Testing Siege AI in Campaign...

[Humble Warrior]

Since I`m doing a long test of the siege AI in Campaign I`ve decided to post up my initial results and go from there.

First, about me: My favourite part of ancient battles have always been sieges. I always feel if I were a real General I`d be pretty good at defending in a siege. TW didn`t really have decent sieges until Rome 1, then MTW2, which I loved as they kept to the basic-realistic-to-history principle of siege warfare. Even if many more things could be added, the basics were there. Unfortunately, from Empire and the warscape engine, sieges suddenly took a huge step back, ruining a good 60% of the games for me. Also sieges are a huge part of warfare (most battles were sieges).

Since it is now clear after 9 months that CA are actually trying to fix sieges and have made some headway after patch 14 beta, I`ve reinstalled and started testing. I will hopefully post my results here- others can too if they wish. Perhaps it will help CA Devs finally fix this important part of gameplay.

caveat: I do realise that there are other important problems about RTW2 such as naval battles, etc, stuff which needs fixing too. Those I`ll support another time, but this thread is about sieges and how the AI deals with them. All you`ll see here is the unbiased truth.

The siege:
Playing on Hard as Rome. Unlimited time. No flags or anything like that. I`m making it easy for the AI so as to induce sieges against my walls.

I caused a rebellion and they attacked one of my Italian Roman cities:

I had 2880 men comprising of Rorari and levies and skirmishers.
The rebels had 1920 comprising of Italian swordsmen, spears and 6 cavalry including the General.

I saw one Ladder infront of one of my gates held by one unit of Italian Swordsmen. The rebel army was quite far back, facing me.

I started the battle, placing some skirmishers and Levys on the walls while my Rorari stayed on the ground facing the gate. The ladder moved towards the wall.

This time I was going to make life difficult for the AI to see how it would react. Seeing that the main army had stayed well back, I sent out a 1 unit of Rorari to attack the ladder as they neared the wall. The Rorari slew the pushers leaving the ladder behind. A second unit of Italian swordsmen left the main rebel army and headed to the ladder, now guarded by my men. This would be an easy win if the AI just sends one unit each time.

As the one unit neared the ladders, 3 more units left the rebel army and marched forward. This was a good move, as I knew I could not hold that lot off with my one unit of Rorari and was forced to retreat. The extra units came quite close then and as then moved back. I was pleased with that.

The rebels pushed the ladders to the walls and boarded- then the rest of their army joined. I sent some Rorari up to defend the walls along with my levy and skirmishers.

This was when things actually started getting enjoyable. The rebels piled up that ladder and joined their friends on the battlements. Some actually made it off the wall before I could get all the Rorari up so I ended up having to fight an increasing number of Italian spearmen and swordmen on the ground just infront of the gate. It was becoming an actual battle to stop him- and he didn`t torch the gates at all.

After a long, tough fight, boosting moral with my general, the numbers of rebels finally broke and fled, leaving the enemy general and his five cavalry behind. This was the crucial bit... they couldn`t climb the ladders, what were they going to do. I stared in anticipation. Was I going to see bs torching?


They left! And the battle ended with a win for me! They never devolved to torches. He just took his cavalry and left!


I was impressed with that.

I`m actually thinking that maybe the completed 14th patch can now remove those bs torches completed as the BAI is showing signs of not wanting to use the torches.

However, this is not an excuse for CA to be lazy, I treat them with guarded hopefulness and will criticise and encourage as is due. Make sure this thing is fixed, please, and give us our monies worth. Maybe then I might consider an expansion if it`s good enough.

Will continue testing and will report back. Anyone else is welcome to do the same here.

[IlluminatiRex]

Glad to hear you've had a pleasent experience with the new Siege AI!

I have had some good campaign experiences with it as well. Settlement battles have benefited greatly from the new changes.

I was taking a settlement from Parthia, it was my 20 unit stack versus a simple garrison. Nothing my Pontic Swordsman and Noble Blood Cavalry could not handle. I was thinking that the garrison was going to sit in the center of town like usual and just let me slaughter them.

No, not this time. This time the AI moved the army out of the center to meet me halfway. The AI, putting up a fight for their town? My units, heavily outnumbering them in both strength and actual numbers quickly routed them. But still, the AI garrison moving? Actually trying to cause damage? It was an outrage!

Now, the best part comes when Parthia attacks this settlement not even a turn later with 3 full stacks.

In the front I placed 3 hoplites in hoplite formation, as they would provide a good vanguard there. I also placed my artillery and archers behind them. On the first opening on my left flank, I put two hoplites in the same position. A little further left there was a larger opening where I placed 3 Pontic swordsman. I left my cavalry on the right to rush them out and attempt a Hammer and Anvil. The AI's initial attacking army was lined up outside of the settlement. I thought for sure that they were just going to bum-rush the center. But they didn't.

First off, the enemy melee cavalry held back, along with their general. Secondly, it had two groups. The first that attacked my center, and the second which went around to the flank I had been defending (many of the units were hidden by LoS). With them rode the Archer Cavalry to provide arrow fire! The AI was moving cohesively, and attempting to lure me out.

The center broke fairly quickly, as the AI had delegated more units for the flanking maneuver. As this was happening, the AI's 2nd army was moving towards the flank cohesively in formation. It was a sight for sore eyes. I had taken the AI's bait on the flank by moving one of my hoplites out of formation to attack the archer cav, whom had been pelting them for a while and whittling the hoplites down. At the same time, I felt I should try to take out their general with my cavalry. But no, the cavalry they had held back attacked mine during their charge! The general was not left defenseless!

Long story short, the left flank eventually crumbled and I lost. But it was a damn fun loss. Good job to CA with Patch 14. Also, the AI held it's 3rd army in reserve, knowing it would not need the extra wealth of men for the victory. Overall I am really impressed.

[Totalheadache]

mmm might start playing again....will let u guinea pig some more humble....

I still wish they'd just remove the torches altogether.

I guess you arent using any mods. Think if I start playing again i'd have to stick in a few mods or just dei

but yeah starting to be optimistic. the siege a.i was the real reason I stopped playing...

[Humble Warrior]

Good stuff, IlluminatiRex, wealthmonger,

Strange to think I never thought we`d see the siege AI managing this. In fact, I thought it was impossible by now. I`m still running the Campaign, waiting for more sieges and will post up when they happen. TW games are always a long wait when truly testing and I get the feeling CA don`t bother to test well into a Campaign. So I guess we have to.

mmm might start playing again....will let u guinea pig some more humble....

I still wish they'd just remove the torches altogether.

I guess you arent using any mods. Think if I start playing again i'd have to stick in a few mods or just dei

but yeah starting to be optimistic. the siege a.i was the real reason I stopped playing...

I want torches removed altogether too, for both Player and AI. The AI seems almost ready to work completely without torches and the Human, being far smarter should do too.

I`m not playing with Mods, totally vanilla game for this testing.

p.s. There are some things I`m noticing that are nice ie, weather, CAI armies supporting eachother and some stuff I don`t like- Insta-ship armies and some stupid tv-feed thing in the upper left hand corner. Does it really needed to be shovelled in our face ingame if we don`t want it??? But that`s for another day.

[Hetairos]

Thanks for sharing your experience

[wealthmonger]

I started a Macedon campaign, I let the Odryssians attack Pulpudeva. They sieged for a turn then assaulted with 8 ladders. I sent my mobs out to attack the ladders and they refused to give up the ladders until they were close to wall, allowing my mobs to do decent damage to their Thracian warriors. 7 of the ladders made it to the wall and while I was fighting their Thracian warriors, their ranged units fired on me. After I defeated their melee half their ranged climbed the ladders. At that point I killed their general and the remaining 4 ranged units that didn't climb routed, plus 2 cavalry that stayed back. I took a large number of casualties, leading me to an initial conclusion that I need at least a few regular units in the city to defeat a full stack now. The garrison just isn't good enough when they all come up the ladders.

I defended Pulpudeva a second time against Tylis, they assaulted right away. Pretty close to what happened in the first battle with a few exceptions. They only had 4 ladders so my mobs were able to disrupt them more then the previous battle. After I defeated those 4 units the rest moved up and the majority climbed the ladders. It was nice to have 2 battles where they didn't torch the gate.

I attacked Navissos with Ardiaei reinforcing me. Half the Ardiaei units blobbed in one spot but the other half flanked the part of the enemy force that was outside the capture point. The one complaint I have is that Ardiaei ran to the city so their units were tired by the time they got there and of course they attacked without resting first. I assisted them but they would of won it without my help.

Triballi sieged Pella and kept it under siege. They were taking attrition and I wasn't being in a port city. Two turns later a second Triballi army moves next to Pella and goes into fortify stance. I assume they were attempting to starve me out which is a good improvement but they should've assaulted as soon as the second army arrived. Those couple turns of not attacking gave me time to bring in a relief force. They also had only Navissos at the time so with both armies by Pella they left their one city defended only by the garrison. Overall it's the first real noticeable improvement I've seen with the siege AI. I hope they keep at it.

[Slaists]

Sounds promising and thanks for sharing.

[IlluminatiRex]

I have also noticed the CAI armies working more in Tandem now, at least in my Pontus campaign I've slowly been running the past few patches. I finally declared war on Parthia today, and took one of their settlements, because it appeared undefended.

The next turn 3 stacks appeared and that battle I described up there happened. And when I attacked one of their walled cities, they were actually working to defend the walls, with archer cavalry on the bottom the walls shooting at my men on the walls. This is seriously a step up, and sets a new bar for CA's patches. Truly taking strides in fixes.

Maybe CA will announce that politics overhaul after all?

[Humble Warrior]

Ok, another walled city test. Ligura barbs attacked Roma!

Ligura: 3420 with reinforcements combination of short swords, axe warriors, slingers and two light horse, etc.

Rome (me): 3540 hastati, Rorari, velites, levys.

I placed mostly levies, skirmishers and a few hastati on the walls while most of the hastati I placed on the ground by two gates, the other gate was a possible entry by the enemy reinforcement.

The Ligurians started with 4 ladders this time. The ladders made their way down a narrow causeway towards the main gate`s left walls, slowing down due to getting into each other`s way while the main army stood back. I saw their second reinforcement army approaching my right-hand gate.

The second army headed for the gate and started throwing torches.

The main army`s ladders made it to the walls. The second Ligurian saw this and decided, `Oh the ladders are at the wall!` They abandoned the hippy gate-burning and joined the main army at the ladders.


From that point all went well. It was a desperate fight of me trying to stop the horde getting off the wall, then trying to stop them getting to the centre plaza. There were just too many good troops against my noob soldiers. they got to the plaza and I lost.

Other problems: Quite a lot of blobbing on the walls although it sorted itself out. This caused quite a bit of slowdown during the defence.

Ok, what I got from this is the AI is still a torching addict, but will now cancels if it notices other siege engines are doing the job. The torches need to go completely before I`ll begin to say this is a successful fix. CA has no excuse about `hard-coded` they can unhard code the torches and get rid of them and continuing fixing the game. I smell that this can be done now, don`t screw it up, Creative Assembly!

[DividingSolid]

Since there is a working siege AI then torches should be removed completely since that whole concept doesn't make any sense!

[von stoker]

They cant remove the torches because a naval fleet assaulting a city has no way of breaking the gates. I think I'm right that naval fleets cant land and besiege.

[simplemind07]

So it seems like the reinforcement army is the one that need fine tuning. To me it seems like the AI army WITH siege equipment will behave correctly, but the the AI (reinforcement army) without the equipment will still use torch because they didn't have one to begin with so they will use torches as a last result, but as soon as the AI with the equipment has sieges on the walls, the reinforcement AI will negate their torching effort and use the siege equipment.

[Humble Warrior]

So it seems like the reinforcement army is the one that need fine tuning. To me it seems like the AI army WITH siege equipment will behave correctly, but the the AI (reinforcement army) without the equipment will still use torch because they didn't have one to begin with so they will use torches as a last result, but as soon as the AI with the equipment has sieges on the walls, the reinforcement AI will negate their torching effort and use the siege equipment.

Correct. This seems like an easy enough fix to me. Just give the reinforcement army the wheeled ladders and have the cavalry wait. Or have the wheeled ladders start by the General (or unit that can`t siege) and have the reinforcements go pick it up. Something like that.

They cant remove the torches because a naval fleet assaulting a city has no way of breaking the gates. I think I'm right that naval fleets cant land and besiege.

Anyway, I haven`t had a naval invasion yet, but that is a valid point. Now if there is already an enemy army on the field with the invading ships just give that land army siege weapons.

If it`s a total navy invasion with no land units against a walled city then I`d say have a couple of ballista ships that can fire long range at the walls while the soldiers disembark? This should bring down a part of the wall, allowing for an attack. If these ships are destroyed or run out of ammo, the siege is stopped and next turn becomes a normal LAND siege with ladders.

That`s just off the top of my head. I may think of something better though I would hope CA would do that seeing as they`re professionals which they always love telling us.

[Totalheadache]

Yeah can you test some naval invasions.

Can you do a custom naval landing for carthage and tell me what happens?

p.s cant test atm. (well maybe will get around to it at some point).

for me the a.i bugged out and they milled about not doing anything not to mention pathfinding and horrendous slow down..

[Humble Warrior]

Yeah can you test some naval invasions.

Can you do a custom naval landing for carthage and tell me what happens?

p.s cant test atm. (well maybe will get around to it at some point).

for me the a.i bugged out and they milled about not doing anything not to mention pathfinding and horrendous slow down..

OK, I did two.

I chose 10 invasion ships for the AI including two ballista ships. they moved round and up on the beaches of Carthage fine. Unfortunately i had chosen the small Carthage map which has gaps in the wall! So the AI just strode in. However, i noticed two of the armies were stuck on the beach with the ships. They never moved off. bugged.

On the rerun I chose the biggest Carthage map which has no gaps. Gave the AI 10 ships plus two ballista ships. The AI beached their ships fine and came off fine this time. The soldiers threw torches at obviously very iron gates! I totally hate that! Geez.

The thing is, the two ballista ships I gave the AI easily had the range to fire at the walls and make a much more realistic breach without risking its men! CA needs to rethink this to give naval invasion AI a free ballista or scorpion boat for walled cities and do away with torches.

[DividingSolid]

OK, I did two.

I chose 10 invasion ships for the AI including two ballista ships. they moved round and up on the beaches of Carthage fine. Unfortunately i had chosen the small Carthage map which has gaps in the wall! So the AI just strode in. However, i noticed two of the armies were stuck on the beach with the ships. They never moved off. bugged.

On the rerun I chose the biggest Carthage map which has no gaps. Gave the AI 10 ships plus two ballista ships. The AI beached their ships fine and came off fine this time. The soldiers threw torches at obviously very iron gates! I totally hate that! Geez.

The thing is, the two ballista ships I gave the AI easily had the range to fire at the walls and make a much more realistic breach without risking its men! CA needs to rethink this to give naval invasion AI a free ballista or scorpion boat for walled cities and do away with torches.

I would like to see a ship carrying a battering ram. In fact I think that the default siege equipment should be a battering ram and not ladders.

[revan.be]

Why even have purely naval landings at walled cities really?, they are completely unrealistic imo,
and would be better off being removed and replaced with the troops on the boats (or half of the force, or as chosen by player in deployment)
spawning (a deployment zone on the beach) on the beach with their boats already beached , and siege equipment given the same as in normal siege.

The idea being that the campaign fleet would be able to build siege equipment just like land army's,
but when the battle starts it appears near the beaches away from the city in its own deployment zone preferably.
(excuse for it: 1-year turns allowing landing around the city to chop trees and build ladders
and the navy sending for merchant ships to deliver stuff)

When did a blockading force ever invade a walled city purely from their ships ,
without first landing and building the necessary equipment to get over the walls ?

One could argue they could try just sail into port irl,
although ports are both too small , and pathfinding and landing zones in port are insufficient for a naval landing to port to succeed like that in-game.
Besides any settlement at war could prevent that with some tactics like chains or somesuch.

In the unpatched ROME2 prologue campaign , day 1 i could even move my navy onto the land in the campaign map as a small army,
it litterally turned into a general model ,
and i think the prelease video 'Radious breaks rome 2 prologue' even has that on video ,
though i could be mistaken on that happening in the video.

[Humble Warrior]

To be honest I`m ready to accept any reasonable idea as long as its more realistic than stupid torches. Unfortunately I`m not CA...

This torch thing is something that could be forgiven were it a first game of CA, but... ah, forget it. It`s been said before. lol.

[DeliCiousTZM]

Land armies could be given a ram as default just like the ladders. Torches will still be needed for naval invasion but that is just fine. No reason to do away with torches for any reason, just make the AI low prioritize the usage.

[revan.be]

Well, i'd say historic accuracy would be a good reason,
having it be replaced by another stop-gap measure if it comes to needing that would be fine really.

Rome Total Realism 2 made them into oil jugs,
though an actual ramming animation with an unprotected hand ram would be better. (for immersion)