Siege AI observations

In my very long game, I've gotten to such high level that it's beginning to be a bit boring.  I've lately taken to playing with cheat mode on and Ctrl-F5 to put my own char on AI control.  I've made a few observations on how the AI work, and most are pretty depressing.  The most interesting is probably in siege, though.

Now we all know that the AI is pretty much clinically braindead when it come to siege assaults.  But actually "being" the AI reveals just how they are retarded, some are pretty obvious but some only observeable this way.

At the start of the battle, if your character is armed with ranged weapon, he will take up a position and start shooting.  By "taking up a position", I mean he will either stay where he started, or choose the exact spot with maximum exposure to enemy fire.  And by "start shooting", I mean he will take out his bow and polish it for a few hours.  The thing about AI archers is that they have extremely short attention span.  Normally this isn't that serious, but at siege it's a huge problem.  The AI would raise his bow and aim at an soldier between the crenellations.  But as soon as the enemy move away from the crenellation and out of sight, the AI would lose interest.  When the enemy shows up again, the AI raises his bow, enemy go away, AI lowers bow.  This is usually repeated about 20 times for each arrow the AI shoots.  The AI doesn't know the advanced trick of "if target lost, shoot d00d next to target".  Yet strangely, the AI seems to remember his target: even if the enemy goes out of sight for a long time, the AI will refuse to attack anyone else, especially someone who's shooting at him.  This explains why it takes so long for an archer to empty his quiver despite a wall full of targets.

If your character does not have ranged weapon, with the default charge command, the AI will generally rush toward the ramp.  But very often, the AI will somehow miss the ramp and step to its side.  Once this happens, the AI will switch to the tactic of acting confused.  Most of the time he will stand around and take in the surrounding flora while arrows shower down his head.  Sometimes he will suddenly go in a rage and start attacking the wall, presumably trying to get at the enemy behind.  Sometimes, and rarely, the AI will back track a bit and make another try at the ramp.  But only the AI with genius level intelligence would ever do this.

Once the AI actually get onto the ramp... it's probably not the only one.  The ramp is about wide enough for 1.8 person to fit through.  And whoever at the front of the line usually does a much better job at blocking everyone than the defenders ever could.  In the shuffle, one or two will inevitably get pushed off the ramp, in which case see the above paragraph.

In the off chance that the AI actually make it onto the top of the ramp, and miraculously stay there long enough to make it onto the wall, he will usally head toward the direction that the spawned enemies are coming from.  This is the right side in most castles, but not always.  What this means is that they usually completely ignore the dozens of archers still stationed on the left side of the wall, shooting them happily in their arse.  But what's an arrow or two in the arse of a brave warrior?

The next challenge come ins the form of the stairway down to the enclosure.  The best thing that can happen to an AI is that he gets shoved off during a fight and drop down.  Maybe he'll take a point of falling damage or two, but that's nothing compared to the damage he would have gotten otherwise.  Generally, the AI would choose a part of the stair -- the top, the middle or near the bottom -- to be his favorite spot.  He would then proceed to stand at that spot for the next two hours and contemplate the meaning of life.  Sometimes the AI get's a bit indecisive and runs back and forth between two spots, which could be quite a challenge when there are other AIs contemplating the meaning of life.

When good karma truly pays off and the AI actually make his way to the courtyard, the massacre commences.  The warrior instinct of the AI is reawakened and he will rush forth bravely to slaughter his enemies.  This usually work for a while, since the enemy are trying to decide between ranged or melee weapon, and what to wear to match the shoes.  But soon the outnumbered AI -- and he's always outnumbered because most of the reinforcement are still trying to find the ramp, and failing -- will grow weak and die.

And that's it.  Sorry if this is anti-climatic but that is bloody it.  If you made it to the courtyard without player intervention, then you've already made history.  Be proud.  If you actually managed to take a castle without any player input, then you've truly done the impossible.  My hat, and helmet and other assorted accessaries, off to you.

Thats one long post to say that Siege AI sucks. 

Well i agree.


...hey at least i read it.


 

Yes! Thank you! You saved my hair from turning gray out of frustration when I have tried to summarize all the things that are horribly flawed in sieges, especially concerning the AI.
Kids, take heed. This is how you criticize Mount & Blade, and I bet Mama Sumae's balls that this is how Armagan and the team wants their game to be criticized: point in detail what is flawed and how, and add slight suggestions how it would be better.

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At the start of the battle, if your character is armed with ranged weapon, he will take up a position and start shooting.  By "taking up a position", I mean he will either stay where he started, or choose the exact spot with maximum exposure to enemy fire.  And by "start shooting", I mean he will take out his bow and polish it for a few hours.  The thing about AI archers is that they have extremely short attention span.  Normally this isn't that serious, but at siege it's a huge problem.  The AI would raise his bow and aim at an soldier between the crenellations.  But as soon as the enemy move away from the crenellation and out of sight, the AI would lose interest.  When the enemy shows up again, the AI raises his bow, enemy go away, AI lowers bow.  This is usually repeated about 20 times for each arrow the AI shoots.  The AI doesn't know the advanced trick of "if target lost, shoot d00d next to target".  Yet strangely, the AI seems to remember his target: even if the enemy goes out of sight for a long time, the AI will refuse to attack anyone else, especially someone who's shooting at him.  This explains why it takes so long for an archer to empty his quiver despite a wall full of targets.

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This behaviour is especially lovable, when the nord veteran first in line stops on the top of the ramp and locks onto some Swadian militiaman standing in the courtyard, just out of sight of the nord.

So there I am on the walls, fighting off waves and waves of castle defenders with just a few attackers. I take a lot of minor hits, but they still drop my health, little by little. My fellow attacking nords take down at least 10 defenders a man before dying, so we would win without doubt if there were just a bit more of us.... wait, what the ****. My attacking force was 250% of the defending force, where the are the rest of the nords? I turn and see that 90% of the attackers are hopelessly trying to climb the ladder, but fail to get on the walls because the path is blocked by the Nord veteran, who is standing on top of the ladder with his bow down, waiting for his mortal enemy, the swadian militiaman, to show up so he could shoot him. Guess what the militiaman is doing? Standing in the courtyard with his crossbow down, waiting for the Nord Veteran on the top of the ladder to come out so he could shoot him.

Well, I didn't really set out to criticize M&B, but I suppose that's just what I did.  Frankly M&B AI sucks, everybody knows it.  But we love the game nonetheless.  It really made the post just to vent off some frustration and share some experience, nothing more.  Personally I don't think AI is the biggest problem M&B has... even though I'd certainly love to see it improved.

And yes, I agree that by pointing out exactly how the AI is flawed, it'd be more constructive than to just say "AI sucks".

Precisely. Armagan has said a number of times that any feedback, that would help to develop the game, is always more than welcome.

Of course, the vague and unconstructive,  "lol i just killed by sea raider this game sucks so bad because i dosent noes how to play it lol **** you" kind of criticism is stupid, but your post was the exact opposite.

Yeah, you're right.  I'm going to take your (unspoken) suggestion and take this to the privy council...  The archer AI is a pretty specific problem that should be fixable, without asking for a complete AI overhaul.

Well i was gunna start a new thread, but i guess tacking it on to this thread will do



Just tried to take a city with battlesizer set to 200 - impossible because there's like 50 or so crossbowmen on top & 50 more soldiers blocking the entrence where only 1 at a time can go up ...

So i went back & changed the battle size to 24. Now there were some 400 defenders and some 350 attackers. Battle advantage was 0, so 12 per side should spawn at a time, right?

I was under the impression that once you kill the first 12, 12 more will spawn until everyone had an opportunity to spawn, right?  Welll the defenders only respawned once and were quickly killed. During the street fights they didn't respawn at all and the 6vs6 fight or what it was was over pretty quick. Then the battle in the keep - i think it was 4vs8 or something. Again, no respawns.

So basically i took a town with 400 defenders and only killed some 40 of them.. at the most? Am i wrong in assuming they should respawn until their entire defensive pool is drained?

I was marshall & attacked the town with 6 other lords - maybe the 6 other lords all had their own individual battles and i only saw a part of it? how did that all work?

I've been wondering the exact same thing.

I usually start the fight with bz 24, kill some of the defenders and allow my men to get there(those few who actually manage to do it) and set the bz to 75. There's more troops, but I still kill less than half of it... feels like cheating. I guess you shouldn't fiddle with the battle size during sieges.

Nahkuri said:

I've been wondering the exact same thing.

I usually start the fight with bz 24, kill some of the defenders and allow my men to get there(those few who actually manage to do it) and set the bz to 75. There's more troops, but I still kill less than half of it... feels like cheating. I guess you shouldn't fiddle with the battle size during sieges.

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hmm.. .i didn't know you could fiddle with battlesize while the fight is going on.

What i did was before i layed siege to the town.

I set the battle size to 24 before I attack, and after me and some of my troops are on the walls, I set it to 75, which causes reinforces to appear immediately on both sides.

Personally I love the mad charge up the ramp.  I always try running up the ramp first, screaming 'Follow me and I'll lead you to glory!!" as I hit F2.  Then jump over the breach and swinging my axe wildly (thank god there is no 'friendly fire' for melee weapons) I clear an area in front of the ladder to help my guys get in.  It's always sucha great feeling when my first huscarl gets in, and we start bashing heads.

Once the breach is taken, I yell 'Charge!!' (and hit F3).  Through an unspoken agreement my beloved brave and bloody huscarls attack the righthand towers, while I head left.  After a brief struggle with the archers and skirmishers on the battlements, I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the ladder is safe.  Then I see that it isn't.  In the confusion of battle I see I did not realize only three huscarls followed me up the ladder, and the last surviving one is dancing on the stairs with a Vaegir veteran while the bulk of the army slips by him to their favoured position of above the ramp.

The rest of my army is milling around the bottom of the ladder below Borcha, who is examining the sheen on his bow, except for Nizar, Bunduk and Ymira, who are standing in a little circle with arms drooped to the sides, no doubt discussing Veluca wines.

The few battle raged huscarls that remembered what we were there for keep trying to squeeze by Borcha, and occasionally one would make it and run up the ladder to be instantly felled by about twenty spears and axes.  After his lifeless body drops and the defenders have a chance to catch thier breath, another individual sneaks by and tries to take the breach alone.  Out of pity and frustration, I try run to the breach and offer some help just to find myself getting pincushioned by ever Vaegir marksman and archer out there.  I look at my health bar and I realize some things are best left to fate.  I find a hidey hole, crack open a beer and watch the casualty list.

Nahkuri said:

I set the battle size to 24 before I attack, and after me and some of my troops are on the walls, I set it to 75, which causes reinforces to appear immediately on both sides.

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That'd probably constitute cheating to most gamers.  Still, very creative use of the options.

You know its realy frustrating cause playing on normal Mode.. It becomes imposible mode and sieging Towns especialy Khergit Towns. Stupid Khergits, seriously even their lowly crap soldiers get bows. It rains arrows for Half an hour and their IS NO COVER.. Seriously Devs please include cover for every town I seriously doubt that Siegers in the by gone times strolled up to castle walls unprotected. Also on normal mode you get smoked for 45 damage and your done. Why on earth if I die my guys stop attacking yet when theirr Lord gets knocked out they keep going. There should be a leston taken from Total War, here.

Whats worse I have to lead the charge because what you described the AI you will get slaughtered.. What bothers me the most is that the Huscarl even when given the order to Charge will pulll out his bow and try to have a shooting competition with a Rhodok Sharpshooter.

uly said:

Nahkuri said:

I set the battle size to 24 before I attack, and after me and some of my troops are on the walls, I set it to 75, which causes reinforces to appear immediately on both sides.

Click to expand...

That'd probably constitute cheating to most gamers.  Still, very creative use of the options.

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It is. But I don't feel bad about doing it, seeing how many unnecessary things I should overcome. One ladder, incapable friendy troops etc.

When sieging, I find that it's much more effective to give the "hold ground" order right around the base of the ladder, then give the "move forward" command (so the hold ground spot is past the wall). Suddenly, my troops will actually rush up the ladder en masse and I don't have to try and be the first person up the ladder. Once most of them have made it up, I'll give the charge order.

But yeah, the AI sucks. What I really hate in general is that my archers will continue to keep shooting at some dead guy long after he's died. They'll just keep shooting and shooting at some empty spot wasting arrows. Some of the other AI issues might be hard to program in but you'd think it would be fairly easy to have the AI know when a target has died and to move on to another target.

What would also be useful would be something that makes the AI characters not stray too far from each other. That way they would tend to have each other's support. Maybe for the mounted units, the distance would increase. But I think this is more realistic of human nature. And when sieging, you wouldn't have to worry about losing stray warriors to some mob.

I'd be curious to hear from programmers how hard this stuff is to do.

I've tried programming a game of my own where each unit had to try to shoot at other units, and I couldn't figure out any fast way to do it.  As far as I know, you pretty much have to check the position of every enemy and then decide who's the closest.
However, if this is how Armagan's AI operates, it wouldn't be hard to keep track of who (in the big picture (I'm thinking array index)) the guy is shooting at, and have him check up on that troop every second or two to see if the guy's dead.
What I think is happening right now is that they never check to see if the enemy is dead; they keep "fighting" this dead guy until some new unit registers as being closer, or more of a threat.

Stonewall382 said:

What I think is happening right now is that they never check to see if the enemy is dead; they keep "fighting" this dead guy until some new unit registers as being closer, or more of a threat.

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The ironic thing is that, since the dead enemy probably died on the spot where the archer had direct sight, and since a dead guy doesn't move, the archer will actually waste away his arrows faster shooting at a dead guy than a moving enemy.

The sad thing is that Mount and Blade is such an awesome game in terms of combat in particular with the exception of siege combat. There are so many problems with both attacking and defending in a siege and most of these should be relatively easy to fix.

Attacking in a Siege has its annoyance such as the odd enemy archer getting stuck in an area where none of your men can get to him which means you have to do it yourself and then there is of course the fact that all your men want to be the first to the top of the ladder and end up shoving each other until the winner makes it to the top and is then slaughtered since he has no backup (At the very least they could give us 2 or 3 ladders instead of 1).

Defending in a Siege has even more glitches, the worst ive seen is once after losing a siege defense I was forced to fight the battle again on my own with 1 HP. I dont know exactly how I managed to get out of it but after making me fight the battle again on my own with 1 hp for about a half dozen times it finally got back on track and showed me in a dungeon. Another problem is the enemy archers, they usually seem to fire off all the ammo before attempting to scale the walls. I try to order my men to charge out to attack them but they cant get on the ladder from behind the wall so once again as with most aspects of siege battles I am forced to DO IT MYSELF. 9 times out of 10 this is the reason I tend to lose siege defenses. As a result ive made a habit of equipping a bow and arrows whenever I know that i will have to defend a castle. If possible I would rather just sally out and attack them in a normal battle.

Why aren't there rams? Break down the door to the town and its not "Stand in line to get 'died'!" anymore.


[Edit] Dammit! I'm sorry. I didn't realise how old this thread was. I saw that "lol I got killed by sea raiders" quoted in a sig and clicked it.

My bad, guys.

Totally agree , sieges are sooo boring , i always try to avoid them , but it's seem to be impossible...
Principally when you are trying to get up on the walls and them BANG! one soldier in front of you stop walking an the others behind not , them they squish you out of the ladder...
I think that must be a mod that add to all settlements a Siege Tower and a large gap between the crenelations...