Go north young Roman...

[Torvus]

Yeah, i find that annoying too. In my campaigns, they almost always head straight into Germany. in fact, i had a campaign where Hannibal's people kicked the Romans out of Italy and they migrated into Germany.

Imagine what the world would be like if that actually happened

[TWFanatic]

Indeed, Rome rarely expands into Sicily, never mind Corsica or Sardinia. If you're lucky and they do expand southwards, its at a much slower rate than their northern expansion.

[NeoSpartan]

true... but is not as bad as in .81x

The new Boii Gallum, Helvetii, and other tribes are much stronger now. Before the Romani where reaching Gaul proper by 268BC, now they take much much longer.

[NEver]

Konny's win conditions alterations are kinda attempting to ammend this and switching to alexander improves the AI in general but even after all that Rome still has this irritating tendency to go north instead of south. They seem to be expanding along the shores more which is good.

It's very different from the agessive scipii south expansion in vanilla. Maybe if the EB team tried to make all the AI relations and scripts for SPQR more similar to Vanilla's scipii faction... But I doubt it

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

The AI factions always go for rebels before they attack other factions. Since Taras is in Epieros' hands, they will try to take as many rebels they can before they attack it, causing them to go north.

I also heard a theory somewhere, once, that said that the AI is programed to prefer to go north first, then northeast, then east... clockwise all around. Thus southwest to Sicilia would be way down on the AI's list, as the Romani.

[konny]

The AI factions always go for rebels before they attack other factions. Since Taras is in Epieros' hands, they will try to take as many rebels they can before they attack it, causing them to go north.

I had changed the ownership of Taras to rebell. That plus the VCs at least had made a 90% chance (in my tests) that the Romans attack (and take!) Taras first. But they still prefer to go North afterwards instead of Rhegion - which is as rebell as Bononia is.

Another point is that also Carthage is hardly doing anything in Sicily or Southern Italy. They always have a full stack hiding the bushes near Lilibeo, but leave Messana and Syracusae more or less alone. I think that the AI regards these three towns for reasons unknown to us as worthless to conquer or hard to hold after conquest.

Other theories:

There are pathfinding problems in this region. In this case we should see a number of pinned stacks from both factions standing around. But that's rare, and the three Northern towns have a nightmare of pathfinding for the AI (hills, 90° turns and the like). And the Epeirote often take Rhegion (but hardly cross into Sicily afterwards)

The AI is heading for Latium (Gotland, vanilla VC). In this case the EB Romans (who are the vanilla Seleucids) would be the only ones to do so - so why should they?

The three full stacks are regarded as a threat to the AI. That is something should be tested.

The AI is heading for the hughe "empty" (= rebell) lands along and North of the Danube. That is most likely because also Sweboz, Epeiros and Makedonia are heading in the same direction even though the latter two have better to do.

The "clockwise" theory doesn't seem to apply because the Sweboz, Arverni and Aedui are always heading South first, even though they have rebell towns North of their starting position.

[Sand]

Somewhat pleased with the Romans in my current campaign: They havent got to Sicily but thats due to a rather entertaining scrap between them and Epiros who I kicked out of Greece and who surprised me by gradually rolling the Romans back north into the Po valley, took Roma and won the war. A lot of the Roman defeat can be laid at the feet of the AI trying to head north as well, whereas the Epirotes concentrated almost entirely on taking Roman cities.

After a rather decisive Epirote defeat in Sicily by the Carthaginians, the Romans have swung back into the fight, liberated Roma and Arpi [ IIRC] and are sieging Taras. Its been interesting to observe the fight. The AI appears able to fight wars in Italy and Sicily, so its the Rebels vs Faction preference that seems to be the initial issue - Im almost sorry that Im going to have to intervene again shortly.

[The Wandering Scholar]

The AI factions always go for rebels before they attack other factions. Since Taras is in Epieros' hands, they will try to take as many rebels they can before they attack it, causing them to go north.

I also heard a theory somewhere, once, that said that the AI is programed to prefer to go north first, then northeast, then east... clockwise all around. Thus southwest to Sicilia would be way down on the AI's list, as the Romani.

Interesting, is this tue for all the TW series?

[Obelics]

The AI factions always go for rebels before they attack other factions. Since Taras is in Epieros' hands, they will try to take as many rebels they can before they attack it, causing them to go north.

So why not having Taras as Rebel, and give it a garrison of Epirote Like units. Then if the Human player is playing as Rome, via scripting there could be added a stack of Epiros units outside Taras. So Epiros could be in war with Rome.

[Justinian II]

Yeah, i find that annoying too. In my campaigns, they almost always head straight into Germany. in fact, i had a campaign where Hannibal's people kicked the Romans out of Italy and they migrated into Germany.

Imagine what the world would be like if that actually happened

Wasn't there an alternate historical fiction novel about something like that?

[antisocialmunky]

Yes, the 'Great German Migration,' I have more than once seen or heard of (World According to the KH) the Roman's lust to see the scantily clad women of the Proto-Scandinavian Baltic Coast.

I really hope the inclusion of the Boii/N. Italian Faction in EB2 fixes this since that seems like the only real possibility of making it work as sticking a legion by Taras would just trigger the Pyhrric 'walk away... just walk away' from Pella response -you get a balloon if you can guess what that's refering too. Perhaps if they were placed with Taras being between them and their territory... I wonder though what would happen if you put a Rebel stack to stand in for some Samnites that are conquered(mentioned in the History popup) would encourage them to take Rhegion. It would be nice to have the factions in Italy in a epic death struggle from the outset(the factions in Gaul ALWAYS seem to beat the snot out of each other).

[NeoSpartan]

Yes, the 'Great German Migration,' I have more than once seen or heard of (World According to the KH) the Roman's lust to see the scantily clad women of the Proto-Scandinavian Baltic Coast.

I really hope the inclusion of the Boii/N. Italian Faction in EB2 fixes this since that seems like the only real possibility of making it work as sticking a legion by Taras would just trigger the Pyhrric 'walk away... just walk away' from Pella response -you get a balloon if you can guess what that's refering too. Perhaps if they were placed with Taras being between them and their territory... I wonder though what would happen if you put a Rebel stack to stand in for some Samnites that are conquered(mentioned in the History popup) would encourage them to take Rhegion. It would be nice to have the factions in Italy in a epic death struggle from the outset(the factions in Gaul ALWAYS seem to beat the snot out of each other).

Hey I actually like that idea of a Sammite settlement with a strong rebel stack in Italy..... or maybe just a rebal stack or two

[General Appo]

But.... wouldn´t that be historicaly incorrect? Sure there could appear rebel stacks of Samnites within Roman territory, perhaps even scripted, but a Samnite settlement? Besides, Rhegion was controlled by the threacherous half Romans sent there to defend the city against Pyrrhus, and even though some of these men could easily have been Samnites, I don´t think we can go so far as to make it a Samnite city.
But really, the problem with Rome´s expansions is that is was historicaly so great that the AI has major problems following it, even human players have problem taking Taras during the first 4 turns, and then almost immiditaly taking Rhegion is even harder. I´ve often seen the Romans besieging Taras and Rhegion only to be beaten back.