Idea: Since the campaign AI is moddable...
Why not make it competent?
Right now it does this:
Step 1) Make an army big enough and high quality enough to match the enemy force in province X, a border province of an enemy
Step 2) Move into province X and attack any enemy army in it
Step 3) After all the field army in that province capable of marching to save the settlement is gone, lay siege to the settlement
Step 4) Take the settlement
Note: If the army loose a battle, move back to friendly province and get more troops.
And also if any enemy army is in own territory, send all available force after it.
Right now that gets exploited to death, with players (at least me) occupying all the bridges, and move a good stack into the enemy territory and occupy the high ground and destroys everything that comes at them.
So making the Seleucids as an example:
Step 1) It decides to focus on the Ptolemy
Step 2) It builds up offensive armies on provinces bordering the Ptolemy.
Step 3) It sends token stacks (enough for defense, not enough for offense) to occupy river crossings and build forts on high ground for a defensive stance against all other enemy faction.
Step 4) It sends it's large stacks into the Ptolemy territory to occupy any river crossing and high ground to try to force the Ptolemy into a decisive battle.
Step 5) It finally moves to siege the city
Note: If it is defeated it tries to move toward the nearest friendly army OR the nearest friendly province. If it meets the nearest friendly army the two either join or move together.
If the Ptolemy move its stacks into a province and occupies bridge and highground. Send a stack and plant it near the Ptolemy stack to keep an eye on it, but not to attack until a sufficient force has been gathered to win (or so it thinks). The Ptolemy will also be programmed to do this, and so any Seleucid stacks in Ptolemy province would also have to judge if it can beat its shadowing opponent on the ground its standing on. If it can, attack. If it can't well, don't wait to be annihilated unless there's no choice, move to some even better ground or co-ordinate with other stacks for gang-up or bypass them and head toward the settlement and lay siege to it to force a battle on chosen ground.
And one easy way not to break an alliance is not to target any province of an ally border or not unless there are no other bordering factions that's not an ally, in which case choose one and not all at once. And don't choose the player's province at the first available opportunity.
Right now it's a grind game with the AI just throwing army after army directly at the problem with no brains what so ever. I don't want a grind game. After playing half a campaign it really tests your patience (at least mine) as you do the same thing over and over and over again.
Oh and of course throw out the "I will fight to the death always, you haven't beaten me even if I only have one settlement with 50men (not units, men) left.
If I was the Seleucid, and I destroyed all the Ptolemy stacks laying between me and Alexandria, I expect the Ptolemy to be begging for mercy and willing to pay tribute and all that. After all it's a lot better than loosing Alexandria. And it won't attack me again until it has rebuilt sufficient strength.
Hopefully with that it'll turn into a game that challenges your brain instead of one that tests your patience (Don't want EB to turn into an MMORPG experience after all).
Now if only the battlefield AI is moddable too. Sick of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again on the battlefield as well.
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Originally Posted by woad&fangs
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