is something wrong with my AI?

[mercenarius]

I guess that you should have retreated. [;)]

Edit: That was an attempt at wry humor, not sarcasm. Maybe programmers should not make jokes.

Thanks for testing this. What the original poster did was to win a couple of battles and then besiege rome with a failry large army around the fourth turn.

BTW, How many troops did you have remaining when Hannibal's army got to Rome? Because Hannibal should need to make two extended moves to get there on the first turn.

[Toby42]

ORIGINAL: mercenarius

I guess that you should have retreated. [;)]

Edit: That was an attempt at wry humor, not sarcasm. Maybe programmers should not make jokes.

Thanks for testing this. What the original poster did was to win a couple of battles and then besiege rome with a failry large army around the fourth turn.

BTW, How many troops did you have remaining when Hannibal's army got to Rome? Because Hannibal should need to make two extended moves to get there on the first turn.

Eight were left after losses and attrition. I forget how many Scipio brought to the party! Scipio reinforced by sea. I was impressed with that manoever. And yes, I should have retreated[8D].

Great Game by the way!!!

[vonRocko]

Yeah, with a good general, attrition, or the right cards, it seems rome can beat this, but I won 4 times like this till the romans hit the right combination. The key appears to be what general they send. The romans won in the 5th game because they finally sent scipio.

[gdrover]

Here are a few ideas on slight tweaks that should help this issue and also help make the game a bit more realistic:

* Only one Extended March allowed per turn (using a card or attrition)

* Storming a City results in at least one unit lost (if a unit was lost during the assault, no extra casualty is required)

* Roman City militia only sally out if the roman forces outnumber the seige force 1.25 to 1 (including them). otherwise they stay put.

* The AI will only relieve the seige of Rome if the total forces outnumber the seige army 1.25 to 1 (unless the city is about to fall).

* The AI will return armies that are overseas (Spain, North Africa, and Sicily) to Italy if Rome is under seige by an army that is greater than all Roman non-militia troops in Italy


Hope this helps.

Regards,

Glenn

[gdrover]

By the way, I just played my first Hard level game this morning before reading this thread. I took a conventional approach (not the blitz method listed here), and won on turn 10.

The AI did not adequately reinforce it's main Italian army before trying to lift the seige. There was still an army in North Africa, and troops in Eastern Italy that could have been brought in for the attack.

That said, the battle was still somewhat tense, as was my decision to lift thhe seige and try to fight the relieving army in the open field vs. defending the seige. if the AI was a little better about gathering enough troops before relieving the seige, it would have been a VERY tough fight.

Great game! I've played it 7 times this weekend.

[mercenarius]

Those are some good observations and suggestions. Right now I am working on tracking down those two odd bugs that were reported by ojnab_bob and Mario Vallée. But I also have in mind the problems with the AI countering the "blitz" strategy that has been discussed here. I think that I have a few fairly easy tweaks that should close this vulnerability.

I don't know exactly when the next patch will be released. I do want to try to see if we get any more odd bug reports in the next week or so. But I fully expect to include the AI improvements in that patch as well.

I appreciate everyone's input on this matter. Naturally I am a little embarrassed that my AI got broken but I am glad that people are interested in trying. [:)]

I agree about additional extended marches, by the way. I was just a little leery of adding more rules. Personally, I like something like a doubling effect: first extended march requires one card; A second one would require two cards; a third would require four cards. But I just didn't want to add another rule. The manual is pretty long as it is.

Perhaps no additional marches at all would be a good solution. I'll have to think about it. It does have the virtue of simplicity.

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: mercenarius

... But I just didn't want to add another rule. The manual is pretty long as it is.

And an excellent manual it is too! This game has wonderful in game help and also an excellent PDF manual in two formats. I bought Civ-5 a couple weeks ago, and Hannibal this weekend. I have enjoyed Hannibal much more than Civ-5. From the tutorials on, everything is done very well.

I would buy every future game like this, and I hope there will be more. [&o]

Sorry about hijacking this thread. I couldn't contain my emotions. Back to your regular programming... [;)]

[mercenarius]

LarryP

Thanks for the kind words!

Now, for the original issue: the next patch should improve the performance of the AI in dealing with sieges of Rome, especially when they occur early in the game. We hope to release a beta form of that patch no later than Monday the 11th (U.S. date).

[gdrover]

Great support!

I continue to play regardless. I just don't try to blitz Hannibal to Rome, but rather take the 'normal' approach of:

1) Conquer Cisalpine Gaul
2) Try to draw the Romans into attacking Hannibal with a large army in the open
3) Reinforce Spain and defeat the Romans there
3) Take Genua and Pisa
4) Reinforce Italy with the Spanish army and the forces in Carthage
5) Move the massive army to seige Rome

This tends to work if I can execute it in the Advanced game.

Sometimes the AI player and the Carthaginian Suffet conspire to unhinge this in some way, but it's a good basic plan.

[smartspick]

Thanks Mercenarius, keep up the great support!

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: gdrover

I continue to play regardless. I just don't try to blitz Hannibal to Rome, but rather take the 'normal' approach of:

1) Conquer Cisalpine Gaul
2) Try to draw the Romans into attacking Hannibal with a large army in the open
3) Reinforce Spain and defeat the Romans there
3) Take Genua and Pisa
4) Reinforce Italy with the Spanish army and the forces in Carthage
5) Move the massive army to seige Rome

This tends to work if I can execute it in the Advanced game.

Sometimes the AI player and the Carthaginian Suffet conspire to unhinge this in some way, but it's a good basic plan.

Good advice. #2 is the one that I had to learn fast as I kept getting whipped in the cities, not being able to use Hannibals tricks. I also read in the Wargamers AAR that building up a fleet and opening up the path from Africa to Spain really helps. Not a single turn can be wasted as the AI is mighty smart and the Roman army so massive. [X(]