BAI flaws

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Just a list of BAI flaws I encountered during playing. Hope some of them get fixed in the patches.

(1) Kill-the-dirt syndrome: There is no line of fire check for artillery, so the AI artillery will most of the time hit hills and other obstacles. Makes the game look realy stupid.

(2) Skirmishers turn their back to the enemy after retreating.

(3) The AI never uses skirmish formation with its light or rifle infantry.

(4) If you set up a game with one unit rifle or light infantry against one unit line infantry controlled by the AI, the AI will move its unit excactly into the maximum shooting range of rifle or light unit and let itself shoot to death.

(5) AI artillery will after a certain time intervall always start to move towards the enemy regardless of what happens on the battlefield. If the player moves a unit towards the artillery, the AI will not unlimber and defend itself but just move into the enemy.

(6) The AI likes for whatever reason to do an early charge-of-the-light-brigade style suicide attack with cavalry (gladly it does not happen all the time).

(7) When the AI changes formation for a fire and advance attack, it does not fill up the ranks equally. You can get the funny situation that the last line consist of one man only, so the whole unit waits for this last
man running forward and deliver his "volley" before the unit charges. Fix: Let the AI form equal ranks.

(8) Forming of squares by the AI is very inconsistent. It shouldn't be too difficult to program a function that checks if a enemy cavalry unit is within a certain range AND is moving towards the unit. If this is the
case, the unit should have a chance forming a square depended on the strength ratio between the unit and all cavarly units approaching with higher weightsfor units approaching from the sides or the back. There should always be a base chance that the forming of a square fails moderated by the skill of the AI general and the experience/quality of the unit.

[♔Dignan♔]

Welcome to the world of "musket based" BAI.

[GTFO. Jamie]

take a look at the NTW mods threads, is already several mods that improve the BAI 100 times over. (obviously, still not perfect)

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Which of the flaws I posted are fixed by mods???

[JayMac]

For the most part the battle AI mods take away the "fire and advance" ability, they keep cavalry together with the main line (for the most part), less melee bug, no suicidal generals. However the artillery still sucks.

[Sullio]

If only they could make the AI on defense actually defend. It's a little ridiculous that if I attack with a superior force, all I have to do is set up a defensive position and they will come to me.

[JayMac]

Yes that is discouraging, I don't think I have had my troops get shot at with grape shot yet. Also I just don't understand how they could make this game and not have line of sight. The old game Waterloo based off Sid Meyer's Gettysburg had line of sight, and that game is over ten years old. How could this have been left out?

[irish437]

If only they could make the AI on defense actually defend. It's a little ridiculous that if I attack with a superior force, all I have to do is set up a defensive position and they will come to me.

Yep, worse yet, there general will die before you even know what happened. He'll randomly attack a unit on your flank and be eliminated.

If you bring any artillery to the battle, you may as well just put the artillery in the middle, put it on canister and go get a sandwich.

Its pretty hard to lose a battle to the AI unless you move your men out of position.

[JayMac]

Yep, worse yet, there general will die before you even know what happened. He'll randomly attack a unit on your flank and be eliminated.

The battle AI mods take care of this, but you are right when you say that all you need is arty in the middle with grape shot.

[priam11]

If only they could make the AI on defense actually defend. It's a little ridiculous that if I attack with a superior force, all I have to do is set up a defensive position and they will come to me.

This point drives me nuts. I remember MTW and I often had to attack first. It was brutal if the AI had the hill but at least it made it a chore to deal with. In ETW and MTW2 (can't remember Rome much) the AI always attacked regardless of size of force.

I am sure many a battle might have turned out differently if the AI did not always attack.

[Ulan1990]

Yep, worse yet, there general will die before you even know what happened. He'll randomly attack a unit on your flank and be eliminated.

If you bring any artillery to the battle, you may as well just put the artillery in the middle, put it on canister and go get a sandwich.

Its pretty hard to lose a battle to the AI unless you move your men out of position.

I prefer an attacking AI above a defending AI which does not respond to art superiority

[irish437]

I prefer an attacking AI above a defending AI which does not respond to art superiority

Its correct to charge when there is superiority, but even when there isn't the AI will Whig out if you have any artillery. The AI should hunker down and build earthworks that protect the infantry, trenches, etc. Not these spiked logs that they abandon in 3 seconds.

Further, if the AI is going to attack, they shouldn't Pickett's charge right into the center of the line. They need to try to roll up the flanks and take the artillery out of the equation by getting the human infantry inbetween them and the artillery. Really anything instead of running headlong into grapeshot.

I'm playing a France campaign in ETW and I see the AI hold defensive positions and move their armies beyond cannon range if they are the defenders.

[Sullio]

Its correct to charge when there is superiority, but even when there isn't the AI will Whig out if you have any artillery. The AI should hunker down and build earthworks that protect the infantry, trenches, etc. Not these spiked logs that they abandon in 3 seconds.

Further, if the AI is going to attack, they shouldn't Pickett's charge right into the center of the line. They need to try to roll up the flanks and take the artillery out of the equation by getting the human infantry inbetween them and the artillery. Really anything instead of running headlong into grapeshot.

I'm playing a France campaign in ETW and I see the AI hold defensive positions and move their armies beyond cannon range if they are the defenders.

Exactly. In all fairness though, the A.I. is MUCH better at attacking than it was in ETW, I just wish they could defend as well. They'll do things like rush my horse artillery before I can get them out of there, and even use two-prong attacks on foot artillery to limit the effect of canister shot. I even had a Prussian army use a full-scale two-prong attack on my entire army, where they completely avoided the center where my main artillery was and flanked my lines on both sides.. I would have been in trouble had they not been using vastly inferior troops. Even so, there's no reason to do that when they are defending. I would LIKE to attack an army, but since the A.I. is so aggresive it's not really viable.

[CerealGuy]

9) when the ai retreats (not routing but a organized one) it turns its back to the player and faces heavy casualties

[A.Suvorov]

I not once see the AI form a square , not ones and I use plenty of cavalry.

[Lord Dakier]

Don't forget that when you move a tiny portion of your army the AI will often move all of theres to adjust.

[daniu]

(1) Kill-the-dirt syndrome: There is no line of fire check for artillery, so the AI artillery will most of the time hit hills and other obstacles. Makes the game look realy stupid.

You see that with human players just as often. It would almost be an unfair advantage if the AI knew how to avoid it
This could actually be something that lower difficulty levels don't take into account while higher ones do; but as is, the higher difficulty is only done by attribute boni for the AI.

(2) Skirmishers turn their back to the enemy after retreating.

I came to realize that this is a good thing.
Usually, you have your line deployed behind your skirmishers; if they retreat and face the "right" way, they would shoot into the backs of the line they had been placed in front of.

(7) When the AI changes formation for a fire and advance attack, it does not fill up the ranks equally. You can get the funny situation that the last line consist of one man only, so the whole unit waits for this last man running forward and deliver his "volley" before the unit charges. Fix: Let the AI form equal ranks.

Fire by advance is basically useless anyway...

[craziii]

one major flaw I found is when it reacts to a flanking movement, it rotates an already engage unit. defeats the purpose of rotation when it gets shot on the side by my unit in front of it. it should keep some units in reserve for this purpose.

[raistlinmajere8]

It's simple really, CA sucks at programming AI. Sid Meyer's Gettysburg had better AI than all these musket based games CA has created....

[JayMac]

Yes another Sid Meyer Lover! I am not a programmer so I can't say how difficult it would actually be to write a good battle AI, but if Sid Meyer did so long ago, what gives?