The most stupidest thing you ever saw the AI doing

[sieve]

My favorite is when the AI takes their armies and charges a few feet - stops - turns to one side - stops - turns back to face me - stops - then charges forward another ten feet, etc, etc. They do this several times before they simply decide to charge at me. All the while being cut down by my archers. Makes me laugh every time.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Not to mention when they charge towards me, then stop right in front of me without attacking. Very much appreciated by my pila-throwing roman units. Also I've seen the AI send a general's cavalry unit forward towards my line, then instead of suicide charging - which can actually sometimes be a quite effective way for them to break lines of hastati and principes (but not spears, where they also often like to suicide charge) thanks to their very hard difficulty boni - he just stopped. Then, slowly, he turned to one side, and rode along my entire line without attacking (not until he reached the unit I had furthest out on the flank), while getting decimated by pila, until finally the entire unit was gone and the enemy general was dead. He had one or two men left when he hit the unit he had targetted on my flank...

[pezhetairoi]

I still say it's the frontal cavalry charges into phalanxes. Gets me everytime, except when it's my general under AI control that's doing the charging.

[nee]

turning their backs on my phalanx?

[professorspatula]

I saw a new bit of AI stupidity the other day.

I set up a silly custom battle. Loads of scorpions, repeating ballistae and normal ballistae on a steep hill. The AI had 2 units of Urban Cohorts. The Urban Cohorts had to climb down a steep hill, then climb up to the steep hill where my artillery was. The result: a long journey where they were getting slaughtered and knocked miles backwards before even getting close to my men. One unit decided the only course of action to take was to form a Testudo and stand there and absorb the lethal bolts. Standing still in tight formation? Genius. I had them flung 40 feet back in the air within seconds.

The other Urban cohort engaged one of my ballista units, but the general was speared by a bolt and knocked at least 100 yards away, where he picked himself up, dusted down his clothes and rejoined the battle. Quite how he survived the initial bolt is beyond me, but anyway, having one of his units form the easiest possible formation to destroy with artillery is the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time.

[Shadar]

the stupidest thing i've ever seen the AI do was in RTR... Parthians decided to assault my stone-walled town... At this stage, i had nothing but two units of basic pikemen and 1 general's unit. they capture the walls with a unit of infantry, which they leave outside with the other infantry unit, and then the cavalry rush to the centre of my town. They decide to rush their horse archers to the FRONT of my phalanx troops (who were at the entrance of the plaza), they shoot a few volleys of arrows before rushing madly at the spears and piling dead bodies up. My rear got attacked by cataphracts who had sneaked behind, who charged my general's rear (they got massacred nonetheless). All was chaos. by then the much depleted pikemen had turned around and were attacking the cataphracts.. they broke around this time though and the cataphracts proceeded to massacre them all. although by this time the cataphracts were almost all dead anyways.

Result: 1 maximum size Parthian army lost ~90% of its horsemen. my losses - 2 levy pikemen and 1 general's unit (not replaceable, but still satisfactory to have worn down an attacking army so much i rolled over them when i took the town back...)

[Armandus]

1 - One time, im attacking a city, and the computer make to attack me. Well, i run, after my army be almost crushed,only left archers and cavalary, and only my general without bodyguards, and as always, i killed the enemy general and all of yours cavalary. He has left only 8 powerful phalanx, and i have started to killed one by one (he started to persuit me, and spread out). When stay some units, i take the walls (i have built 2 towers), and captured all gates. The computer stay out of your onw city, and trying to back inside. He died simple by the arrows and by the oil.

2 - When the computer attacks, i put the archers (or skimirshes) in front. The computer always send his cavalary and his archers(archers!!?) to pursuit my archers. Well, i retreat my archers between my phalanx (or any else footman), and the cavalary and archers come straight to death.

3 - its nothing more annoying than friendly fire. In the defense of a bridge, i have lost 180 mens, but 50 healed. The computer have killed 5, the rest was my archers. This was the extreme, but he does this always.

But, not everything was stupid. I really hate when he has archer cavalary and chariots archers. Normally, he wont attack me, just stay away and firing arrows.

[Megas Alexandros]

I understand that weak AI also origins out of low processor free-time.

However, can this silly thing somehow be avoided:

My best son was getting a sun-tan in Athens, with 2 Hoplita units. It was in the beginning. Anyway, a Greek army out of nowhere laid a siege on Athens. They had around 300 men in the army. No problem here - I thought - I ushered my 600 men army from Corinth and attacked the intruders, meanwhile the small force inside Athens also sallied. - what an easy victory we will have now, I thought -

Okay, the battle begins, and I am surprised that the little sallying force is commanded by the AI. Damn, I said. I was at the foot of the hill with the grand army, the Greeks halfway up, and the my son's little host at the top. And they marched down against the Greeks! I ordered all of my troops to rush up the hill in a forced march, but they could not do anything before my son was laying dead among the healp of his fellow guards.

All right, one heir less. I performed a heroic victory btw, so Athens was free again. However, next round there came an other Greek army, with my other heir in Athens, and the grand army back in Corinth....
All I could do was to save the game and replay the siege-lifting battle until my only heir survived...

Is there any way to stop the besieged army to do this stupid thing in?

[Armandus]

In the new version 1.2, u can choice to your son not participate as reinforcement, so he cant die if he dont fight.

[Krauser]

The AI sent my General Cavarly head first into a sea of spears. Now, I make sure and pause a lot to see all aspects of the battle and make sure the AI is cooperating. I really wish it worked better.

1. AI making your units auto-attack even against their counter.
2. Units not following your orders. Walking instead of charging, just stopping completely, ignoring orders, etc. I understand some of this is intended but some of it just seems like poor AI.

[Taurus]

Stupid AI, I was playing as Macedon in the campaign and from the off the Greeks just kept sieging my cities with full stacks (or nearly full stacks) of Peltasts.

[Krauser]

Stupid AI, I was playing as Macedon in the campaign and from the off the Greeks just kept sieging my cities with full stacks (or nearly full stacks) of Peltasts.

1. In a quick battle the AI sent full stacks of cavalry into the gate where my phalanxes were waiting it was so funny. 50% of their force gone in a few seconds.

2. I find the AI really stupid at sea too. I blockade their port and one of their ships is just sitting there. They don't even care that I blockaded it.

3. Sometimes they siege my cities and start building up rams and stuff but just leave in a few turns. Other times they try to starve me out but on the last turn they just walk away. Then my armies come and crush them.

[pezhetairoi]

Weird AI. I like the part where I sally once I get besieged, and lure the entire enemy army towards me. Then I retreat back into my city but leave the gates open, and when the enter they find themselves in a deathtrap semicircle of hoplites/infantry/peasants that soon gets them a mass rout, especially when the bottleneck at the gate is fired upon by archers/peltasts. Awesome casualties because of mass stupidity.

[CMcMahon]

The fact that they're totally inept against skirmishing Rhodian slingers. I did a battle today as the Greeks against the Ptolemaics, with 600 on my side and two armies of about 650 on theirs.

I lined up my hoplites in semicircle with the ends facing out, with Illyrian peltasts on the ends, with skirmish off and guard on, and two groups of Cretan archers set the same way in the center, with my general behind as a reserve. I sent my two groups of Rhodian slingers off the right flank of the closer army, a bit away from each other, and my podromoi on the left flank, and took out their general with my slingers as he ran towards my skirmishing cavalry. I then nailed half of their units from behind with missile fire, routing several of them. By the time they reached my lines, only one unit of infantry got close enough to actually hit the line without being routed by the missile cav and slingers in the back, and the peltasts and archers behind my line. And the one unit? They hit dead center, right into my mass of Athenian hoplites. Routed.

So I had my out-of-ammo cavalry chase down all the routers, and sent my now bingo peltasts and archers, and my general, out to my left flank, where I figured (correctly) that the enemy would attempt to come around from behind. My slingers went after the second army's general, routing him and killing him. They then proceeded to devastate the army, splitting it in half, and ended up taking out three groups of Macedonian mercenaries before running out of ammo and sprinting back to my lines, where my general had led two groups of Greek mercenaries into a trap, with my archers and peltasts coming in to charge from behind. And, of course, my lines held.

End result: My units had about 40 casualties, while they had about 1100. Stupid tactics.

[Megas Alexandros]

In the new version 1.2, u can choice to your son not participate as reinforcement, so he cant die if he dont fight.

Where is this option? I got the latest 1.2 version, and found no buttons connected to the reinfrocements.

[Puzz3D]

You only get the checkbox for computer or manual controlled reinforcements if the total number of units on the field will exceed 20. I thought reinforcements were always manually controlled in v1.2 if the total number of units was going to be less than 20, but maybe it's different for sallying reinforcements.

Off the top of my head, the AI sallying and attacking you with one unit at a time is as dumb as a brick, but the breaking up of its spear line while trying to maneuver to attack UNEXPOSED flanks of your units as though the covering unit didn't exist is pretty bad as well. However, the suicide generals is a real killer to the AI.

[sunsmountain]

Without a doubt, sallying forth battles. Fought Numidia, a 20 stack army lay siege to Carthage. Had about 13 units in Carthage so i thought: Let's sally forth.

3 of which were archer auxilia (i was roman). Placed them on my Epic Stone Walls (level 5), and let the battle commence. They didnt have any siege equipment.

To my amazement, the AI rushed its entire army forward in order to get 1 kill on one of my archers, who even healed after the battle was over. Their entire army was decimated.

Now to be fair those were a lot of skirmish troops, so maybe its just that skirmish AI that's bugged, but still, i lmao

[bubbanator]

As the Brutii, I was just finishing up my campaign against the Egyptians. They had 2 cities left. The campaign had been costly and what was left of my 2 full stack armies were going to take their last cities. Out of nowhere, this half stack of Egyptians with a full stack right next to them. Both of them were led by generals.

(this was my expiditionary campaign to finish them off early, i had histati and mercs)

I had spies in the 2 cities so i knew that both of their remaining family members were in the armies that was coming to kill me and ruin my hopes of crushing Egypt and saving the Selucids.

I set up the few men I had in a defensive cresent. The enemy full stack army was coming from the NE and the half stack from the north. Both armies were about 1/3 chariots so i thought i was screwed. But as they got near, both sent out a detachment to flank me on my left flank. I take a closer look and see that it is both of the generals and one other chariot group. I send all of my men, cav and inf, charging at them. Both of the generals were killed and the entire faction died with them.