Bring Back Lifting Sieges for AI

[bbaydogdu]

AI armies were more reacting in the previous versions. They used to lift sieges and run away if a stronger enemy army were aproaching.They also used to lift sieges to defend their settlements. Now they just wait for their own destruction or they let the enemy capture their town while they are busy with sieging some stupid castle. Yeah, It was causing cat and mouse issue but once againg TW took the easy way to fix that issue and now we have even worse.

 

[Dodgy]

Agreed.
Way too easy to exploit as it is...
I wish they were smarter and better at waging war rather than relying on respawning and creating new kamikaze armies over and over.

 

[HaydarFurkan]

+1 düzeltmekten çok bozuyorlar.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

Actually it was changed to this because players complained that there was no way to play defensive sieges as the AI only attacked at overwhelming odds. There is no pleasing everybody.

 

[bbaydogdu]

This is not a "you can't please everyone" situation. This is a "poorly designed AI ruining the gameplay experience" situation.

 

[Earth Dragon]

This is not a "you can't please everyone" situation. This is a "poorly designed AI ruining the gameplay experience" situation.

It absolutely is one of these.

It’s also why it’s a joke that some players think “listening to the community” will solve all this game’s issues. Everything that is changed is a trade off. Players were complaining that the AI never committed to sieges and allowed them to defend in more reasonable situations. For them it was “gameplay being ruined by the AI”. So now the AI is changed, and now you are making a similar assertion.

The AI has been over corrected, that’s my analysis from what I’ve seen. But that doesn’t change the fact that people were asking for this to be done

 

[bbaydogdu]

So are you telling me there is absolutely no way to make this more reasonable? Is it either kamikaze armies or cat and mouse?

 

[Earth Dragon]

So are you telling me there is absolutely no way to make this more reasonable? Is it either kamikaze armies or cat and mouse?

I think there is ways to make it more reasonable, but I don’t think we had to be dismissive of the fact that people were asking for a change to AI to do some of the things it’s doing.

It’s all just showing a degree of understanding is all and coming at it from that angle.

 

[bbaydogdu]

Decent npc AI on the campaing map shouldn't be something too much to ask for. It's not the community's fault. TW shouldn't came up with that nonsense in the first place. They made a broken AI caused many people to complain, then they changed it to another broken AI. Why even bother to make something good when there is a lot of free labour to fix your mess, right?

 

[froggyluv]

Decent npc AI on the campaing map shouldn't be something too much to ask for. It's not the community's fault. TW shouldn't came up with that nonsense in the first place. They made a broken AI caused many people to complain, then they changed it to another broken AI. Why even bother to make something good when there is a lot of free labour to fix your mess, right?

Ive noticed this pattern as well. They had a great looking combat AI (early on) using lots of feints etc and i guess "some" people complained or for whatever reason they made it so easy i can walk in to every tourney Day 1 level1 and win it easily. This shows me that there isn't a clear vision of what the Devs saw for their game but more of a corporate meeting "they say the games too hard, get goin on that! Accessibility is paramount!" - type sledgehammer response. That the Devs are far removed for trying to achieve a very cohesive and fun game with a nuanced touch - something im seeing alot more of from 1 man Indie developers than larger ones who look at profit as the absolute goal. Not to say some things namely the combat (with RBM and a few others to make it harder) and especially the animations were top notch in my opinion. But the Campaign "AI" if we can even call it that hasnt evolved very much at all..

 

[Earth Dragon]

Decent npc AI on the campaing map shouldn't be something too much to ask for. It's not the community's fault. TW shouldn't came up with that nonsense in the first place. They made a broken AI caused many people to complain, then they changed it to another broken AI. Why even bother to make something good when there is a lot of free labour to fix your mess, right?

The crux of the issue is there is no actual metric for “decent NPC AI”

The mods I’ve tried that “fixed” it, according to its fans, made the AI excessively predictable and exploitable, and all factions had the same tendencies. That’s not a fix in my book. Doing the “best tactical option” according to the author but having gaping holes and no flexibility just offered a similarly shallow experience.

I’m not convinced the current AI is any worse then it was before. It’s just different. If all you want is field battles, it’s “worse”. If you wanted more castle defense battles, it’s probably a little “better”. They also adjusted the effectiveness of units in different autoresolve situations, so I’m curious if those were all taken into account properly.

At the end of the day this is a six of one, half dozen of another result

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Did they even fix the issue people wanted though? I heard people say that if you do a defensive siege the enemy will just retreat when loosing and re-build it's gear/recover and attack again and you're stuck in there without actually being able to defeat them from the defensive siege. Did they fix that, will the AI fight until defeat now? I think siege defense is bad anyways because you have less control and options of positioning compared to field battle.

 

[bestmods168]

The crux of the issue is there is no actual metric for “decent NPC AI”

The mods I’ve tried that “fixed” it, according to its fans, made the AI excessively predictable and exploitable, and all factions had the same tendencies. That’s not a fix in my book. Doing the “best tactical option” according to the author but having gaping holes and no flexibility just offered a similarly shallow experience.

I’m not convinced the current AI is any worse then it was before. It’s just different. If all you want is field battles, it’s “worse”. If you wanted more castle defense battles, it’s probably a little “better”. They also adjusted the effectiveness of units in different autoresolve situations, so I’m curious if those were all taken into account properly.

At the end of the day this is a six of one, half dozen of another result

Look at ai back in the day. This is ai vs ai. There was a time after this that ai was quite difficult to fight one on one. Then a few patches later its back to easy picking. I remember it was around the time when the devs introduced the combat difficulty options.

Skip to 1:15 for the highlight.

 

[bbaydogdu]

The crux of the issue is there is no actual metric for “decent NPC AI”

The mods I’ve tried that “fixed” it, according to its fans, made the AI excessively predictable and exploitable, and all factions had the same tendencies. That’s not a fix in my book. Doing the “best tactical option” according to the author but having gaping holes and no flexibility just offered a similarly shallow experience.

I’m not convinced the current AI is any worse then it was before. It’s just different. If all you want is field battles, it’s “worse”. If you wanted more castle defense battles, it’s probably a little “better”. They also adjusted the effectiveness of units in different autoresolve situations, so I’m curious if those were all taken into account properly.

At the end of the day this is a six of one, half dozen of another result

I personally don't expect them to behave as real military masterminds. But atleast armies should have some situational awareness. Right now they have 0. The AI creates an army and directly goes for a siege. They besiege a settlement and launch the assult while enemies gather up right next to them. When the army lost enough men to be exposed for an attack from the enemies outside you know what happens. Now the army is gone and nothing is gained from this mindless kamikaze attack. Few more like this and the enemy can besiege where ever they want without worrying about any threat. This is the every war in Calradia in a nutshell. I don't think people actually wanted this.

 

[Dodgy]

I personally don't expect them to behave as real military masterminds. But atleast armies should have some situational awareness. Right now they have 0. The AI creates an army and directly goes for a siege. They besiege a settlement and launch the assult while enemies gather up right next to them. When the army lost enough men to be exposed for an attack from the enemies outside you know what happens. Now the army is gone and nothing is gained from this mindless kamikaze attack. Few more like this and the enemy can besiege where ever they want without worrying about any threat. This is the every war in Calradia in a nutshell. I don't think people actually wanted this.

That's exactly how easily you can conquer the whole map, despite your own faction lords doing the exact same thing.
You just need your own army to exploit this to an extent, you are only slowed/stopped by the stupidity in accepting/asking for peace or even worse declaring it at the wrong times.
With proper diplomacy/AI the campaign AI would be even more exploitable.

 

[saittam]

Look at ai back in the day. This is ai vs ai. There was a time after this that ai was quite difficult to fight one on one. Then a few patches later its back to easy picking. I remember it was around the time when the devs introduced the combat difficulty options.

Fighting is almost silly now. When a looter can block a charging horse. Nothing but a heavy shield should stop that or a long pike at the ground.
When you have 200 in skill, ride with charge and swing with anything two handed they should just drop. Don´t need to be taken out but it should never be able to completly stop an attack. They must fall to the ground!
But now a one handed stops the attack with ease.