AI won't attack during a seige ???

**GotGame36** · 01-15-2007, 18:41

I have the patched version.........

I had France and Scotland attack my Citadel, both have full stacks ,and I only have 4 units of bowman and my general.

Here's my problem.......The AI just sits there....they will not attack at all. I have my 5 units set up inside the Citadel and they have over 15 units each but nothing happens. I even set the time to x3 for over 15 minutes.....and still nothing. It's like they are waiting for me to come outside of the Citadel instead of attacking the walls.

Is there something I need to change to make them attack me during a seige??

**Kraggenmor** · 01-15-2007, 18:54

Did you give them siege equiment? Ladders, Rams, Towers? Or artillery with which to punch holes in your walls?

If they have not the tools to breach your castle, they'll just sit.

**GotGame36** · 01-15-2007, 18:56

This is when the AI attacks me, while I am INSIDE a city or castle, not when I am doing the seiging.

They had 2 units of catapults and a few units of balistas.....but still won't attack.

**Kraggenmor** · 01-15-2007, 19:00

Originally Posted by GotGame36

This is when the AI attacks me, while I am INSIDE a city or castle, not when I am doing the seiging.

They had 2 units of catapults and a few units of balistas.....but still won't attack.

If they have artillery then, I haven't a clue why they'd not use it. Just for grins, try giving them a single ram and see what happens.

**Carl** · 01-15-2007, 19:01

ANyway, you can't start a seige battle (even in custom), if each army dosen't have at least 1 ram or artilliary.

I've also seen the same thing myself BTW.

**GotGame36** · 01-15-2007, 19:18

Wonder if there is a way to fix it.

Both AI armies had seige units but wouldn't use them.....very strange. I ended up stopping the battle.

**Psyco** · 01-16-2007, 04:10

*disclaimer* - the following should only be used if necessary, to continue the campaign. I disagree with exploiting bugs in the ai, so this is a desperation measure only.

If the ai refuses to attack, it helps to give them a target, such as your general marching out of a side gate (retreating inside long before he's in danger, of course). The enemy army will march to attack the general, getting in range of your towers. When your general retreats, they lose the target, and march back to their original position.

I was forced to use this once, in a game as the HRE. I destroyed all of the Hungarians' siege weapons and they refused to withdraw. It worked well, and after I slowly whittled down their forces, I was able to finish the campaign.

**Ring_Master\** · 01-16-2007, 04:47

Originally Posted by Psyco

*disclaimer* - the following should only be used if necessary, to continue the campaign. I disagree with exploiting bugs in the ai, so this is a desperation measure only

If the ai refuses to attack, it helps to give them a target, such as your general marching out of a side gate (retreating inside long before he's in danger, of course). The enemy army will march to attack the general, getting in range of your towers. When your general retreats, they lose the target, and march back to their original position

I used to be big on doing this all the time back in the initial RTW game versions... except that in my angle of approach, I would do this when I sally out against an army sometimes 4 times as large as mine.... I would lure the AI army up to my towers where the AI would sit forever ( note: no timelimit battle ) while being bombarded by arrows from my stone towers... the end result is MULTIPLE WHOLE UNITS of the enemy army being annihilated where they stand with it continuing until their army withdraws from the field due to losses...

therefore, you have a semi-massive victory where you did nothing but witness the enemy make the dumbest blunder which costed him 650+ lives at times

....

Thankfully.. the AI isn't at least THIS dumb now since then.

**Batavian** · 01-16-2007, 17:40

I have found that on the harder difficulty levels, the AI will attack or initiate a siege but then not move their troops forward if they see I have a very strong position. It's as if they know if they bring up their siege tower, it's going up in flames. It's quite frustrating to sit and wait for the timer to expire, even at 3x.

**IsItStillThere** · 01-16-2007, 19:23

Sometimes it seems that the AI decides to assault, but then once its on the battle map realizes it doesn't have the forces to carry it off, so it just sits. It seems to happen less often after updating to 1.1

This is one of the reasons I never play without the battle timer enabled.