To Frustration - AND BEYOND!

[Colovion]

In my new Parthia campaign I'm having a fun* time. I had a wonderful* seige which laid out in spades the problems with Parthia and horse archer based armies - amongst other things.

First off I figured out why not to assault any cities - you have no city buster infantry. So this seige occured because there were no walls. I assaulted thinking that it would be pretty easy to whittle them down with my HA and having my Cataphracts in reserve to mop up the rest.

The genius AI began their happy running around right in front of your troops getting shot up by my HA's. There's no wall - but the enemy never strayed outside of that area where the wall would be. Eventually my HA's found themselves on that path that the enemy runs along and I tried to get them to come back out and around the city.... somehow there's a special imaginary wall that keeps untis from leaving the air-walled cities. That was the first measure of my frustration - fighting my troops inability to cooperate.

Once I had killed about 600+ of their men with my HA's I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to kill all of the 110 Levy Pikemen in the center of the Square of Death because of lack of Arrows. My Cataphracts weren't looking too keen on fighting a battle of attrition at the beginning of the game either. Eventually after maneuvering through the city I shot the last of my arrows off. Then I quit the battle and lost my army. Wheeeeee .... i can't stand this.

I find myself putting more effort into making sure my troops are doing what I tell them to than paying attention to the enemy and fighting their tactics...

I shudder to think what this game would be like with a good AI and the same lack of troop manipulation.

[Slyspy]

Hear him, hear him!

[Oaty]

I've realized withdrawing is deadly but the comp unfortanately falls prey too. Funny they decide to fight the battle. I come out of the gate to the side and as soon as they see my army in formation in full force marching at them they withdraw. Unfortanately instead of giveing me experience for my troops they withdraw and dissapear.

The real question is you knew about this bug from other posts I have read. If you read your replies to the messages you would have realised that hitting escape and hit end battle would have preserved your troops, just make sure nothing is with the city walls (airwalls) before you do so as I think you lose those units that are inside but not the ones outside the wall.

I'm almost sure this will be fixed in a patch as the human can work around this bug but the comps still falls prey to it making it a gamin gllitch.

[Puzz3D]

The campaign seems to play better if you auto-resolve all the battles.

[Nelson]

Then I quit the battle and lost my army.

Did you build a camp for your army to withdraw to? This might have saved your army.

In any event ,there ought to be a way to continue a siege even though an assault fails.

[RZST]

The genius AI began their happy running around right in front of your troops getting shot up by my HA's. There's no wall - but the enemy never strayed outside of that area where the wall would be. Eventually my HA's found themselves on that path that the enemy runs along and I tried to get them to come back out and around the city.... somehow there's a special imaginary wall that keeps untis from leaving the air-walled cities. That was the first measure of my frustration - fighting my troops inability to cooperate.

-first of all, did you disable skirmish mode? i find that if skirmish mode is on my troops dont follow where i want them to go, instead they go where THEY feel to be a "safer" area. try that.

[Colovion]

-first of all, did you disable skirmish mode? i find that if skirmish mode is on my troops dont follow where i want them to go, instead they go where THEY feel to be a "safer" area. try that.

it had nothing to do with enemies

it did it whether there were enemies around or not

[Doug-Thompson]

Ah, the joys of city fights.

I should have checked this thread sooner. I'm falling down on the job as the official forum excuse-maker for horse archers.

This isn't an HA issue, however. This is a pathfinding issue. After all, the HA's appearently killed 600+ people despite severe pathfinding problems.

[Satyr]

I find that if I have troops in groups they get all f*cked up trying to move around in cities. So you have 2 choices; take them out of a group and issue each one orders, or click on each one separately and issue orders. Same number of clicks so there is no point in leaving them in a group unless you might need them grouped outside the city later. This is a problem all the time and I have almost quit using grouping. Please CA, release a patch soon!

[Siris]

Hm, sounds troublesome. My city seigeing experiences have been, if I let the PC auto-resolve any defense or attacking battle of cities or towns, I always lose, however, if I personally command, I typically devestating win, especially on the defense side -- those Hoplites with swords on the walls really massacre them -- always target their battering ram with your archers, burn it down with fire, then they'll never make it in the city itself, & if your out numbered you force them to fight on your ground up top of the walls, so their numbers cannot be used against you, all the meanwhile they get fired upon from the unlimited arrow's of the two gate towers.

In attacking, you need foot soliders, to ensure you capture the walls. I typically use two ladders, one or two seige towers, and a ram or two. Use the infantry to move in those, once the wall is captured and you can then open the gates, then send in your other foot soliders or your calvery units. As the enemies rout, be sure to run them down with light calvery or heavy calvery, spare no one, as I do.