Do you play with battle timer on ?

[atheotes]

I mostly leave the timer ON... Now and then i will play campaigns with the timer OFF - not anymore.
In a siege initiated by the AI, i managed to beat back the main force. Some of units ran off the battle field and the rest were captured/killed. There was a long reinforcement general waiting there doing nothing... i sallied and killed him but the battle wouldnt end... i waited and searched for lost routing units... found none.. in the minimap i could see on red arrow outside the battlefield... i put all my units in a single line and swept thru the battlefield hoping they would somehow catch the invisible routers... to no avail.. i started scanning the battlefield inch by inch and after a lot of pain found 2 enemy spearmen under a ladder banging against the walls... none of my units could attack them/get close to them!!! Then i destroyed a ladder and to my relief they started running away from the walls and were promptly captured. It took me well over an hour and since then it is battle time always ON!!!

[a_ver_est]

Hi again,

I have played the Aleppo siege again, this time with the timer on. I am surprised because it takes a long time before ending, great to know. I had it turned off because I tough that it gonna be short like in RTW.

BTW the battle was exactly the same than the previous one, but with one difference I have been able to kill all the elephants with the towers arrows, the AI moved a elephant unit near the walls and start shooting, when all of them were dead moved another one ..., when all of them were dead the ram which has gone back early in the battle has attacked again.

Today I have played some other sieges against Timurids and it seems that it has programed soften the defenders with HA (including elephants) before launching an assault with infantry perhaps they aren't strong enough ?. I don't remember that Mongols did it, not sure anyway.

So probably if I were patient enough I would won the previous battle.

Conclusion the AI weren't inactive just was using (IMHO) a very very stupid tactic which did me though that it was doing nothing, also I though that the AI weren't going to try another assault after the defeat of almost all their infantry with this poor ram crew.

If someone want to check it I can send him the savegame.

Regards.

[Kadagar_AV]

Game cant handle sieges, time limit on is pretty much a must if you want to avoid situations like "I die if open the gates, battle goes on forever if I do not".

I NEVER ran out of time in a battle unless AI bugged, so having timer on doesnt hurt a bit.

Our playstyles must be very different though, I seem to find passive AI in sieges in about 20% of the fights...









PS: in the rest of the cases, 80%, the AI just, well, sucks....

I can even showe you a graphical animated image of the AI's preferred tactic: