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.

[El Diablo]

Okay it happened again TWICE last night.

Once when I starved out the remains of the senate garrison in Rome (love taking the eternal city - always exterminate as well - teach those nasty digital-Romans a lesson).

Lined up my line of spears with seven units of archers (3 cretan) and watched as they got into range, stood still till there were shot topieces then ran. They did do someof those fake charges on the flanks with there horses, but never ACTUALLY charged my flanks. I had it covered with some cav of my own but still no agression from the romans.

I lost 12 men - being 10 from friendly fire (I love that term) and two when I finally took to their cav to finish the battle, they lost 600.

The other time was a field battle - (no sally) and they once again just stood still and got turned into some very nice looking red pin-cushions.

I am thinking I may have put in my Rome : Total Pacifism CD by mistake.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

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.

The problem with having the timer on is the defeat which happens if it counts down to bottom and you are the attacker.

The issue is only really noticeable if the AI decides to use the "run around the field till the timer runs down" tactic. In this case the player has to use tactics which can take ages to implement (on a trial and error basis), resulting in the timer closing down on the virtually victorious attacker.



As I've said before, this is a really dirty/frustrating tactic on the AI's part.

The player has to balance this problem against the passive AI bug(s) with the sieges. I always go for timer off since the seige problem is slightly rarer than the "run around the field till the time runs down" tactic. Different playing styles may yield different occurrences of each "bug" though.

****

Okay it happened again TWICE last night.

I've had passive AI occur once or twice in a two year playing period, but not quite on the scale you're experiencing. It sounds exceedingly annoying at any rate.

Might I ask if you have any modifications which modify your default formations? As well as sometimes adding minor enhancements to the AI, sometimes they can do weird and wonderful things. I remember some early versions of the EB formations causing units to wander away from the main line and get lost, while making other units turn to their sides when they approached the player's forces.

[El Diablo]

The only modifications I have are the lowering of pirate and brigand spawn rates.

I had installed the LOTR mod on my last computer but I have not installed any mods on my new (faster ) one.

It is not annoying really, as the armies I am up against are really of a poor poor quality and would not stand a chance anyway. It has been in the "last days" of the Romanic Empire and the troop quality is poor.

This is in part due to the attrition of the war. I landed at Tarentum and have moved North taking all in my path (barring Rome which I left sieged). So by the time I took the two starting Julii towns they had no ability to make high quality troops.

One I faced had a general and about seven units of town watch. Another had two half strength units of Equites and three half strength units of Hastai. The rest was peasents and other rabble.

Neither had much chance against 7 full units of gold weapon archers (go the temple of Artimus) and 4 units of light lancers a seven star general and the remainder triple bronze cheveron phalanx units.

.....at least they had a quick virtual death. They did not suffer. R.I.P.

[Motep]

I sallied forth against the bruitii with 4 phalanx and 2 archer units. they had two generals, 1 cavalry, and 2 hastati. They just stood there. I fired at them untill all of them were dead, they did not run, they did not charge. The only time they moved was when a unit was completely decimated, and that was just to fill the gap in their formation. It is sad to note that one of the two generals they had was the faction leader.

Another time, I was attacking a larger Brutii force of a general, 2 med cavalry, 4 hastati, 1 princeps, and 2 velites. I had 5 hoplites, 2 armoured hoplites, and 2 cretan archers. They once again neglected to move their units, and I rained fire upon them untill I ran out of ammo. Eventually, they sent their general and his decimated cavalry units to charge my pikemen, and they were all slaughtered. 4 cavalrymen got away, but they ran into waht was laft of the roman infantry, and caused them to route. I lost 3 men, and if you ask me, that was the most pathetic battle the enemy has ever fought, even worse than the one mentioned above.