Don't let the title fool you It's not because i don't like this great mod or the game.It's just that,well,the poor AI has spoiled all the fun in playing this awasome mod.
First thing first:i started playing with the Eastern Roman Empire on very hard campaign difficulty/hard battles.Just from the start-as you can imagine-the assaults of the huns in the west and those of the Sassanid Empire in the east started.I didn't liked my chances i thought i had in an open battle,so my strategy was to just defend the border settlements while i could gather and move larger armies in support.Yet,after a couple of turns i had to give up.Not because i lost the cities,but because i didn't!
I beat back assault after assault,just by using the limitations of the AI.Armies fourth times my own army were virtually annihillated,with little losses to my own.How did i do it,you ask?Well,it's not hard.Although it spoils-at least for me it id-all the fun.
1)The boiling oil trick.
As i'm sure you all know,my infantry was pretty much superior to anything the huns/sassanids throwed against me.So it was easy to push back the enemy units which used ladders/siege towers to approch my walls.On the other hand,the enemy rams almost always managed to break my gates.With my gates opened-the enemy cavalry charged towards it and towards my spear units which were defending the gates.Time after time,they took horible casualties being killed by the boiling oil.I don't believe if i exagerate if i say about 75-85% of them were killed that way.And we're talking about Savarans and other Sassanid heavies,the ones you wouldn't even dream facing in the open I perfectly understand-being a programmer myself-that there are AI limitations we all must live with,yet this prooved to be to much When you kill the bulk of the enemy army-just by doing nothing-the fun tends to disappear quite easily.
2)Enemy units passing near the walls
Which sane commander would send his troops in the range of the enemy towers and those deadly arrows they fire?When they could just order them to keep the distance?And i don't mean those innevitable losses you get when approaching the walls with ladders or marching inside the town.I mean that crazy ai bug that makes the enemy run his troops always close to the walls,if they want to move them from point A to point B.If two armies attack your town,they start from completly opposing setup zones and the first army manages to break the gates,for example,the second army will start marching towards that gate.In the range of my towars,and ending up severely depleted when they finally arrive.
3)Assaulting the town insteead of waiting it to surrender
If my army consists mainly of cavalry with inferior infantry to support it-which i don't expect it could take the walls-like any one of you-i suppose-i will wait for the enemy to surrender or force it to attack me outside the walls.The AI thinks otherise though.And if you combine this with the previous mentioned bugs,you get an unplayable game.
I truly hope there will be a 1.7 patch for BI which would adress these issues.Because otherwise,the game is umplayable.Or at least it spoils all the fun.
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