Just got this game and well, a bit disappointed. The thing I didnt like about medieval was the sheer simpleness of the enemy AI armies. Camp yourself on a hill and kill the entire enemy army as it charged you - variations on that made winning battles easy. So when I heard reviews prainsing this AI ("its like youre playing a human!!") I was well up for it.
Now so far ive played to mission three in the intro campaign and had some fairly big battles but the highlights can be summed up as:
2 units vs my 20 units, refuses to surrender. I decide to let the auto-resolve handle it and lose 600 men! Cant be arsed with that, load it again, line up a couple of units and pummel the two lone enemy units, lost 20 men. Gah! I do not want to fight every stupid sodding battle against 2 indians and their horse!
Great here we go again, forced to deploy my entire army vs a cannon unit and an indian unit. Using my 5 arty units to blow great holes in their 1 arty unit, when over the hill marches an enemy army! Great! manic redeplyoment has one of my arty unit cross another firing arty unit who wipe them out! Jeez dont fire when friendlies are in front of you ffs. Anyway, chalk that one up to fog of war, redployment complete, whats this enemy army going to do? what genius tactics am I about to witness? AHA! theyre marching in line... and the keep marching.... and march into my 12 infantry units deployed line abreast ONE UNIT AT A TIME! Oh ffs. It gets even better - their arty units are in front!! So two horse drawn cannon units trot up to my infantry units and get wiped out in a heartbeat - they didnt even try to deploy, just wandered up to say hello. I just swung my left flank and chew up the rest of the enemy army as they wandered casually one unit at a time into the box. Wheres the tactics? Isnt that the first rule of maneuvre warfare, attack in force?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. 5 enemy units in a fortress facing my 20 units? Hell, lets all leave the fortress and march down the hill to attack the way larger army. Im sure they wont be expecting that! Evenly matched armies? Lets split our army into three, send them in one at a time so they can be massacred. Its like fighting... well medieval:total war style.
Please god, someone tell me the AI gets smarter and because this is the introduction they are deliberately thick! I'm seriously considering returning this game.
Now so far ive played to mission three in the intro campaign and had some fairly big battles but the highlights can be summed up as:
2 units vs my 20 units, refuses to surrender. I decide to let the auto-resolve handle it and lose 600 men! Cant be arsed with that, load it again, line up a couple of units and pummel the two lone enemy units, lost 20 men. Gah! I do not want to fight every stupid sodding battle against 2 indians and their horse!
Great here we go again, forced to deploy my entire army vs a cannon unit and an indian unit. Using my 5 arty units to blow great holes in their 1 arty unit, when over the hill marches an enemy army! Great! manic redeplyoment has one of my arty unit cross another firing arty unit who wipe them out! Jeez dont fire when friendlies are in front of you ffs. Anyway, chalk that one up to fog of war, redployment complete, whats this enemy army going to do? what genius tactics am I about to witness? AHA! theyre marching in line... and the keep marching.... and march into my 12 infantry units deployed line abreast ONE UNIT AT A TIME! Oh ffs. It gets even better - their arty units are in front!! So two horse drawn cannon units trot up to my infantry units and get wiped out in a heartbeat - they didnt even try to deploy, just wandered up to say hello. I just swung my left flank and chew up the rest of the enemy army as they wandered casually one unit at a time into the box. Wheres the tactics? Isnt that the first rule of maneuvre warfare, attack in force?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. 5 enemy units in a fortress facing my 20 units? Hell, lets all leave the fortress and march down the hill to attack the way larger army. Im sure they wont be expecting that! Evenly matched armies? Lets split our army into three, send them in one at a time so they can be massacred. Its like fighting... well medieval:total war style.
Please god, someone tell me the AI gets smarter and because this is the introduction they are deliberately thick! I'm seriously considering returning this game.
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