Campaign AI - Beta 1.4.0

[Dabos37]

AI is less likely to defend besieged settlements now. I have just started a new campaign and Battania took Lagerta while some time later, the Western Empire took Marunath in the first couple of days. Battania has a decent army to try to defend Marunath but it did not even try it. I think that something has changed to avoid the AI giving up ongoing sieges in order to defend settlements but maybe it should care a bit more on defending towns instead of ignoring them most of the times. Have someone noticed this behavior too?

 

[anton97]

Yeah, I´ve encountered this countless times thus far. Armies seem to prioritize offense rather than defense when choosing actions. They´ll often run right past smaller armies that are besieging major towns to instead go besiege some small castle in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Dabos37]

Yeah, I´ve encountered this countless times thus far. Armies seem to prioritize offense rather than defense when choosing actions. They´ll often run right past smaller armies that are besieging major towns to instead go besiege some small castle in the middle of nowhere.

Yep, it is ok to do not stop an ongoing siege in order to defend but prioritizing the march to start a siege instead of going to defend should not be the case. I am going to try to provide some evidence of this behavior when I find it again.

 

[RaggyLoddybrock]

This is not new with beta 1.4 - it has been like that since day one and has been what has annoyed me the most.
Instead of defending, AI would rather go siege a castle half around the map. Faction leaders hoarding fiefs and can't be arsed to defend them instead of giving them to people who want/need fiefs (I know use your influence and get relations with the leader, but come on with the hoarding).

Defence should prioritize offence, but no to the point where kingdoms don't attack - this game is about warfare.
But riding to siege a castle half around the map when two of your cities are under siege just doesn't make sense and needs to be looked at asap.

 

[Dabos37]

I think the main problem is that AI armies calculate if they can beat the attacker army, if not, they just ignore It. If It is the case and It works as I suspect, maybe something should change and even if the AI army is 20-30% weaker than the attacker army, the defender army should try to go to defend and wait until attacking army loses some men during the siege or maybe other lords join to the defense.

I personally think that this behavior is new in beta 1.4.0 and before, the AI was able to defend better.

 

[Dabos37]

Ok, the AI is totally wrong in this patch. Here you can check it:

1- Vlandia is attacking the Druimmor Castle with only 260 men.
2- A Batannia army with 232 men wait close the Vlandia army which is ok because it was weaker in that moment.
3- As you can see, another Batannia army with 485 men was pretty close.
4- For some reason, both Battania armies decide to go away and let the small Vlandia army to conquer the castle...

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Here you have a savegame to reproduce the issue. You just have to go to Druimmor Castle and see this weird behavior.

A.sav

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I think that there is some kind of mechanism that prevents two different armies to go to defend the same settlement. This sounds ok in theory but in practice, it is not a good idea and it is not a problem if two armies go to defend (especially if the first defender army is not enough to stop the attacker), as long as these armies do not abandon another ongoing siege easy to win in order to defend their settlement.

 

[jipped]

Yeah, I'm wanting epic sieges and so far it hasn't happened. Where both sides get reinforcements a few waves and obviously they are working on points of interest for the defenders to fall back to and defend which will be nice.

Id like to see them add something that triggers the a.i to get to the next logical place. Perhaps capping certain flags cause the a.i to act certain ways.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Some of the issue in this case has to do with what happens on game start. When a new campaign starts the lords spawn in predetermined locations. The faction rulers and some higher ranking lords immediately create new armies and gather most of the clans in the entire kingdom.

They all then set off to besiege some target in enemy territory. Since everyone is simultaneously heading to enemy lands they all arrive at their targets at roughly the same time. Because of this, there are usually not many lords left in home territory to organize a defensive army. Armies don't typically take defensive action until the enemy is already besieging a target or they happen to pass the army along the way. Many times, fiefs are traded in the first few opening days of a new game.

Although, if an army gets to their target especially quickly, sometimes an opposing army will reroute to go defend the fief instead of continuing onward. Monchug is one case of this. He spawns near Makeb and quickly heads to Amprela or Myzea before the Northern Empire has a chance to even leave their own lands, so they then reroute and try to chase him off.

Obviously stuff like this happens later in the game as well, but in the beginning it is especially noticeable. Later, when things get more scrambled around, there are usually more lords available in home territory to organize a defensive army.

Honestly, I actually prefer it when an army that travelled a long distance to lay siege doesn't turn around very often to go back and defend. The start of the game is just a bit of a special case.

 

[Dabos37]

Problem is that the snowballing issue is back again due to AI not being able to defend properly. Losing settlements is not a good thing in terms of relation penalty with the king and clan defecting due to this.

To begin with, armies should not travell long distances to besiege a settlement, or at least not as much as they do now... Kingdoms should try to besiege close targets which they could defend easier. Anyway, I think that defend a town should always be prioritary than travelling to besiege another settlement.

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This is how my campaign looks currently at day103, Battania is getting wrecked and losing a lot of settlements against Vlandia. It was not happening some patches ago and snowballing was almost inexistent, but this new behavior is making the game a mess, and settlements are being conquered continuously which is not a good thing for game balancing and it makes worse the snowballing issue.

On the other hand, Sturgia is always going to war against the Southern Empire for some reason and taking settlements that are extremely far away and are impossible to protect (Syronea).

 

[Hammer of Mawds]

Yeah iv noticed the enemy won't attack unless it can severely overwhelm you, I had a 500 battanian army and I followed a 900 plus strong empire army planning on attacking manurath, so I jump in the city waiting to help defend and with my help it would be an even battle, they came saw I was there then snubbed the town to go to a castle with 70 defenders.

 

[Dabos37]

More evidence:

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An Empire army was pretty close and could defend the town but it simply does not give a s*** on defending. This did not happen in my campaigns before the last patches.

 

[Dean Beecham]

Yes i have seen this alot in 1.4 ..it was around in 1.3 but not as bad as it is here in 1.4 .. Saying all this i will say its year 4 now in my game and until now the map had stayed much the same so no steamrolling ... but things are starting to slowly change now its going to happen at one stage. anyway the 1 thing that gets me is if you have an army and put into a castle then you get attacked once the battle starts the lords that are apart of my army dont take any part in the battle that puts my numbers down and you lose . this to me is 1 part that needs to be put right asap this would also stop AI staying in a town or castle to defend. how many players out have attcked a castle with any lord defending it.

 

[mexxico]

Ok, the AI is totally wrong in this patch. Here you can check it:

1- Vlandia is attacking the Druimmor Castle with only 260 men.
2- A Batannia army with 232 men wait close the Vlandia army which is ok because it was weaker in that moment.
3- As you can see, another Batannia army with 485 men was pretty close.
4- For some reason, both Battania armies decide to go away and let the small Vlandia army to conquer the castle...

6

Image 6 hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

https://ibb.co/nwVXJm9

https://ibb.co/2tyNns1

Here you have a savegame to reproduce the issue. You just have to go to Druimmor Castle and see this weird behavior.

A.sav

1 file sent via WeTransfer, the simplest way to send your files around the world

wetransfer.com

I think that there is some kind of mechanism that prevents two different armies to go to defend the same settlement. This sounds ok in theory but in practice, it is not a good idea and it is not a problem if two armies go to defend (especially if the first defender army is not enough to stop the attacker), as long as these armies do not abandon another ongoing siege easy to win in order to defend their settlement.

Thanks for providing a save game. I will examine the situation.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Wouldn't it play better if the AI only targeted fiefs that are adjacent to their own territory? Isn't one of the first rules of warfare that you should never leave an enemy stronghold at your rear? Wars should be about expanding the frontiers, not grabbing the weakest castle wherever it might be.

 

[Adijazz1706]

Thanks for providing a save game. I will examine the situation.

[While we are on this topic, AI should choose from fiefs close to their border first and then calculate strength of garrison , prosperity etc as secondary measures when choosing which fief to attack

 

[drallim33]

[While we are on this topic, AI should choose from fiefs close to their border first and then calculate strength of garrison , prosperity etc as secondary measures when choosing which fief to attack

Agree. AI armies often over-extend to distant settlements that have low garrisons. Number one factor should be average distance from faction's held settlements. Number two should be current distance from the army itself. Number three should be prosperity, so towns are valued much more highly than castles, and finally garrison/militia strength.

Few other things I have noticed about the AI that could be improved:

• When conquering a town, the AI will give troops to the garrison but won't sell food. If anything it usually buys what little food might be there. This means half (or more) of the garrison that gets put there immediately starves to death, since the granary is usually already empty. AI armies should bring way more food, enough to sell to the town so the garrison they leave doesn't starve. OR they should wait in the town for a few days for things to stabilise before leaving a garrison, and only transfer troop when they leave. OR they should just disable garrisons starving without some sort of hostile action like raiding or siege. The ability to starve a garrison buy buying food from the market is really dumb, this is the real cause of the problem.
• Currently the armies never have lords leave or join except when the army is formed or disbanded. When armies are switching objectives or deciding what to do, they should be able to add more lords or release ones that need to go recruting.
• When besieging a settlement, if another nearby settlement is taken during the siege, the AI breaks off and walks towards the newly captured settlement for a moment before turning around and continuing the siege. Seems to happen every time and I'm not sure why.
• Armies in the midst of war will wander around getting recruits from villages. This is a very inefficient use of an army's time, an army during war should be besieging the enemy, fighting enemy armies or defending strategic locations. Not going around getting 5 recruits from out-of the way villages. This should be done outside of the army. Lords in desperate need of recruits should be released to go recruiting, and other lords with healthy parties added.
• Same goes for food. Armies should not be having to retreat to go and buy food half way through a campaign. They should get food along the way but just top-ups. Lords should carry enough food with them so that when the army forms, it has enough food, because all the individual lords have enough food. There is already a lower limit on troop numbers, you can't bring a lord into an army if the lord is low on troops. Same should be true for food. Lords should be released to go and buy food when they are low, and then can be added back in (or recruited to a different army) later.

 

[Dabos37]

Thanks for providing a save game. I will examine the situation.

Thanks!

Wouldn't it play better if the AI only targeted fiefs that are adjacent to their own territory? Isn't one of the first rules of warfare that you should never leave an enemy stronghold at your rear? Wars should be about expanding the frontiers, not grabbing the weakest castle wherever it might be.

[While we are on this topic, AI should choose from fiefs close to their border first and then calculate strength of garrison , prosperity etc as secondary measures when choosing which fief to attack

Strongly agreed with this.

 

[babelfisch]

Wouldn't it play better if the AI only targeted fiefs that are adjacent to their own territory? Isn't one of the first rules of warfare that you should never leave an enemy stronghold at your rear? Wars should be about expanding the frontiers, not grabbing the weakest castle wherever it might be.

This. I've regularly seen armies attacking castles / towns deep into enemy territory. When one of their own castles gets attacked they travel all the way back. Sometimes another army already successfully defended the castle and they return to their original goal. Rinse and repeat. When they finally take the castle it gets quickly reconquered and the whole nonsense starts all over again.

 

[Dabos37]

Yep, making the AI priorizes close settlements to conquer and defending their own settlements before sieges, will be probably the best way to deal with snowballing.

 

[fragtzack]

Was not aware the campaign has an AI.