Battle AI acting strange

[Lord Benihana]

Playing Shimazu on Normal, and the VAST majority of battles have been pretty rewarding. The Battle AI seems to actually try to beat you, which is an upgrade from previous titles where they would either a) charge directly into you, or b) sit and wait for you to destroy them

I did have a weird experience while playing last night. I was up against the Hattori (I think - clan with a red temple on the sheild) - anyway, I had a 5 start general, 2 naginata samurai, 1 spear samurai, and 6 katana samurai. The Hattori attacked me with 2 Generals (2 star each) 3 samurai archers, 2 ashaguru archers, 1 katana samurai, and 11 ashaguru spears. I was heavily outnumbered and out gunned - so I marched my units to the Hattori flank - they barley turned to face me, but did move heir archers to face my front line. I charged the archers and started destroying them and the spearmen that were directly next to them

Now here is where it got weird - the rest of the Hattori army started to slowly march away from me... So there I am, heavilty outnumbered, with the bulk of the opposing army litterally walking off the field... Just as the Hattori Generals were about to exit the field they stopped - turne, and had 1 spear unit stand in front of them. The rest of the spears, and the one katana unit were spread out between me and the general. I was able to reform my line, allow my men to rest, and then destroy their army 1-2 units at a time....

For fun I reloaded and auto-resolved. My army got CRUSHED in the auto resolve

I was wondering if anyone else had seen odd AI behavior like this

[Gregoshi]

Hello Lord Benihana and welcome to the Org!

I've not experienced anything like that yet from the AI. From myself, yes, the AI, no. Maybe they were intimidated by your general and the quality of your army...still doesn't explain the rag-doll defense. Must have been something about the setup and your approach that found a glitch in the AI.

[nafod]

I haven't experienced it myself, but the consensus at TWC appears to be that reinforceing armies are bugged to the point where they often proceed to a corner and huddle.

I only had one battle with a reinforcing army thus far, and I was able to smash our opponent before they arrived, thus I wasn't watching what they were doing.

Reports indicate armies assisting the player or the AI will occasionally not fight. Only becomes REALLY problematic in sieges with the battle timer turned off.

[Monk]

I've noticed oddities as well. In one battle the enemy rode their cavalry up to me, stopped 5 feet in front of my lines, turned around.. and faced away from me. They didn't attack, they didn't move. They just stood there. My samurai were exchanging puzzled looks to one another about what was going on, until someone got the bright idea to attack!

I haven't seen it happen since, and most of my battles have been incredibly fun. But still.. that was weird.

[Centurion1]

I haven't experienced it myself, but the consensus at TWC appears to be that reinforceing armies are bugged to the point where they often proceed to a corner and huddle.

I only had one battle with a reinforcing army thus far, and I was able to smash our opponent before they arrived, thus I wasn't watching what they were doing.

Reports indicate armies assisting the player or the AI will occasionally not fight. Only becomes REALLY problematic in sieges with the battle timer turned off.

it happened to me................ i crushed the first army of kono defedning my daimyo in his only province....... then their allies arrived and sat hidden in the woods in the corner.

[aimlesswanderer]

Yeah, a Takeda stack were reinforcing another of their stacks attacking my castle. They just sat in a hugely concentrated clump at the side of the screen.

So once I finished off the first stack, I sent a cavalry unit near to archery range, and they got themselves moving, sort of. They then moved a bit closer, so I sent some archers, and that got at least the spears moving. They came in first and got themselves massacred. Then the archers walked up and soon ran off. Quality "best ever AI" that.

[Diamondeye]

I find that the AI does very well in regular battles, not to much when defending castles. I've only fought one battle with reinforcements, and that was 1500 enemy soldiers and 60 or so reinforcements, nothing worth mentioning (I killed the others before the reinforcements had a chance to get there, but they were clearly on their way).

[Kocmoc]

Well, the problem with the AI is simple.

The guys who prgramm the AI are not the best player themselves, so we cant expect, that the AI does any better than them!
I will do a quick list:

1. Open formation isnt used
2. even with more missles than you, he is attacking with melee
3. terrain advances are not used
4. army mostly is bunched up, so you can hit a lot with your archer
5. frontal movement all the time

Its terrible, it might be okay for easy or normal, but for hard its crap. We have to consider, that most people will be happy about the easy battles, i think the minority wants harder/better AI on the battlefield.
Still, as long there are programmer who are bad player themselves, we wont see the AI improving at all!