How I fell in love with how advanced the AI for this game is

[Chosimbaone]

Playing as France (or the empire south of England's island on the Northwestern part of the global map); in big trouble with the Holy Roman Empire advancing onto me from the right flank and all of my main armies seiging enemy Rebel settlements to the south. I attack one of their search platoons (I know this because their platoon had only about 50 units in it, with the rest of their army stationed at their castle a few miles to the east of this search platoon) heading my way, and get a mission from the Pope next turn to ceasefire against the Holy Roman Empire and to not be hostile against them for the remainder of the mission. I take a diplomat to their nearest town and converse with them. I attempt to ceasefire with them. They refuse the offer and attack Rheims, one of my nearby cities, regardless of being of the same Catholic faith as us.

At the start of the next turn, I get a message saying that the Holy Roman Empire has been excommunicated from the Catholic Church for refusing to ceasefire with a fellow Catholic army and then invading the same army's city. The Pope tells me that I have his permission to royally kick the Holy Roman Empire's ass.

I love how advanced the AI is in this game. After all, it needs to be.

/Discuss

[The Good]

Yeah, the AI is actually good in Medieval II! Unfortunately, the battlefield AI can be dumb at times. I see all too many complaints on this forum about Total War's AI being dumb, it's actually good, or THEY are too good.

[mikeb32123]

Agreed. Great AI on the campaign map, but it can be pretty bad in battle. It used to be much worse. 1.0 and 1.1 were nearly unplayable it was so bad.

[Hunter Makoy]

one of the only glaring errors in AI judgement on the strat map is the random backstabbing by allies (esp. the oh so subtle port blockading), but even that does not happen all the time, and it is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.

not to mention that with the split AI in Empire, we should be in for an even better AI

[Surgeon]

On the campaign map the AI has done unexpected maneuvers that have sometimes left me deeply worried. It's a pity the battle map AI can't handle sieges at all and always results in epic fail unless their units/numbers are far superior. I usually autoresolve sieges to make the game more interesting, because anything bigger than a castle is a deathtrap for the AI.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

People are critical of the AI simply because of a few glaring oversights that make them too easy to conquer. Its problems, in a nutshell, are attacking with too small a unit stack, defending border settlements with little or no troops, and its tendency to overproduce siege weapons. Once you become one of the world's more dominant empires the AI offers almost no resistance due to these weaknesses.

[Chosimbaone]

Lets start talking about good points of the AI, shall we?

[Bond]

In my Sicily campaign, my allies of nearly 100 turns(France and HRE) both turned against me without provocation almost instantaneously.
Yes I must say I love the advanced AI

[daikl]

aside from the thing mentioned above i found that when mongols/timurids invade they sit and wait for 10-20 turns near a settlement(that can be ocuppied very easily) then suddenly move to another one for absolutely no reason(maybe its just me) and the AI doesn realise when he's been grinded to 0 and considers ceasing fire(he has only 1 town left) "very demanding"

[Gotee7]

I agree with everyone here about the AI, but there are a few MODS out there that help alot. Look at the forums and download. Lusted's AI is great. Have fun!

[Sokar Rostau]

What I don't understand is why Milan and Sicily are so stupidly aggressive. I was playing Venice the other day, allied to France, HRE, Milan, Sicily and Papacy. Milan, as expected, attacked HRE, France and Sicily in a matter of 5 turns. They besieged Venice on the 8th turn. I had an army coming to help Sicily, because we had one of those alliances, and had to divert for a turn to relieve Venice. After lifting the siege on Venice I went and started a siege at Milan (they had already been repelled from the Sicilian city they were besieging) but had to withdraw when they brought 2 stacks down as reinforcements. One of those stacks pressed the attack and I destroyed them leaving my army with no movement points halfway between Milan and Venice. That's when Sicily decided to attack me and the Papacy, despite the fact they were still at war with Milan. What made this even more stupid was that Sicily ceased to exist a few turns later and Milan was reduced to one settlement (outside of Italy).

Aggressive AI I like, Aggressive Stupid is just annoying.

[Ältester der Motten]

Where is that an example of good AI? Apparently the HRR attacked you even though the pope obviously threated excommunication, for otherwise they would not ahve been excommunicated, wich is much of a problem with such a position. Not good AI. Or have the minor threats to the HRR at least 've been eradicated, so it's jsut a good ammount of risky gambling?
Or have you been sarcastic?

[Internazionale]

Its HRE(Holy Roman Empire), not HRR.

[Nergal1610]

I don't know if its just me but the AI almost never fights anything other than sieges. I've tried to get it into open battles but it always holes up in settlements. Most of my battles in campaign are sieges nowdays.

aside from the thing mentioned above i found that when mongols/timurids invade they sit and wait for 10-20 turns near a settlement(that can be ocuppied very easily) then suddenly move to another one for absolutely no reason

This thing has effectively spoiled one of my campaigns. I was playing with Russians and I thought it would be fun to try defeating the mongol hordes head-on when they appear. I prepared my forces in an attempt to create an epic campaign against the soon appearing mongols. When they finally came, not only did they appear in Turkey but they stayed there, unmoving for a very long time. I attacked them with some HA's but they just stayed there. Then I quit the campaign because the most exciting element was stuck in the mountains, in the shape of a giant square.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

I don't know if its just me but the AI almost never fights anything other than sieges. I've tried to get it into open battles but it always holes up in settlements. Most of my battles in campaign are sieges nowdays.

Most likely because the AI judges its armies too inferior to yours to fight in the open. Related to the issue of failing to consolidate its units.

The Kingdoms expansion pack has a lot better AI in its campaigns, and it also allows better modding of the AI. As a result, the mods based on Kingdoms like Stainless Steel are a lot tougher. Try SS with XAI, and you'll find a challenge.

[Chosimbaone]

I read somewhere that the AI army has to be 2:1 to your army in order for them to attack you in the open.

[Ältester der Motten]

Contradicts my experience very much.

@Phalanx: In Germany we call it ourselves "Heiliges Römisches Reich", wich translates into "Holy Roman Realm". Also, this is much more correct than "Empire".

[Internazionale]

Contradicts my experience very much.

@Phalanx: In Germany we call it ourselves "Heiliges Römisches Reich", wich translates into "Holy Roman Realm". Also, this is much more correct than "Empire".

Like Skyline Pete says in the unmodded game its The Holy Roman Empire.
I thought you were american, lol.

[bottenbreker]

i think the campaign AI is not that bad, though i've seen armies of only general bodyguards besieging a fortress where theres a garrison of 1500 heavily armed troops. but this doestnt happen too much. the battle AI however seems to be the dumber brother of the campaign AI. but i don't think we have much reason to complain

[Rodrico Stak]

I've actually seen some interesting behavior form the Holy Roman Empire in my latest game as Denmark. When they attacked me (in support of their English allies, who I was quickly taking Britain from), they sent a large force against Arhus. They lost, but they then sent (on the same turn), another, larger army against Arhus. They lost. They continued this for many, many turns, and probably would have taken Arhus from me had I not become so annoyed by this behavior that I played as the Turks instead. So the AI knows that when it has overwhelming strength, then wearing down the enemy tends to work quite well.

As a side note, eventually I had many 3 gold chevron units, but none of these had more than 10 soldiers.