Question concerning AI

[JDx0Rome]

Hi!
I downloaded the mod. So far so good. Looked all pretty nice until my battle against Epirote Army.
The AI acted so stupidly. I took my cavalry behind the enemies lines and attacked the general from behind but the rest of his army did nothing and waited patiently for the death of the general although the phalanx and elephants as well as other cavalry was only a bit away.
Did I miss to install something??? I’m really not sure… If not is there any other way to get the AI to act smarter? (I’m playing on medium/ medium because I’m not a fan of unfair bonuses/ disadvantages.)

Thanks JD

[Antonov]

The Battle and Campaign AI are impossible to alter directly, much to everyone's dissatisfaction The best that can be done about the battle AI is to alter the formations in which the AI player composes its armies, so that, having more intelligent formations, the AI would direct them better. I believe what you saw in your first battle was more an exception than a rule. It would be interesting if you could describe in more detail how the battle went, what forces did each of you have, etc.

[JDx0Rome]

Well…sometimes I tend to forget that this is just a game… but as this mod offers so many lovely details that really soak you in so you are really thrilled it is like a kick in your balls when the battle turns into a stupid something. Anyway…

Well… It went like that…

Pyrrhus Army (the one he commands at the beginning of every new game)
I. Consular Legion (all family members, lots of skirmishers, mix of every other infantry)

I outnumbered him 2:1 but of course he had elephants and all the finest of the Epriote infantry.
To knock them out I wanted to kill his entire cavalry first so my skirmishers could surround and attack without any cavalry chasing them. Thus I took my whole cavalry behind the enemy lines while my whole infantry took position far away on a hill.

I guess that was the “problem” the ai simply can’t distinguish between what is an immediate threat and what’s not. So they always kept focused on my infantry far away on the hill and didn’t really take any effort to stop my cavalry from killing the entire Epirote cavalry.
If I had attacked head-on of course they wouldn’t have stood by idling but that would have been pretty stupid of course.

So after the cavalry was killed the remaining troops fleed. That was the only good and realistic thing about it.
I started the game again on very hard and even though it didn’t exactly went like before I managed to kill the entire Epirote cavalry but this time his troops just kept on fighting as nothing had happened. One of the phalanx units didn’t even mind an attack from all sites although there were only 3 units left at all + they also didn’t mind to start the thing someone in another thread called “Benny Hill Game” which describes it pretty good I think (at least there were no horse archers). What I want to point out is that playing on very hard makes it even more unrealistic. And still the ai stood by waiting for the entire cavalry to be killed. I really think that the attacking from behind while having a “bigger threat” placed somewhere else on the map is a thing the ai is unable to cope with.

Although this takes away a lot of the atmosphere the mod still manages to suck you back in…and the battle ai kicks you out again…but then all the details and micromanagement… ; ) a vicious circle ; )
I’m waiting for the day when there will be an ai that really can challenge you on a fair basis (hopefully I wont have to wait until there are Terminators or Agent Smiths around…)

[Antonov]

From what I understand, you managed to lure some AI units into chasing your own cavalry/or from straying out of the bigger AI formation, which allowed you to overpower them piecemeal, divided from the rest of the AI army. Unfortunately this is possible to do although it was much worse before the emergence of Darth Vader's AI formations mod. You can find it in the Rome: Total War Hosted Modifications forum. Actually, there is even a file in your ExRM\Data dir called "descr_formations_ai.Darth's". I haven't tried it but I believe that if you rename your descr_formations_ai.txt into something else and then rename descr_formations_ai.Darth's to descr_formations_ai.txt you will get different experience in battles.

[despot_of_rhodes]

First of all: Using all your FM as cavalry against an AI Army with only 2-3 cavalry units, not matter how good they might be is kind of exploit and you shouldn´t expect anything but a clear win in cavalry duel...

Second: AI tends to go after your commanding general as a primary target. Was he a part of the cavalry force you sent behind the epirote lines?

Third: VH on battle map means simply, the unit balance doesn´t exist anymore as it was ment by editing the EDU. The AI ain´t become smarter but more of a killing machine with +7 bonus on attack, defence and morale values.

And last but not least: when you take out an AI commanding general, especially such as Pyrrhus with his 8 stars and troop morale boosts, you will allways weaken enemy significantly, and only VH settings prevent it from fleeing in panic after you press them from all sides. So, if you want a realistic fight don´t go after the commanding general ( a human player would have lured you in a trap, i gues, if he would see, what you are planing )

My first battle against Epirotes ( i was playing RTR PE and they were a part of GCS faction ) was quite a challenge, i must say. Well, i had no big experience in RTR battle engine, ok, but all i had were 2 FM and 1 unit of italian cavalry, and almoust all of them were slaughtered by Pyrrhus bodyguards and his Agema cavalry, when i tried to win a cavalry duel, while i´ve succesfully managed to kill the elephants by 2 units of italian skirmishers with ease...

On the side note:
There is also one thing i´ve noticed after i´ve tried EB recently. While a phalanx in RTR still holds it´s possition and isn´t very impressed by a flanking attack, and even from the rear, my phalanx units in EB were melting away, while taking almost zero causalities if used properly by meeting enemy units from the front. Obviously, I like the EB battle result much better.

[JDx0Rome]

First of all: Using all your FM as cavalry against an AI Army with only 2-3 cavalry units, not matter how good they might be is kind of exploit and you shouldn´t expect anything but a clear win in cavalry duel...

Well I wasn’t complaining about winning the cavalry battle itself I was complaining about the fact that the ai did not send additional infantry or elephants to support their general.

Second: AI tends to go after your commanding general as a primary target. Was he a part of the cavalry force you sent behind the epirote lines?

Yeah he was part of it and joined the cavalry battle.

Third: VH on battle map means simply, the unit balance doesn´t exist anymore as it was ment by editing the EDU. The AI ain´t become smarter but more of a killing machine with +7 bonus on attack, defence and morale values.

And last but not least: when you take out an AI commanding general, especially such as Pyrrhus with his 8 stars and troop morale boosts, you will allways weaken enemy significantly, and only VH settings prevent it from fleeing in panic after you press them from all sides. So, if you want a realistic fight don´t go after the commanding general ( a human player would have lured you in a trap, i gues, if he would see, what you are planing )

I`m not complaining they fled in fact that was the only realistic thing.
I wasn’t really going for the general but the cavalry mainly. If it had been a greek general I wouldn’t have attacked his unit in particular.
Well yeah a human player would have positioned 1 or 2 phalangites straight in front of his general unit aiming their sarissas in direction of the hill from were my cavalry was about to charge.
Really loved to play this against humans again. Did it once playing the original Rome.I really got sacked at this time! : D

My first battle against Epirotes ( i was playing RTR PE and they were a part of GCS faction ) was quite a challenge, i must say. Well, i had no big experience in RTR battle engine, ok, but all i had were 2 FM and 1 unit of italian cavalry, and almoust all of them were slaughtered by Pyrrhus bodyguards and his Agema cavalry, when i tried to win a cavalry duel, while i´ve succesfully managed to kill the elephants by 2 units of italian skirmishers with ease...

There you have it! That’s why I gathered all my family members. ; ) But it looks like we shared the same tactic of killing all cavalry first so our skirmishers could do their nasty job.

On the side note:
There is also one thing i´ve noticed after i´ve tried EB recently. While a phalanx in RTR still holds it´s possition and isn´t very impressed by a flanking attack, and even from the rear, my phalanx units in EB were melting away, while taking almost zero causalities if used properly by meeting enemy units from the front. Obviously, I like the EB battle result much better.

Yes that’s true. But it is not that bad when playing on medium when they at least beat it when 40 italic cavalry horses stormed into their back. (Although I/ the ai also managed to kill an entire cavalry unit when they suddenly changed their position/ the positions of their sarissas and it was too late to stop my cavalry).
I think that there will always be things that are better when playing one mod or the other. (What are your experiences with EB? As far as I know now there isn’t really a chance to boost the ai without illegally editing copyright protected stuff. So it can’t be that big of a difference.) Although as far as I know EB plans to base its new Rome mod on the Medieval II graphic which would really be a boost I think.

[JDx0Rome]

From what I understand, you managed to lure some AI units into chasing your own cavalry/or from straying out of the bigger AI formation, which allowed you to overpower them piecemeal, divided from the rest of the AI army. Unfortunately this is possible to do although it was much worse before the emergence of Darth Vader's AI formations mod. You can find it in the Rome: Total War Hosted Modifications forum. Actually, there is even a file in your ExRM\Data dir called "descr_formations_ai.Darth's". I haven't tried it but I believe that if you rename your descr_formations_ai.txt into something else and then rename descr_formations_ai.Darth's to descr_formations_ai.txt you will get different experience in battles.

Well my main infantry force was like so far away that it would have taken them quite a while to arrive the battle scene but the cavalry battle took place only a bit away from the Epirote infantry. So sending some infantry or elephant to support their general in the cavalry battle would not just have been logical but also absolutely safe in regard of my main infantry force being quite far away. Anyway…

I don’t really have a clue of all this editing so I rather leave it the way it is. Thanks anyway!

[Caligula Caesar]

I haven't really tried the Successors in RTR, except for Baktria, but I have used the Sucessors in EB and I think we need to change our phalanx EDU a bit.