Is this game going down the drain?

[SnowlyWhite]

Basically, turn 34, 34 provinces, with Oslo, Bern and Zagreb under siege. The lost battles are me auto solving my 3 militias vs. rebels till I take them out ...

This is on vh/vh settings!

Now, I've reinstalled mtw(the original), and, if you imagine I'm some tactical genius, I must tell you I had serious issues in winning battles over there. Heck, even rome had a better ai(though those phalanx, were so realistic that the german phalanx beat a roman legion if faced head on, which is quite ridiculous).

But, if in rome, was already much "point and charge", here is... only "point and charge"! And even that would be bareable, but... even in sieges and places where I had no cavalry(btw., I'm no genius in the campaign map part either... my "elite" units are the merc spearmen and ok, 3-4 teutonic knights... can't tech up too much in 34 turns, can you... plus is pointless when you advance so fast).

Now, imagine the following scenario: ai sieges venice as venice(full stack, 20 troops this time - God knows how he managed to create a full stack, but whatever...). Me, 3 spear militias, 2 mailed knights, 1 pessie archer, 1 pisant for cannon fodder. He builds ram, ladder, siege tower.

Assault starts... Ladder, ram, tower come towards me; I get out the pisants to delay the ram, ladders reach the wall, tower is close to the wall(needless to say that, inbetween the 17 italian spear militia, the ai chose his 3 pessie archer units to manipulate the siege eq., but that'd be already ok given what I saw afterwards...).
Ladders reach the wall, ram stops, tower stops! Everyone(and I mean litterlaly everyone, 20 units, go and bunch up to that one bloodly ladder! Even my 3 spear militias being able to repel them given the conditions! The ladders are on the left hand, from your besieged perspective, right near the gate.
I decide to test if the ai is really that stupid so I pull out my 2 cav. units out, but not by the side gate, but through the front gate. Now, out of that blob of 20 units, none attacked me while I walked by them(walk, not run)! So, I graciously position my 2 mailed knights behind them, and charge!(take out 3-4 units that start fleeing, I chase them, then rince and repeat till I win the siege with 0 soldiers left on his side)

Same thing, budapest; again, full stack of byzantium this time vs my 6 this time, spear militia and 1 general to chase them.
This time the ai brings in a ballista(zhe horror). They build their siege eq, then next turn the ai sits there and tears down the walls with the ballista(makes you wonder why they made the siege eq in the 1st place, plus had to wait 10 mins till he did his voodoo...).
Naturally, the 1st to run through the holes into my shildoms is... their king, who bravely dies. Needles to say I take out my general through the main gate(I mean, really, why would you pick on the enemy general when you have a bunch of spearmen... it's too easy, so the ai keeps trying to get in via the holes in the walls... weaklings use the gate! ) and start chasing routers as they came... Obviously, I win the siege, 30 soldiers left out of his HAs, who obviously rushed 1st through the holes... who needs arrows when you can charge with your 3 defence sky...(whatever... the 1st ha byzantium gets that noone bar the ai builds).

In each and every field battle, if you put a cav. as carrot way in front of your lines, the ai rushes in all his missle troops too much in front, only to be charged at the leisure of the said cav.!

If, in a balanced battle, you put your troops in the most horrid position which no sane person would charge(and I usually carry a decent # of missle troops), the ai gracefully climbs up the #hitiest mountains you can find 1 by 1 only to be shot to death by the archers that now have an uber range...

I can install whatever mods(and I have to admit there are some great ones that I found over here) to upgrade the ai on the campaign map, on diplomacy, to fix the ton of bugs that this game has, etc. However... there's none that make the dang machine to act with at least a minimum of common sense on the tactical map(and there won't be any, as that can't be modded)!

Pretty graphics are ok, I suppose; but noone played this serie for pretty graphics! Nor for that bloody campaign map! The thing that made the succes of this serie was exactly the tactical battles! Rest... there are a ton of turn based games 10 times better then this one!

How hard could've been to just copy the ai from mtw1?! Which wasn't brilliant either, but at least acted with a minimal dose of common sense!

Rome had worse ai then mtw. Anyone remembers pre 1.1, how they sat there like idiots while you peppered them with arrows much like in mtw2 pre patch? Or how you took out one cavalry and ran around your city with all his stupid phalanxes hoplessly running after you while all your archers peppered them from atop the city walls along with the towers till you ran out of time? Or how he kept reforming and reforming(much like in mtw2) his battle line while you kept encircling him with your ha, instead of stopping right there and shoot back at you?

And now, in this one, you virtually flank and fall behind him with your cav. while he looks at you!

My cav. -----> His line ----> My line

He doesn't even have the common sense to turn 1-2 units to face your cav.! You just walk around his line while he looks at you!

All in all... is it me playing too much, or this game is a disaster tactical wise?

[FactionHeir]

AI isn't the brightest admittedly, especially when they carry siege tools (when the enemy has ram, ladders towers and 1 ribault, he will wait for his ribault to run out of ammo before assaulting your walls while you pick him off with archers)
or when you have massive amounts of missle troops with decent backup -> AI then becomes passive even in 1.1

That aside, conquering on avg 1-2 lands a turn is about the rate I went at when I didn't care about excommunication or reputation/relations/diplomacy. It got boring quite quickly though because before you really get into the high period (and way before the AI gets there) you got your objectives completed and are well on your way to world domination (only distance keeps you from that)

[yezhanquan85]

Well, can't comment on the tactics of the game since I always auto-resolve.

With all the talk about bugs in the battlefield, not to mention the lag on my machine, auto-resolving's for me. Granted, I lose out on the tactics. But, somehow, I'm not complaining.

Auto-resolve makes your life difficult in the sense that your army almost always need to have a very much higher strength in order to win. But, hey, the comment goes that the Mongols are easier if you auto, since horse archers becomes underpowered.

[pike master]

in mtw vi i could win when being assaulted by hiding a unit behind a wall. hit the speed slider and win everytime. at least in this game if you are attacking their for if they sense you havnt protected your siege equipment they will sally out and attempt to take it out. i believe it has some intelligence. plus you cant play rtw tricks like leaving the commons and coming back before the timer expires and resetting it or having a last stand where you hold them off with a small group of men now all they have to do outnumber you for the clock to start so it is more balanced i think.

the only reason mtw vi was so difficult was because a generals stars actually increased fighting skill for every two stars. even if you did your part sometimes your armies would just rout before they even started fighting if you didnt have a high ranking general.

i think the ai has a lot of potential just needs a little tweaking. iv noticed it aint much of a challenge as long as you watch your corners but if you slip up it will take advantage of it.

[a_ver_est]

Sometimes I feel like people has played a different total war games than me. MTW I was a great game but its ai has had a lot of problems like any other TW game.

I remember the all peasant armies, the turn left, turn right, turn left,etc movements of the ai armies when coming to you, the defeat the first enemy wave an the others will route without fight ...

MTW II ai is able to do some small but great things despite it also have a lot of problems.

For example, yesterday I assaulted a two rings castle with a full stack army, the defender has only less than a half stack. I moved two units with ladders to the gates sides meanwhile my other units were waiting in the deploy area Suddenly one unit of ai knights moved out of the walls an intercepted one of my units with ladders.

I have never seen it before ...

Finally I won the battle but I lost more than one third off my all elite stack to conquer the castle vs some mediocre ai units.

But, how can you say that RTW ai is better ??? I don't know how to explain it clear because my english is to bad but ... th RTW ai is like is like "oeeee lets charge oeeee chargeeeeeeee we are bad we are ugly CHARGEEEEE !!!" it doesn't "think" which kind of units it has or try to keep the line or anythings.

As I said now th ai can do small but logical thinks like move the archers first to soft the enemy, move their jinetes to the flanks to throw their javelins, move their heavy units to charge ...

Also you have to keep in mind that MTW II as been patched only one time and you are comparing with games that has been patched more times and also its expansions has added ai improvements

[Jambo]

Yeah, the OP raises some very good points I'm afraid. Siege AI is the pits and particularly under the scenarios you highlighted, i.e. when it builds one siege tower, one ram and one set of ladders, and then uses only the ladders for all its units...

When a spy has pre-opened the gates, the AI doesn't seem to grasp the idea of the surprise attack using the gates and instead still goes about its business of taking an eternity assaulting the walls.

Despite those issues and all the other battlefield bugs, the game's excellent moddability really allows users to get the most out of the mess. In fact if it wasn't moddable it would have been a disaster of a game.

[Von Nanega]

Two of the things mentioned before, AI all using one ladder, and ignoring spy opened gates I have seen. But, I have also seen both of these things implemented correctly by the AI. I think that these are a result of code. They have been addressed ad naseum in this forum. I also believe that it will probably be fixed.

[Orda Khan]

I never fight a siege battle unless the AI decides to assault before I choose to sally. Regardless of the AI, there is still the pathfinding around models issue that has been present since STW.
As for the AI, I seem to remember somebody stating that issues were known and would be addressed. AFAIC, the AI is still woefully inept

......Orda

[SnowlyWhite]

Despite those issues and all the other battlefield bugs, the game's excellent moddability really allows users to get the most out of the mess.

well, that's the main issue imho, the fact that you can't mod. the tactical part. You can make different units, you can change the speed to make it more realistic instead of having the cav. plow the field like it's in the original version, etc... but you can't make the ai smarter...

And yes, were some pleasant surprises too, like having him taking out cav. on a siege to attack your assaulting troops en route to the wall. Main issue however, is, that at a certain point, he simply stalls.

What I mean: you're in a battle where you know you'll lose no matter what; you withdraw, he comes after you, you engage as you can't withdraw anymore(or you can be lame and autoresolve:p), and go for the principle of inflicting max. casualties. What he does, is however, withdraw and when you chase him, if you put a nicely lined formation in front of him, he doesn't attack because it results, according to his calcs., he can't charge such a line.
So he just sits there to be peppered by arrows, resulting in a win for you with 3-5 casualties. At certain moments, he simply notices that he: can't win if he attacks so... he sits there, despite your x missile units peppering him... And this you can't mod.

And I know that in the original mtw generals played a vital role, and the ai had it's "features", but meh... still looked better imho. Even the pope is badly done here(ok, this can be modded)... I mean, it's dumb to have perfect relations despite killing half of the catholic factions, and that at the cost of 500fl/turn...

[econ21]

What I mean: you're in a battle where you know you'll lose no matter what; you withdraw, he comes after you, you engage as you can't withdraw anymore(or you can be lame and autoresolve:p), and go for the principle of inflicting max. casualties. What he does, is however, withdraw and when you chase him, if you put a nicely lined formation in front of him, he doesn't attack because it results, according to his calcs., he can't charge such a line.
So he just sits there to be peppered by arrows, resulting in a win for you with 3-5 casualties. At certain moments, he simply notices that he: can't win if he attacks so... he sits there, despite your x missile units peppering him... And this you can't mod.

Yes, the AI does badly if you outmatch him so much that he withdraws. But I am not sure about that an outmatched AI should attack you on the principle of inflicting max. casualties. It sounds "gamey". It's more realistic that the AI hunkers down - I am thinking Hastings, for example. Perhaps missiles are a little overpowered for such situations? But it's a bit of a hopeless situation to start with.

I would rather judge the AI by what it does when it outmatches you or at least it has parity. My impression so far is that it is much better at attacking than in RTW. STW and MTW are distant memories, but my feeling is that M2TWs tactical AI is at least as good. (I am going by my casualties here - it may just be that the combat is more bloody all round.)

[FactionHeir]

When the AI retreats, he doesn't do it smartly, i.e. have a few troops to cover the retreat. All of them just retreat and he doesn' care if you slam a few cavs into his rear at all or only hunt him with 1 or 2 isolated units he could kill to reduce his own losses.

[FrauGloer]

When the AI retreats, he doesn't do it smartly, i.e. have a few troops to cover the retreat. All of them just retreat and he doesn' care if you slam a few cavs into his rear at all or only hunt him with 1 or 2 isolated units he could kill to reduce his own losses.

IIRC, in RTW retreating units that were attacked turned around and fought. In MTW2, this is not the case. In all my battles where the enemy tried to withdraw, I was able to wipe out entire units of high-quality troops without losses to my knights because they didn't fight back. 500+ kills for one unit of knights? No problem! It's fun to watch the carnage, but it's far from challenging...

[Von Nanega]

IIRC, in RTW retreating units that were attacked turned around and fought. In MTW2, this is not the case. In all my battles where the enemy tried to withdraw, I was able to wipe out entire units of high-quality troops without losses to my knights because they didn't fight back. 500+ kills for one unit of knights? No problem! It's fun to watch the carnage, but it's far from challenging...

When the AI retreats, he doesn't do it smartly, i.e. have a few troops to cover the retreat. All of them just retreat and he doesn' care if you slam a few cavs into his rear at all or only hunt him with 1 or 2 isolated units he could kill to reduce his own losses.

I fought an engagement vs HRE. While they retreated, I was chasing them down. Some armoured sgts took a brief stand before they routed. It seems to me the reason they routed so quickly is any of their units near them were already routing. But they did stop and fight!

[Moah]

I've seen the AI rally, but remember once they've routed morale is always fragile, even if they turn, so would likely buckle quickly if attacked (i've had this several times with xbowmen) and with the morale modifier of being cut down by heavy knights from behind I can't imagine they would if you pursue them closely. Also once everyone's routed (and you've had the win screen) their penalties from other units routing mean they'd have to pretty suicidal to change their minds.

[dopp]

@econ21: I think MTW's AI and tactical battle system made less 'stupid' mistakes than RTW and M2TW. But that's partly because it had less stuff to worry about. Sieges were simply pounding the walls with artillery and then assaulting through the enormous gaps. No rams, towers, ladders etc. And the AI still messed it up quite a bit anyway with the famous march-around-the-walls-to-get-shot-up. No strategic movement on the world map; everything was chessboard-style. That makes a massive difference, I'm told. And if you use a mod to increase the movement speed of armies and fleets, it becomes even worse, because the possible number of moves a unit can make increases beyond what the AI was designed to handle. No fleet movement. No blockades. No rebels sitting on trade routes. No pathfinding for agents. Fewer agents in general. Fewer things to build (not that MTW was very good at building stuff in the first place). In MTW, buildings simply determined what kind of units you could recruit. RTW onwards, building choice also determines how much money you make and whether your settlement rebels or not. No castles/cities dilemma. It's easy to compare a simpler game with a much more complex one and complain about the AI.

I'm a little bit more puzzled about the tactical AI, however, as apart from the move to full 3D the battle system doesn't seem much more complex than MTW. I could be wrong, of course. I don't think the AI is much poorer, but it's not a whole lot better either.

[Matty]

Well, can't comment on the tactics of the game since I always auto-resolve.

With all the talk about bugs in the battlefield, not to mention the lag on my machine, auto-resolving's for me. Granted, I lose out on the tactics. But, somehow, I'm not complaining.

Auto-resolve makes your life difficult in the sense that your army almost always need to have a very much higher strength in order to win. But, hey, the comment goes that the Mongols are easier if you auto, since horse archers becomes underpowered.

Isn't it really dull though? I know each to his own etc, but the campaign map merely gets me to the battles where the fun begins. Get a new video card like I did and badaam, fun begins.

[danfda]

Isn't it really dull though? I know each to his own etc, but the campaign map merely gets me to the battles where the fun begins. Get a new video card like I did and badaam, fun begins.

Heh, actually, in RTW and M2TW, I find myself autoresolving most of the time. If it is a big, important battle or I find myself outnumbered and have to fight, I will play it, but other than that--hit the atuo calc button! This is a far cry from the original MTW, where I fought every single battle (unless it was my army vs. a single rebel unit). I bought RTW first, then MTW, and now M2TW. But you're right, to each his own.

[Prodigal]

The thing is that with the changes in mtw2, the VH setting doesn't tip the autoresolve balance, which it did in earlier versions.

So when in RTW or MTW VH setting would mean that an autoresolve, of numerically matched forces, may almost always result in a loss for the player, now you can autoresolve almost every battle as long as you've got a decent stack & expect to get a win.

Personally I used to play VH settings in order to force myself to have to fight all the battles, because the easy opt out option of a quick win can be damnably tempting at times.

End of the day, seems that to get the best out of this release a few self imposed rules are required. Don't blitz, don't autoresolve, I've been trying these seriously in my latest game & its been a lot more fun.

Course it would be cool to have an ironman option in the game set up, that gives you a 0% chance of winning any battle on autoresolve, although I suspect that would rate pretty low on a wish inclusion list.

[yezhanquan85]

Well, heard some viewpoints on autoresolve. Ya, I get what you guys mean. But, this's my first TW game, and I'm not going to learn the tactical aspects until they do some serious patching.

For now, contended with producing stacks of mixed troops and throwing them at enemy.

[Callahan9119]

yeah i had these fears before the game was released, it developed into a fairly long thread that i started, with most saying wait and see

i played the game like a week and gave up, i dont wanna limit myself with self imposed rules and such, game stinks, dominating weaksauce AI gets old, and with no glorious achievments i have no reason to play...i feel i could install stw and have a more challenging kill the map game than mtw2 provides

but what do i know, seems like they are selling alot of copies

[yezhanquan85]

Well, sabutai, you can try the papal states. They're playable simply by dropping them into the playable faction list, though calling crusades are a little troublesome since without modding, the game looks at the papal rating of the faction which appears first from the left.

[gardibolt]

I've seen the AI rally, but remember once they've routed morale is always fragile, even if they turn, so would likely buckle quickly if attacked (i've had this several times with xbowmen) and with the morale modifier of being cut down by heavy knights from behind I can't imagine they would if you pursue them closely. Also once everyone's routed (and you've had the win screen) their penalties from other units routing mean they'd have to pretty suicidal to change their minds.

Just last night I had routed a bunch of Spanish spearmen and was chasing them with knights when they stopped routing, turned, fought and killed a bunch of my Knights Hospitallers (dropping them from 39 to 14 in a twinkling) before I realized what was going on. So it does happen, albeit rarely. It was near the edge of the map, so I suspect several things may have entered into it: 1) all other routing units were off the map and may not have been affecting morale any more and 2) the knights were a long, long ways from the rest of the army due to the merry chase (much of which I suspect was due to the 'escort' pathing feature rather than actually running down the routers).

[Diadochoi]

Yeah, the OP raises some very good points I'm afraid. Siege AI is the pits and particularly under the scenarios you highlighted, i.e. when it builds one siege tower, one ram and one set of ladders, and then uses only the ladders for all its units...

When a spy has pre-opened the gates, the AI doesn't seem to grasp the idea of the surprise attack using the gates and instead still goes about its business of taking an eternity assaulting the walls.

Despite those issues and all the other battlefield bugs, the game's excellent moddability really allows users to get the most out of the mess. In fact if it wasn't moddable it would have been a disaster of a game.

Is there a way to mod this game so the AI will properly use siege equipment when attacking castles? I cannot get the AI to advance past the first wall for anything, even when I leave the outerwall completely unguarded.

I've read on this forum that people have seen the AI properly use siege equipment on the 2nd/3rd levels of defense, but I've never seen it done.

[Ulstan]

IIRC, in RTW retreating units that were attacked turned around and fought.

No, no, they'd pretty much run for it until a unit of your extremely overpowered light cavalry just rolled over them in one smooth motion and killed them all instantly.

[hellas1]

Hi all,

Give CW a chance to get the 2nd patch out!

Our collective bitching MIGHT do the Improvement trick!

hellas1-Only Byzantium IS worthy!
The longest lasting state in the world!