after going back to rome, i see how bad M2 AI is

[Callahan9119]

really? in my games i always see the ai archers in a big blob behind the lines

is there a formation mod for m2? cuz if it makes the rtw ai fight better i'd like to try it for m2

but i dont know if a conquer the world campaign can hold my interst in the medieval time period...especially like others have said when i am fighting friggin armies of militia when i have guns and leet infantry

[FactionHeir]

I am rather inclined to say that RTW AI was betterthan M2TW.

In M2TW I can walk my entire army save the general around the back of the enemy and say hi without them doing anything when outnumbered (outnumbered AI is still VERY passive). The AI only reacts to your general's position when its not engaged, which is a big mistake.

When the M2TW AI feels it has more units than you, it will head on charge you even if you are the attacker. That makes it dead easy for you to stand on a hill far away from the starting position.

M2TW AI almost never (emphasis on almost) flanks you but matches its units up against you. In RTW, it would always send at least 1 or 2 units via the flanks.

The AI now sends archers running (not walking) towards your position so you can run them down with cavalry while they are some 2 army lengths away from the main regiment. It also never cares about its slower pike/halberd units and they usually engage after their main army has been utterly destroyed.

The AI never even tries to defend its siege equipment so 1 cavalry can take care of all their siege in their rear without the army doing much. Also, if you attack a unit in their rear and are of considerable distance away from their main force, the main force will head on charge your main force, even if they are outnumbered and you are on a hill.

Note this is all VH.
The M2TW AI is way too exploitable.

[TevashSzat]

M2TW exploitable? In RTW, I could be guaranteed a settlement victory if it has anything less than stone walls because the ai was so dumb. After u bash through gate, the RTW ai retreats to town center so I put all of my cretan archers right outside the gate and send one melee unit in. The ai sends a few units at it, but I retreat outside right before engagement and the ai retreats again all while getting shot to pieces.

Also, ai would just stay in their town center and not come out even though my cretan archers were just pwning their asses.

[FactionHeir]

M2TW exploitable? In RTW, I could be guaranteed a settlement victory if it has anything less than stone walls because the ai was so dumb. After u bash through gate, the RTW ai retreats to town center so I put all of my cretan archers right outside the gate and send one melee unit in. The ai sends a few units at it, but I retreat outside right before engagement and the ai retreats again all while getting shot to pieces.

Also, ai would just stay in their town center and not come out even though my cretan archers were just pwning their asses.

M2TW AI does the same. I can corner the outnumbered enemy in the town square where they'll happily stand while I pepper them with bolts from 5 feet away.

I can even walk up a unit of hand gunners behind a general on an open field map without it moving and shoot them to pieces. RTW AI never let you get that far.

[TevashSzat]

Factionheir, in RTW the enemy would seriously outnumber me, but dont have any missles but would still remain stationary. That was the only way I captured Sparta as Thracians. I killed a garrison of 8 or 9 spartans and 5-6 armoured hoplites with only 2 generals, 9 cretan archers, and 3 normal cav

[Slaists]

Here is another example, I just fought. And tell me it's not idiotic AI. AI Enemy (defender): 4 archer units + a turcoman unit. Me - One general, one turkoman and an archer unit. As I enter the battlefield, the enemy has a perfectly nice position on the top of a high hill. To get to them - I have to march uphill.

All they'd have to do, stay where they are and pepper me until I reach them on the hilltop. By that time I would have hardly any troops left. No... instead of staying where they are, the enemy archers start to manouver and get charged by my general before even making a single shot... The AI turkoman decided that the best missile target for it was my foot archer unit. No comment there...

[Callahan9119]

maybe its all in our heads which is better, i guess i dont know

i am playing rtr...so no peasants or crap units to fight..maybe that and the darth formations mod is making it appear to be harder, but i am just speculating...cuz on my celts campaign on vannila BI i was fighting much harder battles than m2 ever offered me

also about ai defending walls, it seems the same as rome..they just as often retreat to center or they give a half hearted attempt to defend the wall then flee

either way, they better get moving on this AI instead of updating the graphics on the same retarded soldiers

you can put a silk hat on a pig, but its still a pig

[redriver]

Factionheir, in RTW the enemy would seriously outnumber me, but dont have any missles but would still remain stationary. That was the only way I captured Sparta as Thracians. I killed a garrison of 8 or 9 spartans and 5-6 armoured hoplites with only 2 generals, 9 cretan archers, and 3 normal cav

in RTW 1.5 AI doesn't do that anymore.. they always respond to a missile attack with a counter attack.. they stand their ground when on defencive and only charge when ya get too close.. same goes for KOTH.. when the odds are against it the AI will always assume a higher ground from the start.. it will not charge and lose the adantage like ya see in mtw2.

buttomline, so far it sounds like RTW AI is overall better than that of mtw2.. though to be completely fair one has to wait for the final patch and compare mtw2 AI to mtw instead :)

[zaher]

Hi , I noticed something, but not sure if i am right: AI tied to command rank of general too. When you fight vs army with high ranked general, such as mongol generals, you can easy lose in open battle. there is no difference if your army dont have general or have 10 stars general, cause you are commander. Get army with negative morale penalty general , and you will also see difference.
Also, only the cool fights in M2tw are in very early period or vs Mongols or Timurids, if they dont get assassinated before.
Last thing - it is true that campaign difficulty affects all aspects, including battles. I will try H/VH from now. May be i am mistaken, but it may be harder then VH/VH.

[HoreTore]

Also, ai would just stay in their town center and not come out even though my cretan archers were just pwning their asses.

That was fixed in one of the last patches, can't remember which. They changed it so whenever they are peppered with arrows, they charge out of the town square no matter what. They will usually leave some units behind to guard though.

[Callahan9119]

i dont plan on returning to M2 till a rtr or eb type mod is produced, till then i'll enjoy the EB mod....its lovely

[Yun Dog]

i dont plan on returning to M2 till a rtr or eb type mod is produced, till then i'll enjoy the EB mod....its lovely

Me too dude... I have been playing EB solid for the last 3 months, and I am loving it M2 hasnt even got a look in when compared to that sort of quality... finally playing RTW as it should have been.

You cant compare playing these mods to playing vanilla M2TW, if anything RTR and EB give me hope that one day I will be rediscovering M2TW as it should have been. But till then theres plenty of EB to keep this littleblack duck content for a good portion of that waiting.

[sapi]

I might have actually got into eb if it had any support at all for modern computers.

As it is, every time I load it up I just stare at the little pixelated unit and building cards and quit :(

[Jambo]

RTw AI was awful to begin with. By the time Patch 1.5/1.6 rolled around the game had significantly improved however. M2Tw's AI is better from the start (imho), but it's still a bit short of the final RTw patch. Both games suffer from terrible siege AI, particularly when attacking, and the new 3 tier castles certainly don't make life easier for the AI. I can only hope 1.2 delivers in this respect.

[DukeKent]

I play on H for Campaign M2TW (remember all that extra cash RTW threw at the AI on H and VH), and VH for battle AI in M2TW. It appears that M2TW throws extra cash at the AI factions to make the game tougher also on H and VH for campaign AI? But this seams to only translate into larger armies, not better quality armies. The last version of RTW/BI (version 1.6 of BI I believe?) had tougher battles than the current version (1.01) of M2TW for me. Some of this is the poor economics and troop selection of the M2TW campaign engine. Which translates to sub par armies on the battlefield. This is not the whole problem though. As has been mentioned in earlier posts in this thread. The M2TW AI makes worse starting choices for its army position than I remember the AI in RTW doing. I recall having to trick the RTW AI out of its hilltop position much more often than I have to in M2TW. As to tactics, it is much easier to flank and beat all factions except the Mongols ( & maybe the Timurids). The Mongols with a good general actually put up a decent fight. I have always finished the games before the timurids arrive so far. Victory conditions satisfied, and the game got way to easy, so I can't comment on the Timurids AI. I only recall losing one battle to the M2TW AI. After defeating the Mongols in two full stack battles at a river ford as the Turks. A third Mongol stack managed to finish off the remnants of the army that had just beaten the two other Mongol stacks. It was at least a year ago in RTW since I last a battle early in the game as the Carthaginians against an Elite Britons stack? To get a real challenge in the TW series you have to play one of the RTW mods.

I believe that I actually lost a battle or two playing XGM last year?

It is obvious that the suits rushed M2TW out the door for the Christmas buying season last year. We got awesome eye candy with M2TW. My hope is that the 1.2 patch brings the battlefield experience up to at least the same level as the last version of RTW. Most importantly I hope that the tools provided in the latest version of M2TW allow the modders to craft a more challenging, and less arcade playing experience. The arcade game faction balancing, etc, etc is great for the buying masses. It is all about the money first, that is reality. Lets hope the developers with a true love for history and their craft get to finish their checklists on the 1.2 patch.

[zaher]

As to tactics, it is much easier to flank and beat all factions except the Mongols ( & maybe the Timurids). The Mongols with a good general actually put up a decent fight. I have always finished the games before the timurids arrive so far. Victory conditions satisfied, and the game got way to easy, so I can't comment on the Timurids AI. I only recall losing one battle to the M2TW AI. After defeating the Mongols in two full stack battles at a river ford as the Turks. A third Mongol stack managed to finish off the remnants of the army that had just beaten the two other Mongol stacks. It was at least a year ago in RTW since I last a battle early in the game as the Carthaginians against an Elite Britons stack? To get a real challenge in the TW series you have to play one of the RTW mods.

Actually AI on battlefield totally depends on generals rank and traits he have.
Now i am sure. Today i fought as Portugal vs El Cid in Valencia, he got 10 stars too and got good traits , so i got identical army ( 2 jinnetes, 2 spears, 2 javelins),just 1 or 2 units less, and AI defeated me in a way which i rarely can see on MP battles lol. It was real pressing, spears persued my general unit, i got flanked and smashed to pieces. Same was when i first met with mongol or timurids armies with 10 stars generals. Just ridiculous that they move like covards on strategy map, because they really can get half of world if they will move in different directions at same time in 10-15 turns.
So the problem i can see is more like strategic AI is not developing good generals together with puting good armies under their command.

[Slaists]

I believe, one of the biggest flaws in MTW 2 is it's defensive AI after the passive AI fix. Let me give you an example: Anatolia, I (turks) attack a larger AI army composed of byzantine spearmen with 4 units of turkomans, 1 genera, and one unit of turkish archers. My turkish archers are positioned on a hill in the middle of the map while my horse archers are ready to flank. The general stands with the archers on the hill.

Battle starts: 1) instead of having taken an advantageous position somewhere on hills, the AI charges my turkish archer unit on the hill, half a map away. My general's unit flanks the attacking enemy (the one that was supposed to defend), so do my horse archers.

2) By the end of the manouver: the whole AI army is chasing my single unit of turkish archers across the map, while MOST of my army is behind the AI's army shooting the living daylights out of them.

3) AI continues to chase my single unit of archers until my HA arrows run out.

4) exhausted AI decides to take a rest and forms a line in a valley(!) between two hills. my turkish archers stand on (!) one of the hills peppering the AI with fire arrows.

5) my general unit charges into the middle of the exhausted AI army (still outnumbering me). Mass rout follows. HA's clean up the routers.

And this can be seen in MTW2 over and over again (defensive AI charging into a mindless attack, tiring out and routing from a single charge). And tell me it's not stupid AI... In this situation it would have sufficed for the AI to stand on a hill, weather out my missiles against their shields and wait for my tired horse archers to charge them...

[Barry Fitzgerald]

RTW had its faults..no question..

But only stevie wonder would suggest MTW2 has superior AI. Its as dumb as they get........

I have lost less than 10 battles.....in the 2 campaigns I have played..and then only really out of bad luck.

AI is pathetic at seige attacks.......unable to do anything other than drip feed units to the slaughter. On the battlefied....it is indecisive..to the extreme..often sitting and getting shot up with archers.......not all the time but most of it.

Attacks are poorly thought out..and lack any real strategic plan..which in a strategy game is um well.....not really that good.

Sure I lost one battle.......over 2.5 times the no. of enemy..and they had a hill advantage.......but the lost most of their army. Thats not smart..they should have walked it.

Let us hope that the patch does at last resolve the issues......

But honestly people...RTW was a far tougher challenge all over........much as the eye candy appeals on MTW2 ....good AI it doesnt make