Indecisive AI armies

[Octanoz]

I've been seeing some strange behaviour which must be linked to how the AI calculates their risk. Noticing this on version 1.6.4.

Situation: Atrion castle is under attack. One AI army (1) is close to Rhesos castle and the other (2) near Saneopa. I'm on the Calradia expanded map so there is a direct passage to the castle from Saneopa, they don't need to go around the mountain like in vanilla.

AI 1 will go to the castle to defend it. Then it notices that AI 2 is going so they don't need to and they go to a different location. AI 2 seems to think the same thing as AI 1 and decides to go somewhere else as well. Repeat over and over and nobody actually ever defends the castle. Enemy army was 400 strong, AI 1 had 266 and AI 2 326. Ultimately they both didn't get there and the enemy army gave up when too many smaller troops surrounded them.

I've seen this in my previous campaign as well, using the vanilla map. This would often result in me not getting the backup I was expecting because as soon as I get to a certain distance of the enemy army Raganvad would go: "Ah, he's got it". At times he would turn back in actual visual proximity of the enemy army. I was getting frustrated with the AI going to siege a settlement but then changing their mind halfway and hardly ever actually going through with it. They seem to go into some kind of loop when there are 2 (or more) with the same destination.

It's good when they stop going when someone has already started a siege. It's not good when nobody commits to an action.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It's best not to watch what the AI does, it's always disturbing and annoying. I agree that they should be more committed to what they do, or possibly if you're the ruler you should be able to see what their motives are and even recommend an action to you vassals with reward. In general, if you are in range, it's always best for you to defeat an army yourself, you will lose less units then an AI battle. They will basically never attack a more powerful force though and they "team up" of 2 or more armies or parties seems wonky, like they just won't or sometimes even they think they will have additional parties but the parties don't join. I think it may depend on how close the power is, I notice if you're much more powerful they will always try to join. Once you have a powerful faction it seems very rare for an enemy to pull of a siege, IME the AI armies would stop them almost always. However until then, you gotta do it all yourself!