Total War: Rome 2 Video Highlights "Very Hard" AI

[Realitycrash]

I swear he was both outnumbered and out maneuvered. Seriously, he really misused his cavalry.

Ya putting his cav into trees, was a mistake. It's fine if you want to burst out of the woods and flank the enemy that way but the second he was spotted he should of pulled them back and used them as a harassing force. Keeping them in the trees to fight just seems like a terrible idea.

But I'm terrible at RTS games, I'm a turn based kinda guy myself.

No, no. That's exactly what he should have done. He should have locked the enemy melee forces down and then used Cavalry Charges into the back in order to seriously damage them; both physically and morale damage.
But as I said before, I think that the Romans had more Troops of higher quality, not just half-decent AI.


(On an aside, nice Avatar. Always good to see some Legacy of Kain kicking about.)

All I could see the entire battle was that massive, unprotected rear-line of roman Hastati that would crumble from a charge of two of his cavalries. It might have been a suicide-run as the Roman cavalry would most likely follow, but that would make it a Cavalry Vs Phalanx battle.
Or he could always pull a classic and engage all of his cavalry against the unprotected general in the rear. They had an open shot at charging. It worked in Rome, Medieval and Shogun 2, though I am unsure how powerful Cavalry are in Rome 2, they might not have the strength to kill the general in time.

Edit: Also, why did he put his slingers in the front? They have greater range than Veilites (CBA to correct that spelling now) so he should have been able to kill them from afar.
Also, I wonder if Veilites are still infamously crap..

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Why were the Hastati at the rear of his line? Does the man not know how the Roman Maniple system worked.

Hastati-Principes-Triarii. Hastati engage first, and when they become strained, the second line of Principes advances to bolster them. Triarii stay in reserve and along the flanks to ward off Cavalry, and only join the first two lines if the situation was dire.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I'd say this mostly highlights the developers inability to play rather than how hard the AI is.

 

[Britishfan]

I didn't actually see the AI doing anything different to what it always has done in previous Total War games. What I did see was very bad play from the Al Bickman.
To demonstrate AI you need to have a good human player for it to go up against.

 

[Abomination]

From what I understand is the AI will beat you soundly when you make many tactical mistakes and they outnumber you with superior troops.

Infantry hold a defensive position and set where the battle should be fought.

Skirmishers encourage the enemy to engage you in the defensive position you're establishing with your infantry.

Cavalry strike enemy ranged combatants or engage enemy cavalry while they're in melee with your infantry.

If he wanted to use the forest to mask his cavalry he shouldn't have moved his troops up so far, he should have kept the cavalry there until the enemy had cleared the forest THEN used them to attack when they engaged his lines.

Then again, all I care about is that the actual "fighting" works well and doesn't involve infantry standing around picking their noses while guys they could be flanking are squaring off with someone else in a 1v1. I want to SEE a flanking maneuver be devastating because only the most elite of soldiers can handle fighting two people at the same time.

 

[wulfgar_red]

i'm playing total wars since first shogun and i have a idea how it will work in reality. the game AI will be broken or some mechanics will suffer (whole regiment not shooting if 1 guy has tree in his line of sight for example. still not patch to this day). they won't patch it because the making expiation or next game.

most of total wars are unplayable on release date (for advanced players) and you must wait for community made patches and mods to play a good game (since most of the patches from CA cover only critical bugs)

 

[Jamous]

I swear he was both outnumbered and out maneuvered. Seriously, he really misused his cavalry.

Ya putting his cav into trees, was a mistake. It's fine if you want to burst out of the woods and flank the enemy that way but the second he was spotted he should of pulled them back and used them as a harassing force. Keeping them in the trees to fight just seems like a terrible idea.

But I'm terrible at RTS games, I'm a turn based kinda guy myself.

No, no. That's exactly what he should have done. He should have locked the enemy melee forces down and then used Cavalry Charges into the back in order to seriously damage them; both physically and morale damage.
But as I said before, I think that the Romans had more Troops of higher quality, not just half-decent AI.


(On an aside, nice Avatar. Always good to see some Legacy of Kain kicking about.)

All I could see the entire battle was that massive, unprotected rear-line of roman Hastati that would crumble from a charge of two of his cavalries. It might have been a suicide-run as the Roman cavalry would most likely follow, but that would make it a Cavalry Vs Phalanx battle.
Or he could always pull a classic and engage all of his cavalry against the unprotected general in the rear. They had an open shot at charging. It worked in Rome, Medieval and Shogun 2, though I am unsure how powerful Cavalry are in Rome 2, they might not have the strength to kill the general in time.

Edit: Also, why did he put his slingers in the front? They have greater range than Veilites (CBA to correct that spelling now) so he should have been able to kill them from afar.
Also, I wonder if Veilites are still infamously crap..

Exactly! If he'd managed to keep his cavalry (rather than wasting it in the woods) he could have done SO much more! It's fucking painful to watch.

 

[Chris Tian]

Color me unimpressed, the guy played pretty bad. I want to see the player use a simple but effective strategy and not leave his cavalary in the woods to be shot at until the battle is halfway lost.

That the AI won this one gets even more unimpressive if you think about the buffs the TW AI always gets on hard and very hard. I always get frustrated if I play on very hard and instead of doing anything clever the AI butchers my Elite Knights/Line Infantry/Katana Samurai with a bunch of naked people armed with sticks.

 

[Gennadios]

Is it just me who remember the AI videos for Empire, which promised awesome, responsive AI that would be able to utilize dozens of different tactics depending on how the player behaved. The actual AI in game, before a year worth of patches were applied? It lined all its' units up in a line and marched bravely into fire, never using special formations or attempting flanking maneuvers.

Ever since, I am very skeptical whenever CA claims to have drastically improved their AI.

Wait, you said "before" a year worth of patches applied? I honestly never felt it getting any better.

OT: The narrator didn't utilizie his units very well, he tied up his cavalry on 2-on-1 skirmishes when they would have been better served 1-on-1 with the extra unit hunting down the javalin throwers in the backline. That and he was moving the peltasts way more often than he should have. When they're mobile they don't fire...

Finally, not sure how I feel about the crux of hard AI being the general abilities, tactical unit buffs in TW bother me, and if "very hard" AI leans on that too heavily... well, there's nothing stopping the devs from just cheating and inflating the AI boosts for an unfair advantage.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Genuinely would like to believe this but I'll wait til I play the game myself before I start to get excited, this guy is average at best when commanding his army he ran two units of cavalry straight into one unit of cavalry.... why? Why didn't he flank he would have routed them and lost much less than he would have in a standup fight, then he could use that momentum and crush the infantry as well. That as well as other things that happen make me skeptical, I'm still looking forward to playing the game though and many of the mods for Medieval that have come out have shown a much improved AI (well 99% of the time anyway they still have their duuh moments) so I will remain hopeful