Defensive battle AI non-existent?

[Dead Guy]

If they don't come to you right away while on the defensive, you can easily make them by threatening with cavalry and then drawing it back to artillery range. Then the piecemeal suicide attacks start.

[SpiritFox]

If they're crouched behind a wall, they won't move even if under artillery fire.

[Khorak]

If they don't come to you right away while on the defensive, you can easily make them by threatening with cavalry and then drawing it back to artillery range. Then the piecemeal suicide attacks start.

And they've never attacked me piecemeal, every time my entire line gets heavily pressed. I often have a few units that have taken 50% casualties unavoidably just because of the weight of fire they have put on them as I squash the enemy flanks and roll up their line.

[Liberator]

I have often seen about 50% of the Ai defending forces attacking immediately, while the rest took cover behind walls, so my artillery sized them down until they flew

[Relic]

In my case they just hide units of peasants in buildings and don't flee when the cannons come crashing down.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I have to concur.
The attacking AI might not be a genius, but at least it tries. It might not be intelligent but it fakes being intelligent well enough.
But the The defensive AI is woeful. It has no concept of force preservation, mutual support, coordination or favourable placement. Watching the defensive AI go through the motions is just a torment for any capable tactician.

[Slaists]

I have to concur.
The attacking AI might not be a genius, but at least it tries. It might not be intelligent but it fakes being intelligent well enough.
But the The defensive AI is woeful. It has no concept of force preservation, mutual support, coordination or favourable placement. Watching the defensive AI go through the motions is just a torment for any capable tactician.

The saddest part (for me) is that CA already HAD reasonable defensive AI in place in MTW 1... If the AI had a balanced army and was holding a hill: it took quite some doing to dislodge it form there. At times, it was even impossible, so the player was forced to attack uphill while being peppered with arrows.

RTW was worse, MTW II was terrible and ETW, at least for now, seems even worse in this regard.

[NimitsTexan]

MTW used a different and simpler engine than ETW. The more limited the game, the (generally) easier it is to program the AI. Comparing MTW and ETW AI is not really useful.

As for M2TW and RTW, I find the ETW battles overall more challenging; I believe ETW is overall a (small) step forward.

[antisocialmunky]

And they've never attacked me piecemeal, every time my entire line gets heavily pressed. I often have a few units that have taken 50% casualties unavoidably just because of the weight of fire they have put on them as I squash the enemy flanks and roll up their line.

I've seen it happen both ways. More piecemeel attacks if they are on the defensive though.