AI is too stupid for this game

[Stromming]

Warning, I am a bit ragey.

So I am a few hours into a new campaign where I am playing as Battania. A Battania without basically any archer because there are almost no nobles, and there is constant wars, so no chance to recuperate.

So Vlandia declares war. We go to rescue a castle, they have 300 soldiers and we have 500 something.
What happens? They hare 25%-30% range units, the majority being sharpshooters.

What does Battania AI do? Stand in crossbow range and EAT BOLTS. Then they decide to "kite" nothing since there i nothing to kite, just running back and forward and eating more bolts rather than charging and closing distance to the archers and wipe them out since we are better in melee.

All the meanwhile, the Vlandian cavalry mops up the rests and destroys formations.

I now remembered why I quit playing in September, and I had hoped the combat AI would be better but no, still a crap ton of running back and forth. I can literally get 10 kills for each death on my team when I am in command of tactics, but as soon as I get knocked unconscious, the AI makes it 50/50.

Also as a funny sidenote. I dropped my brother and his wife in my castle to keep them safe and make babies, and few seconds later, she has teleported to a distant city in Sturgian territory, and it's not the first time. Why the heck why is she doing this stupid a** s***?

What the F is going on with AI and why is no one doing anything to fix it?
Why is it that mexxico, god bless this man, instead of telling us that they will fix AI says that leadership in TW wants to make AI ever more stupid in order to reach fps target in console? What in the entire crap are they thinking?

I've seen die-hard fans of TW, staunch defenders, become upset about this too on forums, so it's not like the community is split in this.
We ALL want better AI, and NO ONE wants dumber AI because of some console peasants. They can have their independent console version later as long as it doesn't affect the PC one.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Also as a funny sidenote. I dropped my brother and his wife in my castle to keep them safe and make babies, and few seconds later, she has teleported to a distant city in Sturgian territory, and it's not the first time. Why the heck why is she doing this stupid a** s***?

Yeah it's ****ing stupid Are they not supposed to do embassy stuff? They eventually will get pregnant, but it's so stupid. TW, read my lips NO TELEPORTATION. NONE.

As far as the AI, the only way to enjoy the game IMO is to play just as your Clan (mostly just your party) and disregard being vassal or ruler (having vassals) completely. View the entire map as yours. NPCs are things do destroy on the battlefield.

 

[Antaeus]

Regarding the AI, unfortunately part of the EA experience is that we are going to experience unfinished AI. Not only that, but over time it's going to change, sometimes for the worse as the developers change things and experiment. The way TW run their EA means that we are essentially paying beta testers, or pre-release funding for the beta program. I'm OK with that so long as I can see progress - which I can.

Also regarding the AI. Small changes to other aspects of the game also impact on behaviour. Such as what types of troops can be recruited and when. With 1.5.7 AI armies have become much better balanced thanks to the increased ability for AI factions to progress towards cavalry. In battle I have noticed this means lots more horse archers for Asari and the Empire - which in turn leads to better engagements as AI horse archers better cover advancing infantry.

Addressing the OP issue more specifically, I think the AI seems to cycle through decisions too erratically - which can lead to it's individual soldiers standing in front of you and changing it's target or behaviour. I think this effect becomes more exaggerated as battles go on because it's responding to rapidly changing conditions.

One of the things Bannerlord lacks is the ability to specifically target an enemy formation. E.g. "Cavalry - charge at those archers". Someone correct me, but it seems like decisions on what to attack are made by individual AI soldiers E.g. "Cavalry - charge" and they all go off towards what ever they see first. The results are entirely coincidental battles - where you might order cavalry to charge and most of them go towards where you want to go, but others go off in random directions, and some mill about as their desired target dies or runs out of range and they look for another target.

With infantry this is exaggerated because they're slow moving. Each AI soldier's target changes repeatedly as they move about - leading to them stopping, looking for another target, then stopping again.

For the player this can make for both easy and hard battles. If you create fields of fire and park up your units, they can quickly decimate confused AI armies as their cohesion falls apart. But if you let your men off the leash and charge them, you end up with random chaos across the map as your unit cohesion quickly goes out the door in line with that of your AI enemy as individual soldiers chase each other. Soldiers tend to blob and look like units when in attack mode, only because coincidentally the soldiers they're chasing are all blobbed, otherwise the battle scatters across the map.

Dealing with a scatter prone AI that quickly loses cohesion as the imbalance between unit commands and soldier choices creates confusion, leads to me playing essentially aggressive-defence, where I keep my infantry in a tight formation and move them from one stationary position to another - never allowing them to attack, and keep my archers back out of the way. I then tend to send my cavalry around the flanks not letting them charge until they're right on top of the unit I want them to attack. Tightly formed soldiers have more chance of doubling up (2 to 1) against scattered AI soldiers - offering a higher chance of individual mismatches. Cavalry already close to the enemy are more likely to charge that enemy instead of some random horse archer in the other direction.

I'm not a developer, so I'm not sure about the soldier decision tree and how it relates to their global commands (specifically attack commands). I think that things could be improved by having AI soldiers 'want' to advance with friendly soldiers nearby - They seem to do this when they walk about - I.e. they stay in shield wall formation. But when they charge, they seem to revert to individual wants - soldier attack nearest soldier. I'm not sure how they'd be able to script unit attack commands. Perhaps from a scripting perspective, they could be based on unit assignments - eg. Cavalry, attack Cavalry (3). So this would in essence lead to an order that functions like: "Cavalry, attack Archers (2), keep close to friendly cavalry in skeen"

My worry is that these issues result as a necessary component of the way that this game functions - as in the character is an individual soldier in a field of soldiers who interacts individually with horses, weapons, etc. I contrast this with Total War games, where individual soldiers don't have any AI as such, they are an individually animated part of a larger unit. You send units at units, not soldiers at soldiers. So the battles are much more cohesive and controllable - even if your unit has only 1 soldier in it (like a hero unit) - it is still a unit - that happens to have 1 soldier. But the trade off is that you are no longer an active participant in the battle - you're the eye of god overseeing the fight - which is great if you're in the mood, but doesn't offer the same exhilaration of riding full speed in first person smashing skulls with your axe.

 

[Philozoraptor]

You can order formation to attack another formation, but it works properly only for melee infantry, archers do not react to it properly and cav will not use couched lances if you order it like this. RTS camera uses this order to well order your formation to charge specific formation. We use it in Realistic Battle Mod to prevent infantry from chasing distant horse archers and cavalry and to charge enemy infantry and archers instead.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

The teleportation is annoying, so +1 there.

Siege AI has been broken, has been acknowledged, but no meaningful progress has been made - I get frustrated at it too but usually won't join on another siege for this reason since I won't have full control.

I am more annoyed that I cannot set priority targets for the AI profiles (cav, skirms, etc.) and that they are not aware of each other's actions. I think ItalianSpartacus did a good breakdown in 1.5.0 of the AI profile and their target prioritization (Advanced Cav will attack other cav, charged horse archers will caracolle) - but when the enemy splits ranks to cover their flanks the AI get's stupid.

More frustrating than that is when my horse archers are in a caracolle and I charge my cav, they run right into them, breaking both charges - and get cut down by Menavibois. Really stupid. Not to mention the stupid overmap Army AI which will rather burn down their own village than chase an enemy Army half their size and slower than them...

 

[Ubin]

Yea the AI is just sooo far behind.

Horse Archers if set to Auto Delegate, run right into enemy infantry and get destroyed, or the enemy melee cav runs through 3 ranks of my infantry and kills a T5 unit but doesnt get stop and takes no damage. 10 minutes ago, I closed the game, when I had about 15 deaths when the enemy cav ran right through my infantry, WTF are those polearms on the Legionaries used for?? When I go to charge, I got some peasant with a twig, and he sticks it in the ground and my 200 skill in Horse riding and a War horse, comes to a complete halt and I get destroyed.

Also, when I get wounded, the AI does that dumb **** that I call the noob circle. Where the entire army stops my orders, they search for high ground and spend about 3-4 minutes trying to have infantry to form a circle around my archers, all the meanwhile they get shot to **** from the enemy archers, and this will go on for a few minutes until the AI says "well **** this isn't working" and then attempts to charge and by then its to late, most of my party/army is dead/wounded by then.

Also, I have to spend 90% of my time, "freeing" small pockets of men by killing routers. In a large battle this happening in 10+ locations as seen below.
Thats 14 people chasing 1 guy. Those are Tier 4+ units.

Sieges... fought one of the rare defensive sieges and the enemy AI all piled into one area. Defensive siege engines cannot have their distance changed, can only move to the left or right. So I have 300+ enemy units in a area that I cannot attack. For offensive sieges, having 100+ units at the bottom of those siege towers was funny like 10 months ago, but not really.

Cant tell your clan parties to do anything. Cant order them to roam and engage enemies in a area. I have to gather my clan parties from time to time, to remove all the looters from their parties.

I play on Realistic difficulty on a unrealistic product. This **** is no longer fun.

 

[brian82406]

E.g. "Cavalry - charge" and they all go off towards what ever they see first. The results are entirely coincidental battles - where you might order cavalry to charge and most of them go towards where you want to go, but others go off in random directions, and some mill about as their desired target dies or runs out of range and they look for another target.

I only charge my cav when I know the battle is in my pocket. I think cav works better when delegates or forwards. I think when you forwards your cav, it would target closest cav first (if it's in their sight), closest horse archers and then the rest. For this reason, I mainly use cav to drive enemy horse archers back.

 

[Nalgasucia507]

+1 to OP. And we are so close to the "release" date. Seems TW is going to release a pile turd and sh*t.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

Sieges... fought one of the rare defensive sieges and the enemy AI all piled into one area. Defensive siege engines cannot have their distance changed, can only move to the left or right. So I have 300+ enemy units in a area that I cannot attack. For offensive sieges, having 100+ units at the bottom of those siege towers was funny like 10 months ago, but not really.

Yes you can. If you look in the left side (or right side, cannot remember right now) you will see wood is painted red with a black arrow. Pressing up and down you change the distance.

 

[Razeo]

Warning, I am a bit ragey.

So I am a few hours into a new campaign where I am playing as Battania. A Battania without basically any archer because there are almost no nobles, and there is constant wars, so no chance to recuperate.

So Vlandia declares war. We go to rescue a castle, they have 300 soldiers and we have 500 something.
What happens? They hare 25%-30% range units, the majority being sharpshooters.

What does Battania AI do? Stand in crossbow range and EAT BOLTS. Then they decide to "kite" nothing since there i nothing to kite, just running back and forward and eating more bolts rather than charging and closing distance to the archers and wipe them out since we are better in melee.

All the meanwhile, the Vlandian cavalry mops up the rests and destroys formations.

And this is literally the only reason why I've decided to make it a #1 rule to never join an AI led army since a few days after launch at least until they tweak it a few more times until it has more processing power than that of a potato. Just do yourself a favor & never join one ever, instead just lead one on your own.

 

[Stromming]

And this is literally the only reason why I've decided to make it a #1 rule to never join an AI led army since a few days after launch at least until they tweak it a few more times until it has more processing power than that of a potato. Just do yourself a favor & never join one ever, instead just lead one on your own.

Maybe I should have clarified that I got knocked out and AI took over.

 

[Monkey]

What does Battania AI do? Stand in crossbow range and EAT BOLTS. Then they decide to "kite" nothing since there i nothing to kite, just running back and forward and eating more bolts rather than charging and closing distance to the archers and wipe them out since we are better in melee.

That explains why all Battanian infantry is so chubby. Those sneaky little piggies love smearing themselves with bolts so much they don't even charge so the fight won't end and they can just stay there EATING BOLTS.

I'm sorry, man, I couldn't just not jump on the opportunity.

 

[Jesus_Targaryen]

One of the things Bannerlord lacks is the ability to specifically target an enemy formation. E.g. "Cavalry - charge at those archers". Someone correct me, but it seems like decisions on what to attack are made by individual AI soldiers E.g. "Cavalry - charge" and they all go off towards what ever they see first. The results are entirely coincidental battles - where you might order cavalry to charge and most of them go towards where you want to go, but others go off in random directions, and some mill about as their desired target dies or runs out of range and they look for another target.

With infantry this is exaggerated because they're slow moving. Each AI soldier's target changes repeatedly as they move about - leading to them stopping, looking for another target, then stopping again.

For the player this can make for both easy and hard battles. If you create fields of fire and park up your units, they can quickly decimate confused AI armies as their cohesion falls apart. But if you let your men off the leash and charge them, you end up with random chaos across the map as your unit cohesion quickly goes out the door in line with that of your AI enemy as individual soldiers chase each other. Soldiers tend to blob and look like units when in attack mode, only because coincidentally the soldiers they're chasing are all blobbed, otherwise the battle scatters across the map.

Regarding the bad "charge" AI, I agree it sucks. I would have thought it is obvious that if I order a unit to "charge," they will all charge together in the same direction at the nearest enemy to the unit as a whole, not individual nearest enemies to each troop in the unit. I mean, that is the entire and only point of a charge: a wall of weapons hurling at the enemy in the same direction and at the same time. But "charge" just means "do whatever you want lol" right now.

The fix for this, that I learned from someone else on the board can't remember who, is not to charge, but to just order a unit to a position behind the enemy you want them to charge at. As they get close they will get their weapons ready and it does work really well as a "charge" attack. Unfortunately it means you can't just set it and forget it, you have to remember to keep moving them around after the initial attack. But usually after their initial smack into the enemy, you can then use the actual "F1 F3" and they'll keep attacking the same units because those are now closest to them. But, for cavalry at least (I only use cav and crossbows), I find it better to just keep directing them back and forth across the field, like a squeejee.

 

[Antaeus]

The fix for this, that I learned from someone else on the board can't remember who, is not to charge, but to just order a unit to a position behind the enemy you want them to charge at. As they get close they will get their weapons ready and it does work really well as a "charge" attack. Unfortunately it means you can't just set it and forget it, you have to remember to keep moving them around after the initial attack. But usually after their initial smack into the enemy, you can then use the actual "F1 F3" and they'll keep attacking the same units because those are now closest to them. But, for cavalry at least (I only use cav and crossbows), I find it better to just keep directing them back and forth across the field, like a squeejee.

This is definitely one approach... although I tend to do my best to instruct cavalry to charge once they're relatively close to what I want them to hit because I want there to be a chance of couched lances and knocking footmen to the ground, which isn't going to happen if they just run through.

 

[Sanctumm]

pft stupid AI what do you mean? Just because my men run in a big cluster while enemy AI ganks my people from behind and none of my men takes notice to turn around and knock back?! (oh teh Sargasm)


Jokes aside

AI is pretty darn stupid but i guess thats a huge work in progress. Could be cool if this AI would get access to deep learning and learn how to fight

 

[Goonfrom32]

Can't express how frustrating it is to be outnumbered and somehow managing to get the upperhand, just to get knocked-out and have the AI ruin all your progress and somehow lose the battle. You managed to change the balance of power to your favor, just for the AI undo everything and let most of your troops die and even lose the fight.

 

[Jesus_Targaryen]

I want there to be a chance of couched lances and knocking footmen to the ground, which isn't going to happen if they just run through.

Oh I didn't realize they needed to be charging to do that! Thanks for that

 

[Midnitewolf]

Regarding the AI, unfortunately part of the EA experience is that we are going to experience unfinished AI. Not only that, but over time it's going to change, sometimes for the worse as the developers change things and experiment. The way TW run their EA means that we are essentially paying beta testers, or pre-release funding for the beta program. I'm OK with that so long as I can see progress - which I can.

Also regarding the AI. Small changes to other aspects of the game also impact on behaviour. Such as what types of troops can be recruited and when. With 1.5.7 AI armies have become much better balanced thanks to the increased ability for AI factions to progress towards cavalry. In battle I have noticed this means lots more horse archers for Asari and the Empire - which in turn leads to better engagements as AI horse archers better cover advancing infantry.

Addressing the OP issue more specifically, I think the AI seems to cycle through decisions too erratically - which can lead to it's individual soldiers standing in front of you and changing it's target or behaviour. I think this effect becomes more exaggerated as battles go on because it's responding to rapidly changing conditions.

One of the things Bannerlord lacks is the ability to specifically target an enemy formation. E.g. "Cavalry - charge at those archers". Someone correct me, but it seems like decisions on what to attack are made by individual AI soldiers E.g. "Cavalry - charge" and they all go off towards what ever they see first. The results are entirely coincidental battles - where you might order cavalry to charge and most of them go towards where you want to go, but others go off in random directions, and some mill about as their desired target dies or runs out of range and they look for another target.

With infantry this is exaggerated because they're slow moving. Each AI soldier's target changes repeatedly as they move about - leading to them stopping, looking for another target, then stopping again.

For the player this can make for both easy and hard battles. If you create fields of fire and park up your units, they can quickly decimate confused AI armies as their cohesion falls apart. But if you let your men off the leash and charge them, you end up with random chaos across the map as your unit cohesion quickly goes out the door in line with that of your AI enemy as individual soldiers chase each other. Soldiers tend to blob and look like units when in attack mode, only because coincidentally the soldiers they're chasing are all blobbed, otherwise the battle scatters across the map.

Dealing with a scatter prone AI that quickly loses cohesion as the imbalance between unit commands and soldier choices creates confusion, leads to me playing essentially aggressive-defence, where I keep my infantry in a tight formation and move them from one stationary position to another - never allowing them to attack, and keep my archers back out of the way. I then tend to send my cavalry around the flanks not letting them charge until they're right on top of the unit I want them to attack. Tightly formed soldiers have more chance of doubling up (2 to 1) against scattered AI soldiers - offering a higher chance of individual mismatches. Cavalry already close to the enemy are more likely to charge that enemy instead of some random horse archer in the other direction.

I'm not a developer, so I'm not sure about the soldier decision tree and how it relates to their global commands (specifically attack commands). I think that things could be improved by having AI soldiers 'want' to advance with friendly soldiers nearby - They seem to do this when they walk about - I.e. they stay in shield wall formation. But when they charge, they seem to revert to individual wants - soldier attack nearest soldier. I'm not sure how they'd be able to script unit attack commands. Perhaps from a scripting perspective, they could be based on unit assignments - eg. Cavalry, attack Cavalry (3). So this would in essence lead to an order that functions like: "Cavalry, attack Archers (2), keep close to friendly cavalry in skeen"

My worry is that these issues result as a necessary component of the way that this game functions - as in the character is an individual soldier in a field of soldiers who interacts individually with horses, weapons, etc. I contrast this with Total War games, where individual soldiers don't have any AI as such, they are an individually animated part of a larger unit. You send units at units, not soldiers at soldiers. So the battles are much more cohesive and controllable - even if your unit has only 1 soldier in it (like a hero unit) - it is still a unit - that happens to have 1 soldier. But the trade off is that you are no longer an active participant in the battle - you're the eye of god overseeing the fight - which is great if you're in the mood, but doesn't offer the same exhilaration of riding full speed in first person smashing skulls with your axe.

There was a mod that made things more like Total War, I think it was called Epic Battle AI or something. It basically allowed for custom formation and used some sort of phased battle. I haven't used the mod but I will say every video I have seen using the mod actually looks like a real battle is going on. The AI actual retains cohesion on units. They line up directly in front of you. Reinforcements gather into a formation rather than run in singly from across the map and you can actually have individual formations attack individual formations though this might be the RTS mod using in conjunction with the Epic Battle AI. I don't know what limitation this mod has but it does show that something like this can pretty easily be added to the game. I mean if a modder can do it, why can't Taleworlds??

 

[Antaeus]

I mean if a modder can do it, why can't Taleworlds??

It's not about how easy it is to do. It's about whether it fits in with Taleworlds' vision for the game - which is not for it to be a birds eye view Total War clone - which is fair. That's why I think we need to separate out 'good' unit commands from the extended RTS features. Good unit commands are necessary. Extra RTS features are not.

 

[BoBB]

Also regarding the AI. Small changes to other aspects of the game also impact on behaviour. Such as what types of troops can be recruited and when. With 1.5.7 AI armies have become much better balanced thanks to the increased ability for AI factions to progress towards cavalry.

I disagree. It’s a cheap solution that makes for a bland game. “Let’s balance it by giving everyone the same tools”.

No, they need to improve AI and autocalc. Battanians should not be cavalry heavy.