Originally Posted by
Tudor
I've just installed Soul Firez's mod and I'm really impressed with it. I'm posting my feedback here rather than on the mod thread, because it's more relevant for the AI than for anything else. I've chosen the mod for a chance to play with something closer to 4.0 rather than for its flavour.
I started a campaign with Sicily using the aggressive CAI version and I'm very pleased with it so far. The CAI seems to have finally been tweaked to the point where it no longer accepts treaties and deals without matching objectives. I have been unable to mindlessly swap map information and alliances the way I used to. I was also pleased to discover that relationships properly fluctuate according to my actions. Fighting alongside an ally improves my standing, while being allied to a neutral's enemy, gradually decreases it. This is particularly relevant as I have managed to get an increase in standing between me and a faction of a different religion (i.e. the Byzantines) just by holding an alliance and supporting them occasionally at sea. Naval invasions also seem to have been fixed as I have seen a number of overseas exploits by AI factions. There's still the odd chance of an irrational naval blockade, but if I have to choose between that and an AI unable to attack by sea, I'll pick the former.
As far as the BAI is concerned, I am also very happy with it. The AI is still no genius, and it will never be, since all you can do about it is fiddle around with thresholds. However, it has become very responsive, and that makes a huge difference. Now, not only do I have to plan a set up to trick the Computer, but I also have to assume that he will use sensible reserves, match troops in rock-paper-scissors fashion, bring in reinforcements and reform as necessary. The bottom line is that although I can still push him off balance, this is no longer enough. Now I have to ensure the availability of sufficient resources to check his reserves and to exploit a breakthrough, once it is achieved.
This was very well illustrated in the battle I have just fought, and refreshingly lost to the Egyptians. Once the Pope called a crusade, I immediately joined, and soon I was besieging Cairo with a 2/3 full stack. I had a decent mix of troops but lacked sufficient missile units. The city garrison was of an almost identical size, but had the typical oriental mix of missiles and mobility around anchors provided by spearmen and axemen. They sallied with a night attack after having brought another stack to back them up as reinforcement outside the city (so the AI has finally learned to coordinate its armies).
I tried to bait the AI by placing a unit of loosely spread peasant archers in my line, backed up by Norman knights, Italian spear militia and dismounted Norman knights ready to countercharge through the ranks as required. I had done so successfully before in this campaign, but I was in for a surprise. Apparently, the AI correctly assessed its superiority in missile troops, as well as the need to wait for the reinforcements to join up, so it just moved into skirmishing range and started to pepper my line to great effect. By now, they had control of the engagement and I was forced to do something. I advanced with a column of cavalry on my right flank. I kept a unit of crusader knights moving forward in order to screen my mounted sergeants which I intended to crash into the enemy archers as soon as I would have moved past them. The AI, however counter attacked with heavy cavalry, and a unit of Saracen spearmen. The key element here is not the reaction which, I believe, is built into the rock - paper - scissors logic of the hardcoded AI, but the fact that you tweaked the BAI to hold proper reserves, which it could deploy according to the said logic. Once the melee started, the Egyptian line advanced in support of the cavalry, and eventually took the bait in the middle, as the AI is still not, and probably will never be capable of understanding a false front. From then on the battle tipped my way. Countercharging through the loose archers started to erode the enemy, and I continuously pushed to exploit my temporary superiority in heavy cavalry on the flanks. However, the availability of AI reserves meant that it took a long while before anything decisive was accomplished. All this while, AI cavalry, although inferior in strength maneuvered, charged and countercharged protecting the desert archers and mamluks continuing to pepper my main battle line from the center rear of their formation. Once their right flank was defeated, I made quick work of their center, which had already been considerably weakened by my dismounted Norman knights and their supporting column. I was finally able to collapse their entire line and exploit the rout, but by the time this happened, I had already lost half my force, and their reinforcements were already in a position to engage.
As it turned out, these reinforcements contained an overwhelming force of heavy elite cavalry (ghulams, bodyguards and Khwarizmi cavalry). There was not enough strength left in my force to deal with this new onslaught. It's also worth mentioning that part of the reinforcements went directly into the city by a different gate in a sensible move to safeguard the main objective, while the heavy cavalry charged as fast as it could crashing into my flank without waiting to reform, or assemble a line, as the vanilla AI so often pointlessly does (if it can even be bothered to use the reinforcements and not freeze them at the edge of the map).
Bottom line for the BAI:
- AI's decision to skirmish turned an intended soft center trap into a conventional double flanking battle with a supporting column assault in the center
- proper use of reserves, reforming and charging delayed the flanking actions, preventing a decisive breakthrough and accentuating the effect of superiour supporting archery for the Egyptians
- attrition caused on the flanks limited my ability to exploit the breakthrough, once achieved
- rapid advance by reinforcing cavalry, to the point of losing contact with their infantry, allowed the AI to charge my army before being able to reform after routing the garrison. The beauty of it is that had I decided to reform earlier, I would have been totally unable to exploit the garrison's rout, and probably wouldn't have been able to defend successfully anyway.
All these, don't make the AI really smart. It still has no imagination, its moves are still shallow and still favour regiment level microing over meaningful deployment of whole sections of its army. However, they do make it challenging, and that in itself is a huge achievement from the team's part. I wouldn't ever contemplate campaigning without logistics against this AI. And with the CAI reluctance to ally, I'm actually a bit scared...