Elven bolt thrower in PVE

It seems very off that I encounter the elven bolt thrower sometimes ahead of all li even when the AI reached the middle of the map. I tried to replicate it on the test server, but my bolt thrower in personal handling always falls way back. That however doesnt seem to be the case when the AI is handling it.
How can a bolt thrower with speed 7 almost always keep up with elven LI with speed 17 and sometimes manages even to come out ahead of them?

Claudandus wrote:

It seems very off that I encounter the elven bolt thrower sometimes ahead of all li even when the AI reached the middle of the map. I tried to replicate it on the test server, but my bolt thrower in personal handling always falls way back. That however doesnt seem to be the case when the AI is handling it.
How can a bolt thrower with speed 7 almost always keep up with elven LI with speed 17 and sometimes manages even to come out ahead of them?

The AIs units will typically move at the rate of it's HI (not including units that have a lower movement speed, e.g. cannons). Since the player does not have such restrictions, your LI/LIA will greatly outpace bolt throwers when testing.

However, for the AI, the bolt thrower is marginally slower than HI...which for most of the match is the speed at which it's LI/LIA will move...so if the starting placement is just so the bolt thrower will be ahead of the LI/LIA by the time it comes into contact with your army or very close by.

My point is it never happens with any other artillery. It just doesnt make any sense to me, that elven artillery is the only one that can keep up with the pace of the army.

And you are right about the hi as a reference for AI movement in PVE, cause dwarves are generally the fastest AI to arrive at my position.

Claudandus wrote:

My point is it never happens with any other artillery. It just doesnt make any sense to me, that elven artillery is the only one that can keep up with the pace of the army.

And you are right about the hi as a reference for AI movement in PVE, cause dwarves are generally the fastest AI to arrive at my position.

Yes, with Dwarves it will be the most substantial difference. With Dark, they don't need to keep advancing if the cav gets there.

So effectively the only "good" artillery comparison would be humans. Dwarven HI are faster and Dark Artillery can fire over obstacles.

Elven artillery are 60% faster, such that in the time it takes elven artillery to go a set distance, human artillery (and any other artillery) would have only gone 62.5% of such a distance (5 mov/8 mov).