Burning Oil+ Incompotent AI= Complete Exploit.

[vinh834]

I'm not sure if anyone has been also experiencing this, but the AI when attacking region capitals never makes any seige equipment i.e. ladders, rams.

Recently however, I have just researched burning oil and took little notice of it. I did begin to take notice of it when one of my unguarded capitals was attacked by a full stack of the enemy's forces. My garrison consisted of about 9 units. I positioned the spearmen on top with the melee forming a "V" shaped formation rightbehind the gates.

What followed was the enemy simply rushing in to destroy the gate and sending their men in at once to try to overwhelm me. They were clogged under the gatehouse due to the sheer size of their army and the burning oil destroyed their entire army as a result.

This has happen so far 3 times at 3 different capitals.

This shouldn't happen. The AI should be making seige equipment, not committing suicide by oil.


Rome wasn't built in a day, but it wasn't finished early either.

[Faxxy15]

What difficulty are you playing on? That wasn't the case with me.

[daelin4]

You're about three weeks late on this. I mean it was the case since Sept. 3rd.

[Totalheadache]

yep playing on very hard and around turn 80 havent seen one bit of siege kit....

tbh with this and fubared naval invasions am almost done playing...

[Sar1n]

When was AI ever competent...

M2TW AI was, for example, so predictable in sieges that you could defend city against full stack with only those few garrison units that had free upkeep in city and governor. AI always sent all its units through gates if it managed to ram through, and couple of pike or spear units with schiltrom could hold the place long enough for burning oil to do the work. While it built ladders and siege towers, it never mounted a sustained attack via them unless it lost all rams.

So what really changed?

[fumle]

Well you don't even need the oil to do that, simply make a V or U formation behind the gate, perhaps use a few missile troops to shot into the fray and your good to go. You won't even need scorpion towers, in my civil war i defeated 4 full stacks, twice, on the same city on the same turn....

However, the AI is actually capable of creating siege weapons, i have only seen it once, when some random 1-region-faction decided to send a stack versus Rome itself. It builded 1 set of ladders, however only one reached the walls (i had scorpion towers and ballistas/catapults on the walls...).
I hope in the future the AI will spend 2-4 turns building siege weapons, before it assaults. Of course sometimes it should just try to storm the city at turn 1, or starve the city out. But the most common situation should be assault-by-siege-weapons.

/Fumle

[AusHaching]

As I wrote in another thread, I have seen the AI built siege equipment once in over 80 hours of play. However, in the actual battle - pretty cool with 4 factions at once - the AI didn´t use the ladders, but rushed for the gate.

Burning Oil makes any siege defence extremly easy. That - and the idiocy of the AI - is in all likelyhood the reason why only major settlements have walls. Why can´t program an AI that is somewhat decent at attacking walls? Bah, just get rid of walls altogether...

[Leesin]

Burning oil OP nerf

[Kenlin Bros]

The problem with armies building long-term siege equipment is the attrition they suffer whilst waiting to attack. I know that this can be reduced by technology, but by the time they would actually bring their ladders and towers to bear, their army would be a shadow of its former self.

[Gaius Baltar]

I had a similar experience. Playing as Rome I was defending Massalli with just a bare bones garrison against 3 full columns of Carnute troops. They did not build any siege equipment and used burning torches to destroy the gate. They tried to rush through and got caught under the boiling oil, result, decisive victory and I destroyed around 3000 men with just minimal losses to my rorraii and plebs. Conclusions here: 1) burning torches = massive failure on part of game design. 2) battle AI not much changed since RTW1. What the hell do all those programmers do there? What an incompetent bunch of useless a** s.

[LSG]

Yeah I have experienced this, I've also tried destroying the gatehouse with catapults trying to stop the hot oil from being dumped on my units. That doesn't seem to stop it either, weird.