What is different in 1.3?

[Cheetah]

In one battle it did try to flank me with some cavalry, but since I turned an infantry unit to face them the cavalry just sort of ran a circle around my army, then rode off back to the main force.

This is what you would have done in the place of the cavalry commander is not it?

[antisocialmunky]

It would seem intellegent until you realise that the AI ALWAYS tries to do that. So in effect it has finally been wrong enough times for the proper situation to come up for it to get the right answer. To put it another way, it just bubbled in C for all the test questions.

I will however say that this is the first time that I have seen or heard of the AI withdrawing its cavalry instead of finding something to suicide them on.

[Prodigal]

Battle field range finder is red/orange, a small but staggeringly important change.

Cannons fire on a very low trajectory.

Getting a viable navy is a must.

[Zarky]

Don't know if this is official but auto-resolve seems to be easier.

[Sheogorath]

Autoresolve seems to give a LOT more weight to cavalry now. Does AR just automatically throw everybody into melee and skip over the ranged combat or something?

[Husar]

Line infantry does not use fire by rank against cavalry anymore, only the first rank fires as if you hadn't researched fire by rank, against infantry etc they still use fire by rank.
I guess it makes sense since you wouldn't want to kneel down facing a bunch of horses.

[Lucius Verenus]

Line infantry does not use fire by rank against cavalry anymore, only the first rank fires as if you hadn't researched fire by rank, against infantry etc they still use fire by rank.
I guess it makes sense since you wouldn't want to kneel down facing a bunch of horses.

Couldnt let that go by - it is, in fact, exactly what you would do if threatened by cavalry in Line formation and couldn't, (or so far in this game can't be bothered to), form a square.

As long as your flanks are secured then a line of kneeling infantry holding grounded muskets with the bayonet pointed up and out and another rank standing behind them would deter any cavalry. Unlike in this game horses will NOT charge a dense line of pointy things

Sig..

[Cheetah]

It would seem intellegent until you realise that the AI ALWAYS tries to do that. So in effect it has finally been wrong enough times for the proper situation to come up for it to get the right answer. To put it another way, it just bubbled in C for all the test questions.

I will however say that this is the first time that I have seen or heard of the AI withdrawing its cavalry instead of finding something to suicide them on.

Fact is that the AI has fairly decent priorities when it comes picking a target for a charge. For example I noticed that native lancers always charge the moving units (even if it is on the other flank) and not the stationary ones (ofc facing the lancers). Also lancers avoid pikemen at all cost (which ofc can be exploited by the player). So just because an experinced player can outsmart the AI it does not mean that the AI is utterly dumb.
The real test would be letting someone fight the AI who never seen a TW battle. Actually, IIRC someone did that with the vanilla game and the player was trashed in all battles.

[A Very Super Market]

I'm fairly certain that the auto-balancer measure only takes into account the units, not the experience. With an experienced army, I've won several auto-resolves against bad odds and bad soldiers.

Edit: Hell, I think the measure is only based on the number of men, with a multiplier for cavalry and artillery. Six units of Desert Warriors does not equal 3 of line infantry, 2 Provincial cavalry regiments, and a 24-pounder.

[jsberry]

The most significant difference is that trade spots are not safe harbors. The great indiaman-spam of 1700-05 is now a frantic game of trade-and-run.

Also, the AI will attack much more. My poor little Prussia is getting squashed between Hanover, Saxony, Austria, and Courland. However, the attacks are neither coordinated nor intelligent.

[Marquis of Roland]

Fact is that the AI has fairly decent priorities when it comes picking a target for a charge. For example I noticed that native lancers always charge the moving units (even if it is on the other flank) and not the stationary ones (ofc facing the lancers). Also lancers avoid pikemen at all cost (which ofc can be exploited by the player). So just because an experinced player can outsmart the AI it does not mean that the AI is utterly dumb.
The real test would be letting someone fight the AI who never seen a TW battle. Actually, IIRC someone did that with the vanilla game and the player was trashed in all battles.

I agree here; The AI has some decent basic tactics down, that most TW players know how to deal with/exploit, or at the very least predict. Most of my friends don't play this game (because of the system requirements, no surprise there), but when they do play a battle unsupervised, it usually ends very badly.

[Xipe Totec]

I didn't predict a half stack of Streltsy appearing 'as if by magic' in the forests north of Muscovy (20 years after I conquered it) and nicking my beloved Moscow the minute my back was turned. All Sweden was outraged by this blatant cheating! My attempt to recapture it unleashed another video memory CTD

[antisocialmunky]

Fact is that the AI has fairly decent priorities when it comes picking a target for a charge. For example I noticed that native lancers always charge the moving units (even if it is on the other flank) and not the stationary ones (ofc facing the lancers). Also lancers avoid pikemen at all cost (which ofc can be exploited by the player). So just because an experinced player can outsmart the AI it does not mean that the AI is utterly dumb.
The real test would be letting someone fight the AI who never seen a TW battle. Actually, IIRC someone did that with the vanilla game and the player was trashed in all battles.

Well I do agree with that. The AI isn't terrible unless it bugs out, sits in a ball, and dies or something stupid.

I've just never liked the fact that the AI sends cav in piecemeal and has tunnel vision when it finally picks a target. Suicide runs are annoying.

[Xipe Totec]

Pre-patch playing as Prussia I faced stacks of predominantly line infantry from Austria and Poland and had some really epic battles. Post patch playing as Sweden I have fought Poland to extinction and am facing a huge bloated Austrian Empire. Both have built almost nothing but pandours with their annoying extra long range muskets and silly garden gnomish attire. Their melee defence and morale are so bad they run away too easily and are easy prey for Swedish heavy cavalry out in the open. Has the increase in range caused the AI to over-value them and thus spam the pesky Pandoras?

[Peasant Phill]

Austria already spammed pandours in 1.2.
Conquering Vienna as Prussia was a walk in the park when it's defended by nothing else than pandours and citizens.

[Husar]

Fact is that the AI has fairly decent priorities when it comes picking a target for a charge. For example I noticed that native lancers always charge the moving units (even if it is on the other flank) and not the stationary ones (ofc facing the lancers). Also lancers avoid pikemen at all cost (which ofc can be exploited by the player). So just because an experinced player can outsmart the AI it does not mean that the AI is utterly dumb.
The real test would be letting someone fight the AI who never seen a TW battle. Actually, IIRC someone did that with the vanilla game and the player was trashed in all battles.

Well the problem I have with the battlefield AI is that it doesn't always get proper units by the strategic AI, if it actually employs line infantry in a line then yes, it can be very challenging, but often it doesn't have access to decent units and then when it does, i often see it park some of it's best infantry in buildings....
Since a lot of battliefields have buildings, that can ruin a lot of battles for the AI...

Oh and then it sometimes shuffles units around like a bunch of scared rabbits, hides some far away behind a fence too far away from it's main force etc. so I can just takes them out piecemeal or how you say. Those new features are nice but they also ruin the battlefield AI in way too many battles I've seen, I think I lost a lot more naval battles than land battles and find the naval part way more satisfying in general.

[FactionHeir]

I've been checking units stats a bit in custom battles and I noticed Holland Guards have 5 more accuracy than any other guard unit (55 vs 50).
Also, for France, their Petit-Vieux infantry has 55 accuracy while their Vieux infantry defaults back to 50. Rather strange considering Vieux is supposed to be better than Petit-Vieux.