[.86] AI must learn to use armor in units!!

they probably focus researching something else i suppose

No, even by midgame they still don't use armor.

I noticed this too. Capitar should be all about armor. 

My experience has differed. Kulan and the other empire factions mass produce 'spear maidens' that are fully equipped with leather. None of the militia seem to equip armor anymore, which is extremely frustrating. It's probably not intentional though, as they do not upgrade at all. Given that unit upkeep is now based on the production cost it is sensible to use troops with little to no armor as you can afford to keep armies on multiple fronts that way.

Though I think the AI should have a 'shock troop' army that they pair with their champion(s) for offensive purposes.

Capitar had leather clad Spear Maidens by the hundreds. It is a bad strategy when they just stack them and use wave attacks twelve times. Watch the second video in my Tarth Rising series to see what I mean. They never landed a hit. It would have taken heavy armor to near my front line.

Admittedly I was holding back to use my Masterwork Bow Archers, but shame on them for not putting any armor on their mages or archers either. 

I took over 10+ AI cities with my ruler on horseback, a size 3 and two size 5 scouting swordsmen. After upgrading them to chain, they just started stomping numerous amounts of the AI's leather clad units. Even though I'm now producing size 7 scouting units on horseback (4 movement) with amazingly boosted stats. These 3 old units leveled up so much, they became too valuable to ever dismiss.

Have seen the AI waste money building adventurer's guilds and command posts all over the place. If it doesn't manage money well, then it will never be able to afford the upkeep of better units.

Wonder if the AI prioritizes getting the techs for money and boosted research? It's certainly not picking up loot and then selling the junk for big bucks.

AI doesn't design units. It only uses pre-made units.  So my job is to whine to the design team to make more units.

That's odd.. many of the premade units use armor. Perhaps the AI doesn't value unit types appropriately. Maybe there was a unit design that got 'stuck' or something during playtesting. It might be worth looking into.

The only unit in my realm is the Spear Maiden and unarmored menageries. Would it be acceptable to send them my unit designs?

Would it be possible, for custom factions, to set up a series of designs for them to use? Maybe in the workshop, or something similar.

Really you don't need armor until facing archers ... (if your soldiers are numerous enough, that is).

For as long as you can get at least one attack before you die, the mooks will eventually win

(Archers take melee out of the equation, thus killing mooks before they can even attack ... this is why armor is needed vs archers)

Armor is also needed in the regular melee once stronger weapons are introduced.

Armor can make a big difference. It can decide if you win or loose the unit, regardless of the outcome of the battle. And you won't always get the first blow.

I also noted the spear maiden, but at that stage My *army* was in better armor. And I wasn't focused on an Armor rush tech strategy either.. I was just researching all the affordable tech.

There is always the issue with the Army amortization cost. That is the cost in time and wages that a unit will spend until it gets to the front, i.e. is used in battle. Once you factor this cost in the equation, building shock troops instead or armored troops is a waste of time and resources. Also factor in experience from survivability... it's a lost cause.

I get the feeling that the AI doesn't protect it's armies... It's like it thinks that units are built to be thrown to the fight.

The same argument holds for Galciv2 The AI never prioritized or built units with defenses, until it was too late...

well this happens for the already debated problem of ai exposing melee to first attack

with real intelligence you would never get first attack

It wouldn't be an issue if all melee units had 1 natural counter attack. Then 'first attack' wouldn't be that important ... but really I haven't focused on optimizing that sort of thing, because its unnecessary when you have that many extra mooks that don't cause that much maintenance.

look at the zombie thread.

Look at the Zombie thread.

-> that being said ... the AI should probably wear armor, because they aren't making anything as efficient as Zombie troops.

yes and not

after 1 attack you could die

or with figures first attack would do 50 dmg and counter 20

but still the point is WHY ai should do a bad move?

moving in a tile that allow an opponet to deal first attack is a bad move

its not a game mechanics is just a suicide move

ultimately someone has to do it or the game stalls out.

If one side has more archers, it forces the opposing side to move across the board as quickly as possible.

Its not always possible to optimize for getting the 'first strike' in melee. Often perhaps, but not always possible.

(when I have more archers than they do, I just make sure I have a defensive line, I don't move forward)

depends on the composition

if both opponents has 2 archers and 3 melee lets say archers will shoot each other and so end up with reduced dmg

so its still the main move of the game not allowing the opponet to first strike each other melee

when things are not balanced ofc melee may need to move fast but if 1 side has only melee and the other has 3 archers and 3 melee its a lost battle anyway, so who cares

the problem is when things are balanced, first strike decide the match, its really so bad to have ai to do a suicide move

True. I see your point.

What is the AI's alternative though?

(I suppose it would be to move until 3 tiles away, so that if you were to move to attack it, a slightly greater chance that your unit would get surrounded?)

well in some case yeah, best tactic would be at least to expose the most tanky unit(or the less dmg one so the sacrifice would be minimal) to the first hit with the rest waiting just 1 tile behind  but i get its too much complicated for a game

also a real good play would imply to check the turn order to avoid someone with ai init being able to attack and retreat

so to make things easy to do id just go with melees waiting in formation and if ai consider moving a suicide (ie high attack low def units on both sides) call it a draw

Does the ai ever upgrade units, like pulling back a veteran unit and upgrading it?

@maniakos I should have specified that I meant shock troops to be better equipped. That is to say better armor, better equipment (like fire rings) and enchanced unit stats from buildings/enchantments that they use for their offensive. All the remaining produced units are free to be lightly (un)armored that hang back for defense. They can then gravitate their best units into their champion stack(s) for defeating the player stacks of doom or making offensive strikes against heavily defended cities.

Late game, I did see the AI with lots of units totally equipped in some kind of enhanced chain mail. Chainmail with slightly better stats than my normal chainmail. Equipped with a magic spear too. His Archers and mages weren't wearing this chain. Which makes sense.

At that point my faction power was 730+ and his was around 550. Date was around Fall 260 A.C.

There are several different problems here:

1. It seems to like using scouts and peons as troops when there is really no reason to ever do this. This unfortunately seems to be an AI issue. The AI should not ever be building these units, except for maybe peons if it has nothing else.

2. I guess the AI really likes spear maidens because they have three traits even if those traits are really random. I wonder why the devs designed spear maidens and gave them to every faction.

3. The AI has no advanced designs for archers that have for example leather armor or better traits.

4. The AI includes pioneers in armies.

Half of these problems could be fixed by better unit designs but the AI really has to stop putting units with weakness in armies period. There is no good reason to ever do this. No unit with weakness is a combat unit. Also it should be smart enough to know that peons are a bad choice but apparently it isn't, so it should prioritize upgradeable units.

I've seen leather-clad archers before. Think it was in 0.85