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

[Callahan9119]

i recently grew bored of M2, so as i lost my old disks i went to walmart and got rtw again. as much as i like vanilla for the civil war aspect of rtw i prefer the rtr mod i played with, it was more gritty with its realism and kill rates, although cumbersome with so many cities to manage

but anyway, i had phyrrus in the south of italy, so i trained a few units and marched on rome with a nice army. i fought a roman army that had 4 more units than I...and was promptly spanked

i was pissed and happy at the same time. since i had M2 i rarely on hard difficulty lost a battle, even againsts 2X odds...yet in a "fair" fight in rtw i was spanked

kill rates and routing is reduced in this mod, but if this is what it takes then DO it CA, but even without kill rates, the AI in 1.5 was splitting its forces and being almost brilliant in its attack...was like i was fighting hannibal himself

i will not be so lax in future battles in rtw, M2 made me lazy, and i dont see myself returning to it until RTR platinum and BI drive me to boredom

i have used carls mod to fix shield bug, yet the reduced kill rates with this only made it easier to destroy AI armies

what the hell happened from rtw to M2

[rvg]

Agreed. M2TW AI is brain dead. I'm also back to playing RTW/BI until CA fixes M2.

[Slaists]

I agree. The "smart" MTW 2 Very Hard Battle Difficulty AI is quite dumb... I suspect it can pull off a trick or two if it has a balanced army at hand. The problem is: the VH strategic map AI does not give it that chance most of the time (creating very one-sided armies easily destroyable by a human player).

Another fault, IMHO is the current implementation of the passive AI fix. With it, a human player can easily play an offensive battle as a defensive one instead... The AI almost never takes up an advantageous defensive position when defending, rather preferring to come to the player even if the player (attacker) is positioned on a hill.

I am not thrilled by the RTW AI either though. It's use of phalanx armies was laughable. And the piecemeal reinforcement arrival did not help the AI either.

IMHO, battlefield AI out of all the TW series was the best in MTW. The problem there was that a human player could dominate the strategic map AI too easily and too soon in the campain, leading to superior player armies, which could easily destroy anything the AI could throw at them. On equal footing (quality), the battle AI could be challenging in MTW. I still have to see that happen in MTW 2.

P.S. Horse archer armies can be challenging in MTW2, but these were challenging in all TW series simply because player cannot get to them unless fielding a mainly missile based army.

[Quickening]

I have a campaign on both RTW and M2TW at the moment. I see nothing that the RTW AI does that the M2TW one doesn't.

[rvg]

I have a campaign on both RTW and M2TW at the moment. I see nothing that the RTW AI does that the M2TW one doesn't.

When facing an overwhelming force with lots of missile units, RTW AI either retreats or goes for an all-out suicide charge... M2TW AI just stands there and gets shot to pieces.

[Quickening]

When facing an overwhelming force with lots of missile units, RTW AI either retreats or goes for an all-out suicide charge... M2TW AI just stands there and gets shot to pieces.

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

[HoreTore]

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

For me, it usually waits until half their army is gone, and then retreats.

Btw, I know of only 2 differences between the AI's:

1. it does not stand still against missiles
2. it tries to counter my flanking forces with their own. This is something I'm really missing in M2TW, the cavalry just sit behind the infantry waiting for a frontal charge while I sneak around the back... In RTW, they sent their cavalry at me.

[Mega Dux Bob]

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

The rebels will just stand there and get killed but actual faction troops charge in my experience.

I suspect a lot of Sabatui pleaser came from the RTR mod; One thing that was discovered was the TW AI works a lot better with a properly balanced late RTW game army. Early on there are huge gaps in the order of battle that stops the AI form doing its thing. The game screws the AI with its built up your cities to get good units. The RTR made it a point to have all the factions start with and be able to build the armies they should have had in 280BCE.

The same thing probably needs to be done for MTW2 in at lest making sure the AI can raise a 1080 army in 1080 insteed of throwing town militia at you.

BTW try fighting a Greek or Macedonian army without Darth’s stuff in RTW and then say it is better than MTW2.

[Callahan9119]

Eh... the M2TW AI has never stood still getting shot to pieces with me ever since patch 1.1. It to will either retreat or charge.

your right all it does is stupidly rush...every time, except anywhere near a defensive structure, then yes ...the ai WILL just sit there and eat arrows either inside or out

if you say rome and m2 are the same, you must be playing a different game than me, m2 ai always does the same thing. 1. battle starts, they stand there for a few seconds 2. the infantry and cav move forward the missles blob behind them 3. the cav charge, usually an inside unit 4. the infantry charge

5. i flank them, chain route them and they die.

this is on hard difficulty, all VH does is give them absurd stats they never ever try to flank me..crushing the ai when i am completely outnumbered is never a problem

maybe its just the formation mod in RTR platinum that somehow gives the ai a great formation to work with so it doesnt have to create one for itself

Econ, it was almost magical the way it moved, principes or not...i wasnt taking barely any losses till i was just outplayed by the ai. i tell you what i saw in that battle was near brilliant play by the ai. elephants be damned...they were going for my flank and rear and nothing was gonna stop them

my 12345 scenario is how almost all my battles in m2 play out, this may be due to the ai just not being able to use long archers/xbows effectively and they tend to field so many of these units

vh battle difficulty just gives the ai insane stats, it doesnt make it smarter, its a stupid system of difficulty

[econ21]

but anyway, i had phyrrus in the south of italy, so i trained a few units and marched on rome with a nice army. i fought a roman army that had 4 more units than I...and was promptly spanked

i was pissed and happy at the same time. since i had M2 i rarely on hard difficulty lost a battle, even againsts 2X odds...yet in a "fair" fight in rtw i was spanked

Bizzarre. I've never heard anyone say RTW has better battlefield AI than M2TW until now. I've found it much more competitive (on VH, never bothered trying below that). For example, in our HRE PBM, we've currently killed or captured 10000 enemies for the loss of 1/3 of that of our own. That 3:1 kill ratio does not seem excessive (true, we've never lost but for a braindead AI, it is taking down a fair number of our men). I don't know what kill ratio we got in our RTR PE PBM, but I suspect it was considerably higher.

I wonder if you are just falling victim to RTRs Romans? Look at the stats - the Principes are rather uber, while the rival hoplite types lack bite in my experience. Plus RTR has sky high morale, especially the Romans, so you can be in trouble against a larger high quality army.

The strategic AI in M2TW seems much better. I've observed it keep multiple armies together for mutual support and keep out of reach of stronger armies - ie it actually maneouvres. It is also much more aggressive and capable of snatching poorly defended settlements if you don't pay attention. RTWs strategic AI was so passive and slothful, it was hard to prod it into action even when it was in a superior position.

[sapi]

From what I see, the main problem with the M2TW AI is not its inability to fight on the battlemap but the campaign AI's difficuties in keeping up with teh player techwise.

Add this to the huge effects of cavalry, and a player army of 5 or 6 mailed knights can take out a full army of elite troops without breaking a sweat; and once it has done so, the AI will rarely manage to raise such an army again.

The real issue here is the campaign AI's inability to save money and plan ahead.

[Caliburn]

I must note that I have limited experience with Medieval II battles... Still, I don't think I've ever played a tactically challenging battle on even grounds in Rome (except HAs) - the same doesn't apply to Medieval II. Yet, it has, to my experience, trouble with initiative against at certain types of armies.

Yes, it often just stands there and lets the merc crossbows whittle down its strength, and charges only when the situation is too dire to save (i.e. his general is dead), and lets at least javelin cavalry circle behind their lines without reacting.

But then again, at times it mounts surprising attacks when an opportunity rises: attacks and collapses a flank when units get bunched together, circles horse archers to the rear of the army far enough that you notice only when its hard to counter them (mostly it's too late then, though). Enemy artillery causes more casualties as well. And at least it keeps the spear wall together better than in Rome, where a dozen phalanxes could easily be flanked individually by slow infantry.

The AI in MTW was quite clever as well, but still quite easily beatable as soon as the right tactic was used. An army of basic spearmen and Jinnettes could easily take out a balanced High army (experimented with low-support-cost stacks years ago), with few losses. Still, in MTW they never just stood there when I circled units of Jinnettes behind their army while my spears stood some 100 steps from theirs, nor let them throw all their javelins.

We can only hope they'll get more aggressive, yet, that it doesn't mean that it will be repeated cavalry charges to elite spears (not that it matters now, as they'll be decimated by the charge anyway).

[RickooClan]

Honestly down from STW to MTW2, i think MTW get the best battle AI, while RTW get the worst.

In RTW defensive AI is so broken that they cant even hold their advance defensive position at all. You can often use the "round the hill" trick to reform your formation at a distance to the AI, by rotating it step by step, the AI will eventually re-position their lineup from the top of the mountain down to the bottom!!

And not to mention about the unrealistic moving speed in RTW you can just use your carvary or EVEN infantry to round everying on the field.

Also, the battle moral in RTW is so broken that even the toughest professional troop can rout within 30 sec of combact! (as i only play on VH/VH)


Although i cant say MTW2 get very good battle AI atm, but definitely it is way better than RTW in my opinion.