Does anyone else find battles easy with how tanky units are?

[Sharpe_116]

To preface I love this mod, a lot. It makes Rome 2 playable for me and I don't mean this post to be a rant but more so an intelligent discussion of the nuances of Rome 2's battle AI in combination with DEI's extended battle times, and how the two interact with each other. In my opinion they don't really play very nicely with each other, and here's why i think they don't.

I've been wondering, does anyone else find that the extended battle time makes the game too easy? I don't mean to say the mod is easy as a whole, the campaign can be very difficult. What i mean to say Is actual equal-playing field battles are too easy. Let me explain

Vanilla rome 2's balance i personally feel is not bad, I don't feel as if i can steam roll the AI because top tier Units are pretty well balanced and oathsworn for example, or other high level sword units do pose a threat to my main battle line in the sense that if the cavalry/flank fights drag on, i run the risk of losing my center, but in DEI, its the combination of battle length and battle AI (Which i know can not be changed and not DEI's fault) that make battles sort of easy peasy.

What i mean is, because battles last SO much longer now, and the AI isn't particularly bright in the sense that it usually just makes a B-line for the center of my line, i feel like i can never lose. Units take so long to die that its not really possible for my line to break before my flanks are in position for rear charges, i've never ever seen it happen, even on very hard battle difficulty in custom battles, the units are SO tanky that they just take forever to break.

So since my lines are so robust, in combination with the AI being nearly brain dead and barely posing a challenge to my flanks, almost every single battle plays out the same. The AI charges my main line en-masse, my main line can hold until the end of time because units are tanky as , and i can take as long as i want to set up rear flanking action with little to no response from the ai. Essentially, I feel unbeatable. The only time i ever lose is when the Campaign ai (Which is pretty decent) Outnumbers me by a lot. I haven't even mentioned hoplites Which i feel are completely over powered NOT because the unit itself is overpowered, but because the AI never flanks me. The mod makes hoplites super strong from the front (as they should be) but the AI never flanks my hoplites making them god-tier. Their only weakness is never exploited by the AI making them comically powerful.

Essentially what I'm saying is that i feel the tankiness of units sort of handicaps the AI, because the AI isn't intelligent enough to actually perform scary tactical maneuvers. In vanilla the AI can win because my main line can break if i don't get to flank charges fast enough, but the tankiness of DEI units renders that point completely moot because your main can last for 20 minutes just slogging it out. Sure you're main line may eventually break, but it'l take 15-20 minutes, and the AI never really does anything to give itself an advantage, it just fights my main line head on, leaving me enough time to have a coffee break, berate my cat for being a lazy waste of space, and come back with enough time to line up cavalry charges to demolish the enemy morale and win. I suppose my gripe isn't with DEI, but with the AI not being challenging enough when i have SO much time at my disposal to defeat it. All this again isn't even taking hoplites into consideration, which i must mentioned again, are indestructible against AI because the AI doesn't flank -_-

How do you guys feel about this? Anyone feel the same way as me? Disagree? I'm curious to know, especially if you disagree with me, I'd love it if someone could come in here and tell me i'm a fool and i'm wrong(but be sure to tell me why =))!

[Ritterlichvon86]

You're right. But, to enhance your comment, the BAI is always bad, also in vanilla. It is true that it's quality shows worse in DeI due to longer battle times. In vanilla, the player just needs quicker reactions, so fighting the BAI becomes more challenging.

That's why I mostly play MPCs only. When it was true for vanilla, it is even truer (which is not a word) in DeI.

[Sharpe_116]

You're right. But, to enhance your comment, the BAI is always bad, also in vanilla. It is true that it's quality shows worse in DeI due to longer battle times. In vanilla, the player just needs quicker reactions, so fighting the BAI becomes more challenging.

That's why I mostly play MPCs only. When it was true for vanilla, it is even truer (which is not a word) in DeI.

Well that's exactly my point, the BAI was always bad, but since units break more quickly in vanilla, it actually makes the AI seem dangerous at times. DEI eliminates that threat.

[Alexandre Lange]

Try to lower the unit size. You have less time to react when you have less rows to hold your lines. Besides, if you know that AI is dumb and you always win doing the same, be 'less smart' and try something different. Don't make full stacks, for exemple; you don't really need it. So, take the challenge, and save money! Maybe you discover other creative ways to win and find some fun.

[Sharpe_116]

Try to lower the unit size. You have less time to react when you have less rows to hold your lines. Besides, if you know that AI is dumb and you always win doing the same, be 'less smart' and try something different. Don't make full stacks, for exemple; you don't really need it. So, take the challenge, and save money! Maybe you discover other creative ways to win and find some fun.

Does it really work like that? Does decreasing unit size speed up battles? I thought it would just modify kill count by the correct factors to maintain the same battle speed

[HarkonRules]

Does it really work like that? Does decreasing unit size speed up battles? I thought it would just modify kill count by the correct factors to maintain the same battle speed

Lol, yeah, decreasing unit size speeds up battles overall. Units always have the same stats... It's just a matter of number of soldiers. So the more you have, the longer it will take for them to take significant % of casualties to really shatter morale, too.

[VektorT]

I agree, but things really goes differently for barbarians factions. Playing Geate even in a great battle of me, I hardly will walk aways withs just some dozens of loses since my units lacks the tanky capabilities of the roman-hellenic factions. When by any miracle the AI do use some "wing" units or put some infantry on the reserve, it happens a lot of my units not being able to break their flank forces before my center units starts to rout. Of course it changes if I'm using only elite like units or the AI have crap units, but I felt the barbarian battles much more interesting than the hellenic ones because of that. Hoplitaes in headon combat without any external influence can last for thirty minutes even if one of them is elite and the other a "regular" one. With barbaric factions, the kill rate is much faster and if the AI do make a good move on the wings, you may lose or win the center before the sides. It's a very fun and different feeling from the hellenic one.

The main problem to me seens that when my untis makes the first melee contact with the AI untis, the AI seens to forget all of his tactics and just rush to melee. Units far away arrives tired, units on reserve charges the nearest unit even so another a another battallion already is there, center units starts to blob and they left their flanks unguarded. It's especially easy in defensive sieges when the AI just blob all their units against a defensive line giving me time to maneuver units all the way around the city to just face skirmishers and shot things at their backs. That way is very easily to win against a full stack even if only with your garrison. The only time the AI didn't blobbed at my defensive line and, I thought, would attack in two different waves effectivelly killing me since I spent all my javellins in the first wave, half of their army AI just broke outside the town, dont moving at all until the time counter runned over and I won...

[ra2z]

The Ai is always pulling troops from the main line to contront my infantry skirmishes and cavalry when i attempt to flank from behind and they will also attempt to keep some of my flanking units bogged down before our 2 lines colide if they do notice them, BAI in my campaign are reacting better than i have seen before. And also, if they have enough infantry they will put 1-2 extra units of infantry units on there far left and right flanks, but the biggest issue i am currently having is that if i use 1 skirmish infantry to attack there front line they will begin the fight instead of staying and defending resulting in them attacking me when i have a terrian advatange.

[VektorT]

The Ai is always pulling troops from the main line to contront my infantry skirmishes and cavalry when i attempt to flank from behind and they will also attempt to keep some of my flanking units bogged down before our 2 lines colide if they do notice them, BAI in my campaign are reacting better than i have seen before. And also, if they have enough infantry they will put 1-2 extra units of infantry units on there far left and right flanks, but the biggest issue i am currently having is that if i use 1 skirmish infantry to attack there front line they will begin the fight instead of staying and defending resulting in them attacking me when i have a terrian advatange.

Kinda true, but not much. For example: I usually have a long line of tough guys like phalanx in front of my army and my flankers are direct behind that. When the enemy starts to engage my front line, my flankers run around it only facing the enemy skirmishers in their way and engage the enemy blob from behind. If you dont have wing units actually in your wings before the contact, the AI almost keep any unit at their reserves to counter flanking forces. It usually only happens when I charge their skirmishers early on with my cav and they send some units to catch my cav and, at the point the clash occur and my flaking forces starts to flank, the unit behind my cav tries to to counter the flank.

Only now playing with Macedonia I started to alway put a hoplite unit at the point of my long front line phalanxes. It never happened before, but in my last battle against Athens (their army was 2x bigger than mine) the AI actually moved some units through my flank and charged my phalanx from their sides before I could stop them. I countered their move but not in time, my phalanx unit suffered heavy loses and routed, when they routed, the enemy in front of them engaged the sides of the nearest phalanx, routing it too. The domino effect only stopped when I was able to run one of my hoplitaes to hold the flank of the third phalanx of this side, stabilizing the situation.

It was not exactly a smart move from the AI, it's just a very basic and foreseeable move against phalanx lines that I most of the times dont care to prevent since the AI never does it. I think the whole thing was a coincidence and the AI flanking forces was going after my cav behind my lines who charged their levys and runned to safity, but when they came next to my front line, they just changed their target. If the AI army wasn't filled with levies my front line could have melted. I backstabbed Athens, most of their forces are in Asia Minor sidding with Pontus against other enemies.

By the way it's being a very interesting gameplay. I allied with many hellenic factions early own and after some time they started to ally amoung themselfs forming a huge hellenic league who was able to totally split Asia Minor amoung Pergamon/Pontus/Athens and destroy Selleucid faction. I now created a rift in this league since Pergamon and other minors joined me, while Pontus, the biggest of all, joined Athens.

[KAM 2150]

I already decreased a bit overal battle time compared to pre 1.0 versions. There are always faster battles submods so use them if you find battles to long/easy. It also depends on nation you use, some are just more keen for faster/longers battles.


Check our submod forum for my faster battles submods, there are few versions to pick, depending on speed you want. I would go with Faster Battles 2.0.

[Sharpe_116]

I already decreased a bit overal battle time compared to pre 1.0 versions. There are always faster battles submods so use them if you find battles to long/easy. It also depends on nation you use, some are just more keen for faster/longers battles.


Check our submod forum for my faster battles submods, there are few versions to pick, depending on speed you want. I would go with Faster Battles 2.0.

Ouh thank you, I didn't know these existed =)

[KAM 2150]

AI flanking is indeed tricky thing. Sometimes they send to much troops to chargé from the flank, sometimes they do not even try to do it while having more units then the player.

[Sharpe_116]

AI flanking is indeed tricky thing. Sometimes they send to much troops to chargé from the flank, sometimes they do not even try to do it while having more units then the player.

Indeed, theres not much you guys can do about it, if anything at all. Let's hope one day CA will release a game with AI intelligent enough to positively compliment the amazing DEI mod team. Until then I'll be trying a roleplay Rome campaign using weaker auxiliaries mixed in with my roman legions to see if I can even the playing field =)

[Chinaski]

The hoplites are indeed a little too good as an anvil, ditch them. Try instead to hold you main line with levies and militia units. It might be more historically correct (depending on the faction), and a bit more challenging. Your line will break in some spots, fairly quickly against elite units. You then need to keep some better units in reserve behind your main line, to patch the holes, and battles are a bit more exciting.

[RollingWave]

R2TW BAI is already significantly better than the previous incarnations, but really, if one day there is a BAI that really statisfy everyone we should probably worry about Skynet

But yes, the Hellenic factions have a huge advantage in this, especially when it comes to settlement defense, I basically beat a whole army with 5 civilian militia hoplite and 5 slinger / archer once.

[sausageson]

I have to agree I have time to line up units on their flanks perfectly. Sometimes I let my dudes throw all their pila while the ai just stands there getting tanked by my frontline. While this makes the battles more tactical the ai is handicapped by it. My main gripe is sieges, They are just an awful grind. In non wallled settlements the ai has such a large garrison that it clogs every street making them hard to flank. Thus my units have to grind them down until the battle is won. There is no strategy, and its the same battle everytime. I dont even lose many guys it just takes a long time because the fights go on for so long despite the ai using garrison trash and im using imperial legionaires. Walled cities are even worse. Again the ai has to be grinded down again but because only a few units can engage each other on the walls the battles go for way too long. Normally in a total war settlement I would not assault the city if it had that many soldiers in it but with the default garrison you have to. Normally when it comes to assault a city I just get a bunch of stacks and autoresolve.

[HarkonRules]

One thing I really like about the AI is that enemy cav is RUTHLESS towards my foot ranged units. They see a vulnerability due to overextension or distraction of mine, you can bet they're about to charge the poor guys and make them shatter in a few seconds. They're usually adequately competent at flanking me.

[VektorT]

One thing I really like about the AI is that enemy cav is RUTHLESS towards my foot ranged units. They see a vulnerability due to overextension or distraction of mine, you can bet they're about to charge the poor guys and make them shatter in a few seconds. They're usually adequately competent at flanking me.

Well... with me the enemy general cav charge headon my phalangitaes... the only cav unit the AI seens to have a mind of how to use is the skirmisher ones, but mainly because they auto retreat to avoid contact.
Really, even in some Medieval Total War 2 mods the AI for cavs are better and they never charge headon against pikes and spears.

[KAM 2150]

Yes, BAI developed by Germanicus is propably by far the best BAI we had chance to see in TW games. Cavalry was mostly flanking and focusing on taking down players cavalry, AI was always holding some units in reserve or if needed even pulled back some units to protect rear, general bodyguard cav was always roaming behind his troops to counter all flanking manouvers...and this AI is much older then what we have in Rome 2.

[VektorT]

Yes, BAI developed by Germanicus is propably by far the best BAI we had chance to see in TW games. Cavalry was mostly flanking and focusing on taking down players cavalry, AI was always holding some units in reserve or if needed even pulled back some units to protect rear, general bodyguard cav was always roaming behind his troops to counter all flanking manouvers...and this AI is much older then what we have in Rome 2.

CA should be ashamed of themselfs for releasing a BAI like that for Rome2 while modders of an almost 10 years older TW game did a much better BAI ages ago.
Really... I still get pissed off every time I talk about the flaws of Rome2. If it wasn't for DeI... I already call you guys, DeI devs, wizards for what you did to this game, but unfortunately you guys are coding wizards, not time wizards to go back in time and totally fix Rome2 since it most basic development problems and mistakes.