Man the sally ai sucks!

[sapi]

Picture this. I was seiging the town the british have in the mainland (i'm the gauls, they started it!), with about 600 troops (3 warbands, 2 generals cavalry, 1 barbarian cavalry and a druid). The british sally forth with a full army stack, and yet i am able to defeat it due to the fact they send them out 1 or 2 at a time. They sent out the first warband, and my cavalry pounces on it and it routs. Next, two warbands. My warbands engage them and i pounce from behind. The chariots are easily defeated by my cavalary at little loss to me. It goes on and on until i rout about 6 units at once. Taking advantage of teh traffic jam at the gate, i pounced upon them. What followed was a slaughter. My cavalry ran down about 4 4/5 strength warbands and 2 cavalry before they reached the town center. lol. All i needed to do after that was 1)laugh and 2) march on the town square, which was guarded by about 40 warband soldiers (an conbination of about 5 seperate units) and a full unit of peasents. Facing them i had my 3 units of warband, who had only lost 6! men in the fighting, and my cavalry. It was a slaughter.

Now, what is wrong with this ai? It gave me a victory that you would think would go to them, just looking at the numbers. Now i know you have to factor in my tactical skill, but while that plays a part, i know i would have lost the same battle in the open merely due to their numbers. The sally ai had got to be fixed!

[The_678]

Yeah I just had a similar experiance playign as the spanish. I was sieging the gaul province in iberia and I was deployed on the other side of the wall from the gate. I thought it would turn out good when almost their whole army formed up outside the gate in a good line. Then to my surprise they went around the side of their walls one at a time to attack my army. I should have lost the battle but since they attacked once at a time I slaughtered them with my naked fanatics and round shields. I was really dissapointed because I was expecting a hard battle which I would have had to really fight smart to win.

[HarunTaiwan]

Not only that, but in effect, how can you beseige a city where they have more troops than you?

Shouldn't there have to be a certain number in order to seal the city?

And of course, why can't they stop you before you besiege it?

Just march out and meet in pitched battle.

[The_678]

i never thought of that before. but if they still can't defeat me when they sally even if they are more and better men how could they break the seige?

[dedmoroz]

Not only that, but in effect, how can you beseige a city where they have more troops than you?

Shouldn't there have to be a certain number in order to seal the city?

And of course, why can't they stop you before you besiege it?

Just march out and meet in pitched battle.

I agree it is ridicules.
You can seal a 20,000 people city with 1 lousy unit of peasants
It is all wrong as hell man…
And think how you can move 20 units army with only 1 ship – funny, very funny.
I think that if those things mentioned above were fixed, taking cities would became harder task and this would be a perfect solution for rushing style of gameplay which is the only one suitable today…

[sapi]

Also, how can the meager amount of men left after your assault (often as little as a couple of hundred) hope to exterminate a city of 24000 and not get killed?

[aw89]

thats because of the unit scales in the game, normally it would be ATLEAST one legion of 5000 men and 15000 other men (auxillia, cooks, servants, food supply people and so on) that means, 5000 pluss auxillia (how many?) exterminateing the city, and if its a large city, probably more legions (sorry of my numbers are incorrect here..)