Bug with battering rams! Please help!

[Naja]

I am having a serious problem with AI siege pathfinding. Whenever the enemy uses battering rams against my multi-ring castle (fortress or citadel), they are unable to re-use the battering ram for the inner gate!

They break through the first gate just fine. Then, they rush inside for a second. Realizing that they need to break the second gate to proceed further, they run back to the ram.

That's where the problem starts. The infantry unit then gets "stuck." It becomes unable to move the ram. The unit usually clusters around the ram, and stays put.

It's clear that the AI is trying to move, because the captain keeps ordering the troops to keep moving. If there are other AI units besides the one (failing at) pushing the ram, they also refuse to move.

Is there anything I can do to stop this horrible pathfinding problem? I am having this problem with Kingdoms. I also have Darth's AI patch (not sure if it's most recent).

Thanks.

[Ramses II CP]

The siege AI is broken. It is effectively impossible for them to capture a Citadel, you don't really even have to defend very much, but then it's nearly impossible for the AI to capture any level of city in which you mount a serious defense. I have never seen the AI actually make it to the third ring of defenses. If there is a fix for this problem I'm unaware of it.

[Naja]

But I've seen AI troops make it through my Citadels lots of times just using the same ram. This is actually the first time I've noticed the AI's strained difficulty at using battering rams.

I mean, I've always known that the AI was bad with ladders and siege towers. But rams?

[Ramses II CP]

If you attack the crew of a ram they'll drop the ram immediately. You can then retreat and they won't pick it back up again. If they have another ram they'll bring it forward and you can do the same thing until you've littered the gate area with rams. About 10% of the time if the AI can somehow find it's way through the first level anyway it'll go back and try to get one of those rams again, but usually they just stand around the walls getting shot.

As I said, you don't have to defend much to protect a Citadel, but sometimes you have to do a little. Often a single fast company of cavalry is enough, just bump the ram crews as they come. I have never seen the AI make it to the third ring, much less break into it. I actually had them knock down the gate to the second ring once when I intentionally didn't defend the first ring... but then their whole army just sort of stopped and stood around waiting to die.

It's being gracious to call this a bug, IMHO this is an example of the game simply not being finished. Obviously AI citadel assaults in vanilla were simply not tested and have never worked, and even good player mods have trouble making them effective.

[Galain_Ironhide]

Unfortunately I must concur. Whilst have had many a great battle defending a city or a first level castle, there has literally been nothing in my experiience where the AI can successfully carry out a siege against anything at Fortress level or above. Not even the great people who have made all of these great mods/battle AI for m2tw have even come close to making the AI being able to come close fpr the AI to being able to take on a second tier of defence (or third). Its just not in the AI's intelligence.

Maybe they just should not have spoilt us with the whole city / castle thing. Its all great sieging and winning over a citadel, but defending one is just a walk in the park.

I stand to be corrected but pictorial proof shall be required.

[Naja]

I'm telling you guys, this is very new to me.

Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but I have frequently seen the AI use battering rams to make it to the last tier of a multi-ring castle.

[Marauder]

Of all the shortcomings of this AI, I think the lack of a decent (any?) siege AI irks me the most. The AI gets to have all the fun of defending a castle against a brutal onslaught, of using all 3 layers of defense in a citidel. The AI performs in a mediocre way on the battlefield, but at least it does a few things right.

I would love to defend a citidel against the swarming mongul hoard and face a real threat. That would make turtling more fun at least. As it is, castle-heavy factions (those with poor miltia troops) are boring in the mid-late game and its more of a logistical challenge than a military one: you know you can't lose a fortress/citidel with even a few decent troops in there.

[Naja]

I think I got it worked out, somewhat.

I downloaded Lusted's AI for Kingdoms, and somehow combined it with the latest version of the DarthMod. I forgot the exact combination, but I ended up with about 7 files that I just copied into each of the "Data" folders of my 4 Kingdoms campaigns.

Now the AI isn't exactly brilliant when it attacks my castles, but it now always makes it to the very end (doesn't struggle to reach the 3rd wall of the Citadel anymore), makes aggressive use of combining ladders, rams and siege engines, and tends to storm multiple sides of the same wall at once. This is on Very Hard difficulty, of course.

It's kinda fun to defend now! So I call that an improvement.

[Gaiseric]

Cool. Finally a fix for the broken seige AI. Lol, fixed a month before the release of EmpiresTW. Has anyone else switched their files to confirm if it works? It could still be used in the modding comunity.

Even though vanilla might be borked, players should not take advantage of the stupid AI when it is asaulting your fortress/citadel. Turn on Ironman mode and fight the AI at the first teir.

[Naja]

Just went through the files. Turns out it was just Lusted's battle AI that I used (sorry Darth).

You can download the files here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=138529

Just download them, copy them into each of your Kingdoms campaigns' "data" folders, click "yes to all" when prompted to over-write any files, and voila! Your AI pathfinding during sieges and field battles should be markedly better.