Bug-like Battle AI behavior

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A very nasty thinhg just occurs to me : my Caelian army (10 so Seraphs, a couple Mammoths, 20 or so archers) gets attacked by Niefelheim Jotun - 20-30 various giants, amongst them a couple Niefel Gts, and a Niefel Jarl.
Jotun has a Nat-9 blessing, and the N Jarl is a SC type, with some equipment : Wraith Sword, Boots of Flying mainly.

Battle starts, Caelian mages are all set to LB/OL after a WG and Mistform, Jotun troops gets mauled and mostly routs, except the Niefels.
The Niefels battles the Mammoths, eventually get killed, except the Jarl, who gets berserk. Turn is now 6+, scripts are over and battle AI casts mostly P Wolves for my Seraphs.

Jotunheim routs, the remaining giants flee, except the Jarl - he is berserk and happily fight the Mammoths and the archers.
From that point on and for 10-some turns, the Seraphs *only* targeted the fleeing giants, even the Wolves chased them, and no one bothered of the Jarl that killed everyone, flying from seraph to seraph after slaughtering the troops and cutting them with his Wraith Sword !!
Caelians didn't flee either, all were killed, and battle ended only with the N Jarl remainign, a Jotun victory...

While I'm not sure the Seraphs could have killed the Jarl - OL could have done it, but not sure-, it's VERY frustating to see they didn't even react to him !

Did someone else experiment this - ie a "winning" army disregarding berserk remaining enemies to eventually lose to them ?

[Chazar]

I cannot recall a similar instance involving a berserked unit, but I do recall many dead seraphs which must have said the famous Last words "Look, let us do some target practice with those easy fugitives!"

Sometimes it is good that fleeing targets are pursued and that a single unit is ignored in favour of a mass of troops (I dont want my enemies to preserve their troops); sometimes it is plain bad (e.g. fleeing hydras or berserked SCs).

Let's hope that the Battle AI gets improved with Dom3. Choosing targets should always be somewhat erratic and dependant on vision, but the choice-propabilities should also be influenced by certain cirumstance (berserking units shold get more attention since they are easier to spot while raging; same holds for large units; I would also suggest that the number of units killed in meele should increase the attention a unit gets, but not so for ranged attacks, since it is not easy to track the person responsible).

[Endoperez]

Chazar: You might want to put that to the Dom3 Wishlist -thread. You could also come up with more rules for targetting, I believe that Illwinter appreciates *anything* that is more defined than simple "I want"...

Not that my Posts to that thread were much better, though!

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Whether it's for Dom2,3 or 4 , and whatever the circumstances I'd like to see battle AI routines reacting to "most powerful threat" rather than some other mechanism making them slaughter harmless units while getting slaughtered by others ...

[Chazar]

[*]Endoperez:
Hmm, maybe, but the wishlist threat is pretty overcrowded and all I have are some vague ideas. Now that we have this, why dont we elaborate on this topic further and then post it to the wishlist thread?
[*]PDF:
Sure, but what is the perfect yet still implementable algorithm to determine "the most powerful threat" as perceived by most players under all imaginable cirumstances?

[Kristoffer O]

PDF: perhaps the Jarl was protected from lightning. Killing fleing giants might be better than shooting at an immune target. If thats not it I'm at a loss.

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Kristoffer O said:
PDF: perhaps the Jarl was protected from lightning. Killing fleing giants might be better than shooting at an immune target. If thats not it I'm at a loss.

IIRC he wasn't (I'll check though). But even if he was I don't understand why even the Wolves didn't go at him, or why the Seraphs didn't try False Fetters against him (they did against the other Niefels before).

Chazar,
Sure I don't have the algorithm, but sure also ANY fighting unit (and certainly an equipped berzerk Niefel !) at 5 squares is more threatening than routers 20 squares across ...

[Alneyan]

I believe he was Shock Resistant, from what I recall reading about this battle (it would make sense too).

Why they didn't try other spells is another matter, which does not seem to make much sense. Could it be because the AI treats the whole enemy army as "threatless" once they start routing, despite the presence of Berserkers, and hence start firing everyone since nobody should be a danger?

[Chazar]

PDF said:
Chazar,
Sure I don't have the algorithm, but sure also ANY fighting unit (and certainly an equipped berzerk Niefel !) at 5 squares is more threatening than routers 20 squares across ...

I disagree:
Consider a single militia man, gone berserk by spell, which was in his own squad, put on a rear flank with "hold and attack rearmost". Now the battle is almost over, the wounded enemy masses are fleeing into a friendly province just to heal, regroup and attack again, but your heavy infantry which has advanced to the other end of the battlefield (since it was ordered to attack archers) could easily dispatch those fleeing units. But instead, they let those fleeing units unharmed and chase after that single militia man, which they wont even reach in time!

I would rather have my infantry finish of those fleeing units, or at least I would want some of them to chase the militia man, but certainly not all of them! Different circumstances should really matter (including distance as you have already pointed out), hence my suggestion below!

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Chazar said:

I disagree:
Consider a single militia man, gone berserk by spell, which was in his own squad, put on a rear flank with "hold and attack rearmost". Now the battle is almost over, the wounded enemy masses are fleeing into a friendly province just to heal, regroup and attack again, but your heavy infantry which has advanced to the other end of the battlefield (since it was ordered to attack archers) could easily dispatch those fleeing units. But instead, they let those fleeing units unharmed and chase after that single militia man, which they wont even reach in time!

I would rather have my infantry finish of those fleeing units, or at least I would want some of them to chase the militia man, but certainly not all of them! Different circumstances should really matter (including distance as you have already pointed out), hence my suggestion below!

Bah, you're taking an extreme example to show that dealing with a real threat, but a very feeble one, can be sub-optimal. Yes it is !
To be more precise I agree that the AI should only dispatch forces proportionate to a threat, not necessarily all the army vs "the" main threat. Else everyone would gang up against 1 unit/group..
But anyway I'd still prefer that to seeing a whole army destroyed by *not* dealing with a very potent threat !