why the ai being slaughtered in plaza is a good thing

[Bhruic]

So your explanation comes down to:

The AI is smart to stand there and be slaughtered without a single enemy kill because if it did something else, it might lose? And you don't see a problem with that "logic"?

Defending the square is only useful if you, as the human, don't bring any missile units. A very simple "If you are in the square, and being pelted by missiles, attempt to engage the missile unit" would be effective. Even if it was HA, and they couldn't catch them, they couldn't have a worse response than doing nothing.

Bh

[lancer63]

I think the square thin is a great feature. That's your (or the AI's) last stand place where you still have a chance to win the battle even if all else is lost. If you manage to hold for the last three minutes, which last an eternity in some cases, you win the battle. I think it's fair when the enemy generaly outnumbers you 3 to 1.

I had a siege where my only units left was my general, with all his bodyguards dead or dying, and two exhausted and dangerously understrenght principe/hastati units. I managed to take the square from the 'overly nice greeks' but their last unit of fresher archers kept on entering the square and changing the flag back to theirs, thus reseting the stopwatch every time I chased them out.
When I realized I could run out of time if the enemy would enter the square one more time I sent all my men but the general in an all out chase, losing half the men I had left due to melee/misiles but I was finaly victorious.

Had to exterminate the population after that to avoid a riot but the people rebelled anyway because I had too few men left and had to take the town with another army a couple turns later.

Great feature.

[Kraxis]

Bhruic, I think he means that the AI won't chase becasue it would be too easy for us to simply lure them out one by one, which would be easier than it is now. The logic is that if you have chased the enemy to the square you shouldn't have too many arrows or javelins left, and that is true enough, but now people make an effort to save those weapons and then the point becomes moot.

[zhuge]

Ok, I won't ask for too much.
Just for the unit in the center square to turn and change their facing when getting shot from the back. Then at least they'd get the shield bonus and that'd make them last a bit longer when getting shot at. It just doesn't make any sense that a unit would willingly turn its back to the enemy and stoically endure getting shot in the back for fun.

If CA has more time they can also code the case where if 2 units are going to shoot at them from different directions, they should back off quickly to a corner of the square if by doing so they can avoid short range missiles like javelins and then readjust their facing.
If the short range skirmishers enter the square to get into range then as usual a charge is in order.

Or (if they have extra coding time) they could simply just get the AI to make a charge anyhow to the edge of the square when getting shot at, which would necessitate a temporary retreat by the ranged units. You could then engage with your infantry and other troops but that'd defeat the purpose of shooting them first to whittle them down.
If the ranged units don't retreat then continue the charge and engage. If the ranged units do retreat, either stay in place at the edge or hurry back to the center and readjust facing.

I am not asking for the AI to run circles around your troops and trying to delay the victory until time runs out (for non-siege battles). As time is tight in certain battles, that's not really very fair.

Anyway, I think giving some suggestions on how exactly the AI should behave in a particular situation is fair. We can have a decent discussion on merits for each tactic and who knows if CA finds our alternative AI scripts better/less exploitable they might even decide to code them (if possible).

[snake0606]

It only bothers me a little that they stand there and take it. The rest of me zooms in close to watch the little beggers fall off their horses or off their feet when hit with spears/arrows/rocks. I admit it, I am a sick little puppy.

[Lord Ovaat]

The only alternative I can see to using square-control as the objective, would be to go to "last man standing". I reckon for most sieges that would be OK, but what about the sieges where defenders actually get stuck between buildings, in walls, etc. I learned early on, that when the computer asks if you want to "end battle" during a siege, you better say yes. LOL You can't kill them when they're stuck somewhere. Even archers usually can't hit them. So, you now occupy the city with 1500 troops, but you can't win because one lone chariot is stuck in the side of a building? And if you have the timer disabled, how does it ever end? Hit escape and exit battle? Not much of an option there, neither. Unit movement and pathfinding can be horrendously bad on some of the siege maps, which I'm sure is one of the things to be patched. But until then, I like things the way they are.

[Doug-Thompson]

The whole solution to the siege problem is to allow the option to turn the timer off, and then allow the option of "last man standing" victory conditions for sieges. This would allow the AI to play in a way that showed some instinct for self-preservation.

It's pretty obvious that the R:TW designers were told to pick up the pace in tactical battles and make them more "exciting." That explains just about everything that's questionable in realism terms: Foot units that move too fast, excessive kill rates, murderous archers. I also think that's what's behind the friendly fire problem and the disappearance of the spear rank bonus, because those aspects penalize the time-honored tactic of setting up a spear wall with a bunch of archers behind it, making battles more "fluid" and "exciting." It certainly explains the goofy "flying horses" or "horses as projectiles" effect in cavalry charges.

[Slaists]

for one, i think, the timer should be kept for seige battles (the time alotted to each particular attack is discussable though and some extra slack in this regard would be an improvement in my opinion). without the timer, i, as a human player, am tempted to exploit the situation by taking all or most of the walls and annihilate the AI forces using their own castle defenses... with the timer on, i just do not have enough time to accomplish this: the strike has to be surgically precise carrying the wave straight to the city square... and once there, i better have sufficient forces in reserve to keep it clean (even from routing enemy units which rally in the square) for three minutes.

all in all, i like the current system. however, i'd like a tad more time to be able to accomplish more epic seige attacks. as it stands now, the timer seems to set ridiculous time limits which in no way correspond to the engaged army size and wall defenses... i have had attacks in which i have only 20 minutes to take a fully garrisoned huge city and, at other times, i get 45 minutes to batter just a couple hoplite militia units...

as to the central square issue: with the timer on, one just runs out of time to shoot down the square defenders.

[TheDuck]

The whole solution to the siege problem is to allow the option to turn the timer off, and then allow the option of "last man standing" victory conditions for sieges. This would allow the AI to play in a way that showed some instinct for self-preservation.

It's pretty obvious that the R:TW designers were told to pick up the pace in tactical battles and make them more "exciting." That explains just about everything that's questionable in realism terms: Foot units that move too fast, excessive kill rates, murderous archers. I also think that's what's behind the friendly fire problem and the disappearance of the spear rank bonus, because those aspects penalize the time-honored tactic of setting up a spear wall with a bunch of archers behind it, making battles more "fluid" and "exciting." It certainly explains the goofy "flying horses" or "horses as projectiles" effect in cavalry charges.

I whole-heartedly agree with this statement. I still think the game is very fun, but the tactical engine is very very different than the MTW one regarding how to lead your units in battle.

[Owen]

The whole solution to the siege problem is to allow the option to turn the timer off, and then allow the option of "last man standing" victory conditions for sieges. This would allow the AI to play in a way that showed some instinct for self-preservation.

While I posted recently to the effect that the time limit is so short as to make it virtually impossible to assault huge cities, I don't think removing the time limit is the answer either.

Consider the situation where an army decides to sally from a city with stone walls or greater. Unless the besiegers have a great numerical advantage and siege engines, they will be unable to destroy the city. However, the sally is only successful if the besiegers all either die or rout off the map. If the sallying forces rout back into the city, the besiegers can try chasing, but they will most likely be killed off by the arrow towers, burning oil and units rallying in the city square. In this situation, the only way for the besiegers to win is for the time limit to run out, after which the siege continues. This is as it should be.

Personally, I think the best solution is to double the timer for assaults and sallies in minor cities and triple it for large or huge cities.

Of course, it would also be good if failed assaults didn't have the bizarre effect of also lifting the siege and forcing the besiegers to withdraw as far as they can, but these things need to be dealt with one at a time.