Artillery and AI, 50% good 50% bad. It can win half its battles!

**Humble Warrior** · August 13, 2012, 10:59 AM

I`m facing a lot of BAI with artillery now and it`s pretty good for some parts.

I`ve had battles where he stays back with his arty and I with mine and we pound eachother. As it should be (if only Empire did this, then I could replicate Wellington and Napoleon).

The good side of BAI with Cannons.

I had a battle where, to my surprise, I faced 5 sets of parrott artillery and one rifle unit and one General. I had a feeling this was a reinforcement army for an army of his I`d just defeated. I didn`t have many rifles left and only one artillery unit. I attacked anyway, confident of my own superiority.

There were barely any trees so could not place my Sharpshooters safely anywhere, but I stuck them behind the enemy line as spotters. I stuck my main army behind a hill for safety.

On start, sure enough, there was a long line of artillery pieces, 20 in all. How do I get my 1 arty close enough to deal with that and how do I get my men close enough? Even with the BAI controlling things it looked pretty dicey. And it was.

First I sacrificed my sharpshooters to try and give my men (and primarily arty) time to set up. My sharpshooters were routed pretty fast by their artillery as they were noticed as soon as they opened fire. I just managed to get my Arty close enough to set up and open fire while my men moved forward. But it was a way to go, i couldn`t run my men all the way, so they had to walk partway and this is where the BAI`s parrott guns pretty much tore them up. My supporting 1 unit of cannons could not take them all down. My men ran away, I retreated my parrott guns. AI victory. Good stuff!

The crap side of BAI with cannons.

Next turn, my men must have all deserted because all I had left were my Parrott artillery, 4 cannons. Alone. The AI attacked with its numerous guns, 1 unit of Rifles and General. They should have wiped me out, but they didn`t, of course. All I needed to do was park out of range of his guns.

His General and rifles came over the hill first. I blew them away. Waited a little longer and his parrott guns all arrived, being pulled by horse. Had they stopped now and deployed they may have only lost a couple of units, but they didn`t. They continued moving towards my 1 unit and my artillery gun just blew them all away= All 5 cannons because the BAI does not know to stop when in range of LOS and just shoot. If it had, it would`ve wasted me.

Still way better than how Empire used to deal with it, at least now BAI can win 50% of the time- But needs fixing.

Come on, chaps!

**Lord Blackfyre** · August 13, 2012, 01:06 PM

perhaps because in the first battle you attacked so it could just set itself up and wait for you, ive noticed the same issue where they really struggle to un-limber their artillary when they are on the offensive.
now i dont know much about modding in shogun, can that be altered?

**SupAll** · August 13, 2012, 01:23 PM

Heh, I've noticed that the AI unlimbers their artillery just outside my own artillery's range. And they always assault unless I outnumber them in greater ranged cannons. So, I rarely attack. I line up my artillery, position my line infantry on the flanks just behind cannons and wait as the AI happily walk into a barrage of artillery (roughly 24 cannons). By the time they reach my line, they're so whittled down, a single volley is enough to start a chain rout and their artillery has yet to fire a shot. There has only been one case where I was forced to attack a reinforcing army and their artillery with my weakened force. Luckily, I had enough men to get close enough to force the win.

So long as I advanced in as thin a line as possible, I could keep the damage minimal.

**Humble Warrior** · August 13, 2012, 02:25 PM

The funny thing is gatlings can unlimber in combat. I had some 2 units of Sharpshooters in a forest attack their Gatlings as they passed. The Gatlings saw them, stopped and unlimbered in time to aim devastating fire into one of my sharpshooter units almost instantly routng them. That got my attention! My other sharpshooters managed to shoot them all dead before the same could happen to them.

**beatts** · August 15, 2012, 01:40 AM

Originally Posted by Lord Blackfyre

perhaps because in the first battle you attacked so it could just set itself up and wait for you

I think so.

**Livebyte** · August 13, 2012, 07:09 PM

Your first example doesn't demonstrate anything, the AI didn't have to do any decision making at all, just start shooting at anything that came into range.

**Humble Warrior** · August 15, 2012, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by Livebyte

Your first example doesn't demonstrate anything, the AI didn't have to do any decision making at all, just start shooting at anything that came into range.

In Empire, the BAI was incapable of stopping back and doing just that! It could not stay back and simply shoot when on defence.

So when you realise that CA couldn`t get it doing even THIS right in Empire, you`ll understand how it gets a plus point for managing the correct tactical strategy this time in STW2, even though all it needs to do is stay back. That`s why I comment on it. Not only does it stay back, but it knows to stay OUT of range too, forcing me to move forward. Either of these it could`ve not done, as in Empire.

That goes for the rest of you who were too dumb to figure this out.

Any more smart alec comments?

You people, so good at point out anything that looks like a `fail`, but crap at actually adding anything substantial

**StukaJr** · August 15, 2012, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by Humble Warrior

In Empire, the BAI was incapable of stopping back and doing just that! It could not stay back and simply shoot when on defence.

Depends on at what point of release/patch you've played Empire and what sides you've engaged - primitive factions tended to attack all the time, developed factions stayed on the defensive in the same way as described above. I remember there may have been a time when defending AI never attacked, settling down that AI sometimes attacked from the defensive but not all the time... Defending AI also stayed out of range of artillery, especially the immobile units.

What Empire has on FOTS, is that enemy factions actually fielded advanced Navies and Artillery units in battles, making it a real challenge when fighting against advanced enemies on harder difficulties. So your example of "good" BAI not only happened on regular basis in Empire, it also happened against BAI that was using monstrous artillery with more advanced shells.

**SturmChurro** · August 13, 2012, 07:25 PM

The ai has a terrible time actually protecting it's artillery. They will advance and leave their artillery completely undefended and they did this in Empire as well. You should always keep a couple units of cavalry around or in your army in case of encounters like this one or two units of cavalry would be sufficient enough as long as their artillery is fixed and firing at some other unit. You should have just used your general to flank around kill his artillery. I actually do this quite often especially if it is a traditional general.

**DiegoQuin** · August 13, 2012, 10:14 PM

I could keep the damage minimal.

**AUG351** · August 14, 2012, 05:55 AM

I've seen another problem happen quite frequently where the AI won't even unlimber their guns from the start, even if their defending and if they do, they hesitate to fire and sometimes only fire with one gun. There also seems to be a problem with placing some artillery units behind an infantry unit, because sometimes my own artillery won't even fire when behind one of my own units, even if the unit is say 150 yards away.

**InferiorBeing** · August 14, 2012, 05:08 PM

Your first example doesn't demonstrate anything, the AI didn't have to do any decision making at all, just start shooting at anything that came into range.

^ This.

**StukaJr** · August 14, 2012, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by Livebyte

Your first example doesn't demonstrate anything, the AI didn't have to do any decision making at all, just start shooting at anything that came into range.

x2

Defending side wins without having to take action, so in first example you had to attack or lose and second example is visa versa. Both instances had attacker at disadvantage.

**InferiorBeing** · August 17, 2012, 07:32 PM

That goes for the rest of you who were too dumb to figure this out.

Any more smart alec comments?

You people, so good at point out anything that looks like a `fail`, but crap at actually adding anything substantial

Well, aren't we pissy.

**Surveyor K** · August 30, 2012, 09:52 AM

I really can't stress how important it is to fix this AI issue in FOTS, before CA stops supporting this game and moves on. This issue has existed from the release day of FOTS and still plagues us. DO SOMETHING TO FIX IT!

**Winterspawn** · August 30, 2012, 10:36 AM

I have noticed as well the in some cases the AI uses their artillery very smart, but sometimes also very stupid. I've also noticed that it always leaves it's artillery unprotected, although sometimes it leaves it general patrolling behind the artillery units for me. I guess that there's nothing we can do about it really, it's still a lot better than empire like Humblewarrior said, there my regiment of pikeman was always targeted by artillery even though my general was marching right behind them, foot pikemen seemed to be magnets for artillery, hell, maybe the artillery units had some weird grudge against them?