What happened to the AI?

[GlobularFoody]

Ever since I started playing with a current patch, the AI just seems really stupid.

For example, I was playing as Illians in my last game and the AI just took their huge stack of doom out of their capitol right as I got near it. They had about 20 units in there and they took half of them out for no apparent reason. I easily took the city and the rest of the game was a joke.

The game before that, I was the Infernals and it was the same situation but worse. I only had Hyborem and the 2 champs you start out with and I totally wiped out every civ one after the other because they would move their defenders out of the city as I got near it.

Needless to say, this takes all the fun out of the game. Has anyone else experienced this?

[Emptiness]

As of patch H, the AI will sometimes withdraw from threatened cities. I've even seen it move out all of the defenders, although this is rare. The withdrawal seems to be a response to the presence of an overwhelming force that is certain to capture the city. The AI behaves as if it considers units more important than cities. I don't know whether this is intentional or a bug; I've reported it before because I consider the behavior to be detrimental. If any changes have been made to this aspect of AI behavior, they have not been mentioned in the patch notes.

[Senethro]

Its good behaviour because cities can be recaptured, but if units are lost then the next city will be lost as well. No point fighting a battle you can't win.

[Emptiness]

Cities that are razed can't be recaptured. Also, a recaptured city is often virtually worthless because - having been captured twice - most of the buildings in it have been lost. It can take many turns (ie longer than the war may last) to recover. Furthermore, if the city defenders run away from a group of units, and then return (with reinforcements) to try to retake the city from those units then they have lost the defensive advantage - if they couldn't win as defenders they certainly won't win as attackers.

Armies require commerce, and commerce requires cities with protected improvements and/or clear trade routes. Losing territory means losing the ability to support units, and losing cities means losing the ability to build new units. If your units aren't defending your territory, why do you even have them? Units that run away from an attacking army may not survive decreasing support capacity to fight later.

In my experience, the AI rarely recaptures cities. Once it starts losing cities it is on the way out (of the game), and the best it can do is try to be as difficult to eliminate as possible. Handing over cities to the enemy with little or no resistance is the opposite of that. Even if the AI draws up all its units into its last city, and finally has enough defenders to "challenge" the attacker's army, it is unnecessary for the attacker to fight them. Reduced to one city, and cowering behind their walls, with all of their improvements pillaged, the defenders will be disbanded due to lack of support and the "final battle" will - with patience - be easy as well.

The only hope a defender has, when faced with an overwhelming aggressor, is that by prolonging the war as much as possible the aggressor will lose the will or coin to keep the war going. That means turning each of the aggressor's victories into as long a process as possible, to give your other cities time to build more defenders, so that they can in turn delay the aggressor at the next city. More units defeated mean more war weariness, and more turns spent in your territory means more gold spent on unit supply. In this way, even if you are eliminated you at least make your enemy's victory as costly as possible.

[Senethro]

Most of the value of an FFH city comes from its population, not its buildings. A city is immediately useful for building military units for which few multiplicative bonuses can be received.

In stackgrinder warfare its vitally important that when the big decisive battle comes, you win it. If you fight a number of medium battles where you get wiped you'll have in effect just been donating XP to them. This isn't BTS with slow XP, 10% promotions and easy availability of Longbowmen.

There is no beating an overwhelming aggressor on the defense as you've likely already lost. You have to lure them into a battle you can win which will usually involve spells that hit a whole stack, or to use fast raider units to threaten their core.

I'm willing to admit that my views are subjective because my whole strategy is based around a large number of low investment, high population, high happiness cap cities spamming fast moving offense units with efficient, deep teching. I've also played MP and have managed to crash my economy to losing money at 0% at turn 300 through overbuilding on units. I've been on both the winning and losing end of mega stacks and repeated small engagements don't win and neither can you make the process of conquering more painful than being conquered.

[Monkeyfinger]

On the other hand, moving a large stack out of a city so it can be hit by the invading force in the open field before it can reach another city = lol. If that stack is left in the city it will take down more attackers on its way out, or force the invaders to sit still for a little bit and bombard to avoid that.

but but the defenders have roads to try and outrun the attackers

If the attackers are raiders, or elite units promoted to commando the old fashioned way, or are empyrean, or have druids (admittedly late game), or maybe even just mounted heavy, that won't help.

[JonathanStrange]

Clearly, if the AI were really thinking tactically and strategically, we could accept more easily accept arguments that the AI was cleverly withdrawing its forces, letting us take city after city filling the streets of those cities with the blood of their citizens, with the idea of luring us deeper into their nation, increasing our logistical problems as our supplies and armies decline as troops are assigned garrison duties or fall to raids.

That doesn't appear to be the case with the AI. Even in multi-player, which frankly I doubt many gamers play very often, one could simply capture a newly deserted city and dig in, waiting for reinforcements or simply raze the city to the ground which is in itself a great loss to the previous owners. Border cities and small cities, I can see those trading hands, but except in extreme circumstances, I would defend rather than run. The enemy would be bled in strength, and any XPs gained by enemy survivors would be hard-earned.

I'm not saying the idea the AI is not thoughtfully regrouping and trading cities for time but I do think that's doubtful. The AI in FFH2 remains its weak spot and abandoning cities (I've seen the AI move out 3 fortified champions and a longbowman OUT of a city I approached with a dozen champions, druids, and mages. I'd have won, but it would have cost me a few units and weakened the survivors making them vulnerable to a counterattack) inspires no confidence in the AI's reasoning.

[Azhral]

Originally Posted by JonathanStrange

That doesn't appear to be the case with the AI. Even in multi-player, which frankly I doubt many gamers play very often, one could simply capture a newly deserted city and dig in, waiting for reinforcements or simply raze the city to the ground which is in itself a great loss to the previous owners. Border cities and small cities, I can see those trading hands, but except in extreme circumstances, I would defend rather than run. The enemy would be bled in strength, and any XPs gained by enemy survivors would be hard-earned.

There's usually a game or two every weekend of FFH2 Multiplayer. I can't say I've ever seen this myself (a few times in single, but not completely deserting a city). Then again, we mostly try to play without AI as they cause major OOS issues, and every city is generally much better defended than in SP as you never know what another person is going to do.

[DaveGold]

I can see those trading hands, but except in extreme circumstances, I would defend rather than run. The enemy would be bled in strength, and any XPs gained by enemy survivors would be hard-earned.

Quite frequently if facing a massive AI stack I've ceded a city rather than either attacking the stack on a forested hill or losing quality units in defence. Unfortunately the AI isn't as good at a counter-attack but their ambition is the same. I'd even move every unit out of a city if I thought I needed them elsewhere.