Is the war AI broken?

[Dugunthi]

I've been playing PoP for a few days now, and am now a vassal of Ravenstern. I noticed that wars never go anywhere. I was mostly away doing my own stuff so I didn't know what the big deal was, I thought maybe they just had bad luck with the battles they picked or those OP roaming armies pick them apart before they got to do anything. But recently I joined a siege and realised the real issue. They simply don't bother fighting the war. The marshall simply broke off the siege for no real reason, everyone left except for two small armies, which together were far too weak to take the castle and I had to quickly jump in and lose half of my men to save the siege.

I did previously notice many Lord armies just patrolling around when they were supposed to be at war, and another marshall broke off a rally towards the enemy because he suddenly "needed more troops", and never picked the war back up again until we eventually made peace after absolutely nothing happened. I rarely get summoned by the marshall to do quests for him as well. I guess all of that is caused by the same issue.

This can't be right. Is it like this for everyone? Am I suffering a bug? This is seriously annoying, I don't look forward to having to resort to cheating all the time to get any progress in wars. This might make me stop playing the mod if this is how things work normally.

Any help figuring this out and especially finding a solution to it is appreciated.

 

[Gorvex]

That's just how Warband and the vast majority of mods work in terms of waging wars. Nothing unusual that I could read in your description.

 

[Vetrogor]

May be setting campaign difficulty to normal or easy will help. When I have played at the first time I was in the same situation. The lords of your faction are weaker in recruting time then AI factions. The weak faction attracts aggresion of the strong faction. This will snowball to eternal war of your faction on multiple fronts. There is no fair way to beat AI. The strategy is dumb. Join to faction when you are ready to cheat AI or majority of your troops is a hammer and/or machine gun and you have a lot of cash in reserves.

You can't just join a faction and do your own bissness. As for me I deserted and joined to the strongest faction. And then became a hero that united and saved Pendor.

 

[Dugunthi]

Oha, I see. I never noticed this behaviour before. It's a strange game mechanic, but I suppose it was the best they found to keep the player faction from snowballing to victory. I did notice wars progressed more normally when I reduced campaign AI difficulty. But it would be nice if 80% of the lords didn't desert a siege before it's done and then everyone leaves anyway, whether I'm there or not. That's definitely broken campaign AI. But good to know it's the game, not just Pendor. I think I'll play with easier campaign AI now, that seems to actually work.