Exploits and imbalanced game features

[ericostermann]

AI Cities...I have found the AI in cities to be fine. Yes they hold the gap, but so do I an dwhen I am out of missles so be it. I also noticed last night that if the have missle troops in the town they moved up to pepper me. The AI has done a good job of falling back and reorganizing...hitting me with counter attacks 3 times enroute to the city square and fighting hard enough to have me lose to the clock, which BTW I find not bothersome. In one village assault as I was winning at the town center a warband came charging from no where and assaulted me which was a great surprise.........

One Note: I play all my battles at eye level not arial balloon, but ground level of the units so I am often surprised and have management chaos issues, but adds to the game tremendously as I don't get an arial view of things.

[Slaists]

On Bribing:

Bribing actually appears to have been a frequent feature of the ancient warfare. I remember reading about a Numidian general/prince who while being a Roman ally upset them considerably. Upon Senate's orders he was escorted to Rome to face a Senate trial. Nonetheless, he got away by bribing the SENATE... Even more, once an army was dispatched to take care of him in his home town: he bribed the whole lot at his city gates to leave him alone...

Probably, within the game, the AI should be more prone to use bribing... Of course, only if it's profitable to the respective faction. Imagine how upsetting it would be to lose the nice stack you just built to attack someones empire. So far, i've seen only a few cases when an AI agent attempts to bribe my armies: and, unless it was a family member strolling alone, it never tried to bribe the small captain lead stacks in transition.

Also, in my opinion, the likelihood of a bribe being accepted should be toned down. Other than that: it could stay as it is.

[Slaists]

On Mercenaries:

Armies, in the time period, relied on mercenaries a lot. I do not think, they are too common in the game. I like the feature that they are now region specific. As to them being cheap: well, the cost of 800 or so dinari for a unit of Cretean archers is not too cheap, in my opinion. Add the fact, that you cannot really replenish mercenaries and once you move out of a specific region, mercenary types of that area become unavailable.

[Sin Qua Non]

I especially agree with the bribery issue. I think maybe a sliding scale of cost implemented into bribery would curtail its over use. A simple way would be to make each bribe more expensive per captia than the previous. This would also reflect the fact that if you continuously bribe armies, you are going to get the reputation of being the ATM of the ancient world.

Another, more comprehensive solution would be to take into account the finances of the bribed army: if finances are high, then the economy of the faction is most likely good and the general doesn't feel the need to betray his faction for money alone. If the faction finances are in shambles, then maybe an underfunded general would take a kickback to scuttle off and return the army to the fields. Combine these two solutions, and maybe throw in a few faction leader vices for overbribing, and you have a bribing system that can't be abused without serious cost.

[Warhammer]

Playing on VH/VH I think the AI is MUCH improved over MTW and STW. In MTW the only difficulty I had in battles were of the WTF type when my line would collapse for no reason, which really bugged the daylights out of me.
Here, I know exactly why my forces broke.

However, I like how each faction tends to fight slightly differently. The Gauls tend to make all out charges, the Spanish use hit and run tactics, etc. It gives each faction some flavor. My problem with the AI lies in other places:

1) As others have touched on, the AI tends to "freeze" at times, for example when facing a foe with light infantry (archers, etc.) when it does not have any, it will stay in position under the arrows. It should either charge, or if the charge will be unsuccessful, withdraw.

2) The marching and counter-marching when defending walls. This is a love/hate thing for me. On one hand that is exactly what I would do, plug up the breach in the wall, or be in a place where I could rapidly plug the breach. If I did not feel I could plug the breach, I would withdraw to the streets and fight from there. The counter-marching is counterproductive and does neither, but it seems like the correct instinct is there, it just gets into a loop. "We're underfire, fall back! Ok, we're out of range. We must plug the breach! Fall back! We're underfire!" Lather, rinse, repeat.

3) The biggest problem for me is not fighting under generals. Another feature I like in the game, is that each level of general tends to fight comparable to their rank. Fighting a 4-5 star general on VH can be a nail biting experience, but it does not happen enough since the AI does not develop their generals.

Other than that, I do not have many issues with the game. The only other one I could think of would be the Parthian Army, but it is hard to recreate their supply issues in the game as it is structured. For those who do not know, the Parthians had a very good feudal based army, but it was not a standing army, and could not follow up their successes due to their supply system, and their army structure.