AI seems braindead. (in sieges)

**bbad89** · January 08, 2012, 12:31 AM

Every siege I've played, the AI has done next to nothing. If I'm defending, they'll stand a distance away and not move a muscle *talking about custom settlements* It's somewhat aggravating as we have these amazing castles and settlements and can't do much with them. I have 3.1 installed with Baron Samedi's amazing sub-mod collection.

**Artorius798** · January 08, 2012, 04:10 AM

Well, I don't think it has anything to do with this mod, the AI have always been completely stupid in sieges in m2tw. Especially when more than 1 AI army is sieging you, only the first one will do something, the others just stand there with no siege equipment until the first make a breach...

**Hallow** · January 08, 2012, 04:15 AM

Originally Posted by Artorius798

Well, I don't think it has anything to do with this mod, the AI have always been completely stupid in sieges in m2tw. Especially when more than 1 AI army is sieging you, only the first one will do something, the others just stand there with no siege equipment until the first make a breach...

What he's experiencing isn't normal though.

@OP: Could be a bug perhaps? Tried re-installing? Does it only happen in TATW?

**Dwarven Berserker** · January 08, 2012, 05:11 AM

This is a known issue for Imladris, but I haven't experienced it for the other ones, though.
Maybe changing battle difficulty could help, but I would'nt put my hopes onto it.

**Påsan** · January 08, 2012, 05:20 AM

Originally Posted by bbad89

Every siege I've played, the AI has done next to nothing. If I'm defending, they'll stand a distance away and not move a muscle *talking about custom settlements* It's somewhat aggravating as we have these amazing castles and settlements and can't do much with them. I have 3.1 installed with Baron Samedi's amazing sub-mod collection.

Im having a blast with sieges, the AI seems smarter than I've ever seen it before. Ive seen two ways split of forces, (Single AI army launches attack at two different places) Spearmen posted in streets to ward of my flanking cavalry in towns and cities, they demolish towers with siege weapons, flanking manoeuvre's with cavalry on their own etc etc.

Btw if they have siege weapons they prefer to use up the ammo before attacking. Smart.

**reavertm** · January 10, 2012, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by Påsan

Im having a blast with sieges, the AI seems smarter than I've ever seen it before. Ive seen two ways split of forces, (Single AI army launches attack at two different places) Spearmen posted in streets to ward of my flanking cavalry in towns and cities, they demolish towers with siege weapons, flanking manoeuvre's with cavalry on their own etc etc.

Btw if they have siege weapons they prefer to use up the ammo before attacking. Smart.

Exactly the same I observed. (some to an extend in 2.1). Especially in-town enemy movement was very archer-protective. And very effective against my tactics to abandon walls completely and fight siege defences in town center (huge morale boost) with cavalry flanking the enemy. So now I really need to wait for enemy to spend their heavy-infantry/spearmen in town center before I can do anything to their archers. Great A.I imho!

**Dutch-Balrog** · January 08, 2012, 05:28 AM

^^That, i've even lost an EVEN siege battle because i underestimated the AI (VERY long ago though).

**muller227** · January 08, 2012, 05:35 AM

AI in sieges is definately better, as a whole. I think we forget the utter stupidity of sieges before, and continue to demand better and better. I mean I remember having two cavalry units, whaling away in a sally while the besiegers who out numbered 30 to 1 never even tried to get into the city I had abandoned. That first run for the gates that don't close some times certainly was a surprise.

**Dwarven Berserker** · January 08, 2012, 05:36 AM

The worst problem with siege AI at the moment would be when you sally out - they let all their untits run 50 miles back, leaving their ballistae/catapults/trebs behind to get killed by your cavalry, so if you play it well, you never get your walls bomarded with rocks.

**milosh** · January 10, 2012, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by Dwarven Berserker

The worst problem with siege AI at the moment would be when you sally out - they let all their untits run 50 miles back, leaving their ballistae/catapults/trebs behind to get killed by your cavalry, so if you play it well, you never get your walls bomarded with rocks.

Unless you are dealing with troll catapults in which case you can't kill them easily.

**Guurt** · January 10, 2012, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by Dwarven Berserker

The worst problem with siege AI at the moment would be when you sally out - they let all their untits run 50 miles back, leaving their ballistae/catapults/trebs behind to get killed by your cavalry, so if you play it well, you never get your walls bomarded with rocks.

They don't always do that now. Sometimes they will just go ahead and do the siege.

So you can't count on that maneuver. I believe that half of the time they just go ahead and do the siege when you sally out.

**thespaniard** · January 10, 2012, 02:46 PM

Ive experianced this once playing as eriador i atacked a OotMM settlement with an allied gunabad army next door the gunabad army just sat there while i butchered the MM troops

**Nemesis_GR** · January 10, 2012, 03:00 PM

AI is braindead in any situation.Germanius made it a little better but still...You just have to find the right strategy and gg.

ps.tatw 3.1 would be pretty impossible if u couldnt get heroic/minimum casualties wins...

**King Xiao** · January 10, 2012, 03:02 PM

Atleast you get to play sieges. My game crashes everytime i try and load a siege battle

**hull19** · January 10, 2012, 03:37 PM

While playing a battle in Helm's deep.... the AI had 1 ram that attacked the gates. And 4 ladders. He dropped 3 of them. If I would have fought off more then 2 places... I would have been crushed by numbers. Over 5000 uruks against 1200 militia level units.

**MichaelKendrick** · January 10, 2012, 03:43 PM

I'm experiencing the same as bbad. AI will only attack with one set of ladders even if I give them a lot. On Helms deep they completely stop attacking once they manage to take the deeping wall, just standing idle until battle time runs out.

Awesome game, though. Playing it a whole lot more than any of the legit new games like Skyrim.

**Tokus*Maximus** · January 10, 2012, 04:00 PM

...because Taiji hasn't looked in and altered the battle AI. Yet.

**Lionheart_19** · January 10, 2012, 06:43 PM

I am the only one getting the "breach the gate and then run half dozen men trough the defending force to the town square" issue??

It's INCREDIBLY annoying if you're defending and then a couple men of one of the enemy units who run trough the gate start running between your men and go to the town square to activate the timer while 90% the unit (and army) is still fighting at the gate

**leo.civil.uefs** · January 10, 2012, 07:29 PM

The AI is stupid in M2TW.
Even in generic vanilla settlements you can see it holdings units and ding nothing.

I have not played all custom settlements. But I know the bug in Imladris. And yes, it can be fixed, I fixed problems like that in my custom settlements.

**Jin-** · January 11, 2012, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by bbad89

Every siege I've played, the AI has done next to nothing. If I'm defending, they'll stand a distance away and not move a muscle *talking about custom settlements* It's somewhat aggravating as we have these amazing castles and settlements and can't do much with them. I have 3.1 installed with Baron Samedi's amazing sub-mod collection.

Same happens to me, i use also Baron mod collection.

AI just sits and run far away and i need to come out of castles to kill them, same goes in every battle, they never attack