Funny AI

[0101001]

tell us the funniest things you have seen the AI doing.

[madmatg]

many times when reinforcements are involved in the battle i will look out upon the field and see random unengaged units scattered around; normally at least 1/3 of the computers units just sitting on the battlefield spread out all random like

[Seyduna]

When defending against AI army with reinforcements, they attack separately instead of joining forces and attacking together.

[NightStar]

Fighting me!

Military advisor: O king of kings, we lost yet another army against the dreaded Sweboz. It was destroyed almost to a man, they left one survivor to tell of the crushing defeat.

King of Kings: Drats, that is the 11th army since april isn't it?

M.I: That is correct your greatness

KoK: Well, like my mother said persistance gets the girl!!! So conscript some poor blokes and send 'em at the Sweboz, I think 12 could be my lucky number.

[Basileus Seleukeia]

Well, bunch o' binary, there is that infamous syndrom of stack spamming. Incredibly stupid battlefield AI. The fact that the AI factions will attack you when you have common borders, no matter what you do. The AI of the game is utterly dumb in many, or more so, every way. But we still love the game. That is really funny of us, so we got some flaws too, not only the AI

[Tiberius Nero]

I don't find AI stupidities funny, I find them frustrating to the point I haven't touched the game in ages and moved on. A real shame, because there was huge potential there.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Two days ago I fought a BIG battle against the Romans just outside of Roma itself, they deployed 6500 men! I killed them almost all and wondered "why the heck doesn't appear the "battle won" pop-up?" when I discovered that the Roman general, the Princeps, and his proud guard of 124 equites consularis was sitting around in the wood. I could make him flee, but couldn't kill him because my horsies were all too exhausted. Needless to say Roma was captured and sacked the next turn.

[0101001]

funny doesn't just mean stupidity, i find it funny when i'm actually outwitted by the enemy.

[Thaatu]

I found it pretty funny when I played the first large battle with general camera. It was Carthage vs. Ptolemaics east of Lepki and there was a sandstorm raging so I couldn't see a thing. The battlelines were locked and I was standing on the right flank of the battle, just trying to make some sense of it. Then I noticed a slight gap in the line when some of the enemy troops shifted, and from that charged the Ptolemaic king, with a hundred bodyguards, towards my general. I paniced and began screwing things up, but I did manage to survive, and brought my reserve Iberians to take care of the situation, and even won ultimately. That was, I quess one out of two times that AI has outwitted me. If I hadn't kept reserves, I would have been slaughtered. Best of all, if my general had died or retreated, I couldn't have done a thing in that battle. To tell you the truth, it wasn't funny at all, but it was very cinematic.

[Reno Melitensis]

Well, how much dump the AI can be it can always produce surprises. When I invaded Iberia as the Romanii, I discovered two very experienced Punic armies, some units with a silver chevron, very well balanced and led by good commanders. I suffered two defeats, before I destroyed them both. The reasons are various, first Darth formations give realistic battle formations to the AI, those Numidian javliners are a pain in the a......, and the Elite African Infantry are really a though nut to crack. But once the battlefield wondering General is ambushed and killed the hole army collapses.

Cheers.

[pezhetairoi]

The funniest thing I experienced was that I could wheel an enemy army off his high ground by simply rotating my line to constantly threaten my flank so he will refuse that flank. We just ballerina-dance around until I end up on the high ground and him at the disadvantage. O.o

[Megas Methuselah]

Hahaa, that's exactly what i do, pez. I kinda feel guilty sometimes for taking advantage of the ai's obvious stupidity, but whatever...

Btw, can someone enlighten me about this darth formation mod? I heard of it before, but never quite understood what it does.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Darth mod establishes a number of more realistic formations for the AI forces. Since AI "tactics" are influenced by formation choices, the net result is a slightly tougher opponent (and a more realistic one).

E.G.

In vanilla, a 19-card barbarian army very often tried to deploy in an extended line of 16 units with a couple flanking the general on a second line in the center. This formation was unwieldy and unrealistic. You could refuse both of your flanks and punch through the center or any of a number of easy counters. It looked impressive and you would certainly be flanked, but it had no reserves or depth -- no punch.

In Darth mod, they'll often take a sort of 3-4 deep pair of columns and bring in swarms of axemen on a single target. Much more of a threat.

[Bootsiuv]

I don't find AI stupidities funny, I find them frustrating to the point I haven't touched the game in ages and moved on. A real shame, because there was huge potential there.

I agree, although I still play the game.

I really don't understand why they couldn't have a reasonable diplomacy a.i. a'la Civilization III, which is about 3-4 years older BTW.

The fact that you can't run a peaceful empire takes some of the strategies away.

I also hate how a ceasefire/alliance/protectorate status means absolutely nothng.

I've seen the a.i. pay me 15,000 mnai for a ceasefire and then besiege my city immediately after ending the diplomacy!!

Hopefully, Empires will address this issue, and in 5 years EB3 will be a glorious thing.

[pseudocaesar]

funny doesn't just mean stupidity, i find it funny when i'm actually outwitted by the enemy.

Haha, yeh i got flanked once, two units of heavy cavalry hit me in the rear. I was like :O wtf. You dont expect it too happen so i didnt even pay any attention lol and bang, luckily i had my triarii like 5 metres away so i attacked with them, and broke them with my generals charge...but still...i got flanked by the AI...i was ashamed of myself.

[Juvenal]

I had a strange encounter with a reinforcing Pontic army in a KH campaign.

The battlefield was on the northern side of Byzantion, so it featured a large bay along the northern edge. I was deployed in the west facing a modest Pontic force. I rushed them (as far as you can with hoplites) and overwhelmed them before the massive reinforcing army could fully enter the map from the east.

Since the supporting army was arriving quite slowly, I ran my force to high ground in the south-east.

The Pontics, who were still marching to contact and hadn't yet formed a battle line started to wheel anti-clockwise to approach my new position. My force was outnumbered 3:1 and all my troops were exhausted - so I was expecting to go down Custer-style.

Then, amazingly, the Pontic army stopped dead! It was still deployed as a giant column (as if waiting to cross a bridge).

I waited until all my units were fresh, marched up to the lead unit and killed it. The rest of the Pontics didn't react. I was able to repeat this twice more before something in the Pontic formation came unstuck and they all started deploying - too late of course.

I've never seen anything like this before or since.

[pezhetairoi]

I saw it once before when I was playing as the Arverni, and the only Roman fullstack, in the old days when the Camillan triarii were still capable of phalanx mode, attacked me on the ford outside Roma with my army consisting of Gaeroas, Bataroas, Botroas, and no gaesatae whatsoever. I was pretty much resigned to just taking as many of them as I could before I went, and surrendering the northern half of Italy after this defeat I was going to suffer, when suddenly they just did the same thing, line up in a column and just stand there on their side of the river.

I'll admit, I was so afraid of them that I actually waited for fifteen minutes on triple game speed to see if they would make a move. When they didn't, I sent my entire army en masse across the river, charged the leading maniples, which were the triarii, front, left and right with everything I had in one mad rush. I managed to break their six double-bronze triarii before the rest got the idea and started deploying, only to be caught right left and centre by my masses of barbarians who got among them and shattered them. It was a victory won through a bug, but hey, I wasn't arguing because it was better than I could have hoped for.

And then I got pissed and gave up the Arverni campaign because the recruitment zones weren't up yet and the Italian peninsula was incapable of recruiting anything south of Segesta, and I couldn't afford too many mercenaries.

[Centurion Crastinus]

Are Darth formations automatically included in EB or is it something I need to download from somewhere else? If so where can I find it?

[Bellum]

The funniest thing I experienced was that I could wheel an enemy army off his high ground by simply rotating my line to constantly threaten my flank so he will refuse that flank. We just ballerina-dance around until I end up on the high ground and him at the disadvantage. O.o

I do that all the time.

[pezhetairoi]

But recently I haven't been able to pull off that trick. Now instead of wheeling off the high ground, the enemy goes on the offensive once I wheel off his flank so the best I'm able to pull off is both of us, half-on and half-off the high ground.

[Bellum]

Even so, depending on the situation you should be able to get some of your forces to get on the higher flank after the opponent is otherwise engaged.

EDIT: I suppose it depends on the steepness of the hill. Sometimes, with the amount of time it takes to get the forces up there and rest out of uselessness, it just isn't worth it.

[Ludens]

Are Darth formations automatically included in EB or is it something I need to download from somewhere else? If so where can I find it?

No, EB has it's own historical formations. Many prefer an adaptation of Darth's or Sinuhet's formtions though. The latest adaptation you can find here.

[Hooahguy]

i was assaulting a KH city, and there were about 50 or so defenders left on the walls. i was cornering them, ready for the last kills, when all of a sudden, they started jumping off the walls!
and that is no joke!

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Yes, some guys in agony commit suicide, at least that's how I interprete this behaviour. Imagine you are a poor sphendonetos on the wall and a unit of Hypaspistai is coming to rape you... jumping could be the better alternative I guess.

[Hooahguy]

ya- id do that too....

[PenguinLobster]

I like it when the AI has one of its rare moments of intelligence. For example I was assaulting a city and I was thinking about how dumb the computer was for leaving their heavy infantry in the street and some slingers to guard the walls. Just after this thought the scorpion just below the walls which I hadnt noticed until now opened fire on my poor thurepoi. Touche AI, touche.

[Beefy187]

I find it funny how mighty elite Roman army with silver chevron full of best Polibian units gets snapped over and over again by my Casse army with out an general.

They just keep sending amazingly experienced stacks to Gaul then getting sent back by my army.

[Maeran]

I know this is RTW diplomacy, and I know we can't do anything about it, but I have to say this was particularly stoopid.

In my Romani campaign I am mopping up the last Carthaginian resistance, including near Egypt. I don't want anything east of Lepcis right now, so I kept trying to give Cyrene to my allies, the Koinen Hellonen and the Ptolemies even using force diplomacy neither would have it.

While I was besieging the city west of Alexandria with a full legion, the Ptolies attacked Cyrene with an army of 5 pantapodoi. So stupid, especially with Pharoah sitting in Alex with only 1 phalanx unit for company.

I was happy to give them what they wanted, but they were determined to get into a war with a superpower whose troops are sitting a turn's march from their king.They don't have an army worth a damn this side of the Sinai. It's like they want to lose.

Idiots.

[raenor]

In my Mak campaign i've got the AS, Ptolies, Eperius in a triple alliance against me with also Hayasdan in the fray against me and the AS.

When I was just starting to push into Asia Minor, I think I had 3 towns there. Ptols asked me to become protectorate, I accepted to give me a few turns breathing space against my 3 enemies but the same turn, Ptol, AS and Epirus all seiged a city each... kinda sucked.

[Juvenal]

Over the last couple of years I have gotten to think of the A.I. as something like a neighbour's dog - it's strong, makes a lot of noise and can bite hard, but you always know what it will do in any given situation.

In seige assaults I am used to winning the battle of the walls and then advancing at leisure to surround the plaza while the A.I. tries to pull back too late. Sometimes I will even manage to catch some of the retreating A.I. units and destroy them.

Recently I had captured my target gatehouse and ordered my main body to advance into the perimeter street as usual. I then left them to it and gave my attention to the fighting on the walls.

Expecting the A.I. to be pulling back to the plaza. When I had stabilised the wall battle, I was shocked to discover that the area under the gatehouse was now littered with bodies. What had happened was that my archers (4 units) had outmarched my heavy infantry and had arrived first. The A.I. had then committed all of its cavalry and had gone through my archers like a rotivator before they could deploy.

Meanwhile my heavy infantry were still outside, just putting the finishing touches to their rendition of "It's a long way to Tipperary".

My big mistake was that because I find cavalry very difficult to deploy in towns, I had unconsciously assumed the A.I. would be similarly encumbered. In actual fact it has no trouble at at all with cavalry - it's just that they usually encounter my spearmen head-on in the street and all die.

I actually felt guilty - I usually nurse my archers, and they become the most experienced units in my armies. I felt I had let them down!!!