annoying, pesky piece-meal raiders: please fix these, CA!

**Slaists** · 07-09-2009, 17:26

Originally Posted by Sheogorath

I don't think it's so much the raiders...they sort of make sense. It's the fact that AI units retreat INWARDS, away from their own lines. If AI raiders would retreat like the players units, AKA: Towards their own country, it would be more plausible to deal with them.

As it is, I've had AI units retreat all the way to my capital. Very, very, annoying.

Do you really find it makes sense that, during ONE TURN, the AI sends 10 times 2-3 units to raid the SAME TARGET (and subsequently get them all killed one by one) rather than combining those 20-30 units into ONE army?

All these raiders came from Madrid, by the way, so, them coming from different sources was not an issue.

As to retreating deeper into ones territory: I find this to be less of a problem in 1.03 than it used to be earlier. Then again, it could be that I find it less of a problem because now, taught by my previous experience, I fight ALL the battles myself. Usually, no enemy survives...

I was thinking of describing the same Gibraltar situation as an example for retreating deeper into the player's territory not being an issue in 1.03, but then realized that I was intercepting the Spanish while they were still in their own territory. They all retreated back to Madrid.

**GFX707** · 07-09-2009, 17:43

I agree. This seems to be the AI's primary method of "warfare" - send a load of one-two unit stacks running around your country breaking everything so you have to fix it by way of micromanagement.

No standing armies, no big battles, just a load of piddly two unit stacks to chase around. The worst part is that even if you send cavalry against them and defeat them they can retreat further than you can chase them in 1 turn and even with 1 soldier they can still damage your resources - so you spend most of your time forced to chase these two stack armies around until they are utterly exterminated.

WHICH. ISN'T. FUN.

The worst part is that if the AI just put all these little two stack armies together they'd have a decent force which they could use to at least present a challenge rather than a minor nuisance.

**Daveybaby** · 07-09-2009, 17:46

The AI is engaging in psychological warfare, hoping you will give up in disgust, thus it will win the game by default. Sounds to me like it's getting there.

**GFX707** · 07-09-2009, 17:51

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

The AI is engaging in psychological warfare, hoping you will give up in disgust, thus it will win the game by default. Sounds to me like it's getting there.

The point is....this is a game. A game is supposed to be fun. A game is not supposed to be frustrating. No one likes being frustrated. There are already enough things in ETW to get frustrated about without this....and clearly I am not the only one who feels this way.

**Tora** · 07-10-2009, 18:54

Anyway, about these piecemeal raiders........

**Quickening** · 07-09-2009, 17:58

Originally Posted by Daveybaby

The AI is engaging in psychological warfare, hoping you will give up in disgust, thus it will win the game by default. Sounds to me like it's getting there.

Well it worked on me. I have to agree with the opening poster. A large part of the appeal for me with the Total War games is the relationship between the campaign map and the battles and in Medieval 2 it always feels great to go into a battle or return to the campaign map. But when you have Poland-Lithuania sending four stacks of two or three units to "burn" the same two sites it quickly gets so very boring. Eventually I didn't even bother intercepting them so then what did they do? Having no more sites to burn one of these pathetic stacks attacked my fort and that was the point the game finally disgusted me as they all attempted to huddle around one corner and climb five ropes with my framerate mysteriously crawling to a halt. So basically, unless I want to wait for over an hour even on fast forward, I cannot have a campaign unless I somehow avoid the AI attacking my forts for the entire game.

**Sheogorath** · 07-09-2009, 18:34

Originally Posted by Slaists

Do you really find it makes sense that, during ONE TURN, the AI sends 10 times 2-3 units to raid the SAME TARGET (and subsequently get them all killed one by one) rather than combining those 20-30 units into ONE army?

All these raiders came from Madrid, by the way, so, them coming from different sources was not an issue.

As to retreating deeper into ones territory: I find this to be less of a problem in 1.03 than it used to be earlier. Then again, it could be that I find it less of a problem because now, taught by my previous experience, I fight ALL the battles myself. Usually, no enemy survives...

I was thinking of describing the same Gibraltar situation as an example for retreating deeper into the player's territory not being an issue in 1.03, but then realized that I was intercepting the Spanish while they were still in their own territory. They all retreated back to Madrid.

Eh. It'd be alright if they just did it with a few units. I agree that having it as the main focus of the AI is annoying, but I have seen a few larger stacks marching around.

**Tora** · 07-09-2009, 21:03

Originally Posted by Slaists

As to retreating deeper into ones territory: I find this to be less of a problem in 1.03 than it used to be earlier. Then again, it could be that I find it less of a problem because now, taught by my previous experience, I fight ALL the battles myself. Usually, no enemy survives...

I saw 3 units of Austrian Pandours cross into Prussian Poland from Galicia for a spot of burning and pillaging. I attacked them, the remnants retreated. Attacked again with the nearest army, they retreated. I attacked 4 times in all, they retreated further and further into my territory. I finally nailed the last 13 outside Hamburg.
Quite remarkable really, Lvov to Hamburg in one turn, whereas often my armies cant make it from one city to another in that time.

**GFX707** · 07-09-2009, 21:08

Originally Posted by Tora

I saw 3 units of Austrian Pandours cross into Prussian Poland from Galicia for a spot of burning and pillaging. I attacked them, the remnants retreated. Attacked again with the nearest army, they retreated. I attacked 4 times in all, they retreated further and further into my territory. I finally nailed the last 13 outside Hamburg.
Quite remarkable really, Lvov to Hamburg in one turn, whereas often my armies cant make it from one city to another in that time.

I have seen this too, it really needs to be fixed. In old versions IIRC I lost a battle in Norway and my troops retreated all the way back to Finland.

**Beskar** · 07-09-2009, 22:03

The game AI battle I had was one of those town maps and my line infantry occupied a church/building in the middle of the town and the AI had to go through the streets to get to it. I was heavily outgunned and out-matched, but because of the terrain and 4 squads of grenadiers I had, I managed to blow them all up.