HELP!!!!!!! HYPER AGGRESSIVE AI!

[Lordreaven]

I'm playing the romans and its 160 bc and i've been at war with macedon, gaul and iberia since the start of the game and they refuse to leave me alone. all i've conquered is north africa and italy. I've tried attacking there capitols but they seem to have unlimeted stacks every were, an the ai bouses are OFF! I'm playing on m/m, i cant pull my other legions to the front (if there really is one) cause my citys rebel right after (so i'm exterminating my own population basicly).

Is there a way to reduce the ai aggressiveness just a little (its nice the is finally aggressive, but this is retarded).

[Dog Fart]

hehehe the ai fights back.

Have you tried the force diplomacy script? If not, just send a diplomat to the ai and push the "show me how" button when you make a proposal. The ai will be forced to accept a cease fire. But that may not last long if your empire is too weak. If that's not enough, you can either cheat or start a new camaign.

[Lordreaven]

i've used force diplomancy.................................they attack me every turn, i've even became there vassal state, they attack me the same turn i accept. and intern unrest is killing me, normally it dosn't bother me but when i have to make entire legions garrison a city instead of attacking..........................that is what kills me

[Dog Fart]

Sounds like Rome has fallen.

Guess you can either start a new campaign or fight till the last man......

[Lordreaven]

thats what i plan to do.................................but i did destroy carthage. my armies are praticly all gold chevron due to constant sieges. but i'm fighting to the death in iberia, IT WILL BE MINE

[Lordreaven]

but is there a way to ruduce the ai aggressiveness just a tad bit?

[Total Roach]

I'm playing the romans and its 160 bc and i've been at war with macedon, gaul and iberia since the start of the game and they refuse to leave me alone. all i've conquered is north africa and italy. I've tried attacking there capitols but they seem to have unlimeted stacks every were, an the ai bouses are OFF! I'm playing on m/m, i cant pull my other legions to the front (if there really is one) cause my citys rebel right after (so i'm exterminating my own population basicly).

Is there a way to reduce the ai aggressiveness just a little (its nice the is finally aggressive, but this is retarded).

I feel your pain. I am playing with the same settings in my GCS campaign and it is the same, stack after never ending stack, I have now fought nearly 1400 battles. How anyone manages with AI bonuses on I don't know, but they must be better at this than me. They can be overcome however, use night battles if you can to take them on 1 at a time. I like to have an army draw them away from their nearest town and then send in another army to assault that town in 1 turn and this is the way I have been expanding, and as I gradually got more income the amount of armies I can do this with has grown. You must get your own provinces under control though, their must be a reason for the revolts, be it culture differences or squalor or enemy spies and diplomats. Also location of Capital might be a problem.

[Lordreaven]

all i have is italy and noth africa (all carthage teritoires, except spanish territorys) i try to fight most of my battles but i'm not that good at the game though. so auto resolve usally becomes common in my games unfortanatly, i get bored of fighting the same battle over and over and over....................................

[DimeBagHo]

Can you post a few screenshots? I'm curious about why your cities are all rebelling. It should be easy enough to keep them under control if they are well developed. You probably just need to get your economy and infrastrcture better organised.

1. Use Vigiles for Garrisons, because they have a large unit size and are cheap.
2. Don't have idle stacks lying around. Upkeep costs are high in XGM so one average stack will cost you about 10,000 per turn to maintain. Defending at choke points is OK, but otherwise every stack you have needs to be on the offensive.
3. Check the info scrolls for your cities. Things to look out for:
(a) If corruption is high, make sure you have a law temple, and build other law bonus buildings like schools and walls.
(b) If unrest is high you may have enemy spies present. Move a couple of spies/assassins into the city until you flush out the enemy agents (you need to keep moving them out and back into the city each turn).
(c) Get your culture sorted out. Colonies give a huge tax bonus, and a fully converted city will be much happier.
(d) Your top income cities (use the info scroll to check income, not the number shown on the strat map) should have schools and governors. A good governor can add thousands to the income of a wealthy city.
4. When you capture a city make sure you demolish anything you are not going to use, and try to gradually replace/upgrade any buildings that were constructed by a different culture (stating with temples).
5. When you expand, go for the money. Look for easily defensible, high income targets. Islands are the best value. If you are playing Rome then Greece is also good value.
6. Don't allow your cities to be seiged or your ports to be blockaded. If you have to fight defensive battles, do it at a bridge or river crossing. Otherwise take the fight to the enemy.

A good way to turn around a campaign where you have been pushed onto the defensive is to take a fleet, a good stack, and some catapults, and ravage enemy coastal cities. While you exterminate and demolish to gain money the enemy will be drawn away from your borders, and will lose income and recruitment centres. Even if you can't hold captured cities for very long it will be worthwhile.

[Scutarii]

If you autoresolve, expect to lose. If you play on Easy campaign difficulty, the AI will be less aggressive. Rome is a difficult campaign though, try someone a little easier (Iberia, Carthage if you abandon Sicily leaves you with one opponent)

[Lordreaven]

i try not to auto resolve much, and the mod seems to be more for blitzing the enemy, which i suck at (i blitzed western europe in vanilla *shudders* i had 30 teriitores one turn, 3 the next). i usally play the Phalanx armies, but i HATE fighting them, i think i found a legion formation i'm really liking 6 legion cohorts, 6 arher auxilia, 4 auxilia, 2 onagers, a generals bodyguard, and a random unit recrutied from the mernary section for differnt flavors of campaigns.

[Lordreaven]

ah okay, when i take a city i always try to keep it. most of my cities are corruption free, the only ones that were rebelling have been dealt with, i for got to replace my structures with my own ( something i always do in M2, but not in this strange) and i don't have fraps and hard drive space is liminted, sorry. Enemy spies i haven't checked for yet, kept forgetting to buy my own, and the enemy fleets are everywhere and i ALWAYS lose the naval battles unless i out number them 3-1, though my last game i won every naval battle no matter what, funny that. I tried expanding into greece, but macedonia pulverized me big time, they had 4 stacks for every one of my stacks. but that let off the pressure, but then gaul attacked me so............... my concern is the how vicous the ai is, thats all, it was to paassive in vanilla and way to aggressive in xgm, i was surprised how aggressive on normal. Thanks DBH, oh and do you think you can make a byzantium provincal campaign.

[Roman Warlord]

If playing on medium is too hard try on easy.

I manage fine on harder difficulties, its not impossible you just have to work out what tactics work best.

A good way to turn around a campaign where you have been pushed onto the defensive is to take a fleet, a good stack, and some catapults, and ravage enemy coastal cities. While you exterminate and demolish to gain money the enemy will be drawn away from your borders, and will lose income and recruitment centres. Even if you can't hold captured cities for very long it will be worthwhile.

I try not to do that as I see it as being unfair to the AI as its unable to do it back to you.

[Lordreaven]

ok, if i play on easy campaign map, but normal battle map, i get no bonuses when fighting battles my self right?

[Scutarii]

Yep.

[Lordreaven]

Excellent!

[Publius Quirinus]

One important thing to note is that the AI bonuses are reduced, not off.. so the AI still does get fairly large bonuses. Try tinkering with the faction monuments in EDB. What I did was to halve bonuses (from reduced AI bonuses) across the board and removing the tax bonuses entirely. The AI that results from that provides a decent challenge for me, but also allows me to turtle a bit (I like to take my time, build an empire).

[Barend]

An other good strategy is to destroy or capture key cities. Take cities that are important in recruiting armies. You don;t have to hold the,m just raze everthing in the city (this gives you money) and leave it to rebel. You could aslo give it to another faction with the force diplomacy and create a buffer state.

[Lordreaven]

was turnibg iberia in to a wasteland but i had to reinstall rome, was trying to but the ALEx expansion on, it said i already had it i i uninstalled every thing but, i got screwded, i can use the install option on the launch menu, but it says play for some odd reason...................but i'll have to redo my campaign. could some one help with that prob? cause i want to see whats different for the .exe's for xgm. well i know the difference but i want to try them

[Scutarii]

You should be able to just install Alex to the Rome - Total War folder, then install XGM with the Alex install option. Although I didn't fully understand your problem... Are you saying there's no Alex shortcut, or it didn't install, or what? btw, mine says 'play' in the start menu too, I don't know why... It doesn't affect anything though.