AI battle strategy

[underdog1045]

The AI battle's tactics are pretty weak sometimes. Most times I attack the enemy they will use the same strategy, they will...

1. Form up
2. Face my approaching army
3. Then when my army is in place, they will usually send waves of 2 or 3 units. These units fall easily to missile units or long range types like cretan archers, and will then retreat back to their main line before they even engage my spearmen or infantry units.

If the A.I would instead concentrate on full on head up confrontations with my main army, there is no way I could win. I play on H/H, but this tactic destroys the A.I's battle attempts.

For instance, my last battle against the Ptolemaics I fielded,

- 4 units of picene hoplites, a couple of which were thinned out
- 2 principes units, one around 40 soldiers
- 2 cretan archer units
- 3 full velites and a minor italic skirmisher unit
- 1 prodromoi unit, a 20 man italic calvary, my general unit
- basically nothing too great

The Ptolemaic army fieled about 6 phalanx units including an agema, and some pezoi, other various Thracian infantry, many peltastai, etc.

The point is, they would repeat this dumbass tactic of sending one, two or three units at a time. My cretan archers, a unit of velites, an the two thinned our picene hoplite units along with a 30 man principes unit were detached to a flank of the AI battle formation. However, they were far away and not really in any sort of closing distance. My main battle line was about face up with their main battle line and all those scary phalanx units, which should in theory be able to engage me and, with many losses, win the battle. But of course, the AI would send 2 or 3 units at a time to my detached group. The pattern was usually, phalanx unit, heavy infantry, peltatstai marching towards my detached unit. Cretan archers with some experience and armoury shredded the phalanx up, who would then turn back to the main unit.

It's getting monotonous taking the A.I down in this way, but my question is... has anyone else seen this or come up with a way around it to make the A.I more aggressive and possibly coordinated with all their units? Is there a certain mini mod I should add? I'm using ExRM 3.4.

[Arkaeyn]

I've noticed the piecemeal attack thing too, though it tends to only happen once before the AI does an all-out attack for me.

It may be a variation on the AI tactics when confronted by two armies. It often splits its army, sending faster skirmishers at one stack and the bulk of its army at the other. In this, it actually manages pretty well.


I had a battle yesterday where I was actually fairly impressed by the AI tactics. It was two full stacks of Seleucids against my two full stacks of Romans. Their main stack was attacking from the east, with reinforcements from the northwest. My reinforcements, which as a rule I set to AI control, were coming from the north. I deployed my men on slight hill and in a forest, for a slight tactical advantage. I expected their main army to attack, and be dispatched, and the reinforcements would negate each other.

Instead, the AI swiftly turned their main army to the north, threatening my reinforcements with a pincer attack. I had to double-time my main army into theirs, not to mention dealing with their annoying skirmishers delaying me. The battle turned into a chaotic, piecemeal affair. I won a Pyrrhic victory, destroying their stacks but unable to prevent more from coming through.

So the AI used roughly the same tactics in this battle to be tremendously effective.


I'm also not certain that they know that going toe-to-toe with the Romans is bad.

[DraeKlae]

You can try Sinuhet's or Darth's battle AI formations mod - check the downloads section - so the AI deploys in a smarter way. It won't prevent, however, the AI from sending its general to get killed by your spearmen etc.

[Quinn Inuit]

We use Sinhuet's, though it's been modified by a few people. Darth's is also good, but I don't think it fixes any of those problems (and, to the extent that it does, those fixes should be in our AI...I added them in).

That said, on my to-do list is messing with the EDU to make the enemy more orderly. I think we can make some real progress on that front.