(Pics)Just played my first Siege with an ally -- PATHETIC

[z WeApOn z]

I was REALLY excited for my first gigantic castle siege. I had a full stack of units and my ally was in reinforcement position, so I knew I was in for an awesome fight.

Couldn't be more wrong. It is completely broken.

1. My ally stood still literally the entire time I assaulted. Not one single kill, nor one single death. They did NOT move at all. They just stood at the castle as if admiring it.(see picture below)
2. EVERY SINGLE enemy unit aside from a few archers was in one of the lower tier. My main army was coming through one of the gates below them, but only two-three units engaged me while the other stood on top of each other.(see picture below)
3. Some reinforcements I had came from the rear flank of the castle, so I decided to see if I could get a flank on them and really test the AI. Only the archers previously mentioned attacked me, while the rest of the army allowed my entire reinforcement team to walk through the rear of the castle, and directly to the keep. I put a few units there and won the battle without hesitation.
4. All the units stacked on top of each other did nothing the entire assault. No sense of urgency when I was taking the keep, not even an attempt to ride up at me.
5. I was able to put a few archers on the higher tiers and shoot down at the stack of units that never moved. They simply died and did not care.

I REALLY hope CA hasn't decided to give up on improving AI and simply focus on multiplayer. This is completely pathetic AI and I don't know how this game was released in this condition.

Most appalling of all is that my ally did not move ONCE throughout the entire assault. Did CA even test allied castle assaults? Was this just a fluke glitch I encountered?

Here is a picture that will showcase all of my complaints above:
http://i.imgur.com/GqQgt.jpg

You will see the enemy stack sitting in that one spot. They practically stayed there the entire fight without attacking. Only the archers above made an effort to fight me. You'll also see my ally in in the back, where they stood idle.

It's really sad an pathetic to see such a disgraceful battle like this. I REALLY do hope this was some fluke siege or that CA knows of these issues and will make sure this never happens again.

I'm very tempted to FRAPS my replay and post it on youtube to show what a disgrace battle AI is, but I'll hold off on that until I know this isn't isolated.

[Relativista]

big mess in the middle they are moving are not all together

[waidizss]

I have witnessed this mess. Too my advantage i had some ~6 units of archers and flaming arrows. It was beautiful!

[kostas84]

I was REALLY excited for my first gigantic castle siege. I had a full stack of units and my ally was in reinforcement position, so I knew I was in for an awesome fight.

Couldn't be more wrong. It is completely broken.

1. My ally stood still literally the entire time I assaulted. Not one single kill, nor one single death. They did NOT move at all. They just stood at the castle as if admiring it.(see picture below)
2. EVERY SINGLE enemy unit aside from a few archers was in one of the lower tier. My main army was coming through one of the gates below them, but only two-three units engaged me while the other stood on top of each other.(see picture below)
3. Some reinforcements I had came from the rear flank of the castle, so I decided to see if I could get a flank on them and really test the AI. Only the archers previously mentioned attacked me, while the rest of the army allowed my entire reinforcement team to walk through the rear of the castle, and directly to the keep. I put a few units there and won the battle without hesitation.
4. All the units stacked on top of each other did nothing the entire assault. No sense of urgency when I was taking the keep, not even an attempt to ride up at me.
5. I was able to put a few archers on the higher tiers and shoot down at the stack of units that never moved. They simply died and did not care.

I REALLY hope CA hasn't decided to give up on improving AI and simply focus on multiplayer. This is completely pathetic AI and I don't know how this game was released in this condition.

Most appalling of all is that my ally did not move ONCE throughout the entire assault. Did CA even test allied castle assaults? Was this just a fluke glitch I encountered?

Here is a picture that will showcase all of my complaints above:
http://i.imgur.com/GqQgt.jpg

You will see the enemy stack sitting in that one spot. They practically stayed there the entire fight without attacking. Only the archers above made an effort to fight me. You'll also see my ally in in the back, where they stood idle.

It's really sad an pathetic to see such a disgraceful battle like this. I REALLY do hope this was some fluke siege or that CA knows of these issues and will make sure this never happens again.

I'm very tempted to FRAPS my replay and post it on youtube to show what a disgrace battle AI is, but I'll hold off on that until I know this isn't isolated.

Please fraps and post it, i want to have a good laugh of how messy the battle was before i go to sleep.

No offence to anyone

[z WeApOn z]

Gonna post a link to the .replay file. If I get the time I'll make a hateful commentary for it.

Here is the replay:
http://rapidshare.com/files/453891088/Pathetic.replay

Put it in:
C:\Users\---USERNAME---\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Shogun2\replays

[Harry Lime]

I just fought my first combined castle siege tonight although oddly the clan I was fighting with wasn't even an ally, my army was just in the vicinity when he attacked the castle. I started miles away and had to march my troops over a couple of fords to get there but whilst I was doing that the 'ally' initiated the attack and was doing a pretty good job of it. By the time I got to the castle though he had lost most of his troops but taken many of the defenders out as well so I sent my men in to finish the job but sadly I experienced my only CTD so far once they started climbing the walls. Not sure if this was connected to the fact that really we shouldn't have been fighting together in the first place or my fairly low-spec PC (the battle did lag in places with 3 good sized armies fighting/manoeuvring).

[daniu]

Weird... I was in a siege the other day and caught myself wondering "wow that are some really sensible moves by the AI right there". There wasn't an ally involved there though, I guess a lot of things make a difference (army size, composition, castle level...).

[osheamat]

I have had this happen multiple times to me, reference the bug section and you will see at least 4 people who have seen the same thing, namley the Ally or Enemy army (as reinforcments) not moving or stuck in a loop at the border. I see it in land battles too( non seige).

It is seems it is random as not EVERYONE has this problem. Ruins the immersion for those who experience it.

[Maizel]

Its the idle AI bug. It's been in for ages, and it's ruining my siege experiences.

All sieges that could be epic, win, or valiantly lose, now give you a get out of siege free card sinde all the enemy reinforcements stay idle until the time runs out.

It's too bad, the sieges are actually very fun this time around.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

But beside the reinforcement bug there is also the problem that the defending AI in big castles stacks nearly all his troops in lower level areas and does not react at all if you move a unit from another side to the top level of the castle and take the main victory point. So actually big, multi-layered castles are a cakewalk for the player, while the early single layer ones are much harder. The BAi definitly needs a patch for this issue too because it ruins siege gameplay.

[rob-a-dogg]

CA advertises "best AI yet" but all they have done is add cheating to it (unit stat bonuses/penalties depending on difficulty, armies spawn new units/generals). It will be up to modders to do what they can to fix the AI yet again i reckon.

[Maizel]

CA advertises "best AI yet" but all they have done is add cheating to it

I don;t agree with that.

I find the AI to be markedly improved in many areas.

This is a lingering bug that definitely need fixing sometime soon.

[skullman86]

For the first time in my ~10 years of playing this series I've started using timers in battle so I can fast forward through this crap. I hope it's a bug because I don't see the point in sallying out to fight a fresh army across the map when I'm the one defending

[OldCrowWhiskey]

For the first time in my ~10 years of playing this series I've started using timers in battle so I can fast forward through this crap. I hope it's a bug because I don't see the point in sallying out to fight a fresh army across the map when I'm the one defending

You've gotta use the timer. It's also useful in case you want your tiny force to wait out an overpowered army outside of your city. In some of the other TW games, you could use something like horse archers or light cavalry to harass the enemy and kill the clock, thus buying more time for reinforcements to arrive from the campaign map.

[iqwerty]

If I was the AI I would do the same thing - watching other factions killing each other and get weak and destroy both. (In ETW and NTW I often fire artillery on allied reinforcements) So this is either very clever or it is just the AI being stupid and bugged.

Unfortunately the latter is more likely.

EDIT: Has anyone tried firing cannons on the inactive AI reinforcements? This is what Tokugawa Ieyasu did in the battle of Sekigahara, firing on Kobayakawa Hideaki to force him joining the battle. If CA makes this happen in the game, I will go and buy every game they ever made.

[Yarkis de Bodemloze]

Med2 had also problems with sieges at the start, which were eventually fixed. For example the AI was unable to take a higher level castle. The AI was eventually improved, so I hope they properly patch this one before rushing to the next game.