An Army of Mangonels

[Xompistas]

hi there i was wondering if someone knew how to fix this thing the AI likes to do - having a full stack army of siege engines - because i find it rather irritating.I have been playing Total War series since MTW and i also have experienced it before but now its too much!! I was playing Antioch(H/VH) and i had a war with the turks and the only reason i didnt wipe them out real quick was because i wanted to let them build up and then hopefully enjoy a very long campaign against them with many bloody battles(and many screenshots).But guess what after their Jihad armies were crashed by me they decided that maybe a full stack army of Mangonels + Catapults +Horse Archers could do much better...that's ridiculous!Cant anything be done so i can have real campaign battles with REAL armies instead of this abomination of an army?

[Vesuvius5150]

If i recall correctly, the AI does this because artillery has such high infantry attack values relative to thier cost, so a quick remedy would be to mod the prices on the units a bit, increasing the price of artillery or decreasing the price of infantry. I think this is right, but anyone feel free to correct me.

[Gaius Baltar]

In my Teutonic campaign (as Danes), the HRE early would spam stacks of siege equipment, then after a few years they started having more balanced armies. Not sure why, I guess the higher tech infantry and cav became available. I had to take advanatge of it because the Teutonic order was to tough. I still havent won a field battle against them. All they produce is Rittenbruder heavy cav and infantry..

yes more balance would be nice, for all the AI factions.

[Xompistas]

Vesuvius : Have you ever tried this out?Is it working?Can you tell me how to change the prices?


Gaius : Appart from the fact that your nick Rocks i also want to see more balanced armies.I have a feeling that as the game goes on the AI fields a @#$*%% army instead of a better and more challenging one.I like competitve campaigns so in every campaign i give the AI all the time it needs in order to be able to field a stronger army with elite units but...instead im still fighting artillery + miltia + only a couple of stronger units
I miss the Mongols in MTW2...that was a challenge

[Monsieur Alphonse]

You can change the prices in the EDU (export_descr_unit.txt). I would advice you to also increase the upkeep. An other solution is to change the values in the EDB (export_descr_building). You can change the amount that can be recruited and the refreshing value of the pool.

[Pawel The Crusader]

Making the price high, limiting their recruitment pool to just one piece and making the replenish time long is the only way to go.

[Xompistas]

Thanks a lot guys. I will try changing the values and hope it works.
I 'd like to see a mod fixing this problem maybe and giving the AI the opportunity to field more challenging armies.

[Hawkus Africanus]

Try Clouds Across Europe 1.3 or Stainless Steel. I'm sure there are others, but I've played both those mods, and I don't recall extreme top heaviness in siege machines.

[MunichRules]

So you think AI is assembling an army according the prices to the units ???

I think it is, because a unit whith a lot of heavy artillery in it, wins every battle in auto-resolution battle. And that's the wya how the AI thinks, in winning probabilities calculated by their own engine.

The same but in MTW2 when you fight against the Timurids. Do they have 2 or more units cannons elephants in their army and only about 7 or 8 units in total, according to the KI calculating a battle solved by auto-resolution alwys goes in favour the the enemy, even if you have a full stack of heavy cavalary, heavy archers and so on. In a "manual battle" you will always crush them .

[Salahiddin Ayoubi]

Vesuvius is right, and I believe that you can fix this problem.

[Boz]

Yes, the Medieval AI thinks that entire armies of catapults & others is the definitive weapon. At the beginning of the campaign the armies are normal, and at the end also. But in the middle the catapult armies prolifere. Sometimes the enemy have 5 units or more units of catapults and when they attack you in a city is fairly challenging.

I think that the best is modify the price a little bit, and most important of all the replenish. If you balance the replenish the armies will no longer be a catapult-mangonel-trebuchet army.

[uanime5]

The descr_strat file also influences which units the AI produces. Since the AI was not properly designed to fight against castles it produces more light infantry and siege weapons than it needs. Changing the AI type to one that doesn't use siege equipment will fix this.

[nameless]

You don't need to change the costs

There should be something called a recruitment_priority offset in the descr_export units under each unit.

The lower the value, the less likely the AI would recruit that unit.

It's the best method to change the AI's recruiting method. I tried it in the crusades campaign and after that the AI fielded more evened armies with maybe 1 or 2 seige weapons.

[lion96]

guys i need help i unpaked all the files but i dont see them in data wat do?

[Double A]

Well Sauron, a better fix is just to download SS where problems like this are generally solved.