Passive AI?

[El Diablo]

Now I have read all the ranting and raving from the M2TW boys about vanilla M2 having a passive AI bug where sallying would cause the Ai to stand still until they were sho to pieces and destroyed.

I had a slightly similar one to this last night wher I was attacking a small (and pathetic) Julii force with a powerful Macedonian stack.

They had a general and about 7 units of town watch I believe and I had 7 phalanx and 6 archer units (some cretan) and some light lancer (4) and a general.

I set up with the phalanx pointy spears foward the archers being and lancers on the flanks (nothing special there) - march up to say "hello" to the dirty back stabbing romans and when in missle range stopped to see what they would do. Well they did nothing. Nothing.

Now I do not expect them to charge the pikes but they did not even go to loose formation or even run side to side like they often do.

They also hung around till they were all dead. No down to five men and rout, just hang around and watch your mates get pin cushioned and await your turn.

Final killed all the Town gurd and then started shooting the general and he fianlly moved - straight onto the spears.

My only casualties was from the generals charge (nope he did not get through) I did not take the archers off fire at will and they slipped a couple of arrows into the backs of the pikemen - oops.

Has anyone else had this? Or similar lack of fighting and just waiting to die?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Not quite like that, although sometimes the AI, if they choose to sally, sit inside the city waiting for the timer to run down.

This is extremely frustrating - since siege weapons don't appear for sallies, it's very difficult to launch an attack yourself. You either have to quit the battle or wait for a draw to be decided by the timer.

If there is no time then your a little stuck - you either quit and end up defeated, or you stay sitting there hoping they will eventually move and do something.

[Brave]

Do they only stay inside with massive ods against? They always suicidely charge me one unit at a time.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Do they only stay inside with massive ods against? They always suicidely charge me one unit at a time.

Sadly most of the time when they have chosen to sit there the odds have actually either been equal or in their favour. It does seem fairly random though, although it is less frequent, it also does happen in cases when the odds have been pointing towards their potential doom.

As you've said, the AI's sally tactics, even when they do choose attack, are very basic. This makes victory almost impossible for them. It's a shame really - it makes the battles often feel quite unchallenging.

[El Diablo]

I must confess Omanes Alexandrapolites that this is THE ONE reason that I play with the battle timer ON.

I used to think that it was better "off" so that I could micromanage troop formations and ensure that troops were "fresh" by waiting awhile after I had run them across the battlefield.

But that simple "bug"(?) stopped me from exploiting the inane AI.

Bug? Perhaps a feature to keep the human player honest... makes me think that the CA designers are far smarter than many give them credit....

[Quirinus]

Very true. There really is no other reason to turn the battle timer on. Now when a computer sallies and refuses to come out, I just move my troops to the corner of the map, turn on triple-speed and start reading a book or something.