I am really puzzled with this, having just defeated Hannibals starved, depleted, broken army for the third time with the combined armies of Varro and Paullus. Yes, Varro and Paullus, the losers at real Cannae. At least he is good at running away from a battle after a round or two, but that is it.
I am playing the Second Punic war scenario that starts in 218. While Hannibal starts with a very strong army in Cisalpine Gaul, He does little except roam around Cisalpina, besieging cities. I avoided him at first. Once I joined the two consular armies, I offered him battle by moving in range of his army, but he never attacked. In 216, deciding to do a little role playing, I attacked his army, which contained many units, in a hilly area. I expected to be seriously defeated with my lousy leaders. Instead, I learned that his many units were seriously depleted, out of supply, and my two consular armies outnumbered him at least five to one. He ran away after one round of combat, taking only a few hits, yet lost a number of elements. The last two battle have been the same. My losses were insignificant.
Something is seriously wrong here. This bears no resemblance at all to the second Punic War. I have played all Ageod games, starting with BOA, but I have never seen a good AI commander let his army get into such sad shape, without fighting a single battle. He has great ratings, but that means nothing if he cannot supply and maintain his army, something the real Hannibal did for fifteen years.
I invite the developers to comment and take a look at the situation, as I feel something is seriously wrong and needs fixing.
PhilThib wrote:So what you are saying is that Hannibal "AI" never went down the boot to Italy proper, and stayed in Cisalpina to slowly starve with the Barbarians?
It seems to me some AI "incitement" is thus missing to 'force' the Carthaginian AI to go south...
Yes, Philippe, that is exactly what happened. Hannibal never even tried to leave the north, even when I had no forces there except small city garrisons. By the time I attacked him, his army was so depleted that the only thing they could do was run away. And I should mention, that prior to my attacking them, they had not fought a single battle or stormed a single city.
TJD wrote:I'd suggest too that you ramp up the AI to maximum and do the same for the AI Aggressiveness rating. But Searry is right, a PBEM match will give you a much more interesting challenge.
I do give the AI more time, and moderate advantages. But I have had great games playing against the AI in every other Ageod game, since BOA. I have never seen the Athena behave so badly before.That is why I think something is wrong.
PhilThib wrote:The feedback is really interesting. I guess we would make good use of the saves of your games if you have them, to see what "prevents" the AI to take a more offensive stance southward. We shall then ask the team to look into it for improvement with an upcoming patch
I have had trouble doing that recently. But my son will be here tonight, and he is much better with computers. I will try to get you a save when I have his help.
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Franciscus
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vaalen wrote:I am wondering if the AI is programmed to avoid giving the Romans a dictator, and maybe that is why they stay in Cisalpina. If Hannibal moves into Italia, the Romans will be able to appoint a dictator and get another consular army. But if that is true, it ruins the game, if you play the AI.
No, there is no script for the AI to "think" that (avoid a dictator).
A save game would be most helpful, indeed
Regards
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Philippe, Franciscus, here is the save file. I hope this helps.
Philippe, Franciscus, here is the save file. I hope this helps.
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Franciscus
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James D Burns
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I tried to help the AI out by building 8 Roman supply wagons and sending them into an AI city unprotected so they’d get captured by Hannibal’s armies in Cisalpine Gaul. The AI did then build one level 1 depot after that but never built another. The AI needs to recognize the need for more supply depots in an area and then build them, it hardly ever builds any depots in game. I would even go so far as to say if it’s too hard to get this behavior put in game, then have the AI automatically get level 1 depots in any town it captures, and level 4 depots in any victory location it captures. This would go a long way to creating a more challenging game for players vs. the AI.
Jim
Jim
James D Burns wrote:I tried to help the AI out by building 8 Roman supply wagons and sending them into an AI city unprotected so they’d get captured by Hannibal’s armies in Cisalpine Gaul. The AI did then build one level 1 depot after that but never built another. The AI needs to recognize the need for more supply depots in an area and then build them, it hardly ever builds any depots in game. I would even go so far as to say if it’s too hard to get this behavior put in game, then have the AI automatically get level 1 depots in any town it captures, and level 4 depots in any victory location it captures. This would go a long way to creating a more challenging game for players vs. the AI.
Jim
James, I really like your idea. it sounds like you have run into a very similar problem.
James D Burns wrote:I tried to help the AI out by building 8 Roman supply wagons and sending them into an AI city unprotected so they’d get captured by Hannibal’s armies in Cisalpine Gaul. The AI did then build one level 1 depot after that but never built another. The AI needs to recognize the need for more supply depots in an area and then build them, it hardly ever builds any depots in game. I would even go so far as to say if it’s too hard to get this behavior put in game, then have the AI automatically get level 1 depots in any town it captures, and level 4 depots in any victory location it captures. This would go a long way to creating a more challenging game for players vs. the AI.
Jim
Didn't the AI capture any Roman city with an existing depot? and what happened to it (burnt?)... otherwise, the idea might work, but IMHO it would not serve the purpose of moving Hannibal's AI dead south...the real issue is to have him stay too long in Cisalpina from what I understand
PhilThib wrote:Didn't the AI capture any Roman city with an existing depot? and what happened to it (burnt?)... otherwise, the idea might work, but IMHO it would not serve the purpose of moving Hannibal's AI dead south...the real issue is to have him stay too long in Cisalpina from what I understand
I have continued to play my game. Hannibals army is now almost gone, and I easily defeated him a fourth time, but he escaped again. And he still will not leave Cisalpina. I left him a clear path to the south for several turns, but he would not take it.
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James D Burns
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The main problem in the scenario is the fact there simply isn’t enough supply in any of the cities in Cisalpine Gaul to feed a medium-large sized army, so the AI immediately splits up Hannibal’s army and sends most of it back to Spain. What remains in Gaul is too weak to take on Rome and eventually dies of starvation. A human player knows to build up a level 4 depot somewhere ASAP so Hannibal has a base to operate out of to keep his army fed if initial thrusts at Roman positions fail.
The supply rules used in the Rome games are called simple, but without the ability to move large stocks of supplies around from base to base like the majority of the AGEOD titles, the existing supplies at 95% of the cities in game are far too little to keep large armies fed. Players can easily deal with it by building lots of depots, the AI doesn’t do this and simply splits its big armies up. The AI needs to learn to build lots of depots wherever its big armies are trying to operate, or some kind of automated help needs to be given to the AI so it has the ability to field a full army that manages to stay fed. Personally I’d prefer the simple supply rules be thrown out and the rules that allows stocks to move around from base to base be brought in. Those rules work much better to simulate logistics in my opinion than the simple rules do.
Jim
The supply rules used in the Rome games are called simple, but without the ability to move large stocks of supplies around from base to base like the majority of the AGEOD titles, the existing supplies at 95% of the cities in game are far too little to keep large armies fed. Players can easily deal with it by building lots of depots, the AI doesn’t do this and simply splits its big armies up. The AI needs to learn to build lots of depots wherever its big armies are trying to operate, or some kind of automated help needs to be given to the AI so it has the ability to field a full army that manages to stay fed. Personally I’d prefer the simple supply rules be thrown out and the rules that allows stocks to move around from base to base be brought in. Those rules work much better to simulate logistics in my opinion than the simple rules do.
Jim
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James D Burns
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PhilThib wrote:Didn't the AI capture any Roman city with an existing depot? and what happened to it (burnt?)... otherwise, the idea might work, but IMHO it would not serve the purpose of moving Hannibal's AI dead south...the real issue is to have him stay too long in Cisalpina from what I understand
I’ve played the scenario as Hannibal too, and the idea of blasting through Cisalpine Gaul and heading south as Hannibal right away is almost suicidal. Even if I bring a smaller than usual army with Hannibal when he leaves Spain, the supplies in his wagons are about half gone by the time he can capture his first town in Cisalpine, and that’s only if the weather gods rolled well for him and he doesn’t get bogged down in the mud.
Hannibal is then faced with the dilemma of stopping to build a level 4 depot and allowing supplies to slowly refill after (takes almost half a year just to build and another 6+ months to refill supplies after), or pushing on immediately and hoping his supplies don’t run out as he tries to push past the Romans. More often than not Hannibal gets caught by the Romans and any attempts to get south into Italy get delayed by several turns and then his supplies are about dried up and the only thing left to do is try and get back to a supply source before the armies die of starvation.
A human might be able to deal with this situation but the AI is done for when it happens. The choke points in Northern Italy allow the Romans to get in Hannibal’s way without trouble and even if Hannibal wins every single fight the supply war is won by Rome because there is no good supply source for Hannibal to fall back on except Spain. So the AI’s penchant to get into Italy right away is probably what is killing it in game, it NEEDS to pay attention to supplies and not move forward until it has a local supply camp to fall back to if things don’t go well.
Hell even Hannibal's allied barbarians can't feed just themselves in their own home province.
Jim
James D Burns wrote:I’ve played the scenario as Hannibal too, and the idea of blasting through Cisalpine Gaul and heading south as Hannibal right away is almost suicidal. Even if I bring a smaller than usual army with Hannibal when he leaves Spain, the supplies in his wagons are about half gone by the time he can capture his first town in Cisalpine, and that’s only if the weather gods rolled well for him and he doesn’t get bogged down in the mud.
Hannibal is then faced with the dilemma of stopping to build a level 4 depot and allowing supplies to slowly refill after (takes almost half a year just to build and another 6+ months to refill supplies after), or pushing on immediately and hoping his supplies don’t run out as he tries to push past the Romans. More often than not Hannibal gets caught by the Romans and any attempts to get south into Italy get delayed by several turns and then his supplies are about dried up and the only thing left to do is try and get back to a supply source before the armies die of starvation.
A human might be able to deal with this situation but the AI is done for when it happens. The choke points in Northern Italy allow the Romans to get in Hannibal’s way without trouble and even if Hannibal wins every single fight the supply war is won by Rome because there is no good supply source for Hannibal to fall back on except Spain. So the AI’s penchant to get into Italy right away is probably what is killing it in game, it NEEDS to pay attention to supplies and not move forward until it has a local supply camp to fall back to if things don’t go well.
Hell even Hannibal's allied barbarians can't feed just themselves in their own home province.
Jim
After reviewing my game carefully, I think Jim is completely correct about the supply situation, and I agree with him. Hannibal and his allies starve in Cisalpina. What I have noticed is that they will not leave Cisalpina, even if they are not blocked, though, as Jim said, it is easy to block them.
I think something must be done about this supply situation, and to motivate Hannibal to leave Cisalpina and move south.In Real Life, Hannibal maintained his army, first in Cisalpina, but mostly in Italy, for 15 years, and kept them supplied, despite endless Roman attempts to cut off his supplies and kill his foragers. Maybe Hannibal could be given a unique special ability to reflect this?
I don't think the problem is limited to Hannibal. From what I've observed in playing these games, the AI has for a very long time had problems managing supply, but Hannibal has simply made the issue more visible. The problem has tended to go under the radar and be underreported because many players don't test or observe closely how the AI plays and in other scenarios it's not as glaringly obvious as it is in Hannibal's case. I hope the Hannibal problem will bring on a general review and improvement of the supply routines.
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James D Burns
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A new type of foraging trait that allows supply wagons to refill via province foraging for Hannibal and other high level leaders that are expected to field large armies in game could be added to the game that would help alleviate the issues the simple supply rules cause. Right now when the wagons go empty the foraging helps reduce a few supply hits for one turn and then the province gets the plundered icon and no further foraging is allowed.
Perhaps larger army leaders can be allowed to forage every single turn even if supplies are plentiful without causing provinces to get plundered and each successful foraging attempt would add a tiny 10% towards refilling the supply wagons in the leader’s army (just supply not ammo). After all big armies like this had dedicated troops that did nothing but forage ranging many miles in all directions to help feed the armies and they didn’t wait till supplies ran dry to do it, they were foraging all the time.
Jim
Perhaps larger army leaders can be allowed to forage every single turn even if supplies are plentiful without causing provinces to get plundered and each successful foraging attempt would add a tiny 10% towards refilling the supply wagons in the leader’s army (just supply not ammo). After all big armies like this had dedicated troops that did nothing but forage ranging many miles in all directions to help feed the armies and they didn’t wait till supplies ran dry to do it, they were foraging all the time.
Jim
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