Surprising AI actions ?

[Alpha666]

I think the AI in some tactical battles in MTW/VIk/XL ( This is what i play ) is quite surprising.

Ex. 1: I had a small army which was attack by an enemy force twice the size roughly. Map was some woods and lower hills.

The enemy divided his force in 2 a) all the cav b) ranged units + swordsmen + handgunners. I was outnumbered but thought my 133men unit of chiv men at arms could handle the cav charge while the rest of my troops hide in the woods to then flank the cav while they battle my spears. I took into consideration the losses from the enemy ranged units which i wanted to ignore first to handle the cav. I forgot about the enemies swords btw. :(

Well my plan didn´t worked: The enemy cav just waited out of range and didn´t charge my spears in formation. Meanwhile the ranged units attacked from a hill which i didn´t occupy since i wanted to settle my right flank of the spears at a wood. As the cav didn´t move i swung my spears in direction of enemy ranged units also let some helberdiers and woodsmen charge them out of the woods. (Remember these should counter the cav in original plan)....

Well i quite killed some of them. But meanwhile the enemy swords (i forgot about) sneaked in the woods attacked my spears from behind. I had to set them to "engage at will" since formation was broken. Then the enemy cav charged my broken formation :( Not a bad action from the AI i would say. I lost the battle, but killed much of the swords and ranged units, but the enemy cav chopped my fleeing units to pieces :)

Conclusion: In this battle i see the only AI error in going forward to agressively with their ranged units instead of waiting on the hill and shoot my spears up more. Or maybe even this was planned by enemy to lure my units in the wood to attack them ? But if they had 1-2 more heavy melee inf units instead of too much ranged ones, i guess i wouldn´t have killed that much enemy men.


Ex. 2: Map was Flanders. One bridge in the middle - light hillier terrain on both sides. Enemy concentrated his ranged units on other side of bridge. They had only about 200-300 men more then me. My plan this time worked: I positioned 2 units of longbows on both sides of bridge carefully waiting untill they got shot at, so i pulled back a bit untill i got good shooting range without taking too much fire from enemy arbs/x-bows. Then i chose the poor men that had to go over the bridge first. Helberdiers (heavy armor) and light+fast javelin men. They got shot up quite good while crossing the bridge. But i had good mor+valor so they made their way to the enemy. This was the signal for all out attack with all other units. Longbows followed to other site. Enemy was routed quite good and i won this battle of course. The first wave had to suffer badly but still in both units some men left.

Conclusion: Quite perfect defensive setup by AI, which i might have done simmilar. Fault of AI: Army composition - too many ranged units without heavy support of units with staying power. If they had beaten back my first wave and occupied the bridge the battle would be much harder for me...even if my army was better quality.

[Innocentius]

I have a couple of battles that I remember where the AI surprised me, though in the opposite way.

First was a pretty basic example of AI stupidity: As the Burgundians (XL, late) I took Ile de France with a force much larger than the French one protecting it. They duly retreated, but sallied just the next year. As happens in Ile de France, I had a defensive bridge battle, the ideal setting. I won't go into details, but in short, the AI head on charge with most of their peak cavalry units except their king, got smashed by my Swiss halbardiers, Swiss pikemen and arbalesters. Then they just sent a force of some 600 (I counted ten units at least) of handgunners up the bridge, while their Chivalric Sergeants waited in the background (as they had came as reinfrocements). Well, handgunners ain't much of a problem. I took the opportunity, and started moving my Chiv Knights across the other bridge some distance away. Almost as soon as my knights have crossed, the French king rides onto the bridge were the battle is. I now have all the time in the world to manouver my knights, kill off the CSs from behind, trap the king on the bridge and annihalate the 600 handgunners. Result: about 150 dead for me, and some 1100 killed or captured on the French side, including the king.

Another two occured during my Bohemian campaign (XL Early, now scrapped). The Germans invaded Friesland, which was my weakest province as I had focused on producing ships rather than troops. Anyway, they out numbered me, and as Friesland goes into the plainsinland-maps, I though I was in for a tough defensive battle (I had mainly UMs).
Anyway, so the Germans move up their force, my army is standing close to the map edge with a forest protecting the rear. I move up my two units of Mounter Crossbowmen to flank the enemy. The enemy MCs, two units for them as well, ride up and a short archery duel take place. When three of their MCs are dead, and none of mine, the ride off. I can then move my MCs up to the enemy rear and start pepper their army from behind. To my surprise, they don't move. At all. They just stood there, with their army looking at mine and their MCs off somewhere else while my MCs peppered their best units (two units of FMAAs with armour +1). I thought this was boring and as it was exploiting the AI, I decided that I'd attack them once I had made maximum use of my MCs, ie. firing up all the bolts. Just when I start to move up my army to attack the attacker (which is really stupid, but it was really boring) the time runs out, and I win. 89 casualties on the enemy side, 0 on mine.

The other one took place in Friesland as well. This time I was technically the attacker, as an overwhelming German force had forced me to retreat to the castle.
Anyway, again, the setting is wooded plains. My entire army starts in a forest. I try to get my men up in position, then before I even leave the forest the entire AI cavalry, general and all, charges head on. I get my own cavalry out of the forest, while I move the rest of troops back inside. The cavalry gets into a fight with my Feudal Sergeants and FMAA, while my own cavalry rout the archers, UMs and single unit of spearmen that the AI has left unprotected.

[marcusbrutus]

In my game last week I attacked one of the pope's provinces, there was also a smallish Sicillian crusader army sitting in the province as they didn't have enough troops to attack me.

Anyway, it was a bridge battle and as I lined my troops up ready to cross the bridge I wondered why the AI was waiting so long to defend the other side.

What was happening was the Pope was marching across to the crusaders who he slaughtered! By this time all my troops were accross the bridge and ready to kill off the remaing papal army.

The worst thing is that the pope had called for the crusade in the first place.

[caravel]

They weren't allied, probably neutral, so when you made a battle there, it became a free for all for the province. As a result you've now put the Pope and the Sicilians at war with each other. Crusades just sitting in a neutral province are very vulnerable to this. I very nearly did the same in my current campaign (Almoravid/Early/Hard PoM), but the Spaniards and HRE struck an alliance the year before. I had waited for the defeated HRE crusade (to cordoba) in Castile to wear down to about 200 men, and then I had moved against the Spaniards there, expecting a free for all situation. I was surprised to see them allied, but ploughed through the HRE crusade and routed the Spaniards anyway. Next stop Leon, followed by Aragon. The Byzantine have bribed Navarra though.

[naut]

For me the AI surprises me with it's ability to never fall for my ambushes, ever! And it's persistence at being unreliable at bridge battles, one game it swarms me entirely another it is entirely incompetent (eg my English campaign were 2 Long-b, 2 Bill, 2 Chiv-K (dis), 2 Hob held a 1700 French army on a bridge and managed to win with not to painful a loss of men).

[caravel]

In the case of bridge battles, the AI, as you know, never attacks the second bridge, if it exists, allowing you an easy victory most of the time anyway, by sending a decoy holding force at the first bridge, backed up by the general (as the AI follows his position), and a faster cavalry/flanking force around to the second bridge. The answer to this exploit, not the best answer but probably the only one available, is to remove the double bridge maps. It's not as if you'd often find two bridges in that form in the real world anyway. Besides, the defender would have destroyed one, if not both, bridges in preparation.

[marcusbrutus]

They weren't allied, probably neutral, so when you made a battle there, it became a free for all for the province. As a result you've now put the Pope and the Sicilians at war with each other.

I've never knew that, thanks Caravel.

The answer to this exploit, not the best answer but probably the only one available, is to remove the double bridge maps.

How do I remove maps?

Back to topic. On the harder difficulty settings in XL the AI can be quite difficult to beat unless I have a better army all round. Especially if the AI has a lot of cavalry - I have to keep my eyes on my army's flanks and rear all the time.