Disappointed by the AI's cowardice...

[Wizardofthedribble]

I find that the AI is distinctly cowardly when it comes to fighting crunch battles (except against me!)

For example - playing on Hard as the English from the start, about 1150 the Almohads have wiped out the Spanish (who barely fought back, but just kept retreating into small castles and then getting ground down), and the wretched Sicilians have now started to land troops all over Spain.

Both sides have LOTS of full stack armies, but every time one or the other attacks the smaller of the two armies (usually the defending army) just retreats into their castle, with the obvious consequences. Surely it makes more sense to abandon the province if you can't hold it and make a stand somewhere else, or even to make the stand there and then as you can almost always cause the attacking army massive casualties when defending?!!

As a result of this behaviour the weaker of the two powers just commits Hari Kari as its armies get pinned down in castles with negligible loss of men for the attacking forces, and eventually they become extinct without even fighting an epic battle!

Is this just me that notices this?

[Phatboi]

i find that the same thing happens in my campaigns. some AI put up a fight against other AI, but when i do the same thing i have a challenge.

[Phatboi]

i find that the same thing happens in my campaigns. some AI put up a fight against other AI, but when i do the same thing i have a challenge.

for example when i play the english, i hit flanders as soon as possible.
i barely win the battle at times. but if the germans hit flanders with about the same troops, the french get decimated.

[Duke Eugen]

After playing MTW for years I think your definitely right. The A.I.does not play by the same rules as us. Sometimes they are tigers sometimes lambs. in the Mod.ing forums you can learn to adjust things a little if one faction keeps getting wiped out.

[King Noob the Stupid]

I noticed the same thing... I find it somewhat funny that the really powerful Germans (who always get the "biggest army award" as long as the Eggies don't have it) will ALWAYS be beaten up by the French, who always have 1-4 enemies and almost no allies while everybody is allied with HRE in every game I play on early. The HRE loses some provinces in the west while several full stacks of them stand in Bohemia or another eastern border province, then they fall into civil war and in the end they stand there with about 5 provs remaining... and then my game crashes. :( I also noticed that in the majority of my games the pope doesn't seem to care at all about all the wars between catholic factions, I only saw somebody being excommunicated (the Italians) once in about 10 campaigns I started since i started to play VI again.

[Martok]

Wow, that's practically the opposite of my experiences with MTW (and I still play it at least a couple days every week). In my games, the HRE is usually at war with 3-5 different factions inside of 20 years. The French are also often at war with multiple factions, particularly the English, the HRE, and sometimes Aragon. It's also fairly common for the Pope to ex-comm various Catholic factions, not just myself--his favorite targets seem to be the HRE, the French, Italians, and Sicilians. I'm not saying he's ex-comming people right and left, but I'd say I receive an average of 1-2 messages every decade or so saying that Faction X has been excommunicated.

[matteus the inbred]

the French are incredible...if i play as a Muslim/Byz faction, i always find them at war simultaneously with Aragon, England, Germany and often Spain as well...and one of these factions will get wiped out every 4-5 years or so. in one game the French wiped out Aragon, England and Spain in ONE turn! why can't i be that good???

i agree with the post title though, the AI runs away too often from other AI factions, possibly a response to its behaviour setting (AI defensive/non-aggressive or whatever), and fights like a tiger when confronted by my own armies, even when insanely outnumbered.
currently i'm not seeing anyone getting ex-comm'd, cos the Pope's been wiped out by Sicily in all my campaigns. which is crap when you ARE the French and get all your GA points from crusading.