Ever got one of those battles...

[Wardruid]

... where AI just tosses away a perfectly good general, faction heir or leader and haves him attack one of your armies with either nothing but say... (tsk tsk )peasants and town militia?

I was marching my way to Alexandria as the Seleucids with a pretty decent army:
6 Phalanx pikemen (most on 3 bronze chevrons or 1 silver)
2 Silver shield pikemen (Pretty new units about 1 bronze each)
3 Cretan archers (Just got them from the Turkish peninsula)
2 Cataphracts (Most experienced 3 silver)
and the general (who's pretty good in military and hates the Egyptians to boot)

When I ended the turn, Egypt sends at me what would be the most sorry army I've seen
7 Peasants
3 Nile spearmen
2 Desert Cavalry
3 Axemen
4 skirmishers
and three generals (one was the faction heir)

I decided to go for the traditional phalanx line, the cataphracts on each end, the archers and the general at the rear.
I killed all the generals and all that managed to escape were the desert Cavalry and what's left of the bodyguards. I lost 56 troops
After that I took Alexandria and then Memphis with the same army in the next turn w/o any real trouble. All alexandria had was the nearly depleted desert infantry and Memphis just had the Faction king. When I ended that turn I find out the Egypt was now destroyed because their last city, Thebes rebeled and kicked out the army. ...Ouch
There were about 5 generals who turn to rebels most were on Numidian Territory trying to get land. I bribe all of them.
What a lousy way to go

[PseRamesses]

... where AI just tosses away a perfectly good general, faction heir or leader and haves him attack one of your armies with either nothing but say... (tsk tsk )peasants and town militia?
...
I decided to go for the traditional phalanx line, the cataphracts on each end, the archers and the general at the rear.
I killed all the generals and all that managed to escape were the desert Cavalry and what's left of the bodyguards. I lost 56 troops
After that I took Alexandria and then Memphis with the same army in the next turn w/o any real trouble. All alexandria had was the nearly depleted desert infantry and Memphis just had the Faction king. When I ended that turn I find out the Egypt was now destroyed because their last city, Thebes rebeled and kicked out the army. ...Ouch
There were about 5 generals who turn to rebels most were on Numidian Territory trying to get land. I bribe all of them.
What a lousy way to go

The AI has a real problem with forming well balanced army composition. I often see it prefer missiles and to few spears to protect them. It also seem to always "march divided and fight divided" instead of fighting united. The results are multiple easy to pick off smaller bands of 2-6 units.
The AI re-evaluate its situation each turn (which is good) with ridiculous concequences. It hardly never stick with its first objective and constantly changes it in every turn - one turn siege here, break off, another siege somewhere else. A single unit sallies a besieged town, containing a single unit, against a full stack with a 100% failure as a result - why? This game needs a serious odd-calculator.
The AI never holds formation and always engages you unit by unit and doesn´t have the most rudimentary "knowledge" of even a simple concept as the "paper-scissor-rock" equation. The only strategic concept it does seem to use fairly well is trying to outflank you. But even this turns into a ridicoulus result as units gets stuck at the edge of the battlemap still trying to outflank you although there´s no way to go.
It constantly holds back spears and attacks with missiles (hand to hand) before using their primary weapon, the missile. Cavalry charges straight into 7-8 row deep phalanx units. Highly suicidal generals that behave in the same manor etc etc.

What a lousy way to fight.

[AndyNgFL]

what version of RTW are u all playing ?

[Goalie]

Well what difficulty were you playing on that can make a huge difference in the AI's decisions.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Sometimes a lone general decides to be the sole unit in a relief force when I'm sieging a city. He doesn't even bother to link up with the reinforcements (garrison). This has happened at least once in all my campaigns.

[Papewaio]

It happens to my lesser heirs all the time.

They go to battle to take one for the greater good.

I give them a substandard army of misfits that I don't need. If he succeeds and makes up for some of his flaws he gets some better troops. Rinse and repeat.

[Barbarossa1221]

Feel lucky that you killed the heirs you did
I have a lot of trouble taking out those pesky boys as it is, they always manage to turn tails and run and slip right out with those fast horses of theirs even when it seems I have em surrounded.

[Telys]

I was just playing a campaign as the seleucids where parthia sent their faction leader to one of my borders and left him there, so I sent a general with a few pikemen and some chariots to try and scare him away. When I ended the turn their faction leader, with no supporting units, attacked my army that was easily 5x larger than his one unit. I fought and killed him.

[Crian]

Welcome to the Org Wardruid!

It feels great to see a fellow Filipino in the forums! Marunong kang mag-Tagalog pare?

Anyway, nearly everyone who has played Vanilla RTW has experienced frustration over the AI's apparent inability to use its armies effectively in the battlefield, even if it has a clear advantage in terms of quantity and quality. This has always been a problem, especially in the earlier, pre-patch versions.

I recommend you download a mod, doing so did miracles for me and it really made playing RTW enjoyable again. RTR is a sure bet but right now I'm playing Darthmod. It's not as painful to download as RTR and not as extensive but it greatly enhances RTW's gameplay (with special emphasis on the computer's performance on the battlefield, you'll notice it after a few battles, even though you can still outsmart the AI). Hope this helps.

[allfathersgodi]

Playing as the Vikings in VI, invaded Mercia with my king, and an heir, backed up by a pair of Viking Landsmen. The Mercians had a pair of Frydmen and a pair of archers (their general I think utterly sucked) I let the computer calculate the victory the Vikings Lost! I reloaded my save (I was pissed and wanted to take it out on that same group of Mercians). I took command of the battle, used the two landsmen as flankers to flush the archers and sent my king and heir against the frydmen units (who in a few short seconds went from full strentgh to twenties and teens and routing) I wanted my King and my Heir to get valor and experience so I let them chase the Frydmen (who all died with sword and spear wounds to their backs). And then I saw the general's horse charging from behind (got my king and heir units to do an about face to defend agains the charge and the cavalry hit my king unit, the first casualty, the King...

[orangat]

The RTW flaws you mention is because the AI does not have a clue about upgrading units for more powerful ones.

So if it has town watch/cheap militia units, it will continue to hang on to them until the unit is destroyed. In patches, the AI was purposely tweaked to be more aggressive with neighbouring factions so as to 'use up' the cheap and rubbish units. I think its better at patch 1.5, although it could still happen to AI factions who haven't been at war that much.

[||Legends||Wolfy]

Yes,in future games what i hope for is a stronegr AI to have PROPER battles in the campaign.2 of my very good urbans took out an entire Egyptian army!How coudl that happen?
Yeh,the AI needs to be harder..

[allfathersgodi]

I had a wierd battle just recently in MTW. Early period, English. I invaded Champaign where the French heir was and his army, they actually had numerical advantage but I guess my king's high dread scared them, so they retreated to I-d-f and sent a token force from IDF, who promptly died. I-d-f was all they had left and it rebeled with two archers, two peasants and a pair of catapults, where as the king had his own unit, two or three archers, two or three peasants and I think an urban militia or two. He cowered inside the castle and starved to death...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Yet in MTW just yesterday in a desert Battle my English army was almost destroyed by a German force. I managed to smash their inf with my heavy Cav but they re-inforced and I lost all my cavalry. Meanwhile the German general and his heavy knights managed to massacre my archers and were only stopped by my general and Order Foot left over from my last crusade.

In my bloodiest battle ever a Mercian force faced off against my Saxons and I only had about 30 guys left, including my king. That was two near-full stacks.

For MTWII the AI needs to learn dispanding and upgrading, and it needs to be as good as MTWI.

[||Legends||Wolfy]

When i sieged a city,His king rode out the gate and charged full pelt into my army?of course he was killed...
shame,you can evr get a good AI on campaign...