6.3: Imbalances still in play?

[RuleBritannia]

SS 6.2 notoriously had massive AI stat buffs, meaning fair fights were rarely possible for the human player.

Has this been fixed in 6.3? Are the AI bonuses less, or better yet, gone all-together?

[Meneth]

There's still some silly AI buffs.
The silliest parts of them are removed/reduced by my LLP sub-mod, though.
The AI does need some bonuses, though, due to being pretty stupid.

[RuleBritannia]

There's still some silly AI buffs.
The silliest parts of them are removed/reduced by my LLP sub-mod, though.
The AI does need some bonuses, though, due to being pretty stupid.

But I remember they had very, very stupid bonuses in SS 6.2. Stupid as in AI peasants able to stand toe-to-toe with player knights.

Hopefully this sort of thing is removed, at least in your mod?

[bɑne]

But I remember they had very, very stupid bonuses in SS 6.2. Stupid as in AI peasants able to stand toe-to-toe with player knights.

The AI does not get more intelligent with increased difficulty but has always (since the initial release of M2TW) received moral boosts. This means the battle difficulty is capped at medium or even easy unless the AI gets an edge over the player units. You will never see the AI fight on the level of a skilled human player and your thus complaining about a problem that is as old as PC games.

[Meneth]

My mod only messes with the campaign map bonuses, not the in-battle bonuses, sorry.
And Germanicu5's battle AI is good, for being for Medieval 2, since pretty much all that is tweak-able is variables, and not the code itself.
I haven't seen peasants do well at all against knights in 6.3, though. A single charge will destroy most of a peasant unit.

[Evil Empror Proteus]

Peasants should have no bonuses. If they really can go up against Knights, it would be like giving the AI infinite supplies of Elite Units with low cost and barely any upkeep. The AI can already magicly create 20 stacks from only a few settlements as it is.

[Meneth]

They can't go up against knights, even on Very Hard.
They get slaughtered.

[Spoon]

They can't go up against knights, even on Very Hard.
They get slaughtered.

It can be close. My knights almost lost against peasants who were defending a wall. They just did not die and they refused to flee.

[Ishan]

Playing a mod with custom AI's and playing mods Themselves is not Mandatory.

A Modder gets an award for his hard work and for the success of it.

Suggestions on improving it are welcome not Criticism of the product or the Modder himself.

[RollingWave]

i dunno, I have never seen a peasant stand toe to toe with knights, and i very VERY rarely lose even fights on VH/VH (except maybe some castle siege assaults)

[Gorrrrrn]

I've seen peasant crossbowmen defat mailed foot knights on the walls of a citadel in SS6.3
(that was on medium battle difficulty.)
Luckily they were my peasant crossbowmen!

[Slyspy]

I guess thats because of the bonuses awarded to defenders on the walls, to make up for the fact that sieges don't really work.

[Fakir]

Clint Eastwood unit still very overpowered, although they have a weakness for Meryl Streep princess.

[RollingWave]

yes, units get a pretty big bonus on walls, which is actually fairly historically accurate (if anything right now it's still way too easy to actually assault relative to reality, but obviously reality involves a lot of other elements too so it's kinda a wash and it would be boring if 9 outta 10 siege was a slug fest of waiting to see who ran out of food first, which was closer to the realities of medieval times) though it's not really impossible to overcome, the trick is generally

A. use siege towers, which reduces your initial casualties (both from missiles and landing) considerablly (as long as it doesn't go up in flames of course, which is why you should take more than one turn and build as many as you can)

B. land multiple units on the same section of the wall: this is logical no brainer really, the AI typically only spread one unit on one section of the wall (one section is defined by space between two towers) and usually most one open section have at least 2 landing spots for ladders or towers, so take advantage of that , obviously

[SirRobin]

A. use siege towers, which reduces your initial casualties (both from missiles and landing) considerablly (as long as it doesn't go up in flames of course, which is why you should take more than one turn and build as many as you can)

With all respect: Use ladders, as the amount of casualties sustained is almost the same, and they're quicker to build, quicker to deploy, and never catch fire.

[RollingWave]

With all respect: Use ladders, as the amount of casualties sustained is almost the same, and they're quicker to build, quicker to deploy, and never catch fire.

from my own experience I must say that's not true, especially when factor in the missiles on approach. ESPECIALLY if those missiles are javelins. if a javelin AI unit throws into a tower, it'll do minimal damage, but if they throw it twice into a unit with ladders. that unit is usually half dead .

AI archer / crossbows / javelins all tend to attack at the towers / rams quiet a bit, and usually the toweres would be able to eat up a major portion of the fire, which can be a serious life saver if the enemy has a lot of those types of units on the walls.

sure, ladders can run, but then you can simply have both, towers approach ahead to eat up some fire, and the ladders began to run in after the enemies began firing on the towers.

[SirRobin]

from my own experience I must say that's not true, especially when factor in the missiles on approach. ESPECIALLY if those missiles are javelins. if a javelin AI unit throws into a tower, it'll do minimal damage, but if they throw it twice into a unit with ladders. that unit is usually half dead .

AI archer / crossbows / javelins all tend to attack at the towers / rams quiet a bit, and usually the toweres would be able to eat up a major portion of the fire, which can be a serious life saver if the enemy has a lot of those types of units on the walls.

I rarely encountered javelin throwers on the walls, and the times I used them, they mostly refused to throw their missiles because of the castle wall bug/misdesign (walls blocking the line of fire for defenders)

But while it's true that towers attract missile fire, I have done some tests which show that unit A running with ladders will take around the same amount of casualties as unit B pushing a tower.

Most of the casualties for unit B come from the long wait at the walls while the soldiers crawl single-file up the tower, while unit A reaches the walls quicker and have 4 individual ladders, meaning a shorter wait.

So in my experience, casualties nearly even out, with the ladder unit taking maybe two more hits.

However, I don't know if assaulting from a siege tower lessens the defender's wall fighting bonus in any way ?
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Also, does anyone know if defenders' wall bonus increases with castle/city size?

[Gogolometro]

Javelins work on walls, but they just need some good line of fire/some distance. Is not unussual to kill knights with crossbows. Remember crossbows are easy to hanfle, pierce armor, and on walls are in any case best choice for defence. Ideea is if crossbows peasent or not, are enganged in melee, even if for a while, more or less, can still fire thier missels, at one point they cant do it. Is a morale brake, and sooner or later will rout.

[Byg]

SS 6.2 notoriously had massive AI stat buffs, meaning fair fights were rarely possible for the human player.

Has this been fixed in 6.3? Are the AI bonuses less, or better yet, gone all-together?

"Fixed" would suggest something was wrong.

If you think "fair" means that a battle with an AI army with equal command stars to a human opponent with the same size army would result in a draw then that's a false hope. The AI is simply not intelligent enough to give a fair fight to a human player if it has no bonuses unless the human player is a complete novice or very drunk.

The only way to ensure imbalance is to remove the ai bonuses.

[delra]

So what exactly is the bonus for AI in 6.3 on VH/VH? +5 attack/defence?