SP - Player, NPCs & Troops Suggestion: Occasional Bad Judgement for NPCs

[Schoulayer]

For the most part, an enemy noble will not chase you unless they have a numeric advantage. Factions do not attempt to siege a castle unless they have a crushing numeric advantage. That kind of behavior is intelligent, but it's also predictable and robotic feeling. Humans are not always like that.

I think there should be a chance that army leaders will miscalculate and occasionally make mistakes. That chance should be higher for army leaders that have low intelligence and/or low tactics skill. So, for example, an army leader with low intelligence may decide to attack your army of 60 with only 45 people, believing that their fighting spirit will make up for the numeric difference.

The occasional out of place blunder could have comedic value, and would no doubt be a hit on the livestreams as well.
"Can you believe that moron tried to siege my castle with only 250 soldiers?"

As things are now, I rarely get to have fun on castle defense. Either the attacking army has such a numeric advantage that defense is hopeless or the attacking army calls the siege off. When it comes to castle sieges, it seems they don't like taking chances and fighting even battles.

 

[Chaosreaper187]

+1 agree

 

[Shyoto]

I would give a hesitant +1 to this. While I agree that the current AI is robotic and boring, I would still like to maintain a sense of reason in their actions. I would like to see more lords be willing to be aggressive, especially where battles are concerned. Seeing a 350 man army run away from a 360 man army because of the numerical disadvantage, and have the battle only come to pass because a small band from the "larger" force breaks off to chase them down is extremely frustrating.

It also leads to a very predictable battle outcome, where if you approach an enemy lord and he runs from you, you are pretty much guaranteed to crush him in a field engagement. If he starts moving towards you, then he's going to win. There isn't really a middle ground or any need for the player to consider what is arrayed against them.

Perhaps include a wider range of "acceptable" power ratios to pursue a fight. Perhaps, say, a 40:60 odds to their disadvantage might still be appealing if they believe they can take a terrain advantage or something.

 

[SuisseRaclette]

I would give a hesitant +1 to this. While I agree that the current AI is robotic and boring, I would still like to maintain a sense of reason in their actions. I would like to see more lords be willing to be aggressive, especially where battles are concerned. Seeing a 350 man army run away from a 360 man army because of the numerical disadvantage, and have the battle only come to pass because a small band from the "larger" force breaks off to chase them down is extremely frustrating.

It also leads to a very predictable battle outcome, where if you approach an enemy lord and he runs from you, you are pretty much guaranteed to crush him in a field engagement. If he starts moving towards you, then he's going to win. There isn't really a middle ground or any need for the player to consider what is arrayed against them.

Perhaps include a wider range of "acceptable" power ratios to pursue a fight. Perhaps, say, a 40:60 odds to their disadvantage might still be appealing if they believe they can take a terrain advantage or something.

+1 to that

 

[dphilostrate]

I will try to look into this and test it because every time I have seen an army run from another due to a numerical disadvantage it appears (though it is just an assumption) that the AI recognized the smaller army has higher tiered troops than them.