AI micro spam solution ?

[lapantouflemagic]

Hi guys !

I started playin AoE recently, i can manage with the game fairly okay i'd say, but i am getting really annoyed by the AI.

i've seen a bunch of threads about how it behaves, and i'm okay with how it's progammed for the most part, i don't approve everything but whatever.

so to get back at the beginning, i played AoE a long time ago as a kid, and quicky started to hate the game because of the "archer issue" : basically, one archer will shoot at you, one of your grunts will attack it, but the archer would then retreat, fire an arrow, retreat again, fire an arrow and so on. and somehow your grunt will not manage to land a hit in the process.
I remember that clearly because of how upsetting that was, i also remember testing that, leaving my dude run after the archer and see how far it goes : they litterally crossed the entire map.

anyway, i was probably ten or so, and likely didn't quite understand the concept of "horses" so i recently bought DE to try again as an adult.

so now i'm struggling with the Joan of Arc campaign, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell this is a scougre ! is there anything more annoying in the universe than a handful of scattered longbowmen harrassing you from every side ? i think not.
Sure i feed them to my horses now, that's okay, but i really would be happier if i could have a half-decent defensive line rest and breeze for five solid seconds every now and then.

To my knowledge, trebuchets are the only thing that outrange longbowmen (which is bull**** because any crossbow should), so okay, i would set a couple of them next to my castles and here we go.
except no, of course not, the AI micromanages everything all the time, to the point it will move its units to dodge my precious rosbeef-loving rocks.

I will not resort to cheating but an AI mod that prevents if from doing stuff that would be impossible for a human would be nice (like scattering 5 archers in 5 different directions at the same time) because right now, this is just frustrating. if every campaign is like that i'll be better off staring at a wall.

Of course a much better solution would be advice if you have some ;-)

[Syntax]

Mass Skirmishers, Onagers, Cavalry