Strange own AI problems

[william weedzor]

Hey guyz,

im quite new here and my english is not...well u will see.

In short i have amazing and at first look very entertaining bug.Apper only in battlemap and need specific sort of units.

Examples:
1)Cavalry.Lets say we have 3 cavalry units,2x general bodyguards and 1x greek medium,they are grouped under 1.Now they receive order to charge enemy archers flank.And now starts problems....first general unit rush forward but to different unit,that is btw still ok.Greek medium cavalry do something like reconsidering and just hold position,btw not so much okey,but still good.But the second general unit,instead moving forward they turn their horses to 180 degree back and rush to hunt 7 slingers crushed long time ago,no matter how far they are,event if they have 20 sec before retreat.If i press hold/stop they stop,so i order them to attack the archers again and what happen?They continue to hunt down slingers (7).

2)Archers/slingers.Only thing i can do with them is moving,in EB never happen to me that my arch/slingers obey my orders and shot on selected enemy unit.Just never.They just select their own target and shot on them until 3 things happen...target is destroyed,archers run out of ammo,target run away from battle.Their favorite target is mainly the most useless and weak enemy unit btw.Also they dissobey my other orders,like hold/stop,auto fire etc.As i say only one thing i can do is move them away from range.I was try everything,try dont group them,try with general behind.After all they do more damage to my own units then to enemy.Sometimes i just withdraw them from battle,its much more safe for my army.

3)Horse archers.Combine both problems....cavalry dissorientation,archers ignorance.Imagine enemy army basicly full of phalanx,with one cavalry unit and one freed slaves unit.You manage to move your 6 archers cavalry units into back of the whole phalanx line,slowly marching to your line.So in short your cavalry see thousand of backs and shoulders of the enemy phalanx,so great chance to masacre from range.But no way,no matter where the freed slaves are,they must be pwned and if possible followed to the map borders.Same like archers,must move them out of range.Its very frustrating when you order them to shot on phalanx and only one unit open fire on them.

Seems to me the units must something like order queue,because cavalry hunting unit destroyed minutes ago with order to attack totally different unit in totally different way is just sick.

Have someone same problem?Is there any fix?Or its just part of mod,some realism thing?

Happen only in EB,in other mods and vanilla AI work just fine.Tryed on RomeTW,ALex and now on BI.Btw game is 100x more stable on BI,no ctd or anything,rebels can swarm in every city but game just hold:)
Anyway your mod is the best for Rome,maybe one of best mods ever.

Thank you for nice mod,good work and HELP OMG because its unplayable¨.

[Qvintvs]

If you did group in all 3 cases, then simply do not group units.

[william weedzor]

This solution is known for me,but works only with cavalry.About archers...lets say i never group my EPI elefants,coz i have only one unit presented in army,and if they find target i must still move them out of range to retarget.And even if i do this,they sometimes found own.Also allow auto fire button/key seems didnt work in this case,because as i wrote before,there is only 3 ways...someone must die or get out of range.

In other side peltast,meele infantry,skirmishers and surprisingly skirmish cavalry obey and work like charm.Well skirmish cavalry only as long as they have spears to throw,but still:).

In my eyes biggest problem is with cavalry archers.I cant properly play factions with these units.There is always huge chance,that no matter what i do,results of battle will depends on very random behavior of my cavalry.Problem with meele cavalry is just annoying,foot archers after all have limited role in my battles,so i can handle it.But Horse archers are esential for these factions.

And there is one thing that i cant understand,not bug or something.Why 600 well trained and equiped horse archers needs 1/3 of battle to handle 160 hellenic peltast,shoting them into backs.When 10 archer chariots in reallity was able to shot down 500 egyptians trying to do some proto-shield wall and route rest of the army in 10 minuts?That is 15 or 30 bows versus 600,even if only every four archer hit the target......but there,they do volley and 6-7 peltast are down.Sometimes they just run out of ammo.

[bovi]

RTW has an "easy mass attack" feature designed for full frontal assault in a single line. This is what you're seeing in action when you have a group selected and click to attack an enemy. The "weight point" of your group (IE, the center unit if you've lined them up) will try to find a target to attack about where you click, while units to the right of the weight point will attempt to find a target somewhat to the right of the unit you clicked and units to the left of the weight point will attack something to the left. Typically, the closest enemy in the relevant direction is chosen. If there are no targets in one of the directions, they get stupidly creative and attempt to find a target elsewhere, including behind them.

If you want a mass of units to attack a single unit, simply select the group as usual but hit G before you make the attack order, then hit G again. Voila.

As for the horse archer thing... I don't quite believe what you are saying. I've played on VH/VH with Saka and pummeled anything they marched at me from a distance. True, in some instances I had to retreat due to lack of ammunition, but I always killed at least 1/3 of a full enemy stack before that happened (and that stack was then easy pickings in the next battle). Horse archers are extremely powerful units in EB, although not quite so good against units with an excellent shield value, like peltasts. Still, shooting into any unit's back has always worked very well indeed for me.

[william weedzor]

I have prepared big reply full of respect (guy with 8k posts must know something about EB:D),but something in inside telling me,dude try what that mr. wrote.

And i do,run EB,Sauromate campain,add_money,horse archers/archers full stack created.And yes,sauromates do nice job against other sauromates.Then i reach some eleutheroi city near finland with some slavic levy garrisoned,around 800 mens.I have three times more soldiers and all of them are archers.So i start siege,4 turns away,enemy sally out.As u know u cant place your soldiers in this case.
So they sally out from gates under fire lets says of 1200 arches and with every step forward number grow.Unfortunately when they reach my center they are still in very good condition,maybe 20% down in leading unit.My center start running,they are after him.Now my archers on flanks dont have any other option then shot them to sides or to back.They still manage catch my center in the map border and do a minor casulties.Yeah after all i kill them with ridiculously small casulties,but is this good performance?I mean i have 2400 archers and enemy have only 1/3 of my numbers and must move trough gate first.They have to be killed in one big nasty masacre when they just open gate and make step forward,not during their trip to the woods.My skill play no role in this,i just watch and move with camera.Cant imagine what happen if they have lets say 800 naked fanatics instead of some creps.

But yeah i admit im propably wrong and 8k+ posts is hard argument to beat:) Anyway thanks,u give me some useful advices and things to think.Feel free to lock this thread or delete,i belive problem solved,case locked.

Bye

[bovi]

I would prefer it if you take what I'm saying to heart because of its own merits rather than my post count... But try the temporary ungrouping I mentioned and you'll decide for yourself which behaviour you prefer.

Missile combat is a hard thing to balance, it easily becomes overpowered. We have had overpowered slingers in the past, and they had a very low attack rating of 3! The most important factor in that were their armour piercing ability (or rather, bludgeoning, but AP in game terms), but a further reduction in attack strength now leaves them less effective. We have chosen to not have very lethal missile combat in general, mostly because missiles were not a decisive factor in most battles in our timeframe. Rather than kill, they mostly wounded or otherwise hampered the enemy (such as javelins sticking in shields, making them harder to wield). But we cannot simulate these effects with the RTW engine. As an aside, I think you would have killed naked fanatics with as little casualites as against the levy garrison. You only need to step out of their reach when they come at you and keep shooting them.