Rtw/bi

[econ21]

I've shaken my head in disbelief at the stupidity of the AI and have seen my best general whom I had spent hours training up (playing as Parthia) charge a formation of Selucid Hoplites without orders and dying instantly.

Mods don't significantly improve the battlefield AI, although maybe by fiddling with the starting formations they make it a bit better. I find sometimes the AI is dumb, but often is servicable. What mods like RTR and EB tend to do is slow down the battles and improve the realism. I suspect vanilla RTW makes the AI seem dumb because you can beat it so easily and quickly. With slower battles (from higher morale and lower kill rates), you still win but it feels more like a real contest.

I'd never trust the AI with one of my generals, though.

Next up was my 'great victory' uphill outnumbered 10 to 1 against the Armenians who suddenly decided to wreck my empire. I thought I had lost it, but repeatedly charges from my generals unit of 30 men, and a few of my HA's (vs their 800+ eastern infantry, general and horse archers) won the day, with the enemy routing in all directions. Surprising as in MTW or STW it would have been all over for me in most cases.

RTW does have balance issues with cavalry and infantry - especially 2HP generals and lamentable eastern infantry. I'm inclined to edit all generals' units to be 1HP.

A horse archer army in the hands of the player can be devastating (as can be an all cav one in vanilla RTW).

After this, tired of finding annoying brigands everywhere ...

This is one of my biggest bug bears, but from 1.5 onwards, you can edit down the brigand and pirate spawn. Find the descr_strat.txt files (there's one each for RTW and BI, hidden deep away under data\world\maps\campaign\whatever) and set the spawn parameters to 100 (you could search the text file for "spawn" - but it is very early in the file so you could eyeball it).

Should I try the "very hard" difficulty for the battles instead of hard? Or just forget it and download RTR?

I've never raised the battle difficulty - I like the historical balance - and never really felt the need. I fight on VH campaigns with less than full stacks and find it challenging enough.

Personally, I would forget it and download RTR Platinum Edition (Gold will not let you edit down the brigand spawn rate).

If you want a challenge, I'd recommend SnakeIVs Roman factions mod for RTR PE - it brings back the Senate and I find Julii a struggle at the beginning (which is striking because Julii is about the easiest faction in vanilla RTW).

But I think RTW factions differ from MTW in being of greatly different strength. In MTW, most factions have similar unit rosters (basic spears, cav, swords, archers etc). In RTW, there is a much wider dispersion in the power of different units. Romans, Macedonians, Parthians etc are always going to be powerful in the hands of the player. Numidians and Gauls are going to struggle etc.

[caravel]

Mods don't significantly improve the battlefield AI, although maybe by fiddling with the starting formations they make it a bit better. I find sometimes the AI is dumb, but often is servicable. What mods like RTR and EB tend to do is slow down the battles and improve the realism. I suspect vanilla RTW makes the AI seem dumb because you can beat it so easily and quickly. With slower battles (from higher morale and lower kill rates), you still win but it feels more like a real contest.

I find the AI simply horrendous and can't make excuses for it. I still don't understand how the AI in TW games has become progressively worse. There is still no positive confirmation from CA regarding M2TW's standard of AI, all the talk is about graphics, so I doubt if we can expect the legendary AI we had all hoped for.

I'd never trust the AI with one of my generals, though.

The general in question wasn't AI controlled he simply took it upon himself to ignore my orders and charge the phalanx full on.

RTW does have balance issues with cavalry and infantry - especially 2HP generals and lamentable eastern infantry. I'm inclined to edit all generals' units to be 1HP.

Forgive my ignorance, but: 1HP and 2HP? (hit points???)

A horse archer army in the hands of the player can be devastating (as can be an all cav one in vanilla RTW).

I find that arrows do far to much damage on the whole. I won a particular battle just by sitting my horse archers in front of the enemy and leaving them there. I was concentrating on hunting enemy foot archers with my generals units and was surprised to see a few stragglers routing... battle over. My HA's had cleaned up. The AI sat there and took it. It either bumrushes or sits there. There is no tactical maneouvering, the crap flat terrain, complete with giant trees, combined with the moto cav doesn't help.

This is one of my biggest bug bears, but from 1.5 onwards, you can edit down the brigand and pirate spawn. Find the descr_strat.txt files (there's one each for RTW and BI, hidden deep away under data\world\maps\campaign\whatever) and set the spawn parameters to 100 (you could search the text file for "spawn" - but it is very early in the file so you could eyeball it).

I've never raised the battle difficulty - I like the historical balance - and never really felt the need. I fight on VH campaigns with less than full stacks and find it challenging enough.

Personally, I would forget it and download RTR Platinum Edition (Gold will not let you edit down the brigand spawn rate).

Done it, and once I've fixed my wife's PC I may even have a chance to play it. It looks absolutely superb.

If you want a challenge, I'd recommend SnakeIVs Roman factions mod for RTR PE - it brings back the Senate and I find Julii a struggle at the beginning (which is striking because Julii is about the easiest faction in vanilla RTW).

I find the senate missions odious, so I may have to avoid that one for now. I like the way RTR creates a single Roman faction with which you can do as you please.

But I think RTW factions differ from MTW in being of greatly different strength. In MTW, most factions have similar unit rosters (basic spears, cav, swords, archers etc). In RTW, there is a much wider dispersion in the power of different units. Romans, Macedonians, Parthians etc are always going to be powerful in the hands of the player. Numidians and Gauls are going to struggle etc.

I do feel that vanilla RTW represents the "barbarians" as a rabble and doesn't really do them justice.

(sorry for late reply)

[econ21]

The general in question wasn't AI controlled he simply took it upon himself to ignore my orders and charge the phalanx full on.

Well, to be honest, I would put this in the "it's not a bug - it's a feature" camp. Making cavalry impetuous - liable to charge without orders - is defensible, from a historical point of view. Think of the charge of the light brigade or even the French cavalry at Waterloo. Your suicidal general was a prototype Marshall Ney.

Forgive my ignorance, but: 1HP and 2HP? (hit points???)

Yes. It's a really big deal and a key reason why general's units can crush most opposition.

I find that arrows do far to much damage on the whole. I won a particular battle just by sitting my horse archers in front of the enemy and leaving them there.

Agreed. I experienced that, but on the losing side, in a recent Julii PBM battle against the Scythians. I had slightly more men but no archers, insufficient cavalry and just died. But in this case, I did rather admire the AI. They would evade contact, use the Parthian shot, charge any infantry that turned their backs to them, quickly mob isolated units etc. It was actually rather awesome, if mortifying. I'm pretty sure it would not have happened in STW or MTW.

In RTR, your archers etc need unshielded targets to do a lot of damage.

The same turn I also lost a big battle against the Spaniards. I think I went back to vanilla RTW with a contempt for the AI and was given a spanking in return. (The Romans in RTR may actually be stronger than the pre-Marian ones in vanilla RTW.) Try fighting battles at 1:2 odds or worse (use half-stacks) before you dismiss the AI as horrendous. The Risk-style campaign map of STW/MTW meant you tended to face much tougher battle odds than the dispersed RTW one, where the AI struggles to keep up.

[Ludens]

I find the AI simply horrendous and can't make excuses for it. I still don't understand how the AI in TW games has become progressively worse.

OT, but I beg to differ. M:TW's A.I. is superior to S:TW's in several aspects, including bridge battles, suicidal generals and flanking. It also cheats less on the campaign map. On the other hand, the M:TW A.I. has serious problems setting up a profitable economy, but that can be modded. However, I agree that R:TW's A.I. was a failure. There's a couple of things it does better than M:TW, but that doesn't matter because it's got the basics all wrong.

There is still no positive confirmation from CA regarding M2TW's standard of AI, all the talk is about graphics, so I doubt if we can expect the legendary AI we had all hoped for.

CA has repeated their intention to improve M2:TW's A.I. several times, and they even recruited a long-time MP player to assure that this would work. The first M2:TW development blog was dedicated to the battlefield A.I.

[caravel]

Well, to be honest, I would put this in the "it's not a bug - it's a feature" camp. Making cavalry impetuous - liable to charge without orders - is defensible, from a historical point of view. Think of the charge of the light brigade or even the French cavalry at Waterloo. Your suicidal general was a prototype Marshall Ney.

A constructive way at looking at it.

Yes. It's a really big deal and a key reason why general's units can crush most opposition.

How does this work? Do they affectively have to be critically hit twice before they actually die? If so I may change them to 1HP as you had stated that you had done in the previous post.

Agreed. I experienced that, but on the losing side, in a recent Julii PBM battle against the Scythians. I had slightly more men but no archers, insufficient cavalry and just died. But in this case, I did rather admire the AI. They would evade contact, use the Parthian shot, charge any infantry that turned their backs to them, quickly mob isolated units etc. It was actually rather awesome, if mortifying. I'm pretty sure it would not have happened in STW or MTW.

Strange, I've found the opposite to be the case so far. Another thing. Have you been using the BI exe for RTW? If so, how is it going?

In RTR, your archers etc need unshielded targets to do a lot of damage.

I'll have a chance to try this out from saturday onwards when I'll have more time.

The same turn I also lost a big battle against the Spaniards. I think I went back to vanilla RTW with a contempt for the AI and was given a spanking in return. (The Romans in RTR may actually be stronger than the pre-Marian ones in vanilla RTW.) Try fighting battles at 1:2 odds or worse (use half-stacks) before you dismiss the AI as horrendous. The Risk-style campaign map of STW/MTW meant you tended to face much tougher battle odds than the dispersed RTW one, where the AI struggles to keep up.

My point is that I shouldn't need to face a numerically superior force in oder to lose, and most of the battles I've fought so far in RTW have been against the odds, well outnumbered, by 4 to 1 in some cases and my forces have still won the day. The battles I've lost have been those where my units were seriously undermanned and routed. I find that the AI either attacks en masse or just sits there and waits until my units advance to a certain distance and attacks anyway. Though if my horse archers move to a certain range and open fire, the enemy still just sits there. The AI is also baited by certain units, it rushes weaker missile/javelin type troops or archers, with no thought of maintaining a battle line or flank protection, just to score a cheap kill.

OT, but I beg to differ. M:TW's A.I. is superior to S:TW's in several aspects, including bridge battles, suicidal generals and flanking. It also cheats less on the campaign map. On the other hand, the M:TW A.I. has serious problems setting up a profitable economy, but that can be modded. However, I agree that R:TW's A.I. was a failure. There's a couple of things it does better than M:TW, but that doesn't matter because it's got the basics all wrong.

By 'steadily worse' I was referring to the transition from STW/MTW -> RTW, not throughout the series. I have always found MTW's AI to be better than Shogun's overall. Bad wording on my part, sorry.

CA has repeated their intention to improve M2:TW's A.I. several times, and they even recruited a long-time MP player to assure that this would work. The first M2:TW development blog was dedicated to the battlefield A.I.

Let's hope that CA do the AI some justice this time around.

[econ21]

How does this work? Do they affectively have to be critically hit twice before they actually die? If so I may change them to 1HP as you had stated that you had done in the previous post.

You got it.

Another thing. Have you been using the BI exe for RTW? If so, how is it going?

I use it for RTR Platinum, but not for vanilla RTW as I think the main Imperial campaign does not work well with it (at least for Rome - there are no Senate missions etc.) I think any improvements are marginal and probably confined to the strategic AI.

My point is that I shouldn't need to face a numerically superior force in oder to lose, and most of the battles I've fought so far in RTW have been against the odds, well outnumbered, by 4 to 1 in some cases and my forces have still won the day.

Well, I would typically only lose in MTW/STW if facing a superior force (in quality or quantity), so I am not sure there is a big change there.

To be honest, my RTW experience is quite varied. Most vanilla battles, I admit, I've sailed through. Casualty rates have been well below those I experienced in MTW and STW. But the current PBM campaign I've entered has seen me suffer two humiliating defeats in one turn. It may be because I've entered cold mid-campaign, when the AI has decent troops (bull warriors for Spain; horse archers for Scythia) and my pre-Marian + mercenary forces have been mediocre. But it's been humbling. In both battles, there was no major fault in the AI. The Spanish just came forward en masse and eventually overwhelmed me; the Scythians made pretty clever use of horse archers, as I indicated.

A more common pattern was that I shoot to death the AI (protected by top notch troops), who either sits around hopelessly or reacts piecemeal as you indicate. But lately I've been trying to fight with "historical" pre-Marian Roman armies - ie go light on missiles and cavalry (two each per stack max) and fight with small stacks including many mercenaries (up to half the stack) as allies. The gloves are off with the Scythians now though.

[Ludens]

Let's hope that CA do the AI some justice this time around.

I certainly hope so .

[Puzz3D]

CA has repeated their intention to improve M2:TW's A.I. several times, and they even recruited a long-time MP player to assure that this would work. The first M2:TW development blog was dedicated to the battlefield A.I.

The battlefield AI could still be inferior to MTW eventhough better than RTW. I would say 2:1 odds should be virtually a certain win for the AI all other things being equal. This is how it is in MTW using the Samurai Wars mod.

They would evade contact, use the Parthian shot, charge any infantry that turned their backs to them, quickly mob isolated units etc........I'm pretty sure it would not have happened in STW or MTW.

There is no Parthian shot, but the STW/MTW AI is very good about charging units that have turned their backs. It also does not charge stronger units unless forced to, but will instead try for an indirect attack in a situation where it's obligated to attack. There is less need for the AI to mob a unit because it makes winning matchups, but it will attack single units with more than one unit if there aren't any other enemy units in the vicinity.

[doc_bean]

The battlefield AI could still be inferior to MTW eventhough better than RTW.

That's what I expect, unless they drastically changed movement/kill speeds and moral penalties map size and initial positionment. Rome is a game of quick, devastating strikes and 'micro-manoeuvering, it's virtually impossible to create an AI (within the constraints of a game like M2TW) that can match a human with a system like that.

[bedlam28]

Hi Caravel,

Another question I have is, that when I'm drawing out formations, e.g. a group of three units of Hastatii, I expect them to line up as follows:

H . H . H

Instead the always seem to line up like this:

H . H . . . . H

Why the huge gap???

I've read through the responses and didn't see an answer to this, so thought I'd mention my take on it.
Sorry if you already know...

the only time I've come across this is when there are a line of H's
eg: H H H H H H

and I highlight the first, second, and fifth to 'step forward for volunteer duty'

H H..... H
... HH.. HHH

they will stay the same distance from eachother. I will need to click the distant Hastati and move him seperately to join the other two.

I find this particularly annoying when I send equites to attack archers, from their sitting position of 2 on each flank... they all 4 attack and then get in trouble so I click away from the danger, and because 2 are at that position, the other 2 will keep the original distance, meaning they are sitting stupidly right in the middle of the opposing army!!

[caravel]

Thanks for the reply bedlam28. I eventually discovered that it was the grouping that was causing it. I have to drag out my formations before grouping them, otherwise they go all over the place.