Akvod said:
noname2200 said:
After the disastrous AI in Medieval II I skipped Empire, since I heard it was just as bad there. If they don't fix the AI to at least the level of Rome's, I'm probably going to skip this one as well. 
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The AI in Rome was horrendous O.o
Not saying that Medieval II was the best, but it was a shit load more competent than Rome's. Sucidally charginging into phalanxes during bridges, not sallying out when I bombard the enemy with arrows and onagers, foolishly following my archers and horse archers and letting me cut them piece by piece.
Although I did take out half a stack of Monoglian archers with one Longbow men by lurging them to attack fortresses (Instead of phalanxes, the calvary forget about my spikes).
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Yes, it was bad in Rome, even after 1.6, but it was still better than what I got in Medieval II. And thus you know just how low I'm willing to go for this franchise. Before the first patch, Medieval II enemies never used amphibious movements, at all.
Patch 1 fixed that, but at the cost of introducing even worse flaws: I'd encounter endless stacks of crossbowmen, with a few spear militia sprinkled in (for variety?) coming from most of the Central European factions. Neeldess to say, the fights were not fun. None of the factions produced late-game units, and it was rare to see even one Chivalraic Knight.
The computer would start "wars" by blockading a port for one turn, then completely ignoring me for the rest of the game: they would also refuse to make peace. (In fairness, Rome had this too, albeit less often)
My absolute favorite though was how every third siege or so resulted in the enemy forces sallying out of the gates, lining up at a 90 degree angle to their city walls, dying horrendously, then retreating to the city square and remaining put, no matter what I did to them. Field battles tended to have more variety in how the computer goofed up, but it was not uncommon for them to split into two or three groups, then scatter to opposite ends of the map.
It didn't just make battles piss-easy, it made far too many of them an exercise in absurdity. I concede that Rome was faaaaaaaaaaar from perfect in either the strategic or battle AI, but at least it felt like I was fighting someone who was making decisions of some sort. At times Medieval II literally seemed like the AI was issuing random orders to its troops, and that wasn't fun.
Plus, horse archers in Medieval II are every bit as useful, because the AI reacts exactly the same way.
