"Come at me bro"....please....

[Ireland]

I have been really enjoying playing Attila but I have been running into a rather frustrating problem. I enjoy playing a defensive campaign. Those are my favorite battles. So I will on purpose get a stronghold with a full stack out near the Hun's forces. They won't even come into my area. I'm playing as the ebdanians and they won't seem to push onto the islands so that's why I have made a few strongholds farther out. Every turn they just move back and forth in neighboring provinces.

Anyone else have this problem? Or any have tips for how to get them to come after me harder? Maybe save game compatible mods. I'm playing on very hard. Has any seen them come onto the English mainland?

[shirepartial]

Think they are programmed to head for the WRE - Roma.

I managed to get them to attack my Saxons but never british isles, will be very very late game if they do I think.

Go take the settlement directly north of Roma if you can, then WRE & Huns will come at you.

Doubt anything but a 4 stack army will attack a main city with your army sitting in it, its just suicide..

[Slaists]

The AI will avoid your settlements if you have a full stack in there. Try reducing the stack size if you want the AI to come.

[surg3on]

The AI will avoid your settlements if you have a full stack in there. Try reducing the stack size if you want the AI to come.

Cant say I've ever siege attacked a walled settlement with a full stack in it either. Starved em out plenty of times. AI just being reasonable

[Bramborough]

Over 4 campaigns as various factions, I've never seen the Huns attack a minor settlement with a full-size stack sitting in it. For that matter, I don't think I've ever seen them attack/besiege a walled city at all, even if defended by garrison only.

That's not necessarily true of other factions though. I've had army-defended minor settlements attacked by Roman-offshoots (Septimania, I think it was) and Sassanids. But that's just the towns though; in 250+ hrs of Attila play, I have yet to defend a walled city in actual battle (as opposed to the temporary unsuccessful siege), against anybody.

This has been on Normal difficulty. Higher than that, I guess YMMV. Judging from what I see many others post, however, AI reticence (especially Huns) to attack well-defended and/or walled settlements seems common regardless of difficulty.

[AnonMilwaukean]

I've seen the Huns sail the Mediterranean Sea to attack islands in it held by the WRE, but I've never, ever seen them hit the Geats on the tip of Sweden, or hit the Celts of Britannia.

And as others have said, the AI seems to generally avoid attacking settlements that have a full stack army in them.

My suggestion, right now, is to use rivers. While the AI has major qualms about attacking settlements with full stacks in them, it has no problem at all attacking across rivers against a single full stack. And in such cases, often it's easy to hold them at one crossing while your cavalry go around, cross the other, and hit them in the flanks and rear. So long as you have siege units or enough ranged fire, they often come straight at you without considering your cavalry coming from the other ford.

Seriously, river defenses sometimes give me heroic victories from having multiple AI stacks basically dog-pile into one ford of the river while cavalry time and again crosses the other ford to hit the rear.

[The Dude]

AI does this no matter the faction. I took Anatolia from the Sassanids as WRE just by gaming them. Eventually made it up to Cappadocia from Constantinople without fighting even a single battle. They will camp three, four, sometimes five armies near your settlement, so you use that stack to keep them there while another moves around and snatches a new town just out of their range of operation, prompting them to relocate and do nothing, because by the time they get there I'll have repaired the place.

It's completely boring, and it's something that CA has to fix.