If I have one complaint so far, it's the AI's willingness to break up its own forces on the map. I've seen this happen in almost every scenario so far. As soon as the next turn button is clicked, I'll never fail to see small raider-sized units moving, fighting, and besieging all over the place. As has been discussed before, ancient armies usually used concentration of force during campaigns, not guerrilla tactics. It might make sense once in a while to see a force break up in the face of an unstoppable larger enemy, but to see Pompey roaming around in Gaul with only a couple of auxiliaries... that doesn't make sense. In fact only once, during the 4 emperors scenario, did I see a single larger army under Vitellius marching towards one of my cities and attack.
This has been an issue with AGEOD games in the past. I remember seeing lots of discussions in the AACW forum way back about the endless tiny cavalry raids the AI would initiate against the player, but in ancient warfare it just seems silly to be chasing around dozens of small units with one or two large armies. The AI seems obsessed with taking lots of individual cities rather than win at battles and beating the player's army.
Anyone else notice this? During campaigns I'm looking for decisive victories, not chasing around a bunch of understrength enemy legions who refuse to give battle. It's like once a scenario begins, the AI just scatters its units to the wind, looking for opportunities to raid my supply lines and cause headaches. While this might make sense tactically, strategically it's suicide... not to mention just foolish considering the ancient world's sluggish devotion to honor and battlefield glory.
Again, just a small complaint. Perhaps there's an AI setting that I have checked wrong or something. Just seems odd that the AI would be that dedicated to avoiding battle and using hit and run tactics rather than stopping to offer a fight.
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yellow ribbon
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- Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2011 5:42 pm
yes, knowing from testing either:
AI is the strongest when using large stacks from the original setup of a scenario and weak with bringing them together if troops needed to be build in different theaters of war.
a couple of points:
1.) the AI is taking winter quarters (lower agressiveness /staying close to cities, non/reduced off. action
player does not.
2.) the logic coming from scripted level of aggressiveness makes the AI very clever regarding taking undefended objectives and supply bases. but not that well in re-combining the stacks again.
3.) for instance in the civil war scenario, Caesar/Pompey this all leads to a good balance that the momentum can be taken within a year and the map seized as Caesar before he would have been killed years later, as well as Pompey might have at least stalemates and can take/take back decisive regions
so to say a good balance is in, but the game became "faster" than it needed to be. I cannot say more but that "the big ones" up there would think the same and make the educated guess, would change some behavior of the AI, but time is short.
merely private point of view:
- the scattering in larger scenarios happens for the forces are set free in different turns mainly.
- such large battles like historical 20 legions involved, are hard to generate by this supply network. you can test it on your own, lay siege to a city like Antiochia with good forts, without attacking, dont use supply wagons, use at least 8 legions and you will see that staying with such large forces makes you headache.
this would be kinda simulation you need to understand what happens if two really large armies stay for one or two turns, then attack. even if you win, the rest of your army suffers lack of supply in the fourth turn, when you split forces and bring them to supply centers extraordinary hard, killing remnants of the army, however it needs a 5th turn then to resupply.
AI is the strongest when using large stacks from the original setup of a scenario and weak with bringing them together if troops needed to be build in different theaters of war.
a couple of points:
1.) the AI is taking winter quarters (lower agressiveness /staying close to cities, non/reduced off. action
player does not.
2.) the logic coming from scripted level of aggressiveness makes the AI very clever regarding taking undefended objectives and supply bases. but not that well in re-combining the stacks again.
3.) for instance in the civil war scenario, Caesar/Pompey this all leads to a good balance that the momentum can be taken within a year and the map seized as Caesar before he would have been killed years later, as well as Pompey might have at least stalemates and can take/take back decisive regions
so to say a good balance is in, but the game became "faster" than it needed to be. I cannot say more but that "the big ones" up there would think the same and make the educated guess, would change some behavior of the AI, but time is short.
merely private point of view:
- the scattering in larger scenarios happens for the forces are set free in different turns mainly.
- such large battles like historical 20 legions involved, are hard to generate by this supply network. you can test it on your own, lay siege to a city like Antiochia with good forts, without attacking, dont use supply wagons, use at least 8 legions and you will see that staying with such large forces makes you headache.
this would be kinda simulation you need to understand what happens if two really large armies stay for one or two turns, then attack. even if you win, the rest of your army suffers lack of supply in the fourth turn, when you split forces and bring them to supply centers extraordinary hard, killing remnants of the army, however it needs a 5th turn then to resupply.
...not paid by AGEOD.
however, prone to throw them into disarray.
PS:
‘Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen War . . . in War, through the influence of an infinity of petty circumstances, which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint us, and we fall short of the mark.‘
Clausewitz
however, prone to throw them into disarray.
PS:
‘Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult. These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen War . . . in War, through the influence of an infinity of petty circumstances, which cannot properly be described on paper, things disappoint us, and we fall short of the mark.‘
Clausewitz
I have to agree somewhat. While I haven't seen the ai disperse it's armies needlessly in AJE so far, I have seen the ai unable to concentrate forces that start the game dispersed or are built. In the Caesar vs Pompeius scenario for instance I rarelly saw more than two ai Pompeian legions (plus auxilias) together after the first year, meaning my usual 2-4 legion stacks were never in any danger of being overwhelmed (on the other hand I often had to react to raids into my rear). But I haven't played all that much yet and the Caesar vs Pompeius scenario was the first scenario I played and that with the default settings (for instance no additional time for the ai, easier activation for the ai etc. which I usually set)...
Supply could be a big issue here which would actually make the ai's approach better than human. For instance I quit playing the Mithridates scenario (as Pontus) because I was running into so many supply issues that all my forces ended up in static positions (partially dispersed to recuperate supply) and still starving away while the ai roman forces kept moving around in small stacks. That might be a bigger problem and I'm not at all sure it's historic (anthique armies seem to have established decent supply networks and lack of potable water was the main problem to overly large concentrations (Persian invasion of Greece)...
Supply could be a big issue here which would actually make the ai's approach better than human. For instance I quit playing the Mithridates scenario (as Pontus) because I was running into so many supply issues that all my forces ended up in static positions (partially dispersed to recuperate supply) and still starving away while the ai roman forces kept moving around in small stacks. That might be a bigger problem and I'm not at all sure it's historic (anthique armies seem to have established decent supply networks and lack of potable water was the main problem to overly large concentrations (Persian invasion of Greece)...
Marc aka Caran...
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