AI runs around in circles and fails utterly at everything...

[KoalaAkbar]

I'm playing a 1-turn Carthage campaign and I'm fighting Gaius Flaminius Nepos as Hannibal. As my army approaches his, their infantry run around and reorganize themselves and run again in endless repetition for no reason whatsoever. This makes the men tired as hell, and it makes fighting the Romans seem more like kicking a retarded kid...

What is up with this ai? I dont remember seeing this odd behavior in vanilla RTW. It really takes the epicness out of battles.

[Post Hoc]

Ive seen the AI due this before but it is usaully when my whole army is in cover. is that the case here?

[ur-Lord Tedric]

This does happen sometimes, it seems, and I've wondered if it's often to do with the shear amount of tree and scrub cover now seen on the battlefield - in Vanilla the battlefields are, in general, much more open.

When approaching and stopping and moving again, your units are constantly moving in and out of cover and the 'general mass' therefore keeps changing as the AI sees it. The AI then adjusts based upon what it can see, which changes a lot.

If it's any comfort, poor old Nepos is remembered for being a poor commander and the army at Lake Trasimene was indeed kicked hard.

To make up for the AIs poor behaviour in general, that's why the AI troops (certainly in all my tests as the Romans) receive a +3 Experience boost throughout, and is, of course, a major reason for the Garrison Script.

As an aside, when it comes to difficult behaviour, I have always been concerned at the apparent vertical heights shown by the mountainous areas on the campaign map; which then sadly transfer into vertiginous battlefields. It may make the campaign map 'look good', but I think many of of those heights should be reduced significantly - perhaps by half, or maybe even a quarter indeed. It would be a lot of work, I believe, sadly.

[maackey]

Speaking of those gigantic hills, I often find myself fighting an army that camps the highest spot they can find, waiting for me to climb the cliffs and wear my men out before engaging. However by starting at the highest point I can, and moving my army to flank, the ai will restructure itself to face mine, letting me climb even further up the hill and attack them with an insane height advantage.

[iWarsaw]

Speaking of those gigantic hills, I often find myself fighting an army that camps the highest spot they can find, waiting for me to climb the cliffs and wear my men out before engaging. However by starting at the highest point I can, and moving my army to flank, the ai will restructure itself to face mine, letting me climb even further up the hill and attack them with an insane height advantage.

I agree. It sucks but it happens. I've been fighting all my battles with quite even armies. I wonder if the AI would hold its ground more knowing it had a superior advantage. I'll try to test that sometimes. The AI just gets scared or something. It doesn't want to get flanked so instead of pivoting in place, it switch's entire locations.

The maps need to be less hilly to remove the height advantage. Then it wont be as necessary to take an hour to maneuver into a flanking position, causing the enemy to step down off the hill. There wont be a hill, so you'll have to fight straight forward.

[Post Hoc]

The maps need to be less hilly to remove the height advantage. Then it wont be as necessary to take an hour to maneuver into a flanking position, causing the enemy to step down off the hill. There wont be a hill, so you'll have to fight straight forward.

Definitely, only 1 of 25 recent battles have been on some sort of flat land for me. Alll the rest had atleast one giant hill.

[Crymson]

OP: This AI behavior is hardcoded, and generally occurs when the player has a very strong army.

[Evalation]

Im a defensive player, what I do is ill put my army right beside that of the enemy and click end turn, theyll attack me and on the battlemap ill put my troops where most of them arent in hiding. The AI rushes me everytime.

Edit:Most of the time I outnumber them btw.