Enemy Sally! Or not :-(

**Macilrille** · 03-07-2009, 13:14

More AI weirdness...

If I besiege a strongly garrisoned enemy town that I have no immediate need to take, I usually starve them out. No need to take needless losses.

So when the time is up and the poor starving fools have eaten all the rats, bark, grandmothers or whatever, they sally.

True to my creed of no needless losses I usually take up a strong defensive position as far from the walls as I can so I do not loose troops to missile towers while pursuing the routing foe, and because I prefer field battles by far to storming fortifications (though sometimes I just surround the gates with missile troops and kill them all unit by unit as they come out though that requires strong and numerous missiles and it costs losses from missile towers and enemy missile troops inside). The enemy will then usually come storming with usual lack of tactical finesse and get annihilated as they rout back.

However, the last two sieges something different happened.
1) I ran to nearby hill to take up a strong defensive position while they were marching out.
2) I have strong position while they are getting their army in formation and order, I resist the temptation to assault as it would cost losses.
3) Nothing...
4) Time runs out and battle ends in a draw.
5) I get the city and do the Roman thing to it, enslaving, looting and killing.

Nothing happens as the enemy sally, enemy just gets army in perfect order then stand around, both armies in plain sight of each other. They might as well not have sallied.

Anybody else tried this? Is there any way I can change it without myself using stupid tactics such as fighting them right under the walls where they have support?

**tsidneku** · 03-07-2009, 13:44

First of all: I don't believe you can augment the AI built into the RTW engine. It's hardcoded.

However, I have noticed this in some of my games but I attribute this to a breach in the city that causes the AI to think that the human should march to them. Next time that you notice this, try to look around and see if any of the walls/fortifications of the city have been previously breached (i.e. you, or another party took down a section of the wall in a previous siege).

**Macilrille** · 03-07-2009, 14:16

No breach anywhere.

I know about the AI, but there might be a tweak to make the normally superagressive AI behave as usual. Not that I mind small losses, but a bit boring.

**Shadowwalker** · 03-07-2009, 14:25

Encountered this a few times also.
My explanation is that the AI decides to sally but then realizes that you outnumber his forces by far.
Maybe there is a small 'deciding corridor' between 'Let's sally! These raiders will pay!' and 'Oh no! They're far too much! Let's surrender!' This decision is made by CAI I assume.
Due to this corridor the garrison sallies but then the BAI has a similar corridor too which is not exactly the same.
So it can be that CAI decides to sally but BAI sees no chance to win the battle.
After all I guess that CAI bases his decisions only on numbers and BAI also (or only?) on unit types and experience.

Hope it's understandable what I mean.

**Silence Hunter** · 03-07-2009, 15:21

I had the same thing happen not long ago in my Arverni campaign. I was besieging one of the Iberian towns. There was a huge army inside so they sallied. I took a defensive position on the hill and waited for enemy to come. Instead of coming they went out of the town, formed perfect line across all the map and... did nothing at all.

In your case you were quite lucky as you play with the timer. I'm playing without the time limit. So I had to fight that army in an extremely unfavourable ground. I lost lots of men, but it was still better than quiting through Esc and losing the whole army.

I've noticed that AI does the same thing in field battles from time to time also.

**Owen Glyndwr** · 03-07-2009, 18:33

It could be a contradiction between the Campaign Map AI and the Battle AI. The Strategic AI decides that the city is too important to lose, so orders a sally, and then the battle ai decides the enemy is too strong to go on the offensive so waits for you to come.

**Macilrille** · 03-08-2009, 02:52

That would puzzle me greatly as the insane AI often attacks a full-stack and very experienced Consular Army with 3-5 units, even raw recruits sometimes. I even had it happen across a river. But not with cities :-s

**Decimus** · 03-09-2009, 04:16

Originally Posted by Macilrille

That would puzzle me greatly as the insane AI often attacks a full-stack and very experienced Consular Army with 3-5 units, even raw recruits sometimes. I even had it happen across a river. But not with cities :-s

I've had similar encounters on Vanilla, and if you have a big archer/artillery advantage they might just run back and forth inside your missile range and get slaughtered. The attack retreat cycle all over again.

**Olaf Blackeyes** · 03-09-2009, 04:48

I can only hope that EBII will perform better at this than EB.
I ALSO hope that city pathfinding is improved in EBII.
(Has nightmares about M2TW Unit pathfinding that cause insanity)