Can AI Armies Stop Running Away

[bestmods168]

Most of us has seen this weird mechanic if not all. Either a siege is taking place or two armies are about to clash. Even with the smallest handicap one army will flee. This is really annoying. I'm not expecting an army of 400 to fight 800. When two armies are within a few hundred in numbers they both should just clash. After all, that's what they were there for. I understand the troop strength, etc and all those stuff, but the fail/safe mechanic makes everyone look like wimps.

In this battle, despite being evenly match, Vlandia ran with their tail between their legs as soon as they got close. Vlandia wanted war, but as soon as they got intercepted they chickened out against a bunch of bandit barbarians. Perhaps the trait system needs more in-depth implementation. A brave or reckless person will fight despite disadvantages or a noble will fight because he feels the enemy is below him in status.

 

[Apocal]

When two armies are within a few hundred in numbers they both should just clash. After all, that's what they were there for. I understand the troop strength, etc and all those stuff, but the fail/safe mechanic makes everyone look like wimps.

You can get a pretty stark difference in power between a few hundred men, especially situations like an army with 10% cav and an average tier of 2 against 25% cav and average tier of 4. There's a mod that displays the actual power between armies and the differences are usually fairly big, certainly big enough that the odds of the weaker army winning is 0% thanks to how autocalc works.

AI only engages when it has a reasonable chance of winning in autocalc, with some difference at the margins for personality types but not very influential in practice, so you're asking the AI to suicide welp.

 

[MostBlunted]

AI only engages when it has a reasonable chance of winning in autocalc, with some difference at the margins for personality types but not very influential in practice, so you're asking the AI to suicide welp.

But that´s not good, it is this way because the AI knows exactly what is in the opponent army. A 870 vs 883 battle should look "fair" to the AI. A good scout could make the difference, but as far as I know, that doesn´t matter for the AI.

 

[Rafa911]

If a faction gets his armies wiped the next army wil be full of recruits
Maybe that´s influencing the AI decision

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

They're scared cuz they thing the army leader has the triforce!
I think as the player you should be able to set a trap like break army into several groups and hide 2 in the trees and ambush them when they attack the smaller group. AI v AI doesn't matter though it's just fake never ending loops. I wish they would commit to a plan with thier army and support it, then they would have to fight it out. I also hate so many large armies, I think the battles are bad.

As the player (now in game as is) you can just make a smaller party with better troops and easily catch and defeat thier large army, but it is annoying still.

 

[Apocal]

But that´s not good, it is this way because the AI knows exactly what is in the opponent army. A 870 vs 883 battle should look "fair" to the AI. A good scout could make the difference, but as far as I know, that doesn´t matter for the AI.

There would be no way for the player to ever lose a battle in that case, lol.

edit: Apparently it was like this earlier in development and they got rid of it:

Hiding exact numbers of parties from player is discussed about 4-5 years ago. We tried something like ?-0..9 ??-10..99 ???-100..999 or something like this. For about 1 year development we go with that feature then it is removed. It created another problems I could not remember exactly what they were.

At least for example player started a siege after waiting outside 3-4 days and after building siege equipments and when he enters siege battle he sees there are much more garrison compared to he expected. At that point player will probably give up that siege and go another target. This is a time loss and it can be a repetative action not so fun to play that way however we are forcing player to play that way to be more succesfull. Its same on map, get closer to a party learn exact number and run away if you are 0.1 faster, player need to look tooltips compare speed all time. There can be some percentage of players want to play like this of course it can be optional but as a general game rule it does not suit well. There was another problems as I said which I can not remember and finally this feature is removed.

However in paper it seems a good idea but it does not suit well our M&B series. It can be used in another similar game design of course.

I think as the player you should be able to set a trap like break army into several groups and hide 2 in the trees and ambush them when they attack the smaller group.

You already can do that though. Just break off a party and they AI will take a fight against them without considering if you'll jump in. The AI is already pretty much outmatched, no reason to make it take even more ridiculous odds.

 

[Rush09]

Also if an army already initiated a siege assault, that army shouldn't be able to run away at the approaching enemy army, independently of army strength. I mean, an army with soldiers already climbing ladders and suddenly? "Oh is that an enemy army approaching? damn, awful timing... well lads down the ladders, let's go."
It makes no sense.