever runs out is if there is a bug and the AI aren't attacking.

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Originally Posted by gingergenius

The timer is vital.

Lets say you're defending and have picked a really good position. There are 2 AI armies facing you. The first attacks and you destroy it. On my game, if the first army is routed before reinforcements arrive within range of the fighting, they just hang around in the same spot. Now I could then go and attack them, rout them and win the battle that way. But Attacking is more risky than defence and I could lose. So with the timer on you can just wait in your defensive position until the timer runs out. Without the timer you have to go and attack them, meaning that the AI could effectively sit in banging defensive positions for every single battle.

Also, the timer gives you more than enough time to fight the battle. As I said before, the only time it ever runs out is if there is a bug and the AI aren't attacking.

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The fact that the second army isn't attacking is possibly a bug (see bug list)

the ai tactic graphical represntation got me::wall:

someone on another post iread earlier was talking about the ai and.. chess...

and another thread was saying that if they had warhammer mod orks would be hard to control in battle - but what fun would it be for players?

now im struck that anytime the ai attacks me i will know it should only be allowed to run orks; sigh.:oops:

hey its appropriate for its uh style of play

Well, I turned on my timer and during the course of my game decided to seige a French Citadel that was annoying me :laugh4:

My Trebuches smashed the outer walls, the enemy retreated inside the central keep without a single blade meeting, so i rolled my army + trebs inside the walls and smashed down the inner walls. After a quick fight to gain control of the breach, the French retreated inside the square. Now I decided to let my Yeoman Archers do what they are paid for, so I lined em up and let em loose their arrows at the bunched French spears inside the square. My Engish armies normally contain around 6 units of longbows, to do real damage in this situation.

This was working great and i was quite happy to let the archers do the dirty work.... until I looked at the timer. Hello, time nearly up. So I had to send in the infantry instead to mop up. Highly dissastisfied:wall:

so, regarding the bugs, Timer is a good idea, but its still not long enough for the real good battles I reckon. It would be nice if there was a way to turn off the timer during a battle. I might resort to turning off the timer before a seige that i'm attacking in, then turning it back on when I think i may get attacked, in case I get bit by the AI-sits-on-its-bum Bug.

@Papanasty
Thats why I never play with the battleltimer on. In my opinion, its an unrealistic restriction of gameplay that forces the use of rush tactic's and ruins the enjoyment of the game.

I would rather they just fixed the bugs.

I always play with the battletimer off. I hate having to do things within a specific time, or else I'll loose. However this is annoying when the enemy simply stands still, so I have to sally out and win like this:
https://img166.imageshack.us/img166/...rysiegeta8.jpg

Hah, just had to show that. Fought it today :) One of my best victories ever (have won harder, but still fun)

I had about the same number of kills, with only 50 men lost...

Not because of tactical genious from my side, the AI decided charging up a narrow and steep mountainpath straight for my knights templar was a good idea...

quite... Well as you can see, I didn't have knights templar, only 3 units of spear militia, the general and 1 longbowmen troop :sweatdrop:

However, back to the original point: found a screeny of the same thing; AI standing compleatly still with me no chance of beating them:
https://img407.imageshack.us/img407/...ngstillxw1.jpg

(This is from the same save, btw)

I always play with battle timer on: if the foe is idle you simply accelerate the speed and await the end. In fact, I had a battle just now where the AI stood idly by in its settlement while I stood outside his inner walls (but already inside the settlement in general).

In all the past total war games I always played with the timer on, but for some reason the first time I played MTW2, I chose not to use the timer and now I never use it.

I have since found several valid (valid to me anyway)reasons to continue to not use it.

1. There was no timer for battles in real life unless you count the approach of darkness. The game is unhistorical enough without adding a timer unless you also consider adding referees, cheerleaders, and a penalty box

2. I like to roam around the settlement battlefields gawking at the beautiful scenery and taking artsy-fartsy screen shots before I assault or sally.

3. I know the constraints I am facing when I conduct an assault, or I sally, and the dangers therein by playing without the timer. I know that when sallying, I have to satisfy the the win conditions to defeat whatever is outside the walls or take a loss.

I try to plan for this, and for me that is just an added challenge in a game that too many people already complain isn't challenging enough.

Cheers

P.S. My key ingredient to winning assaults and sallies

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

a high proportion of ballistae and mortars(if available)

Anothe situation that leads to the 'do nothing' AI bug is river crossing battle:

I noticed this on my turk campaign, facing the Tims in the two river crossings north of edessa: If the AI has got artillery, then it will try to use it first, and send its troops only after 'something' happens. That something is either:

1. The art runs outta ammo
2. The art is destroyed
3. I launcha a full - scale attack

If i didnt have art on my side, none of the three things happened, and the AI would just stand there without doing anything... just like me, except that they were the attackers, meaning they had to... well... 'do something'

I found that by withdrawing from the crossing points I could persuade the AI to launch its troops across the bridge, then close in on them before they changed their minds. However, this is really another scenario where the AI ought to suspend the battle and let the game proceed to the next turn.