Patch Wish List

[Tim]

I posted this over at the Com's official patch request thread but have changed it a bit for the Org's consumption...

- There needs to be an auto-sort function for the unit 'cards' on the bottom of the screen on the campaign map. Right now armies and navies look messy and you can easily overlook certain units if you're clicking through all of them and not paying close attention. In Medieval unit cards were automatically sorted by type, why was it done away with in Rome?

- Friendly Fire - Friendly fire is fine, SELF INFLICTED friendly fire is not!!! The fact that a unit can inflict casualties on itself is ridiculous actually. It would also be nice to cut down on friendly fire in general by making AI controlled units less likely to fire into a mixed crowd.

- Units that route should NOT be removed from a macro group in tactical battles. Often a unit will rally and then you have to track it down and re-incorporate it into your formations losing precious time. Routing units ignore orders anyway so why forcibly remove them from a group?

- Command Bonuses - Sizeable command bonuses are too easily earned for little skirmishes that have no meaningful impact. Taking a large army and pounding a much smaller, qualitatively inferior enemy army into dust (especially those consisting of brigands) is hardly a reason to give the victorious commanding general a generous command bonus. The reward should be proportionate to the ratio of troops involved, the overall 'value' of the enemy army that was defeated AND the type of victory achieved. Are some of these bonuses based on cumulative victories or on a per battle basis?

Excellant point. It is way too easy to build up command bonuses for your general. Just after 4-5 battles, you can get bumped up 3-4 stars, perhaps more. You shouldn't be able to build up an uber-General fighting rebels.

- Strategic AI - The AI does not understand that besieging a city with a garrison of equal or superior size is an exercise in futility! Countless times I've fought 'sally forth' battles with an inferior sieging force that 1) gets mauled by my army 2) retreats only to have me chase it down and kill it on the battlefield or on the strategic map or 3) retreats unscathed on and off the battlefield only to come back to repeat the process in a turn or two!

- Strategic AI - General Without A Cause - Too many times I've seen faction leaders, heirs and generals of AI factions wandering about in tiny armies, getting needlessly killed or beaten back by superior forces. I understand that wealthier factions are less likely to do this but considering how few and precious family members are in Rome this is completely unacceptable for any AI faction! AI generals should only be doing the following:

1) Governing a city
2) Leading FULL STRENGTH armies whenever possible.
3) Traveling to a large army or city where it will assume command.

And that's it! No more solo holidays around the Alps for Gaul's faction leader thank you very much!

- Strategic AI - Consolidation of force. The strategic AI lacks focus. Often its armies are too scattered, small and ineffectual to have any meaningful impact, especially against human players who like to keep fewer, well stocked armies on hand. The AI will often trickle small sized armies into enemy territory which are easily defeated, needlessly ruining their war effort and constantly boosting their enemy generals' command abilities to overinflated heights. Anytime there is an enemy army about the AI should consolidate ALL its forces in the immediate area into one army, put a general in charge (if possible) and either attack or wait to be attacked.

Well said. About 50 years before the Senate foolishly ordered me to kill my leader leading to civil war, I had taken Crete (I think). Anyway, the Brutti house had two full stacks there -for some time- that never attempted to take the city from the enemy; so I took it. Then, for at least 50 years, they just sat there. When civil war broke out, they never attempted to take the city, even though they numbered 4,000 plus, and my garrison was only a few hundred.

- Massive AI fleets. Just for the record I LIKE the AI's 'super sized' fleets. While they can get a touch too large for factions that don't really need them massive fleets are historical and more importantly, they keep human players honest. Naval battles in the ancient world were rarely small scale skirmishes but were massive large scale decisive affairs. I do have a problem with the ineffectual scattering of the AI's smaller fleets over a large area. Generally each of these fleets rarely has more than one or two ships and are therefore easy prey for an AI controlled super fleet or a human controlled naval campaign.

- Massive fleets or not the AI does a terrible job handling its navies. The AI should only use its navies for FIVE things:

1) Blockading enemy ports. The more trade routes connected to the targeted port the better.

2) Liberating friendly/allied ports from blockade by an enemy fleet.

3) Engaging enemy fleets near friendly ports or near or en route to its blockade/liberation target (unless of course, it's transporting an army which it should then avoid contact until the troops are unloaded).

4) Transporting armies and agents.

5) Staying PUT in friendly ports in times of peace or when at war with a nation that does NOT possess a port (unless of course, there is a need to transport armies & agents around).

Anything beyond that is an utter waste of time. There should be NO willy nilly, aimless cruises around the Mediterranean like there are now. The Aegean is cluttered with small fleets in my current Julii campaign (Hard difficulty). If the AI simply concentrated on the five points I mentioned then the main sea lanes wouldn't be such a mess and the average naval battle would be far more decisive.

- There needs to be a retreat function for naval battles. Early warning of an approaching enemy is common to sea battles. If a fleet retreats and is pursued by an enemy fleet with more movement points then combat will happen anyway. Why the do or die combat system for initial contact?

Can't disagree.

- Tactical AI - AI controlled reinforcements are almost completely useless. It's bad enough that they don't coordinate their efforts with other AI armies or with the human player but they should at least have the same AI routines as other armies instead of the current lemming rush mentality of the fatal kind. Give human players the ability to issue BASIC commands to our general led reinforcement armies (i.e. Attack, Defend, Probe/Harass, Retreat) and give the highest ranking general of all the enemy AI armies COMPLETE control over all of its forces on the battlefield. If this is impossible then dare I say do away with AI controlled reinforcements altogether and classify all reinforcements as being led by captains so we can call upon them as slots become available.

True.

A big problem is I have not ONCE seen an enemy commander, Roman faction or non-Roman commander with a command rating higher than 2. With the above mentioned problem of gaining command ratings to easily fighting puny battles, the AI stands little chance.

Now, I'm still playing my first campaing, 120 B.C or so, and no one is a theat. The Scipio (sp) is about to be tamed, while the Brutti/Senate/are no more.

-Fix the suicide diamyo problem too. The only thing that last shorter than the battles is the life of the enemy commander.

[Red Harvest]

Those naval comments are spot on! While the AI is using its fleets tactically, it is doing very little strategic. Fleets are about controlling & blockading ports and landing or preventing the landing of invasion forces. Surely the AI could be programmed with these objectives in mind?

One thing to fear...if the AI learns how to use its boats, Carthage will be helpless almost immediately.