AI Battles

[Velax]

Why on earth do the battles between two AI forces take so long? I just watched a fight between 11 dark knights/hunters and 20 Swadian knights/men-at-arms and in *four days* they'd managed to reduce it to 8 dark knights and 11 Swadians. Surely a battle between two such small and melee-based forces would last a few hours, at the very most. It can be very annoying, especially when I'm sitting there waiting for the Swadians to win, so I can kill them and perhaps score a few dark knights for my army.

 

[DaLagga]

AI battles really do take too long. I suppose that is so you will come across more of them and have a chance to join in?

 

[Daimyo]

Strange thing is also the casualty ratio. For example: I had a party composed of 7 Sword sis, 6 Swad knights, 11 Sharpshooters and 10 Sarges fight against a group of 16 Vaegir knights, 12 horsemen, and 12 veterans (plus me, marn and borcha, but they both were unde 30% health so the do not participate).

If I let the computer simulate the battle (eg. "Order your troops to attack while you're back). With a Tactics skill of 3 the game gave me an advantage of 2 iirc.
The battle ends always with many losses on my sides, usually at least 2-4 units (random, except for knights that seem to have less chances to die), 3-5 woundeds (or the opposite, more dead less wound), and equal or even less casualties on computer side: 3-4 deaths, 1 to 5 wounded.

Then I tried to simulate the battle, participating by myself, but without taking any role in it: no orders, I just went to the farthest map edge and dismounted, nobody chased me. Well, sometimes 1 or 2 swordsis or knights die or become unconscious, because they rush foe and became outnumbered, later 1 or 2 foot idiots (sarge or sharposhooter) are knocked out or killed. Foes die like flies instead, 10-20 of them are slaughtered, 1-3 knocked down and then the battle ends.
So simulated vs passive battle equals to:
-me: 5-10 out of combat vs 3-4
-computer: 5-10 out of combat vs 11-23.

The strange thing is: why if the troops are just the same, everything is the same, a simulated battle causes at least double the casualties of a played (passively) one? And more important: why does computer losses so many more fighters during a battle if I do not even participate?

 

[holybandit]

I agree, iv slept at a cavern and watched a AI battle and when i went out of town...Only 3 dead on both sides.

 

[sharp_spike]

it is sooooooooooo boring to watch al fights.i tried watching one and the war ended 7 days later

 

[DaLagga]

I remember posting something a while back about just removing the auto-battle feature. I tend to accidentally click it every once in a while and take insane losses because of it, and don't really see any practical use for it.

 

[Maelstorm]

Just go to closest town and wait there. If the sides parted, track the ones you want.

 

[Fluffy The Hamster]

Reminds me when I used to watch a battle between 47 refugees and 29 dark knights/hunters. 3 days later, the refugees ran away with 29 surviving, whilst the dark knights ran away with 2.

 

[Maelstorm]

My worst case was this:

I accidently (my mouse..) go for a dark knight band instead of city, retreat line cut. I wanted to exit since i had work to do. I "ordered my men to fight". For fun, i attacked once, got beaten and "surrendered)In the end, %90 of my men were captured, the rest killed. Then i click save&exit instead of quit without saving. I decided to track the dark knights to recover my captured men. Found them, they were into a fight with refugees. I had to wait suuuch a long time. What makes it worse, since i had a group of, say, 5 people; every pain in the neck bandit was after me. Eventually, Dark Knights, thank god, won the war with ONE (as in, single; as in 1) dark knight. So i defeated 'im and recovered my men. Brr.

 

[Blade]

It would be a great boon to all if this could be changed anytime soon, cause it IS a pain in the butt!

 

[DaLagga]

Just as a side note, i think that the party animations on the world map should be changed. Why not show groups of units representing what the party consists of instead of a single unit? So lets say...you would see 1 unit on the world map for every 10 units actually in the party. If a war party consisted of 80 troops, about 30 cavalry and 50 infantry, you would see a group of 3 horses and 5 infantry on the world map. And instead of just displaying 2 still animations with a "battle icon" above parties when they're fighting, how about showing a little looped battle animation. I suppose neither of these are important or essential, but it would make the map more interesting IMO.

 

[Blade]

Just as a side note, i think that the party animations on the world map should be changed. Why not show groups of units representing what the party consists of instead of a single unit? So lets say...you would see 1 unit on the world map for every 10 units actually in the party. If a war party consisted of 80 troops, about 30 cavalry and 50 infantry, you would see a group of 3 horses and 5 infantry on the world map. And instead of just displaying 2 still animations with a "battle icon" above parties when they're fighting, how about showing a little looped battle animation. I suppose neither of these are important or essential, but it would make the map more interesting IMO.

Me like this much very!!!!!

 

[Daimyo]

Yeah, this Dark knights vs refugee thing is something I've noticed too...
For some strange reason battle outcome usually favours Refugees instead of Dark knights, maybe because auto battle resolution only looks at sheer numbers (regardless of the fact that 5 dark knights can slaughter 20 refugees and flee unscathed).

But seeing 20 Peasant Women walk around with 12 Dark Knight prisoners is a thing I find somewhat.... disturbing.

 

[Orion]

I like that with the Mag-7 mod.

I just go join the bandits really quick, kill the refugees, and add the dark knights to my army.

Then I go rejoin the vaegirs or w/e.

I don't really care about rank, wages, etc... I can just raid a caravan.

 

[Velax]

What makes these AI battles even stranger is that it's obviously done a lot more efficiently off-screen. You see Vaegir patrols and war parties running around with a couple of dozen Swadians taken prisoner, and you know to do so they've had to completely wipe out another Swadian patrol or war party. How long would that take if you watched the battle? Weeks? Months? I somehow doubt it takes that long off-screen.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Yah, or if this is a very tricky problem to fix, add a turbo button to whiz time by while we wait.