Clever AI

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

Scripted historical battle does not mean the AI got better . Take a deep breath and think about it.

[Sir Beane]

Scripted historical battle does not mean the AI got better . Take a deep breath and think about it.

It would be difficult to script responses to everything the player can do. Scripts can handle the initial setting up and initial tactics would would be nigh-useless in a fluid combat situation. You can't script for something you can't predict.

I've played the battle multiple times with multiple different approaches just to see what the AI does. In most situations it handles itself much better than the M2TW or RTW AI would manage. The only problem is that it seems to have a blindness for properly using it's cannon advantage, which might in fact be the result of the scripts that are there working against it.

[Daimon]

Scripted historical battle does not mean the AI got better . Take a deep breath and think about it.

Look at this:

Brandywine - Main force of AI is under AI control but only held in position, is then released to AI control after different times based on which ford you go to.

Lagos - not scriped at all.

[Sir Beane]

Look at this:

Interesting . That means that the AI you fight is indeed the full game AI (on Normal). Which is reassuring, because it fights rather well. Or atleast well enough to be a mild challenge.

[Megas Methuselah]

Or atleast well enough to be a mild challenge.

Yes, that's a huge improvement on RTW and M2TW.

[ratbarf]

"Poor bloke should have looked where he was going . It's the best way to weed out the useless recruits from the good. Just run 'em at a field of pointy sticks and hire whoever comes out the other end."

Actually, quite a few armies in the time period considered a death rate of about 1 in 10 in training ideal. Especially the Prussians.

Edit: Anyone know how to use the ships? I don't know if its just because I suck but I keep getting whooped everytime I play this battle.

My Tactics: I try to rake all of first wave of French ships by getting infront of them or between their formation. I generally ge the first two enemy ships, but then they blow my sails off and get really badly beaten as my units are all clumped together and cannot move...

[imperialus]

Edit: Anyone know how to use the ships? I don't know if its just because I suck but I keep getting whooped everytime I play this battle.

My Tactics: I try to rake all of first wave of French ships by getting infront of them or between their formation. I generally ge the first two enemy ships, but then they blow my sails off and get really badly beaten as my units are all clumped together and cannot move...

I haven't even touched the land battle yet, but I've played the navel scenario about 4 or 5 times now and I think I have it figured out.

You need to learn the Tao of formation fighting and remember that in a standup fight in this senario you outgun the french by almost 2:1... In other words, force a sandup fight.

One thing to remember, Nelson may have made the whole idea of breaking into a line and performing raking shots famous, but there was a reason he became famous for it. It was not exactly an easy maneuver. More conventional tactics are easier to pull off, and a conventional line of battle works fairly well in this scenario. The goal should be to disrupt your opponents line with minimal risk to your own formation.

What I found worked quite well was to separate my ships into two groups. Group one was the main line, group 2 consisted of the 2 5th rates.

Group 1 went into line astern formation, switched the group to chain shot and angled them so they would be passing the french fleet head on. The chainshot from the entire line shredded the sails of the lead ship (as each ship fired it's broadside I swapped it back to round shot) causing a major traffic jam behind it. The main line marched the rest of the way down the french line as they crashed into each other and screwed up their firing angles to try and avoid each other and pumped cannon shot into them.

Then they turned around to face the second french force while my 5th rates did a pass with round shot sinking all but two of the french ships and they did a pass with grape and boarded.

In the mean time my main line did the exact same thing with the french re-enforcements. Once the formation was disrupted they just circled around and finished them off.

End result, 4 French ships sunk 3 surrendered at the cost of 1 5th rate surrendered.

[Thermal]

Are you all mad! it was the land battle I struggled on and the sea battle that was mad easy for me!

Basically get your ships into a straight line, as the french come down get your whole line to fire at the nearest boats, as they get closer have boats in groups of 2 huddled together in each direction so you can fire at the enemy all the time, concentrate on one boat at a time so he gets a number disadvantage and use the sail and hull bullets primarily for max damage, being accurate when executing your attack helps to of course.

[Beskar]

Yes, that's a huge improvement on RTW and M2TW.

I thought the AI in R:TW just massed all their units at the City centre except for a group of peasants which charge your horses?

[Polemists]

For my part RTW and MTW 2 seemed to function similiarily in that if they had ranged units they went up on walls and 1-2 units would guard gate with majority holding the city center. I havn't had a chance to test out the Ai yet so no opinions at the moment.

The Ai does sound more clever then in the past, if anything I would say do not judge the AI postively or negatively bassed on the scripted battle.

The fact the AI seems to pull some tactics once the scripted events ends leads me to believe AI is improved (as do superior tactics videos), the fact the artillery never gets moved I assume is do to a scenario bug as even in mtw2 the Ai moved it's artillery at times.

[peacemaker]

....hold up. Light infantry can set up stakes? That would explain all my cavalry getting slaughtered....Is there a specific button for this? Or does it go automatically? I'm gonna go on the demo right now to try out this naval battle strategy.....