Aggressive/Expansionist AIs

[nearchos]

I believe one of the main differences between Shogun 2 and Rome 2 in terms of AI toughness was that harder AI in Shogun actually got bonuses in battle as well, like morale bonuses and such. I'm kind of glad that is not the case anymore. Now if only the AI in Rome 2 actually went and recruited some of those Oathsworn warriors once in a while...

Yesterday, I lost a battle against the AI which I thought was going to be an easy victory and it surprised me a little.. positively. I was outnumbered, as always but through mutliple enemy armies reinforcing and me assuming that a little block of houses in the center of the map would make one of my flanks unflankable, the AI actually managed to do what I would expect it to do when it has the advantage in numbers... it surrounded my army and killed it. They still lost most of their men but their armies were of considerably worse quality than mine.

The battle started out with me sending my cav around to go and pick off the enemy ballistas, so they don't murder my infantry, which they are very good at. Luckily for me the AI never guards those things, so two units of Equites or Aux Cav, can't remember, went and destroyed all enemy artillery, then harassed some slingers and came back to tell the tale/join my army in the defense of its position. All was going well, until a unit of Oathsworn, perhaps a general bodyguard, came running through this block of buildings I was using to protect on of my flanks and they smashed straight into the side of my veteran Legionaries who were already holding off 200 or 300 tribesmen and spear warriors.

At first I thought huh, well played.. didn't know that was possible and told my other flank to go and collapse on their army so it became trapped between both 'wings' but before that manouver was completed, the Oathsworn had managed to kill enough of the Legion vets to make them pack up and leave and at that point everything sort of fell apart.

It was a little exciting to see my army composition that would beat everything I have encountered up to that point get taken apart so quickly and relatively easily and I wasn't exactly letting it unfold. I thought I was actually playing rather well and I'm not the kind of person to zoom in and watch the action. I have replays for that.

But yeah, it was refreshing and kind of cool to see that this is actually possible.

Well that sure is refreshing, may be has to do with the latest patch, a smart AI in battles with better handling of the army composition would be grate.
Nevertheles, yesterday night, a full stack army of ERAVICKIsomthing, came surprising me and asaulted a provice capital without a standing army, only with the garrison, about 2800 celtic wariors, celtic spearmen, slingers, scirmishers, cav against 1700, militia levy pikemen and mob, with 2 sling and 1 archers.
And what they did? they just stared at the walls standing still, so the time passes and i achive a victory.
Then within the same turn an other full stack apears, attacks the city and doing the same think, second victory.
The city didnt have balistae or scorpions towers yet, and the ballance of power was like 1:8 or 9.
Anyway, in my turn i moved for suport 4 of the Macedonian armies around the area and i autoresolved a battle in my favour ( it was very late), 1:5, withot any survivors.
So i dont know, it doesnd make sence!!

[Sp4]

Well that sure is refreshing, may be has to do with the latest patch, a smart AI in battles with better handling of the army composition would be grate.
Nevertheles, yesterday night, a full stack army of ERAVICKIsomthing, came surprising me and asaulted a provice capital without a standing army, only with the garrison, about 2800 celtic wariors, celtic spearmen, slingers, scirmishers, cav against 1700, militia levy pikemen and mob, with 2 sling and 1 archers.
And what they did? they just stared at the walls standing still, so the time passes and i achive a victory.
Then within the same turn an other full stack apears, attacks the city and doing the same think, second victory.
The city didnt have balistae or scorpions towers yet, and the ballance of power was like 1:8 or 9.
Anyway, in my turn i moved for suport 4 of the Macedonian armies around the area and i autoresolved a battle in my favour ( it was very late), 1:5, withot any survivors.
So i dont know, it doesnd make sence!!

The auto resolve meter in the game is accurate in a lot of cases, very accurate. It just does not account for the silly AI, which I guess it never does. As far as I can tell, it also does not take into account unit strength (It will weigh a full, healthy unit as heavily as one with 10 guys remaining).
As for why sieges don't work... I have no idea but I wish I did. I think the AI is programmed to expect the player to defend the walls or at least the gate they have piled their army up in front of. If you don't do that, the AI has nothing to go by and just doesn't do anything. It sometimes really feels as if you have to 'lure' the AI into doing something by giving it someone to play with and then someone else... kind of how they always lure lions in cartoons, with steaks on the ground until they got them where they want them.
It's frustrating and stupid and I really hate the siege AI because I actually think it is not just unfinished, it simply is not there. Like there is no code for it. In naval siege assaults, they sometimes drop off their army and that's it, good game, where're just here to enjoy a day at the beach. In this case the army wont even move if you walk out to attack them. I really don't like sieges at the point, especially not as the defenders. As the attackers it is not quite as bad but still somewhat boring because even if the AI has the advantage in numbers (however huge it may be) it wont use it and the only way it achieves something is if you as the player screw up, which in my case happened because I had no idea how a certain part of the game worked, but now I learned it and I am not gonna do it again. It's really funny how on 'hard' difficulty, all of my 9 existing armies have had nothing but victories, except for one single case, which is the one I described above.

Even during my civil war, I was worried at first because finally someone actually is going to match my armies in quality... but the AI literally squandered them away in very pointless ways, like assaulting Karalis with a full legion on boats as the town was only defended by my fleet that had a bunch of ballista ships which sunk 80% of their glorious legion before they even got to the beach. Then the AI ran out of food (which I guess makes sense when a faction in a civil war takes over the capital and then locks itself inside but it makes for a not very threatening Senate Loyalist faction... If only they had done the obvious and taken over all of Italia and Magna Graecia..... I would still be fighting them now probably and the civil war would not have been over after three turns (it lasted a little longer than three turns but after three turns, it was obvious that their legions were going to starve away without us ever having waved a sword at each other.

[nearchos]

The auto resolve meter in the game is accurate in a lot of cases, very accurate. It just does not account for the silly AI, which I guess it never does. As far as I can tell, it also does not take into account unit strength (It will weigh a full, healthy unit as heavily as one with 10 guys remaining).
As for why sieges don't work... I have no idea but I wish I did. I think the AI is programmed to expect the player to defend the walls or at least the gate they have piled their army up in front of. If you don't do that, the AI has nothing to go by and just doesn't do anything. It sometimes really feels as if you have to 'lure' the AI into doing something by giving it someone to play with and then someone else... kind of how they always lure lions in cartoons, with steaks on the ground until they got them where they want them.
It's frustrating and stupid and I really hate the siege AI because I actually think it is not just unfinished, it simply is not there. Like there is no code for it. In naval siege assaults, they sometimes drop off their army and that's it, good game, where're just here to enjoy a day at the beach. In this case the army wont even move if you walk out to attack them. I really don't like sieges at the point, especially not as the defenders. As the attackers it is not quite as bad but still somewhat boring because even if the AI has the advantage in numbers (however huge it may be) it wont use it and the only way it achieves something is if you as the player screw up, which in my case happened because I had no idea how a certain part of the game worked, but now I learned it and I am not gonna do it again. It's really funny how on 'hard' difficulty, all of my 9 existing armies have had nothing but victories, except for one single case, which is the one I described above.

Even during my civil war, I was worried at first because finally someone actually is going to match my armies in quality... but the AI literally squandered them away in very pointless ways, like assaulting Karalis with a full legion on boats as the town was only defended by my fleet that had a bunch of ballista ships which sunk 80% of their glorious legion before they even got to the beach. Then the AI ran out of food (which I guess makes sense when a faction in a civil war takes over the capital and then locks itself inside but it makes for a not very threatening Senate Loyalist faction... If only they had done the obvious and taken over all of Italia and Magna Graecia..... I would still be fighting them now probably and the civil war would not have been over after three turns (it lasted a little longer than three turns but after three turns, it was obvious that their legions were going to starve away without us ever having waved a sword at each other.

Well in my macedon campaign, the rebel faction of Macedonian nobles emerged at the capitol of Pella, with 9 full stacks of prime units and 6 fleets same.

At the time i had a 11 units army in Athens and a full stack at Yllyria.
All my other armies were fighting at the east.
So the AI moves the 8 armies south capturing Larisa, and then closing to Athens, where i trained 4 more units and at the same time make a peace request to the Chorasmii in axchange of a lot of money so i can force marched my armies from the east.

Next turn 4 stacks asaulting Athens defended by a 15 unit army and the garisson force all 3700 men against 9500 of the rebels.
So the batle begins with an army from the east of the city closing a unit of balistae and breaking two sections of the wall while from the west an other army goes for the gates.

I move units of pikemen at the gap of the wall and on the other side of the city to hold the gate.
The eastern army stands there and watch without moving, while the western one after the destraktion of the gates becomes one body all together and assaults the pikewall.
So after a while and after a hard fighting at the broken gates where eventualy 3 units of my pikemen took part, the western army is actualy no more.
On the other side the eastern army continues to stare at the gap without moving.

Then an other full army takes the place of the one who left the battlefield.
They do not go for the open gates but they move a unit of balistae to the walls.

I have arange my units and wait.

So they start bombarding an arrow tower??????? until it is damaged 90% and then they stop doing anything.

Then, 12 minutes before the end of time limit we all stare each other an the time passes by so i win.

Next turn i have been reinforced with 4 more units that were in queue and 4 new stacks assault.

The same happens and then 3rd time the same.

So in 3 turns 3 out of the 9 stacks were wiped out and my armies arived to finish them of.....

Conclusions yours

[Kamakazi]

I haven't found any of the AI to be any sort or threat or power. Im well into my first campaign and I haven't lost a single territory and only once have I been mildly worried about maybe losing one. I rarely get attacked and own everyone I war. Im finding it rather bland tbh. Ohh and ive only lost 1 battle due to over confidence.

[Hooahguy]

What difficulty are you on?

[nearchos]

Well i completed my first campaign as Macedon, in Very Hard by achieving military victory and to be honest the only time i felt some presure was when CW occured and only for the first turns, until i bring back my armies.
I dare say that after the midle of the campaign i started to get bored.
Then i started a new campaign as Parthia.
Parthia starts with a minor settlement, and a military aly the getae.
I started my expansion ftom the 2nd turn, by taking the settlement west of my starting position, which belonged to a faction that was a satrapy of the Seleucid empire, as were almost all the factions araunf my land, so when i declared war, all the satrapies of the seleucids and the seleucids themselves declared war on me from the begining of the campaign.
During the next turns other neighboring factions declared war on me so in 10 turns ive played im in war with all the factions i have contact so far and surounded from enemies in every direction, which sounds chalenging.
Now the reality.
In these first 10 turns, i have conquered the province of parthia, and settlements from the provinces of arachosia, chorasmiaand gedrosia, total of 8 settlements, by fighting siege battles, against enemy armies just waiting in and besides their settlements, and only defend against an invasion from media apopatene by a stack half eastern spearmen half slingers and javelinmen, which i easily destroyed with a 13 units army of parthian horse archers, media cav, spearmen and jav.
What i mean is, eventhough im in war with everyone, instead of defending against invasions from any direction they all stand passively and quietly by their settlements.
No AI at all.

[Myth]

Well i completed my first campaign as Macedon, in Very Hard by achieving military victory and to be honest the only time i felt some presure was when CW occured and only for the first turns, until i bring back my armies.
I dare say that after the midle of the campaign i started to get bored.
Then i started a new campaign as Parthia.
Parthia starts with a minor settlement, and a military aly the getae.
I started my expansion ftom the 2nd turn, by taking the settlement west of my starting position, which belonged to a faction that was a satrapy of the Seleucid empire, as were almost all the factions araunf my land, so when i declared war, all the satrapies of the seleucids and the seleucids themselves declared war on me from the begining of the campaign.
During the next turns other neighboring factions declared war on me so in 10 turns ive played im in war with all the factions i have contact so far and surounded from enemies in every direction, which sounds chalenging.
Now the reality.
In these first 10 turns, i have conquered the province of parthia, and settlements from the provinces of arachosia, chorasmiaand gedrosia, total of 8 settlements, by fighting siege battles, against enemy armies just waiting in and besides their settlements, and only defend against an invasion from media apopatene by a stack half eastern spearmen half slingers and javelinmen, which i easily destroyed with a 13 units army of parthian horse archers, media cav, spearmen and jav.
What i mean is, eventhough im in war with everyone, instead of defending against invasions from any direction they all stand passively and quietly by their settlements.
No AI at all.

Are you running patch 2 or patch 3?

In my current Avenri game I overextended once and I now have a constant stream of fullstacks coming from Iberia and another stream coming from up north (modern day Belgium). As soon as I move to intercept one, the other sieges my settlement (and I've lost a settlement to the north, and it took me a few turns to take it back)