The AI and the fear of cannister shot

[Elmar Bijlsma]

There my Dutch army sat, confidently awaiting the approach of the Spanish army across the valley.
And as the enemy infantry marched near to the maximum range of cannister, I toggled the cannon from roundshot to cannister. The enemy infantry immediately about faced! I had to check what I think I saw. Did the AI just react not to what my troops were doing, but on a mouse click I made?
I opted to check, so I toggled roundshot again. Instantaneously the Spanish infantry about faced once again and marched towards my lines again. Switched back to cannister, retreat. Roundshot, advance. Repeat ad infinitum.
To make it absolutely clear: The enemy AI wasn't reaction to cannon fire, but merely to the type of shot selected. Not a single shot was fired at them to make them change their mind about the attack. I finally just selected roundshot and Hold Fire to coax the AI in to my field of fire. Only then did I switch to cannister and ordered them to open fire.

While I don't mind that the AI gets a look behind the scenes to check what I'm doing in order for it to cope better, I do hope it gets hidden a lot better then this! It's just creepy and wrong to see the enemy take it's cues from me so directly.

[Grumfoss]

They mus have been using the Force

[0rly?]

The AI always seems to know where your ships are on the campaign map. I can't see theirs until i get close and yet they are able to engage from the other side of the atlantic. This frustrated the hell out of me when i was trying to take regions from the pirates!!

[Vlad Tzepes]

They had a translator with them, when they heard the Dutch mouse-click on the cannister option, they got cautious. Try to click in absolute silence

[crpcarrot]

how many times has this happened to you? was it only once?

its nver happened to me even last ngiht the AI walked right into my firing zone and only turned flashing white once a couple of hsots of canister had gone through them.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Seen it only thrice, but that's probably more to do with me abandoning direct fire artillery for howitzers a few turns after I first noticed this happening. There are no more grapeshot capable cannon in my armies.

[antisocialmunky]

I usually toggle a while before the enemy hits me so the enemy usually ends up lobbing all its cavalry at me and then their infantry mills around and hits my whole line and gets shredded.

[Dodge_272]

Are you absolutely sure there was nobody in the room with you? The Dutch may have infiltrated your household with a spy who relays messages back to them.

[Freakk]

This same thing happened to me when i was playing last night as Russia, only it was the Persians who turned around once I selected canister shot.

[RZST]

well, if you think about it. the infantry could have seen your men changing ammo type....

but, more than likely, theres a dutch guy in your back watching your every move. better check it out.

[Sheogorath]

The ETW AI seems to cheat an awful lot...bypassing interception zones, getting extra cash, omniscience as to the campaign map, amazingly accurate artillery...

I dont think it wants us to win, guys

[Dayve]

I've noticed this in every single battle i've ever played where i use artillery. Look for a unit of cavalry that has stood still for a long period of time, usually the enemy general, select your big guns, mouse over him, and watch him begin to run in a random direction as soon as you right click.

He does it every single time.

Tell your big guns to stop, then when he settles and stands still again, fire and watch him move out of the way. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I noticed this the first day i got the game. Doesn't really bother me, artillery shells are so incredibly inaccurate that it doesn't matter whether he runs or stays in position, there's still only a (pulling a complete percentage out of my ass here) 5% chance that each individual cannonball will actually hit him.

[0rly?]

There's still only a (pulling a complete percentage out of my ass here) 5% chance that each individual cannonball will actually hit him.

Hell they do say 90.56% of all statistics are made up on the spot

[IvarrWolfsong]

The ai also does this with cavalry charges. Next time light inf moves toward your lines, order a heavy cavalry or lancers to charge it. Befor your cavalry even moves, the light inf will be scurrying back to safety

[Subotan]

I <3 canister shot. It turns redcoats (Both British AND Polish ones) into tissue paper :D

[antisocialmunky]

For all its foresight, it still sucks. Fire at will tends to scramble it anyways.

[Mooks]

Reminds me of RTW where in almost completely forested maps the AI just happens to send a large force near a calvary ambush of mine.

[Kobal2fr]

Yup, I saw it too - French army defending against the Brits (or the other way round, I honestly don't remember). My men are all hunkered down behind walls on the right flank, a few units of militia in a town on the left, undefended arty in the middle to set up a killing field (with cav right behind them just in case). As predicted, the enemy was funneled in the "tunnel", I switch to grape shot... and they stop, just out of range, instantly. Switch back to round, they move up. Switch to grape shot, they run back out of range. I left the guns on canister shot, and the AI units sort of circled around, always at the edge of range, to hit my right flank. And since the guns were Sakers and 1/2 Cannons, I couldn't move them closer.

I suppose the AI needs every bit of help. And to be fair to CA, it's most probably not even be a cheat, just AI coded to react this way to this situation, that way to that situation, and changing tac as fast as the situation changes. Only, of course, a human would have taken at least one load of canister before figuring he needs to change tac. But it's hard to make an AI artificially dumb without making it... well, dumb :) (or rather, exploitably dumb)

[Barkhorn1x]

I suppose the AI needs every bit of help. And to be fair to CA, it's most probably not even be a cheat, just AI coded to react this way to this situation, that way to that situation, and changing tac as fast as the situation changes. Only, of course, a human would have taken at least one load of canister before figuring he needs to change tac. But it's hard to make an AI artificially dumb without making it... well, dumb :) (or rather, exploitably dumb)

Geez - howse about some boolean logic here - or at least a built in reaction delay to simulate the "Holy Crap" factor?

[antisocialmunky]

The campaign AI may be more plan based but the battle AI is still pretty much state based from what I've seen. :-\

[Mysterium]

Well, if we're really talking exploits, there is the small fact that you can change ammunition type once the cannons're loaded. I'd think artillery crews that tried that with a loaded cannon would have short life expectancies. Are they dangling one of the powder boys down the barrel to pull out the roundshot and then shove in a canister?

But yeah, there's a couple things it'd be nice to hide from the AI, especially on the strategic map. Like fleets in the fog of war, as mentioned.

[Kobal2fr]

Geez - howse about some boolean logic here - or at least a built in reaction delay to simulate the "Holy Crap" factor?

Well, that's what I was talking about with the "exploitably stupid" - suppose they put a "react 5 seconds later" condition to tac changes, then all you have to do is switch to canister, shoot, switch back to ball, rinse, repeat for great carnage. No perfect solution except playing against humans, I guess.

@Mysterium : yeah, I noticed that too, but on closer look I don't think it really works. You can plainly see the cloud of lead go halfway across the map, but there are very few victims. So either it's just a cosmetic thing (i.e. the canister graphics are used because of a bug, but it's really a ball flying away) or it's really canister being "shot", only the firepower drops drastically with range. I must admit, I didn't really test that stuff out too much (got burned out of M2TW by modding and testing too much, don't want to repeat that mistake - this time around, I'm flying blind :) )

[hoom]

The AI in TW games has historically gotten quite nervous when it knows its fighting something its likely to lose/can't find an exploitable weakness.
It'll dither around on the edge of ranged fire & react immediately to pretty much anything the player does.

I just played a battle where the AI not only didn't run away from cannister, it got slaughtered by it.
I had 2 units of 12pdr foot artillery in the middle of my line, flanked by 2 line infantry (& various others behind) on either side & backed up by my Generals Elephants (playing Marathas), assaulting a city using 2/3 of a stack & against a near full stack of citizenry.

While I was off fiddling with some mounted musket & advanced building defenders on the far left, 3 or 4 units of citizenry attempted to charge my cannon.
I'd changed the cannon over to cannister while the advancing enemy were still well out of range before diverting my attention to the flank.
When I came back to the centre, there were 3 depleted citizenry units routing.
Funny thing is they were routing sideways away from the cannon but into the firing range of my line infantry.
They'd get shot up a bit & then turn round and run back infront of the cannon & get shot up a lot then turn back towards the line infantry
Just went left & right dying instead of running away from my troops until I brought my cav forward to end it

[Warhammer3025]

If you had fire at will on i'm rather surprised your cannon didnt keep tracking the fleeing enemies and enfilade your own troops, i'm sure we've all had that happen to ourselves quite a bit

[hoom]

They were far enough away that wasn't a problem.

[antisocialmunky]

I make sure the enemy runs the other way. The only units that habitually run through lines retreating is cavalry. If we're trading shots, the unti usually actually runs away.

[Galapagos]

I tested last night the canister shot thing and it worked and then tried other things and it seems the AI always knows what orders are you giving and so on....

[Poncho400]

I had something similar happen to me. I was playing against the natives and have a unit of howizter and sakers(both with round shot). After a bit of fighting and getting out just a few volleys, the enemy knew exactly where my range was. To test them, I put my general directly in front of their troops, and they gave chase. I ran my general straight at my artillery so I could lure them into the kill zone. They enemy literally all stopped within a few feet of the max range, and turned around to reform.

Although annoying, the howitzers were horse-drawn, and they were backed into a corner. Needless to say, when I hit them with explosive shot, their days were over.