First Impressions... AI is a homing missile fixed on your general?

[Pfundner]

Gah! First impressions of the ai:
Installed the game today, and am on episode 4 of RTI

Im having a fair amount of fun... but the battle AI is just one big facepalm so far

Ive done 2 battles so far in this episode, both were basically me with a lot of rubbish units (mainly militia) against them with 3 or 4 line infantry and 1 cav. The odds calculator thingy puts them at 50/50 for both battles.

Battle 1:

Set up my men like this with the minutemen behind trenches:


F____F__________FF________C
_F__F
__M

C= Light Cav. F= Flintlock militia M= Minutemen ( army i know )

The enemy advance, i run round behind with my cav and nail their artillery. Then, instead of just sending a few units back, the entire enemy force turns around and marches off after my cavalary. (i assume this is beacuse it was my general. but still, its just one unit of provincial cav... cumon!) My cav escapes and i manage to get them behind my main force. For some reason the enemy seem to be locked on to them, because they march straigh towards the centre of my defences, just because my crappy provincial cavalary general is there! Its almost as if they cant see the trenches and 7 or 8 infanrty in between! They ignore the 2 units on the side and walk straight past... bad move, those 2 units kill their general and the enemy flee.

Player 1-0 AI

Battle 2:


Pretty much the same armies, i advance towards them in a rough U shape, and send my cavalary (now depleted to 7 men) round the back so they can catch any fleeing enemy.

To my bemusement, the AI again seems to lock onto my pretend general, and sends a full unit of provincial cav and line infantry after my poxy 7 ponies, leaving their remaining unit to get completely obliterated by my peasants with guns.

My cavalary escape, i rout the remaining cav and line infantry and mop up the routers with those 9 horses that started it all off.



Am i seriously going to have to lead the AI round the battlefield with my "general" every battle?

"right now, if you'll just follow me to the left a bit, i can put u in a great position to flank me..."

Even if my "general" is just a unit of provincial cavalary?
TELL ME IT GETS BETTER THAN THIS

P.S dont laugh at my small unit sizes, i have to play on low

[Sir Winston Churchill]

Welcome to Empire: Total War!

[Davincee]

Welcome to Empire: Total War!

hehe you welcome a lot of people that way who dont like the game that much But I share your opinion so, keep it up

[Chilly5]

I REALLY hate the way the AI acts in this game.
It's not that it's BAD or unsmart in any way, I just hate the way it doesnt.....it doesnt fight correctly.
It plays the game purely on a game-level and not on a realistic level.
IE the Ai will send individual mobs at my FLANKS always one after another to attack me with cavalry charging in from the sides. I never seen them march in a formation, fight me in a line shootout with artillery shooting over the mens heads and cavalry fighting on the wings. Its always me with my formation and them with their...odd guerrilla tactics.

[NLegari]

Very interesting find.

[Chilly5]

The AI always goes after my general to a ridiculous degree.
I often times have my general running with my cavalry, and trying to flank. The entire enemy army ALWAYS chases it around the map over and over again. I really wish my cannons did more damage because a real army simply does not have the time or resources to suffer a cannon barrage while chasing cavalry for miles.
Plus, when I have my general behind my front lines, the AI always stops and attacks the general, which is a cool feature I suppose. But I hate how easy it is to lose a general. I'll have engaged a militia unit for 2 seconds after wiping out the rest of their army and ONLY my general dies in those last 2 seconds. And then the bodyguards stay with the army...whats up with that?

[NightFire]

I have also noticed this with all the artillery units,they seem to be a magnet as well,the a.i always sends cavalry to your flank,now i just make a defensive ring around me with either unit stakes or defensive stakes.

[Bloodzen]

You would think the ai trying very hard to kill your general would be pretty good but when you actualy play the game you get to see how seriously they take it,
Iv seen battles were the enemy has sent forces of 3000 troops straight into the center of my line just to get at my general,ofc than I just sandwich them by sending the troops beside them to shoot the side of their army and send my cav the flank them,therefor destroying a huge force that should have caused immense casualtys to my army while losing only a few men

[Pfundner]

You would think the ai trying very hard to kill your general would be pretty good but when you actualy play the game you get to see how seriously they take it,
Iv seen battles were the enemy has sent forces of 3000 troops straight into the center of my line just to get at my general,ofc than I just sandwich them by sending the troops beside them to shoot the side of their army and send my cav the flank them,therefor destroying a huge force that should have caused immense casualtys to my army while losing only a few men

yeah thats what its felt like in my (admitedly limited) experiences

[Steinig]

Well according to my experience this was the same in medieval too.

[Sir Winston Churchill]

Well according to my experience this was the same in medieval too.

The only time I saw this in Empire was when I myself was trying to chase down and corner those damned archers or archer cav when, somehow, my own cav got wiped out (and with arch cav it didnt matter if I had cav)

[Steinig]

I remember a kingdoms expansion campain where i played as some native amerikans and lost not a single unit during the whole campain by putting the chief as far away from the enemy as possible and set all the range units along the road to the chief....no enemy arrives...