AI siege decisions Beta e1.5.6

[WeiKaiXuan]

I have been running 2 different playthroughs concurrently and something that concerns me is just how puzzling the AI is deciding to take castles and settlements. They take castles too far from the territory they actually hold, making it almost impossible to keep. They will ride past several castles now to take one way in the back now. Sure this could happen on occasion in other version builds, but it seems to be happening more. Like their decision tree on which fief to attack is weighed in a different manner now, and distance from the nearest friendly fief is not as much of a factor anymore.

Now the part that really gets on my nerves, is the constant harassment of the player. The AI will ride past 4 fiefs of the faction I play for, just to attack my settlement! I took it so personal I started chopping heads because they kept capturing my wife in the process as the governor. I think that made the problem worse. Does the AI have vendettas now? In one game, I have no real enemies, but I do not have alot of fiefs either on that save. The other save, I have 10. They only go after the one with the governor wife in it (Vostrum). The other fiefs I have, get constantly attacked by the Western Empire, again they will march past the many other Aserai Kingdom fiefs just to take mine. It's so bad, I cannot go on the offensive anywhere, because I am guarding my best settlement Vostrum constantly and save scumming. When I take another settlement or castle in the enemy's territory, they take Vostrum during my siege and I got no notification my settlement was being sieged. I hate that alot. I'd rather retreat and rush back.

I feel like pulling an save before the last one and sit in front of Vostrum, kill and behead any army that comes towards it until they have no nobles left, then try and go back on the offensive. Might have to do that just to finish out this game. I have 375 hours played on this game and I do not remember it being this bad before, feels like something has changed. My real life wife is making fun of me and tells me that the AI got smarter and knows to take me out first. If that is true that is fine, would be nice to know what the truth is so that I can make adjustments to how I play, or maybe manage relationship numbers better?

 

[LordFeniks]

How many militia and how strong garrison do you have there? Cause I usually have my weaker fiefs attacked while enemy usually stay away from strongest one (usually about 300militia and about 400+ garrison in my "capitol").

 

[Parkerg12]

The AI seems to Target a weaker settlement above any stronger settlement even though it is closer. MY settlement has a pretty ridiculous garrison (150 Tier 6 infantry and 150 Tier 6 Ranged). So it never gets Sieged.

 

[WeiKaiXuan]

I had 300 militia in my Vostrum settlement originally until the attacks started. The first attacker had an army over 1000, after that, I could not manage more than 150-200 between attacks and defending. 300 men was alot more than most of the other castles and settlements in that area. I never though to put my best ranked archers in there and add 400 total. I will try that if I can get some peace treaties first, and see if it keeps happening. Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[Parkerg12]

Ya 300 militia is not enough. I believe rank matters as-well. Give it a stronger garrison - 100-300 over tier 3 troops and you are better off.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

How did they capture you wife? Or do you mean they actually sieged and took your fiefs?
But yeah they consider what they can easily take in the moment, not what would be a better long term idea. They don't think about protecting the fief afterwards or building a even bigger army to take more valuable close fief instead.

I really would support the idea of separate balancing for non-player AI VRS AI decisions and Player
's faction (as vasal or ruler) because it's just very unrewarding to not be able to do any intelligent war strategy at all. Even when you're the ruler it eventually reaches a point where you vassals are constantly declaring wars and marching armies all over to tim-buck-too. I think the player should be able to reach the position of adviser or marshal and be able to set targets and basic strategy for their faction. Yes, this would give the player's faction an advantage. You know what else does? The player taking 200 t6 mounted units an massacring the entire map non-stop. Why not let us choose which thing we do? Either we spend time ordering good actions of vassals, or we let them run wild and do non-stop damage control in the field.

I would suggest treating being a vassal(in the current game as it is) as just 2 things. 1: Get a fief to store some extra troops and prisoners 2: Lead armies just to raise leadership skill
Don't worry about the faction actually doing anything good or giving you more fiefs after the 1st one. Sometimes they're more giving but often they lose so many fief that they're constantly re-giving to the same clans endlessly.