Does the AI get instant armies?

[Dionaea]

So I am besieging a castle, and defeated Olek (who defected to the Western empire now with his entire clan) and not even halfway through to the next trebuchet I'm attacked again, this time by Svana and Olek and after beating them. Seconds later I see Olek destroying one of my parties that was raiding a village right next to the castle I'm besieging and he has a pretty sizable army and is now engaging me.

Now I don't have a problem getting my guys some target practice but isn't this a bit too soon for the AI to gather an army and travel to me? It's as if the game is wanting to make me so bored of fighting by constantly attacking me with magic instant armies that I eventually pick "send troops" at which point the auto calc will make me lose or win a phyric victory forcing me to give up. It kind of feels like the AI is cheating

This is in the beta version by the way

 

[Dean Beecham]

Yes they seem to be coming back a little to fast still.. but in bata i have seen the game is much harder then what is was with the changes they have done and i am all for that. .. i have seen they come back with less than 40% of there size so they can not join an army right away .. and with influence a little harder to keep they could lose alot of that by the time they rebuild ...

 

[mutantin]

In short answer: Yes.

I happened to stay at Galend for a day and I cought two enemy lords spawning nearby with 50 men army each.

 

[kalarhan]

they respawn too fast, but they still are suppose to follow the same rules.

consider your character is high level, has high relation with notables of the town and enough money to buy food and recruit troops. How many soldiers would you get ?

also remember they can use/move the garrison troops in some cases, same as the player.

they are still far from working this problem (prisoner, how fast to respawn, recruitment AI, training armies for XP, money balance, etc), but that is the basic system

 

[Blood Gryphon]

AI lords will spawn with 25% of their troop limit, they will also pull troops out of their garrison to replenish low numbers. So yeah if you let them go they will spawn in one of their settlements and replenish troops until they feel like they can fight, but that just means taking from a well stocked garrison if they have it.

All of this is necessary, beforehand if they spawn with no troops you would see your ruler/lords captured by looters constantly as they would be engaged while trying to recruit right after being defeated and alone. None of this is final so we could def see another way to address this, the developers don't want to give AI lords cheats, but sometimes it is necessary for the time being.

 

[ἀποκάλυψις]

All of this is necessary, beforehand if they spawn with no troops you would see your ruler/lords captured by looters constantly as they would be engaged while trying to recruit right after being defeated and alone. None of this is final so we could def see another way to address this, the developers don't want to give AI lords cheats, but sometimes it is necessary for the time being.

It isn't necessary, it was selected to be this way.

NPC Lord's could go to a penalty box before being allowed to roam again.

The Lords could be more circumspect about when, where, and why they attack. Even simple constraints for movement ranges from friendly settlements are absent.

Instead, NPC Lords are using the AI equivalent of Pac-Man's Ghosts.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

It isn't necessary, it was selected to be this way.

NPC Lord's could go to a penalty box before being allowed to roam again.

The Lords could be more circumspect about when, where, and why they attack. Even simple constraints for movement ranges from friendly settlements are absent.

Instead, NPC Lords are using the AI equivalent of Pac-Man's Ghosts.

None of those would solve the issues which caused them to make this change. Also AI is clearly being worked on still so stop acting as if it inst a work in progress and the devs have made final decisions .

If its really that simply let me know when you fix it all with your mod. Until then relax armchair developer.

 

[durbal]

None of those would solve the issues which caused them to make this change.

Weird. Seems like to me they would. And I think TW is even working on adding them in so that they can reduce the AI cheats...

 

[Mountainhorse]

I think lords that were defeated in battle should respawn with 1% health so they have to spend sometime healing up.

 

[artemis_entreri]

So I am besieging a castle, and defeated Olek (who defected to the Western empire now with his entire clan) and not even halfway through to the next trebuchet I'm attacked again, this time by Svana and Olek and after beating them. Seconds later I see Olek destroying one of my parties that was raiding a village right next to the castle I'm besieging and he has a pretty sizable army and is now engaging me.

Now I don't have a problem getting my guys some target practice but isn't this a bit too soon for the AI to gather an army and travel to me? It's as if the game is wanting to make me so bored of fighting by constantly attacking me with magic instant armies that I eventually pick "send troops" at which point the auto calc will make me lose or win a phyric victory forcing me to give up. It kind of feels like the AI is cheating

This is in the beta version by the way

They respawn instantly and get up to their max troop limit very quickly. This is definitely a problem. Since capturing them (in the vanilla game) does not provide much of a rest and executions just lead to more Lords taking their place, we do not have many options to slow them down. It feels like a non stop zerg and is a bit tiring imo. A potential solution is to use a mod like Prevent Escape, which is great. However, as a Player Kingdom it still feels like you are being zerged non-stop. Coupled with the difficulty of actually getting a lord on your team and having them stay on your team, end game as a Player Kingdom is a non stop micromanaging grind.

I've beaten the game as a member of another kingdom, but the current mechanics/AI is a bit too frustrating for me in a player kingdom.

Low hanging fruit: I believe lords should respawn in their home area, in a keep they own or a friendly cultural town. They then should rest while they gather troops. See WB VC as an example.

 

[ironiccookies]

This also happened to me too. I destroyed Olek's 100 and Svana's 60 troops and besieged their last castle. 2 seconds later Svana has 44 troops and Olek has 60 and they're just waiting next to me whilst I sieged their castle. I saw Svana just running around nearby possibly to recruit more troops. After I took the castle I fought them and it was just recruits.

 

[Imperialegacy]

Some report that lords escaped from prison or paid ransom would respawn as a party of 40-50 men based on the their skills. I remembered one time an enemy party popped out of nowhere on the map and the army I was following instantly engaged it.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

They respawn instantly and get up to their max troop limit very quickly. This is definitely a problem. Since capturing them (in the vanilla game) does not provide much of a rest and executions just lead to more Lords taking their place, we do not have many options to slow them down. It feels like a non stop zerg and is a bit tiring imo. A potential solution is to use a mod like Prevent Escape, which is great. However, as a Player Kingdom it still feels like you are being zerged non-stop. Coupled with the difficulty of actually getting a lord on your team and having them stay on your team, end game as a Player Kingdom is a non stop micromanaging grind.

I've beaten the game as a member of another kingdom, but the current mechanics/AI is a bit too frustrating for me in a player kingdom.

Low hanging fruit: I believe lords should respawn in their home area, in a keep they own or a friendly cultural town. They then should rest while they gather troops. See WB VC as an example.

If you capture lords and place them into YOUR dungeon their chance of escape is low (3.5% daily escape rate) and i believe they said on average are captured for 25-30 days. You get no negative relations so this is a viable strategy that i don't think enough people take advantage of. Also you don't need your own settlement to throw people in dungeons, but the daily escape rate is higher 7.5%.

Weird. Seems like to me they would. And I think TW is even working on adding them in so that they can reduce the AI cheats...

Let me be clear, they made these changes due to lords often getting captured by looters once they lost their first party. Forcing them to not be active doesn't solve the fact looters are faster than a lord on his own and will defeat him due to numbers. I mean i guess you could force them to stay at a settlement for a set time and until they recruit enough from that settlement but then you would have so much inactivity on the map. I have not claimed the AI is perfect or doesn't need improvements, but their quick fixes to the issues are there for a reason until they can make appropriate changes without the need for AI to cheat.

Edit: Corrected figures to those provided by devs, since people were nitpicking.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Here's a direct response from a dev:

There are only 3 cheats currently :
-npc lords are spawning with 25% of their part size is filled (this will decrease to 10% soon)
-npc lords get extra small amount of xp to troops daily (starting with 1.3.0) to allow them have more elite troops otherwise they have 50% tier-1 troops
-npc lords know your garrison sizes at your distant towns

There are no other cheats.

Also, as Blood Gryphon pointed out, AI lords will pull from garrison troops to pad out numbers. If there are available recruits from a notable they will take those as well. All of this can give the appearance of getting instant armies, but they will slow down if you keep killing them.

So yes, patience guys. The game isn't meant to be a completely balanced experience from beginning to end yet.

Edit: Another quote to back up what Blood Gryphon said above:

Daily escape chance from walled settlement : will decrease to 7.5% from 10% (with 1.3.0)
Daily escape chance from mobile party : will decrease to 22.5%-45% from 30%-60% (with 1.3.0) (30% from a party with more than 81 healthy men, 60% from 0 healthy man party)
If player is capturer probabilities are multiplied with 0.33 if mobile (was there since EA), 0.5 if prisoner is at player's walled settlement (new at 1.3.0)

So with 1.3.0 if you place your prisoner to one of your walled settlements escaping chance of prisoner will be 3.75% daily means nearly 25-30 days of average prisoned time.

We know this escaping thing is disturbing. When new heroes are added to game these probabilities will be decresed very much. Currently there is no replacements so it is risky to reduce daily escape chance to 2.5%s this can cause kingdoms to lose lots of settlements after losing one big army battle.

 

[Warlord-616x]

so whats the solution? how do you keep up with the ai when it just keeps showing up with army after army and your **** army only gets a handful of new recruits at each new settlement you visit, but whom quickly come depleted, and if you travel further out the ai automatically declares war on you with all the remaining factions because it automatically detected that your blood was in the water?

ive been fighting for rl days straight just to keep what i have and im no closer whatsoever.

 

[black_bulldog]

None of those would solve the issues which caused them to make this change. Also AI is clearly being worked on still so stop acting as if it inst a work in progress and the devs have made final decisions .

If its really that simply let me know when you fix it all with your mod. Until then relax armchair developer.

Enemy lords escaping too quickly/easily and getting back into action too quickly is a big problem, stop acting like it isn't. Fighting the same guy 3x in 10 days is bound to piss off anyone.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Enemy lords escaping too quickly/easily and getting back into action too quickly is a big problem, stop acting like it isn't. Fighting the same guy 3x in 10 days is bound to piss off anyone.

If you're playing on the 1.3 beta, this issue isn't as bad, look at what Bannerman Man posted above. Also +1 to him for taking the time to go find dev responses, the real MVP.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

so whats the solution? how do you keep up with the ai when it just keeps showing up with army after army and your **** army only gets a handful of new recruits at each new settlement you visit, but whom quickly come depleted, and if you travel further out the ai automatically declares war on you with all the remaining factions because it automatically detected that your blood was in the water?

ive been fighting for rl days straight just to keep what i have and im no closer whatsoever.

Jail em up in a dungeon. Also hopefully with the most recent hotfix, you should have a lot more peace.

 

[Dabos37]

They respawn with 25% of their party and according to devs, It will be reduced to 10% soon.

Lords being able to come back fast is necessary to avoid snowballing. Or at least It was necessary before all new changes TW have introduced. Settlements are much harder to take now, mercenaries help a lot these factions having issues and I think that TW is still working on more changes related to snowballing.

I would love to see these changes:

- Free spawn units for Lords reduced to 10%. We will get this soon.
- Less bandit parties because It is insane now how much parties I can see in all my campaigns. This would help to make AI Lords less succeptible yo being captured by looters.
- Some extra days to AI Lords being able to respawn after a defeat.
- Make kingdoms more aggressive against a kingdom with +35% of the map. TW was working on this but not sure if they will being this feature un the future or if they have stopped working on this because snowballing is relatively fixed.

 

[durbal]

Also, as Blood Gryphon pointed out, AI lords will pull from garrison troops to pad out numbers. If there are available recruits from a notable they will take those as well. All of this can give the appearance of getting instant armies, but they will slow down if you keep killing them.

After being defeated once or twice they stop taking garrison troops since it'd drain the garrison. They just keep respawning with armies of 50+ men. This is well-known, well-observed by many people and confirmed through the devs and reading the code. They will not slow down. They will endlessly respawn, it's super annoying, and it breaks the economy for the player since it means endless loot. RIght now I have a daily deficit of -6K denars and it doesn't matter since I'm just slaughtering their lemming armies and taking all their loot endlessly. My biggest problem right now is finding towns with enough money in Ye Olde Pawn Shop to dump all the bloody rags in.

Jail em up in a dungeon. Also hopefully with the most recent hotfix, you should have a lot more peace.

It barely affects them. Even in the best-case scenario (imprisoned in a walled settlement) it only increases their average time to escape by ~3.5 days. In most scenarios (due to travel within parties to transport to prisons, etc.) you're probably looking at an extra 2 days. It's relatively meaningless.