AI Battle Formation Behavior

[Nerouin]

I've been having the issue in battles that, especially when attacking, the AI's choice of formations makes no sense. The AI almost without exception fails to keep a solid battle line when attacking mine, often even going so far as to throw in some units piecemeal while holding much of its army back, or fragmenting its line such that it's very easy to flank and/or surround its units. When defending, the AI often repeatedly changes formation in minute fashion while my battle line is approaching; while I suppose this isn't so bad, the constant movements make no sense and exhaust the enemy.

In other general mods I have not seen this sort of behavior. Is there any formations submod that might fix it? As things stand, the behavior in question makes battles sometimes tiresome, and sometimes unrealistic; no sane general would behave this way.

While I'm not sure if this mod uses Sinuhet's AI formations, I have indeed had these issues with that particular submod in the past.

[Paedric]

I believe we use a modified Sinuhet as default.

In the launcher, click on the preferences editor, and go to to the other RS2 preferences.
There you can chose several formations.

If you want to be a little experimental, you can use the Athenagoras ones, there should be things like infantry wedge and others.

[dvk901]

If you go to 'edit preferences' in the Launcher, you'll come to a dialoge that allows you to choose formations.
RS2 uses a modified version of Sinuhet's formations, but I have to say that I to have observed the behavior you describe with our default formations. The choice that says 'Sinuhet' is Sinuhet's last version of his RTW AI formations, and personally I prefer them. I have never seen the AI behave as you say with those formations.

[Smerka]

If you go to 'edit preferences' in the Launcher, you'll come to a dialoge that allows you to choose formations.
RS2 uses a modified version of Sinuhet's formations, but I have to say that I to have observed the behavior you describe with our default formations. The choice that says 'Sinuhet' is Sinuhet's last version of his RTW AI formations, and personally I prefer them. I have never seen the AI behave as you say with those formations.

I have seen the AI before as the TC discribed. Now that he mentions it, it happens about 2/3 of my battles. When I push towards them the start sheffling their formations.It's as if the AI is trying to throw of my attack order(Click a attack order and your troops will become a mess, trying to keep up with their movement) I will take your advice and try the other formations.

[DeWitt8]

Yes, same here. I did not really find a working formation file yet, sometimes the phalangites behave odd because of activated guard mode, or the enemy lines up in a real long line, so half of it's troops are somewhere miles away. Or the AI army always goes at an angle to your line and constantly tries to keep it. Or it does what you described...

[atila9000]

so, which are the best formations?

[Nerouin]

I have tried two other formation sets so far. The results are the same. When I am attacking, the AI constantly repositions, exposing and exhausting itself in doing so; in a recent battle I played, I was attacking an Averni army that was upon a hill, and when I approached, they began incessantly running up and down the hill, often swarming together as well. They did this even when I stopped my units. Needless to say, this exhausted the enemy troops, and my archers butchered them at the many points at which the enemy troops had their backs to me. Eventually I began advancing my troops again. When one of my units engaged an enemy unit, two more enemy units came down to attack me as well. The rest simply continued rushing up the hill and then back down the hill and into formation. Often the enemy would stop very close to my troops and then charge backward again. This is typical behavior for the AI in my battles.

This made the battle very, very easy. When I am defending, the AI pushes forward some of its troops into my lines and holds others back for no reason, while still other, isolated units go on pointless flanking missions against sections of the line that greatly outnumber them. In another recent battle, I played, I was attacked by a large Carthaginian army. The AI first put forward its missile cav for me to butcher (far, far ahead of its infantry), then split its infantry force; once half attacked my line in very disjointed fashion--part of the force attacked me in piecemeal fashion, while the rest stayed back for a few minutes and then swarmed together at one point of my line, making them easy to surround--while the other went off across the map for no apparent purpose, taking itself out of the battle. The latter was still far away the battle timer ran out. Again, this is AI behavior that is not unusual in my battles.

In many circumstances, the enemy can't even hold a solid formation while marching toward me. The AI constantly changes formations, and it makes its troops run while doing so.

I'm not sure what to do about all of this. I do not mean to overly criticize--this is a spectacular mod and I can see the enormous amount of work that has gone into it--but I have not seen this behavior in RTR or BI. Is it perhaps something that I am doing wrong?


Edit: I just tried the "Alex Only" AI formations, which was the last I had not tried. I am right now playing a battle in which one of my legions attacked a full stack of Gallaeci. I was hopeful at first, because the enemy stayed in its two-line formation formation as I approached. Alas, the usual problems occurred when I impacted the enemy's first line. The second line stayed still and did nothing for awhile, then reverted to its endless changes in formation. As I speak, I've been engaged with their first line for some ten minutes, and only two units from the enemy's second line have joined the melee. The others (four full-sized units of Celtiberian Spearmen and a unit of Elite Gallaeci Infantry) are incessantly running forward and backward, doing nothing but tiring themselves out.

Edit #2: I moved some legionaries close to the aforementioned scampering units, and those units finally engaged. By this time, the enemy units in question were nearly exhausted from constantly running back and forth, and they each broke immediately when charged with cavalry. The battle is a foregone conclusion now, as those units have failed to occupy sections of my line and now I am surrounding the bulk of their army with my unoccupied infantry.

All in all, this battle has been typical. Frustrating

[Durnaug]

When I am attacking, the AI constantly repositions, exposing and exhausting itself in doing so

XGM has fatigue turned off by default - the mod creator believes that the AI does not know how to handle it.

[Nerouin]

XGM has fatigue turned off by default - the mod creator believes that the AI does not know how to handle it.

But this would turn off fatigue for the player-controlled units also, yes?

[Sertorio]

It probably does, i played one mod with fatigue not enabled and the enemy units simply didnt rout. Fatigue is one of the key components in routing enemy units. XGM is one of RTW mods.

[dvk901]

Try Darth's formations AI (you'll have to put them in manually). They are in the Important_Stuff folder under alternate AI formations. I'm curious to see if ALL formations result in the same behavior.

[Nerouin]

Try Darth's formations AI (you'll have to put them in manually). They are in the Important_Stuff folder under alternate AI formations. I'm curious to see if ALL formations result in the same behavior.

I took the Darth AI formations file and put it into the parent data directory (RS2\data), replacing the file therein. I then played a large battle against the Gallaeci in my campaign. The results were even worse. The AI units started, as is standard, in a formation; but as I approached, they changed formation three times. I eventually halted my units just inside pila range, at which point the AI began changing formations rapidly and repeatedly. The enemy troops would form march slightly forward to form a formation, and then, once that formation had been completed, would march backward a short distance and re-form. It took roughly ten seconds for each formation shift, at the end of which the AI would immediately begin moving back into its previous formation. I let this go on for awhile to see if it would stop. It continued unabated for ten minutes, so I decided to advance my troops. Needless to say, by this stage the enemy troops were all exhausted from constantly dashing about.

After advancing my battle line a bit and stopping, the enemy line advanced to what would probably amount to six feet away from my line and stopped. I advanced my line further to make contact with theirs. After I made contact with several enemy units on my left flank, the rest of the enemy line turned and ran backward a bit. I advanced further on my right flank to make contact with these units. Some stood and fought; some others ran about to nowhere and back for a bit before joining the fight. The enemy units on my left flank that were unengaged made the inexplicable decision to abandon that flank and join the swarm attacking the right end of my line. As only a few enemy units were engaged with my left flank (those with whom I'd made initial contact), and as those units routed quickly, five full units on my left flank were left completely uncovered. I promptly flanked the other enemy troops and surrounded them. Battle over. Not good. The enemy still can't form a battle line and stick with it.

On a note of much lesser importance, enemy units very often use warcry and then do not attack (this is the case with all barbarians in my games).

Is it possible that I put the formations file in the wrong directory? There were no formation files within the data directories of the original campaigns, so I figured the main data directory to be the correct place.

[GRANTO]

the trouble is the way units react is also to do with all the internal stats , hit points ,armour,bonuses the lot , the only time i have seen a decent ai is on maksimus's alexander eb , every other mod ai formations movement has been poor to mediocre unfortunatly , its a complex lot .....but deep inside, somewhere inside the stats and formations is the ability to make the ai perform really well , insanity could be a side effect of chasing this elusive dream

[Thracian Princess]

I had the same issue as Nerouin when using the Athenogoras and default AI formations. However, the Sinuhet formation fixed things, it seems. I didn't have any problems with the default formation while using Alex, but BI seems not to like it. (Note: Not sure if the BI and Alex thing has any relevance or not)

[Nerouin]

No matter what formations set I choose, barbarian armies always start in a three-line formation that goes nuts when I approach. I don't know what to do. I've played a long time and am now in the Marian period with all of the individual legions, but this AI behavior makes every single battle an unrealistic cakewalk.

I just won a battle in which I killed 1600 enemy and lost 22 soldiers. This was accomplished by simply approaching and pelting them with arrows and pila. It was so effective because they were constantly milling around for no reason and thus were presenting their sides and backs to my missiles.

I am frustrated because this is a great mod in every way aside from this, and thus I want to continue playing it---but battles being fun is, of course, important.

[Thracian Princess]

Is it possible it's an issue with the exe you're using or something? Maybe the exe you're using hates all the formations. ~Shrug~

[Nerouin]

Is it possible it's an issue with the exe you're using or something? Maybe the exe you're using hates all the formations. ~Shrug~

I'm using Alex.

[Napoleon Complex]

You guys must be playing a different game; the AI seems to be really good at keeping its forces in one piece and stopping me from encircling them for me. To give an example; fighting the initial battle with Hannibal the Carthaginian general not only kept a reserve but exhausted mine first. I only managed to score a close defeat (killed 80% of the generals army!) by getting lucky and killing Hannibal off with a desperate cavalry charge early in the battle with a Cannae-style encirclement. (It was the one stupid decision the AI took in the battle; the AI does seem pretty bad at commanding cavalry and it threw Hannibal straight into my infantry line; if he'd hovered around towards the back with his reserves like he normally does I'd have lost badly.) And the only reason I even got that opportunity was I smashed through the Carthaginian right line with a concentrated cavalry charge; he'd left his cavalry spread across both flanks (again, the AI handles cavalry poorly.) I had the Carthaginians in a sort of crescent, but their superior quality was butchering my forces and they actually outflanked me on a couple of occasions with lighter troops; the only reason I survived these encounters was because my cavalry had driven off everything but a handful of Numidians and were brutalising themselves on the back of the Carthaginian line. I actually broke large sections of the Carthaginian line and cut down most of their heavy infantry, but my soldiers were practically dead by this point in the battle and the whole thing devolved into a massive scrum. Both sides finished with +80% casualties, +90% for the Romans.

So overall, my comments on the AI from this battle.

-It is very good at preventing encirclements and keeps a large reserve (this could explain it throwing individual groups into the fighting and getting them cut off, but for me it maintained a solid line)
-It will mercilessly exploit the player exhausting his or her reserve; I noticed that the AI would hold back large numbers of soldiers even when it could have benefitted from more aggressive behaviour as long as I had one infantry unit in reserve, only to throw them in once I was fully committed.
-It is not particularly good at commanding cavalry, throwing them in carelessly to bolster infantry lines. However it is still better than Rome Vanilla as it shelters them behind the line and doesn't leave them hanging off the flanks where a small group of heavy cav can smash into them and send a large group of horsemen flying.
-In situations where it doesn't have a reserve, it is very good at acquiring one; there are numerous occasions where I've tried to tie up multiple units with one only to have one of those engaged units tie up my infantry and pull the other two units out, frequently messing up my flanking plans as the big blob of infantry I was hoping to encircle is now busily redeploying and possibly coming to outflank me!

In short, I would summarise the AI as "Slippery and wet." That is, very hard to tie down and constantly rearranging its forces. I've seen this sort of reserve-preserving behaviour in other battles as well.

[Durnaug]

"That is, very hard to tie down and constantly rearranging its forces"

And this is why the AI armies are always exhausted. I have sat on a hill with my army and watched the AI marching back and forth, miles away, presumably looking for "hidden units" or something. They eventually double back and attack me. Exhausted. The XGM mod guy knows his stuff - the AI cannot manage fatigue.

[tone]

If anyone is happy to experiment, we could throw out some different EDUs (export_descr_unit) files for people to test to see whether we can get any improvement? There may be some changes in stats like the fire_delay and so on which might change AI behavior