Commanding AI units possible?

[Weedcow]

Hey there. First of all, what a great mod! I again returned to playing Rome TW, after having played both Shogun, Empire, and a lot of Medieval TW SS-mod. And wow, no doubt Rome was overall the greatest game of them all, but i'd never figured that it was still better than Medieval (which has a lot of cool features), but i really missed the epicness of the giant roman armies which SPQR mod gives you.

Anyways, i have a question regarding supporting allies. I think its in Medieval TW, where you can controll your allies (reinforcements) with 3 options, attack, defend and hold. I noticed that my AI reinforcements just assault head on, even though we are outmanned and on the defensive side. I having put up a defensive line, they just head right on, running into the enemy infantry (not having a care in the world that the elephants are flaking them), with which result my reinforcement ´being some sort of warmup carnage, where after im on my own against huge armies. Is there any mod that can be put in, allowing you to give orders or something like that, to my AI armies?

My only other option is to let me be in control of the armies, meaning that ill have to fight underhanded the entire game, since theyll join the battle when a unit is either dead or routed?

[Nano_Magnus]

mmm using reinforcements controlled by AI it's not an option

You can try to start only with cavalry and auxilia cavalry suported for some archers and a few auxilia spearman and play hit and run, micromanage all you can and let the fresh reinforcements do the killing

[Saspio]

Weedcow

RTW does not support a player to be able to handle more than one army in battlefield. The reinforcements are either controlled by AI (wich is a definately a NONO, since the AI always goes head on on the enemy) or by the player resulting in reinforcements waiting outside of the battlefield to fill in the free card slot in your first army.

So the only option (at least that is what i do) is to place the second army behind your first army on the campaing map. This way move on the map, so if one of your armies is attacked you can deploy the army under attack on the border of the battle map where you expect the second army is. That way the second army is located right behind you so you can quickly replace depleted units.

I agree it is hard to fight multiple enemy stacks with only one legion. But take it like this. It is a challange. And it can be done. All it requires is a bit of strategy (one of them is described above) and the fact that you are in control of Roman military engine wich was SUPERIOR in that period.

Good luck !

[Ejergard]

Setup properly on the strategic map, AI controlled armies can be useful. Expect the general to die though, but if you have an old general you are about to retire, or a young one with poor stats, there's not much to worry about
Famous Battles Thread

[Saspio]

Ejergard

Agreed. It is the ONLY way to have really HUGE battles.

But, sometimes AI does really stupid moves. Specialy if you are lets say attacking a city. AI tends to drag its troops along the wall so the towers are taking out loads of troops. And the general charge is hilarious. Usualy he the AI just charges the general directly on the wall of spears.

[tanglebones]

For me, the only one good time to hand over command of your reinforcements to the AI might be during a campaign field battle when you know the enemy is severely outnumbered or outmatched and the sight of your second army marching onto the field will cause them to turn face and run. I wouldn't use my rienforcements under AI control for any other reason, especially during a siege battle.

I tried handing over rienforcements to the AI during a siege battle only once - my small but capable Roman garrison was besiged by the Greeks, i'd surrendered the walls and was defending the square. About halfway through the battle my AI rienforcements entered the fray, they marched into the city, Fortunately they took the same route of the besieging Greeks and came up right behind them, it looked good for a while, the Greeks were the meat in a soon to be epic Roman sandwich, yeeehaw, great i thought, but what did my AI buddies do ..... instead of engaging them from the rear like you would expect, they tried to press through the masses of Greek spear to reach the center, and i watched in horror as they were slowly minced into oblivion by the Greek blob clogging the street just yards form the square.

Not a happy bunny as you can imagine lol

[lt1956]

Another way is to have your support legion have only Infantry, the AI performs better with just infantry.

[sanguin]

Another way is to have your support legion have only Infantry, the AI performs better with just infantry.

yep, as the bossman says. ai cavalry tend to charge in lol

[tanglebones]

Yes i might give that a try given the opportunity again. Maybe a much smaller force too, designed for siege reliefs, no cav or missile.

In my Greek senario, well it looked to me as though my support AI's first objective was to reach the city center at whatever the cost, like it was part of the AI siege rienforcement script, something like that. It was just the way they ploughed into the blob, forcing their way through, not even really fighting as such, but taking heavy losses.

I guess it is an AI behavioural question - are defending siege rienforcements under AI control scripted to travel to the city square first, like a first objective?

[Weedcow]

Thanks for the answers Too bad you can't have more support from the AI. I figure you are right about the AI infantry being smarter than the cavalry. I just lost a decent general due to his a bit ambitious fighting skills, as he took on 4000 gauls with his short swords and 20 very loyal soldiers.

But i'll figure something out. As said, we need a challenge - and we sometimes get one as the enemy AI seems a lot smarter !!

Again thanks for the replies.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Can anyone remember if you get the small allied army icon during campaign battles in vanilla? The one that you set to offensive, defensive or shootout mode? If so, mine is not on presently, but I seem to have seen a setting somewhere somehow about how to turn it on or hide it. The problem is I cannot remember what the icon is officially called to search for a solution.

[Ejergard]

I don't recall that Geoffrey, but that would indeed be a neat feature.