AOE 2 (HD) - AI will not move in formation

Question

I recently purchased Age of Empires 2 (HD), and perhaps the first thing I noticed which is different to the original disk game, is that the AI seems incapable of mobilising troops in formation as the player can.

This makes for a very poor attack as the AI forces reach my defences in a 'trickle', making them extremely easy too deal with.

My questions are:

• Is this an isolated problem? As I have found no other mention of this online.
• How could this possibly be fixed?

Platform data (If for whatever reason relevant):

• windows 7
• 4GB RAM
• Intel i5

Answer 1

You're not alone; I've noticed this a lot as well. This is just a quirk of the AI in HD Edition. The AI doesn't know how to select formations (since it doesn't have a mouse to do so), so it is much easier for it to select units one at a time to move them. Unfortunately what this means is that attacks are much easier to pick off since it's easier to focus on one unit at a time. My suggestion would be to either try using the Conquerors AI, or to download some AI mods from the Steam Workshop or Age of Empires 2 Heaven (these are manual downloads but are usually pretty easy to install).