Empire Total "Skirmish" ???

[Toyotomi]

This is just an example :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

5 Turns after invading the heart of poland itself, all they can seem to muster is a couple of seperate small stacks to raid my outlying towns.

The sad thing is, if you look at the ss you can clearly see they have 2 fully garrisoned cities, not to mention they actually have 10 units in the region itself, just split into 3. The really sad thing is, THEY WILL NOT ATTACK!!!

I've played a few campaigns now and it seems the only offence the AI has is to raid farms, or schools, or industrial towns, or block a port etc, etc.
Not once have I seen a single full stack invasion (not even to raid a town), the only time I can get involved in a large scale battle seems to be when I assault a foriegn city and or lay siege long enough for them to come out and attack me.

The raiding towns thing is really beginning to wear thin, at first I was impressed and thought "Oh wow I'm actually getting counter attacked, and the AI is very active" - fast forward 3-4 campaigns and I'm thinking "Oh wow my fking farm just got raided by a 1 unit army because I didn't place a 2-3 unit stack in the area to intercept" and "Oh wow my fking farm just got raided because that 2-3 unit stack I placed in the area has been attacked 10 turns in a row by relentless 1-2 (maybe 3) stack armies that refuse to let me retrain and if I move my guys away to refresh a turn, guess what.. MY FKING FARM GETS RAIDED!!!"

So the question is, does the AI actually invade for anyone? or does it just relentlessly skirmish and raid outlying towns? am I doing somthing wrong lol?

[spanish_emperor]

Well, maybe the polish are at war with the russians and are afraid to attack?

But yeah, there are many things i wonder about the AI, both BAI and CAI. But the CAI is actually better than any other total war AI though it still needs to be reviewed.

[S-te-Fan]

Maybe it's their way of warfare, and looking to your attitude it helps .

[Toyotomi]

Naw, they were just at war with me. It's just a recurring problem and nobody ever invades me. (er sounds weird right?)

Maybe it's their way of warfare, and looking to your attitude it helps .

LOL!!! yea they made a new style of warfare in ETW - "Annoy the piss out of people" , can't say I like it though

[nate895]

Though I have never played as the Prussians, I have never had this problem. The only time my opponents don't attack me is when they don't have the strength. I have faced several full stack invasions.

[RandarKal]

I have heard that if the AI faction you are at war with thinks it is weaker, it will "turtle" and camp in its cities while raiding rather then fighting large scale battles it thinks it can't win...

AI plays defensive, hiding in cities and only fighting battles it must unless it has a distinct advantage.

[HTAPAWASO]

I have heard that if the AI faction you are at war with thinks it is weaker, it will "turtle" and camp in its cities while raiding rather then fighting large scale battles it thinks it can't win...

AI plays defensive, hiding in cities and only fighting battles it must unless it has a distinct advantage.

Yes I heard that too.

In my current game as Maratha, I deliberately took on no allies, and always left small stacks in my outlying cities. This encourages the AI to attack.

Working quite well. Mysore, Portugal, Persia and a minor who's name I forget... (it's next to Georgia) all attacked me with decent armies (Portugal marched a full stack right to my virutally-undefended capital in one turn... if the battle AI wasn't so retarded I definitely would have lost).


The game is much more enjoyable this way, although obviously not perfect.

[scarshapedstar]

Naw, they were just at war with me. It's just a recurring problem and nobody ever invades me. (er sounds weird right?)



LOL!!! yea they made a new style of warfare in ETW - "Annoy the piss out of people" , can't say I like it though

It's been tried by religious fanatics in the past decade, with spectacular results, but that's all I'll say about that...


It really is a pretty effective strategy, though. Try it yourself. One or two units of cheap cavalry can cripple a region, and if you want to be really evil (just like the AI) you can keep hitting buildings that they're trying to upgrade, and I think it eats up their money in the process, but I need to test this somehow.

It may be cheap, but I'm sure a medieval Briton thought the Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Jutes were pretty cheap too. And just wait until people start doing it in multiplayer...

[Their Law]

So wait you want the Ai to attack you're cities with 4 men armies??? Isn't that what the M2TW ai did and it was more annoying then raids.

The reason i believe it is doing this from looking at you're picture is that you have full stack armies in you're cities. The Ai dislikes attacking cities with full stacks in unless it has significant numerical superiority.

Anyway it's certainly achieving it's goal in war, their ravaging you're countryside reducing you're income and potential research capability, and they suffer nothing in return. Also Poland-Lithuania is usually at war with either Russia or Austria depending on which way it chooses to expand so compared to them (especially Russia) the Ai may just deem you a minor threat.

[KaiserJoe]

Its all part of the long term Polish plan. Lose wars, get occupied, get liberated and gain territory from it. Rinse & repeat till then have Silesia and Prussia

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

This is just an example :

5 Turns after invading the heart of poland itself, all they can seem to muster is a couple of seperate small stacks to raid my outlying towns.

The sad thing is, if you look at the ss you can clearly see they have 2 fully garrisoned cities, not to mention they actually have 10 units in the region itself, just split into 3. The really sad thing is, THEY WILL NOT ATTACK!!!

The really sad thing is, WHY DON'T YOU ATTACK? Med2 and RTW was more or less a siegefest - no matter how hard they tried to modify it. Finally here's a game where
a./ you can do harm to your enemies by raiding their smaller towns, buildings, not just capturing the capital
b./ AI is more active to send field armies against you, so you can meet them in an open-field land battle (even sieges can be turned to field battles)

Try to appreciate it, mate.

[Pre5to]

I actually have played as the prussians and went to war with poland, three seperate times actually, the first time I blitzed and took west prussia and warsaw same turn, then gave them back warsaw for a cease fire so i could keep west prussia without having some long drawn out war, which I couldn't afford, well courland and saxony went to war with me too (apparently they were protectorates, i didn't check, a mistake i will not be repeating i the near future), and I didn't have a province to bribe them with to stop the ceasefire, so i moved my armies to go take saxony, when i did courland came down and took east prussia, so i sent one army to take it back and destroy courland, success, now ive got an army about to attack saxony, and one way up in courland having just taken it, now comes the second war with poland, my two stacks are split to my flanks, so they send one right up the middle and take both west and east prussia, I'm able to get them back with the stack from courland but barely cause that army is pretty badly battered, having now fought 4 battles without reinforcement, i manage to hold off one more full stack invasion with that army after its been half reinforced (i don't have the money to reinforce it all the way) before my army near saxony wins and is able to get back up and stabalize that area, then i sue for peace, poland accepts, cause we both see that we have once again fought each other to a stalemate, though i was very close to losing,

after that i went through 3 years of peace in which i get russia to switch sides and be my ally, then i declare war on them again, with russia, and austria, seeing an oppurtunity joins in, i see bad things in polands future

[Dewy]

I would have agreed before today, but OMG i totally forgot i had Seas to Sail AI loaded up, i tryed to use the same old tatic to take texas (whatever the indians are there) which has been great in the past when i was heavly outnumbered. Lets just say i have no army left in the area other then 3/4 stack up in hurons land. Bloody hell i have never seen a AI attack that much in one turn to destroy an invading army. Oh its great as they don't sit there either they attack as soon as you get in their lands.

[Toyotomi]

I would have agreed before today, but OMG i totally forgot i had Seas to Sail AI loaded up, i tryed to use the same old tatic to take texas (whatever the indians are there) which has been great in the past when i was heavly outnumbered. Lets just say i have no army left in the area other then 3/4 stack up in hurons land. Bloody hell i have never seen a AI attack that much in one turn to destroy an invading army. Oh its great as they don't sit there either they attack as soon as you get in their lands.

Funny thing is, the one single time I have seen the AI attack with a full stack (I've played campaigns as prussia, GB, russia and marathas) and I mean the single time I've seen an agressive AI full stack was when I tangled with the cherokee indians after taking the region you get a mission for (georgia I think?), anyways, 2 full stacks flipped the fk out and immediately responded to my capture of the city.

^ It's just a shame I haven't seen anything similar in the rest of the game.

[Dewy]

These were not cherokees, you need to watch out for them i was take Georgia from them in 2 turns before they have 2 - 3 stacks sitting back there ready to attack.

I have edited the AI to make it harder thats why it was so hard. Now spain before they never attacked me in the war, first turn after i loaded the new AI get attacked, then 2 turn a smaller army attacks my school (that hurt, one more turn for the tech) and then attacks a farm, this was a half stack army not the 1 unit stacks the minor factions use to attack farms