AI Horror Stories

[Darkgreen]

As the bloke from CA said:

"it'd be interesting to read a thread of 'ai horror stories' actually, the ai behaviours which people exploit the most to gain easy wins."

I think this is a great idea for a thread and I love the idea that CA is interested in this, because I think there are some key instances in which the AI needs to be tweeked and improved.

Playing England, the Danes keep on besieging Antwerp. Before I had mortars I made a few bombards. The Danes usually attacked with heavy infantry of some sort (4-6 units), sometimes peasant archers I think, and sometimes a general. They just stood in place while I wheeled my 3 bombards and some cavalry out the side gate and came around the corner to face the Dane army. I just pounded them until they retreated. Why didn’t they attack my bombards? They could probably have taken my 3-4 cavalry units and my bombards wouldn’t be able to retreat fast enough.

This is just the most recent problem I have seen.

I hope other folks contribute here, especially since CA is giving an ear.

[RickooClan]

As the bloke from CA said:

"it'd be interesting to read a thread of 'ai horror stories' actually, the ai behaviours which people exploit the most to gain easy wins."

I think this is a great idea for a thread and I love the idea that CA is interested in this, because I think there are some key instances in which the AI needs to be tweeked and improved.

Playing England, the Danes keep on besieging Antwerp. Before I had mortars I made a few bombards. The Danes usually attacked with heavy infantry of some sort (4-6 units), sometimes peasant archers I think, and sometimes a general. They just stood in place while I wheeled my 3 bombards and some cavalry out the side gate and came around the corner to face the Dane army. I just pounded them until they retreated. Why didn’t they attack my bombards? They could probably have taken my 3-4 cavalry units and my bombards wouldn’t be able to retreat fast enough.

This is just the most recent problem I have seen.

I hope other folks contribute here, especially since CA is giving an ear.

This is a very well known passive AI bug post 1.2 leaked patch. Actually they will holding their sieging equipment til die too.

[FactionHeir]

Outnumbered AI without artillery is dead passive, especially if also lacking missile units. You can walk up right behind them and they won't react. Is usually funny if you set all your cav to wedge and charge say their bodyguard from every direction simultaneously :D

OTOH, if you are outnumbered but the attacker, the AI will attack you even though it is the defender. Allows you to wait on a hill and shoot them from there.

If you got missile/artillery with higher range than the AI's you can just shoot them down.

AI always sends its missile units before its main bulk and over time over several army distances. Allows easy pickings with light cav.

In village sieges, you can have all your missile units lined up outside and send a cheap unit towards the town center. This triggers several AI units to pursue it and once your unit moves away a certain small distance, the AI will slowly walk back to town center while in range of your missiles. Really exploitable walk forward one step, back one step.

If sallying against AI defenders they tend to be passive without missile units. They become semi active attacking you with missile units only if you move a unit out the front gate. Artillery sometimes/rarely fires at your troops on the walls, but negligible. You can also use a long range unit on the wall to shoot a standing AI army (they will stand at about 170 distance from the walls, but if you had modded your units to have 170 range for example, the AI won't move further than 170 but still stand and take the fire.)
Similarly, you can move say a peasant out your gate to entice all AI missiles to come closer to shoot it while they in turn get ripped apart by your towers and archers

[Zpartan]

Usually happens early when I assault a small town with no walls. I set up one unit of mercenaries to the side a bit my archers just to the back a little where they funnel through the town. Then they send one unit at a time to my mercenaries while my archers (peasant) shred them apart as they are coming forward, even as they turn toward my mercs and then in the back till they retreat. Then the next group comes.(Tried to draw a pic) They follow the stars one at a time till they retreat with 5 men left.




|Town Square|
| * |
| | | * |
| | | * |
| M | | * |
| r*| | * |
* * * *

Archers

[Zpartan]

sorry dont know how to edit but pic didn't work lol

[Gaius Terentius Varro]

AI hides it's forces in the forest to protect them from my archers. I march my line towards them and envelop while rounding with my general to deliver the death blow... BUT I march past 3 hidden feudal knight units that charge as soon as the infantry is engaged and pulverise first my infantry then the arches and my general dies in a blaze of glory. Past 1.2 patch. Still laughing

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

The AI is very very poor so this thread is useless.

[GoongaGaloonga]

Not sure this is a true horror story, but I would consider it something that could be improved.

I've been using this technique for some time and it makes it way too easy to take almost any territory.

The AI is infamous for leaving low military numbers in their cities/castles, rather they use the roaming army technique, which is probably the best use of their forces, however their cities/castles are rarely protected with spies so it is easy for my spies to infiltrate.

I take four spies along with my army, infiltrate the city/castle with all four and I almost always have a 100%+ chance of them opening the gates. I attack with my army on the same turn so they have no chance to retaliate. No need for siege equipment and very low losses since their army is so small. I've actually taken two Egyptian cities with the same four spies and same army in the same turn using this technique. This is on VH.

[FactionHeir]

1.2 AI is kind of funny.

I was attacking a bunch of Byzantines (1 catapult, 1 vardariotai, 5 town militia, 3 spear militia, 4 archer militia) with my French army (4 french mounted archers, 2 crossbowmen, 2 catalans, 2 scots guard, 2 voulgier militia, 2 dismounted feudal knights, 1 general). I placed my units on the hill with the enemy starting in a small valley below (not steep at all). Being outnumbered but having artillery, they first advanced towards my line to shoot me with their catapult, which was relatively smart as they stood out of the way of my missiles.

I then advanced on their right flank with my mounted archers, firing away at thei militia and then targeting their catapult. Once I took out the catapult crew (in the meantime their archer militia got too close to my ranged units and got fired upon) by standing my mounted archers right behind the enemy, the byzantines moved onto a hill to the left of my starting position which was quite a bit taller than mine. While they did that, I ran my mounted archers further along their right flank and harassed them. Once they stood on the hill (not on top of it but close) their archers fired a volley against my mounted archers, but instead of standing on their flank, I again moved right behind them (note the AI at no time tried to attack me properly while maneuvering). Once my mounted archers got on top of the hill (a few meters behind the enemy line) the entire byzantine army moved down the hill towards my starting hill where they were standing just inches away from my ranged units, taking fire without using their melee units to attack at all. At the same time my mounted archesrwere still shooting them from the back. Eventually the enemy routed.

While I applaud the AI for now moving when you outmaneuver them, they certain don't do it very smartly moving from one hill to the next even if they can force your small harassing force away and they shouldn't be moving towards the hill you are standing on and then stopping, but at least attack (even if they are the defender) or just move to another corner of the map and force you to follow them.

[Whacker]

Apart from the known passive AI bugs, I can't really offer anything too specific. I can state that I've observed wierd behavior in terms of where the AI will defend when I siege it, and when it decides to pull back and abandon the walls and gates. The behavior is inconsistent, and sometimes it will pull back when in my view, it has a better chance of holding me off at the breach itself, based on my previous experiences.

Sadly, I've taken to autoresolving all of my v1.2unofficial battles due to the unit cohesion problems. (Yes I will try other unit sizes later)

Cheers


PS:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Demoted <-- LOL

[hrvojej]

I also agree that the failings of tactical AI are mostly due to the failings of strategic AI, i.e. army recruitment and the AI not developing its generals. Apart from the often mentioned passive AI, and the overall poor handling of missile duels, I think the AI performs rather well.

With missile duels, the AI is not only passive when outgunned, but it often fails to react when you start shooting its melee troops while ignoring its archers. The melee troops just stand there, allowing themselves to be shot to pieces, instead of e.g. pulling back or taking cover from the fire. This would widen the gap between the AI's missile troops and its main line, but it would also mean that if I want to shoot its melee troops I would have to get much closer to his archers, therefore exposing my own ranged units to heavier casualties.

Another thing is using the terrain better. I don't have any concrete suggestions regarding this, but I really liked how the AI used the terrain to its advantage in STW. Some players may not like the long positioning struggle between the player and AI to see who will get the best terrain, which in STW often meant that troops could become tired while maneuvering around the map, but IMO it adds to the challenge.

With regard to the strategic AI, some of it can be offset by changing the recruitment pools, so that more good troops are recruited while the rabble is unavailable at higher levels of buildings, but I guess improving the AI recruitment priorities would help immensely in this. As for the generals, I don't know how to solve that without the AI cheating (which I hate, and therefore would hate to see the AI getting free troops to "fix" the recruitment), but I do know that facing a high dread/chivalry AI general is much much more fun than facing a captain.

[RickooClan]

Another thing is using the terrain better. I don't have any concrete suggestions regarding this, but I really liked how the AI used the terrain to its advantage in STW. Some players may not like the long positioning struggle between the player and AI to see who will get the best terrain, which in STW often meant that troops could become tired while maneuvering around the map, but IMO it adds to the challenge.

I missed that part of TW game badly!!

[Empirate]

Got another one, already well known, but just the same:
Why does the AI entrust its biggest armies to mere captains? Why do family members get left behind? This happens so often, it annoys the hell out of me - AI armies have no staying power this way, their fighting spirit leaks out of them the second they start taking casualties.