Hard to get good battles?

[Vaxx]

I am at around turn 120ish, and it seems a lot of my campaign time is spent either A. fighting ridiculous lopsided battles (4 stacks against my one), B. Attacking undefended settlements/cities, or C. Playing chess trying to chase down and corner a same sized enemy army.

Don't get my wrong, Attila is fun, and I love a lot of things about it, but it seems hard to have an even close in numbers type battle. It seems an enemy either has to have 3+ stack to fight, or runs away if its even. I have not even defended a settlement yet with anything aside from the garrison troops. Not even with 4 stacks outside will the enemy attack with 15/20 army in the settlement.

Is this normal for anyone else? If these AI issues were fixed, it would be amazing.

[Slaists]

In the campaign, you tend to get one-sided battles: skewed either in the player's or the AI's favor.

For fair battles, go to multiplayer

[Aeratus]

If the enemy has 4 stacks, then bring 4 stacks of your own, and challenge them to a battle of 4 stacks vs 4 stacks!

[Vaxx]

In the campaign, you tend to get one-sided battles: skewed either in the player's or the AI's favor.

For fair battles, go to multiplayer

Naw, only a SP kind of guy. Unless I find a decent person to do a coop. But that still does not solve the issues

If the enemy has 4 stacks, then bring 4 stacks of your own, and challenge them to a battle of 4 stacks vs 4 stacks!

They will run. Tried it. Even a 3 v 4. Its getting annoying.

[DisgruntledGoat]

It is something that I have noticed as well. The AI will run away from a single full stack of mine if they do not have more than one stack available. Even if that second stack is only a general and two units they will not approach unless that second stack is around.

I've even seen the AI abandon settlements as I approach with a full stack. Meanwhile if they had garrisoned the army in the settlement I would have had a difficult time of keeping my losses down. It seems that the AI prefers to counter attack when they have equal or less men and will attack only when they have more men.

[Vaxx]

It is something that I have noticed as well. The AI will run away from a single full stack of mine if they do not have more than one stack available. Even if that second stack is only a general and two units they will not approach unless that second stack is around.

I've even seen the AI abandon settlements as I approach with a full stack. Meanwhile if they had garrisoned the army in the settlement I would have had a difficult time of keeping my losses down. It seems that the AI prefers to counter attack when they have equal or less men and will attack only when they have more men.

Exactly. Its odd and sometimes very annoying, especially when you are looking for a "good" fight. The lopsidedness needs to be addressed.

[barry12]

I believe the crux of your problem is the campaign AI, correct? This whole situation would be remedied if the campaign AI knew how to adequately build, defend and maintain its own empire, and by proxy, how to respond to what the human player does.

I have essentially the same issues as you, all my battles are 4:1 in enemy's favour (which I love, because my favorite battles involve waves upon waves of enemies being crushed against my elite legion) or undefended sieges. I have yet to see the campaign AI attack my cities without the use of mods, and even with those enabled, it is a rare occasion.

Right now I wouldn't be surprised if the AI code reads: “

If army y = 3 x stronger than army “x”
attack
else:
don’t attack”.

[Totalheadache]

Also due to the distances armies can move and the space in between settlements you are very rarely going to get a pitched battle.

90% of my battles have been sieges...otherwise when I have fought it has been fun.

Needs changing asap.

[Generaal Van Heutsz]

Also due to the distances armies can move and the space in between settlements you are very rarely going to get a pitched battle.

90% of my battles have been sieges...otherwise when I have fought it has been fun.

Needs changing asap.

They should change that military presence in a settlement will give a public order penalty whereas one in the province a bonus, so you will get more pitched battles instead of endless sieges.

[DisgruntledGoat]

They should change that military presence in a settlement will give a public order penalty whereas one in the province a bonus, so you will get more pitched battles instead of endless sieges.

Good idea. I would also like the ability to modify the base settlement garrison for cash. I.e. Recruit units into the settlement garrison for a reduced upkeep cost meaning I or the AI wouldn't have to station an army in the settlement to get public order bonuses. I find that I am recruiting armies to be used exclusively as garrisons which I dislike.

[Totalheadache]

They should change that military presence in a settlement will give a public order penalty whereas one in the province a bonus, so you will get more pitched battles instead of endless sieges.

Nope I dont like this idea. Because then you would fortify and you'd be defending a weaker version of your settlement.

Why should an army in a city necessarily be a penalty? I agree you should need the right requirements to feed them.

Perhaps a better idea is to start giving them penalties for lack of action but then again surely in a city you would have facilities to train your men.

I think the answer lies in CA changing the map and how big settlements appear on the map. Increase the distance between settlements and voila more pitched battles.

Settlements are 2 big on the map.

In fact generally I think the game needs to be smaller generally. Reducing the size of units as well would help performance. I still think you could make them detailed enough.

[Slaists]

Well, you can catch AI armies by using your spy to rob them of move points. With a successful crit you can stop them altogether.

[Humble Warrior]

I autoresolve so many battles (usually sieges) because either it`s a no win or easy win. I actually got bored of it.

Then I actually had a field battle, where the AI didn`t run away for a change, and had a pretty damn good battle where the AI gave me a bit of a tactical battle. It was touch and go. A rare occurrence.

[RGA]

I am at around turn 120ish, and it seems a lot of my campaign time is spent either A. fighting ridiculous lopsided battles (4 stacks against my one), B. Attacking undefended settlements/cities, or C. Playing chess trying to chase down and corner a same sized enemy army.

Don't get my wrong, Attila is fun, and I love a lot of things about it, but it seems hard to have an even close in numbers type battle. It seems an enemy either has to have 3+ stack to fight, or runs away if its even. I have not even defended a settlement yet with anything aside from the garrison troops. Not even with 4 stacks outside will the enemy attack with 15/20 army in the settlement.

Is this normal for anyone else? If these AI issues were fixed, it would be amazing.

This is a common problem in Rome 2 already, though not as severe as in Attila. I believe it could be fixed by tampering with some auto-resolve parameters, which basically tricks AI into thinking that it stands a good chance of winning.

Attila seems to be pretty unbalanced at the moment. AI tends to underestimate its own strength and thus like to concentrate all of its stacks at one place, leaving the whole realm undefended.

[Vaxx]

This is a common problem in Rome 2 already, though not as severe as in Attila. I believe it could be fixed by tampering with some auto-resolve parameters, which basically tricks AI into thinking that it stands a good chance of winning.

Attila seems to be pretty unbalanced at the moment. AI tends to underestimate its own strength and thus like to concentrate all of its stacks at one place, leaving the whole realm undefended.

Strange, I didn't have much of an issue in RII with it. Then again I only played with Radious, so not sure of that has anything to do with it. Well besides enemies hardly ever attacking my areas.

That makes total sense....the AI underestimating its strength. I wonder if that would solve the issue because it sure sounds logical why it behaves that way. Unfortunately I didn't see anything in the patch notes next week about it. Ahh well. Maybe something that can be modded? I would rather have suicidal AI than OVERPOWER/UNDERPOWER AI.

[Gwayn]

So much time spent building, very little time fighting. Start, grab undefended Roman cities, build a decently-sized empire, turtle, develop
your economy, bribe important factions once imperium gets in your way, wait and prepare for Attila. Good thing my allies decided to
declare war on the Jutes otherwise I would have already quit campaign.

[Huberto]

I am at around turn 120ish, and it seems a lot of my campaign time is spent either A. fighting ridiculous lopsided battles (4 stacks against my one), B. Attacking undefended settlements/cities, or C. Playing chess trying to chase down and corner a same sized enemy army.

This is Attila's military campaign, except you left out defending undefended settlements/cities.

[econ21]

The AI will not run from you if your armies are of equal power. It's probably that while your armies are of the same size, your troops are higher quality. Looking at the prebattle yellow/red orange balance of advantage line, my WRE armies typically outmatch equal sized AI ones (Huns excepted). If anything the AI is over-optimistic and doesn't realise how much better a player is on the battle map even with equal forces. OP, it may just be that at turn 120 you've passed the tipping point in your campaign and outmatch the AI.

I haven't found evading AI armies a big problem - a stack can only retreat once and it can't retreat far, so you should be able to catch it. Especially, if you go for the +20% campaign move speed general skill and similar bonuses. It adds some strategy to the campaign map, trying to corner inferior armies (e.g you might want to spread multiple armies along the border, not rely on one clump of stacks of doom).

It's smart that the AI tries to evade combat if it is outmatched. Attila's CAI seems smarter than in many earlier TW games - it seems to group up stacks and evade more.

It also seems historical - "good battles" were the exceptions, more often there would be manoeuvring for advantage in the field and prolonged sieges.

I only really find evasive AI a problem at sea, as my admirals are lower rank so don't have the +20% speed, and the AI is freer to retreat without exposing its settlements. My solution is to turn my experienced generals (with the +20% campaign speed skill, vanguard) into admirals. Once your navy has won a couple of battles, you can unlock the naval tradition for another +20% map speed.