Rise of rome, strange AI behaviour.

[Grayarea]

Hi all,

I played Rise of rome scenario over the weekend, and wondered if anyone could help me explain some strange AI behaviour.

I was playing as roman, I had pushed the Celts back to Britain, seriously damaged Goths and was taking the Carthaginians apart.

At this point Persia declared on me and started sending mounted and immortals towards my cities. I had moved up a significant force to that border about 10 turns ago as I saw their troop movments and anticipated the attack.

In the front line cites I had 2xFirecats 3-5xLegionIII and 2xGarison.

The Persian troops however moved upto my cites but did not attack, other than attacking units in the open.

So I moved up some Cav and started to decimate the stacks of troops that just sat there. I also use the firecats and legions to attack stacks.

After about 6 turns of being decimated the persians proposed peace.

Is this what you would call a kill zone? Why did the enemy units not attack my cities?

Confused,

[joycem10]

Maybe the AI calcuated the odds for an attack being too poor to make the attempt.

If they were fielding mounted warriors and immortals against foritifed Legion IIIs supported by firecats in a city or a walled town the AI was probably right.

[Cuivienen]

The AI will only attack if it has a reasonable (somewhere around 25%) chance of victory. If it was sending Immortals to attack Legionary IIIs fortified in cities on hills with walls, then the AI didn't attack because the odds were too low. Also, if there were Armies in the cities, the AI almost never attacks Armies (since it calculates victory odds individually rather than seeing a stack as easily capable of taking down an Army), so the AI wouldn't attack your cities.

[Grayarea]

Thanks for the responce all.

This is what I thought was going on, pity the AI is not clever enough to skirt around strong cites and attack weaker ones. This behaviour makes it a bit easy to cut up a strong attack force.

[zurichuk]

I had this once, I had a Legionary IIIs (5 hit points) defending a city when about 80+ Persian cavalry knocked on the door, one by one they died against the defenders until suddenly one of the defender Legionaries got promoted without losing a hitpoint. Then they just stopped attacking and headed for another city.

I think it is the extra 6th HP that causes it (same as the AI not attacking armies)

[kb2tvl]

Hadriens wall becomes a handy edge in that scenario.

[senturus]

I have a question about this scenario. I'm playing it with the romans, i am about turn 50, and have just started to conquire the goths cities. But, there are two things that i found strange :
1) All goths town have only one people (except the capital which has 2 or 3)
2) Goths towns seem to be defended only by archers, or teutonic warriors (no units with 2 defense)
The conquest of the goths become very easy, and i wondered if the point 1 was not a bug.

[Cuivienen]

The Goth UU, the Teutonic Warrior, replaces the Spearman rather than the Warrior or Swordsman. Don't ask me why. In my variation on RoR, one of the main changes I made was to give the Goths access to Spearmen anyway, as well as the quite potent Teutonic Knight (5.3.2, better than Heavy Cav).

As for the first part, you're probably playing on a low difficulty level, plus the Goths have food-poor terrain. The AI also loves to whip units out of cities, and is probably doing so constantly in an attempt to beat you back. (The Goths, Celts and Scythians cannot leave Tribal Council, as the other government techs are flagged "civilized.")

[Chieftess]

Originally Posted by Grayarea

Thanks for the responce all.

This is what I thought was going on, pity the AI is not clever enough to skirt around strong cites and attack weaker ones. This behaviour makes it a bit easy to cut up a strong attack force.

Actually, they do do just that... Only they're not good at doing it. They'll go right through your strong point to get to your weak point. (It relies on the shortest path, not the safest path).

[gunkulator]

Goths are probably the easiest civ to kill in ROR. No D=2 units at all!

The easiest way to win ROR is to take out the Celts and Goths and settle in all their lands.

Take the Carthagian islands and then fortify the heck out of them. After that ignore Carthage. Kiss Perisia's butt to keep them at peace with you. All the other civs are too far away or too weak to worry about.

You'll win by domination but keep and eye on the short time limit for the scenario.