Victory Points & the AI [rant]

**TheRazaman** · January 22, 2015, 08:51 AM

The BAI is ridiculously frustrating. When they attack a city they will immediately converge on the victory point, and if your army is elsewhere in a more defensible position, the AI will attack it with single or maybe a couple of units at a time. They repeat until a handful of units remain and then forfeit the battle.

Fort battles. I've NEVER seen the AI utilize their fort during a battle. They set them up in fairly decent locations (VH CAI anyways) but the BAI will immediately run out of their fort like gangbusters and get slaughtered.

Sieges. The rebalancing DeI has done to these is great, giving the AI a fighting chance. If I siege a provincial capital, the balance is heavily in the AI favor on turn 1. Yet, again with BAI brilliance, they SALLY FORTH on their first turn under siege and get obliterated. Be it if my army is Rome heavy infantry or Parthia horse archer horde, which has no chance to take a walled settlement by force. It's ludicrous.

I fully understand that this is a CA problem. My only question is this: Would re-implementing Victory Points help alleviate this? I know that we, as the player, can simply setup ourselves within the VP's of cities to prevent cheesing the AI. But with forts its literally impossible as they vacate them immediately. And, perhaps, it would entice them to stay within their walls instead of sallying forth to "fight [and die] in the shade."
And yes, VPs realistically make little sense (see Marcellus' siege of Syracuse). But for gameplay considerations they could outbalance the realism perspective.

Every time the BAI pulls one of its dumb maneuvers this scene flashes in my mind:

/rant

**KAM 2150** · January 22, 2015, 11:14 AM

In my experience with forst battles, AI does pretty well, never moves out of fort unless they have big advantage. They block all entrances and move units instantly into any breach made in the wall.

**Ritterlichvon86** · January 22, 2015, 11:18 AM

I have observed the same as KAM.

Then, I can't resist to ask the OP in my direct German manner, why are you ranting here? The AI is made by CA, and hardcoded (*). The right address to raise your concerns is here: http://forums.totalwar.com/

Sorry mate, but I don't want you to be wasting energy without getting anywhere. And I believe it is wrong to vent your anger on people that are not, and cannot be responsible for it.

(*) This means that no change whatsoever affects the battle tactics and strategy of the AI on the battlefield. Only making battles faster makes it more dangerous indirectly, as the player will have a shorter time interval for the same amount of decisions.

**TheRazaman** · January 22, 2015, 12:10 PM

Right, that's why I was asking if reactivating VPs would cause the AI to stay in their cities/forts. I mentioned that I'm aware DeI has little to do with AI behavior. Phrased another way from my original post, could deactivating the VPs have had any unintended consequences, such as illiciting this behavior from the BAI?

Try any fort/siege as a horse archer faction. The AI will always Sally Forth even from walled cities, and immediately leave their forts.
Later today I'll go ahead and try those scenarios with Vanilla for comparison sake.

**Augustusng** · January 22, 2015, 12:17 PM

The AI will always sally from forts if you have missile superiority (if you bring artillery definitely), but I've never seen them do it in a walled city battle. If VPs were reactivated in forts, I assume that the AI would just sit there and let you bombard them with your artillery. Walled cities still have VPs - though only one is important now, not all three.

**Alexandre Lange** · January 22, 2015, 01:31 PM

AI stays at their forts for me too. And, if I have archers with fire arrows, this is all I want: I just burn down the two front towers, the front walls, and keep firing over them until they realise (after lose like half their force) they need to come out to fight. So, they meet my force at full strengh and get destroyed. Always the same.

**Ivan_Moscavich** · January 22, 2015, 04:54 PM

I've only had the BAI run out of a fort if I have huge missile superiority, in which case the ai will charge at me rather than sit there and die to missile fire. Which is at least a more intelligent choice than just sitting and getting picked off.

If I don't have missile superiority, they will dig in at the entrances of the fort and I have to go in and get them.

Like Alexandre, I've recently started using archers to burn down the front two palisades, as well as the towers on the side I'm attacking before moving in. Occasionally the AI will move to attack as soon as they lose the towers.

In city siege battles (at least when the ai pathfinding bug isn't making the game slow down to 1 frame every 5 seconds), they generally try to engage my forces at the walls and near them, waiting to break through before going for the victory point. In which case is odd, because you can still lose a major city battle by losing the main vp.

In small town battles, such as say appolonia. I just move all my forces onto that little peninsula at the south and set of a very good defensive position. The AI first rushes the cap, takes it, and then, having achieved the capture point will try to attack my defensive line. Letting me engage them on my terms.
But I definitely notice them making a beeline for the flag (perhaps because no enemy units are between them and the flag, or just because the "HEY, FLAG!" mentallity of the ai).

**TheRazaman** · January 22, 2015, 05:53 PM

Thanks for the answers. I didn't realize they would always Sally if we had missile superiority. You'd think CA would disable that strat when the players missiles are all HA's and thus of lesser range than the slingers, foot archers (and when the AI was behind walls). One would also think they'd have an xyz-coordinate system on each map so that the BAI could make better decisions. I suppose I was too pollyannish about CAs motives. C'est la vie...