This is.mind boggling. Why would they even consider dumbing down the game if money isn't even aan issue?
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Maddening Army AI (this army was sponsored by RAID)
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Yertyl
Veteran
Thank you very much for your reply, as others have mentioned, your activity in this community is pretty amazing
Unfortunately, I did not save these exact moments, and due to randomness, I cannot recreate them exactly.I hope my original post was not too impolite, but the current army mechanics -- a mix of the AI and the game rules -- are probably the only thing that had a significant negative impact on my overall gameplay experience with MBII. So far, I have done 2 major campaigns, about 100 hours each, one as a vassal, one with my own kingdom.
Now, as a vassal, either
a) You join an existing army. This will net you quite a bit of influence, especially because a lot of times they will eventually be starving and you share food, but it is not fun to spend your time watching your main party running around aimlessly, or sitting in an endless siege that never gets resolved because the AI is extremely conservative when attacking and does not put siege units in reserve.
b) You create an army yourself. This will however cost you quite a bit of influence, while the benefits in resources seem marginal or nonexistent compared to joining an army. Taking a city or crushing a huge army will often net you less influence than it took to form the army in the first place, and taking a castle/city as the army leader does not seem to influence whether you will get it. So what is far more fun gameplay-wise and better for your faction is actually worse for your clan. Which again is inherently frustrating.
On the other hand, if you found your own kingdom, you will initially be weak compared to others, and constantly be declared war on. So to have any hope of winning a war at all, you will need all your units united. Which makes it frustrating when your vassals form their own armies to wander around aimlessly, and the game rules punish you via relationship hits for doing the sensible thing -- dissolving that army and uniting all your units to take or defend a city.
Improving AI is obviously not an easy task, but I feel like the changes I proposed earlier -- influence cost for armies more continuous than initial, and making it more attractive to the AI to form armies close to a specific goal, and dissolving them when there are no more good goals -- would fix quite a few problems with a small cost.
Concerning raiding: I did not (fully) know about the long-term impact, and thank you for that information. I do however still feel that in its current state, raiding a village is rarely a good decision, especially with an army.
In a war, the goal is usually to take or defend fiefs, for which you will need to defeat the enemy armies. Raiding a village has no direct effect on either of those things, compared to spending the same time fighting directly. In fact, if you raid a border village that you conquer afterwards, you will only have hurt yourself. Even if you do not conquer it, you will often want to recruit there in the future yourself. Even if neither of those things happen, you will often make peace and fight a different enemy, in which case the long-term harm to your original enemy has no benefit for your faction.
On the other hand, raiding a village deep in enemy territory is very time-consuming and risky, and the AI regularly loses parties and armies that way. Which really is not worth it. Personally, while I did use the "force to give recruits/force to give ressources" actions, I started raiding exactly once, saw that the benefit was negligible compared to the cost, and never did it again. I assume I am not alone in this, which makes it frustrating that the AI is so fond of this action.
Building them in discrete segments, not having many 3D elements (compared to Bannerlord) and having a lot fewer entities running around on their map.s
yeah-yeah saw that yesterday. Vlandian army sieging Seonon, two armies go to defend. First one engages and the second one is like "no screw that, lets go raid some village folks". the result, the first army is losing, the second army is losing shortly after.
Well i guess they did what is needed, Vlandia lost a certain number of units and abandoned the idea of taking Seonon, but overall AI behavior is borderline idiotic.
I fully agree with the author of the post. At the moment, AI leaves much to be desired. Sometimes their decisions are not only illogical, but also cause great harm to both themselves and the kingdom. And as a ruler, there is little I can do except disband the army and ruin relations.
If it is difficult for you to write additional AI logic that will control the priorities and actions of lords / armies, then maybe it will be possible for the player to set it up during the game either through direct dialogue or through a special menu? For example:
1. Set the min-max number of active armies in the kingdom and the number of units for each army.
2. Set the goals that will be pursued by the army # 1, # 2, # 3, etc.
Let's say an army is created, and we tell it what to do through the army menu.
1) To besiege a city / fortress (with the ability to indicate which possession you need to seize) 2) Protect possessions from sieges / robberies 3) Let there be the same raid of the enemy's village, why not.
In this case, with the wrong decisions, these will already be the wrong decisions of the players themselves, and not the stupidity of the AI. Most importantly, give the player the ability to control armies and the kingdom as a whole. As long as it makes no difference whether you are a king or just a vassal, the gameplay is the same. If the player does not correct mistakes and continue to wage war, the AI will lose everything that was captured by backbreaking work.
I will give an example, it took about 1600 days of the campaign, I captured everyone except the Kuzaites and Asseray and decided that I wanted to rest (But of course, no one gave me "peace", my kingdom strength was 27 thousand against 6-8 thousand and I must pay tribute in 4 thousand denars) And even if I agree to pay to give, my vassals all vote against, and I have to spend 5+ thousand influence for this peace to take place.
Well, I decided not to do anything. The war continued, the Kuzaits began to recapture my Imperial cities, the Asseai went to Vladnian and Batan. In total, while I was engaged in peaceful affairs, I lost about 5 castles and 3-4 cities. What did my armies do, you ask? They captured the newly captured fortresses and lost them again, instead of defending the cities and fortresses that are currently under attack. These were 3 armies. The other 2 went somewhere in general to the edge of the map, to capture one single fortress of Sturgia, why 2 armies of 1500 people each?
In general, you understand me, I hope. Personally, I believe that it is simply necessary to make mechanics that allow players to personally control what their vassals do if they themselves are not able to figure it out.
If it is difficult for you to write additional AI logic that will control the priorities and actions of lords / armies, then maybe it will be possible for the player to set it up during the game either through direct dialogue or through a special menu? For example:
1. Set the min-max number of active armies in the kingdom and the number of units for each army.
2. Set the goals that will be pursued by the army # 1, # 2, # 3, etc.
Let's say an army is created, and we tell it what to do through the army menu.
1) To besiege a city / fortress (with the ability to indicate which possession you need to seize) 2) Protect possessions from sieges / robberies 3) Let there be the same raid of the enemy's village, why not.
In this case, with the wrong decisions, these will already be the wrong decisions of the players themselves, and not the stupidity of the AI. Most importantly, give the player the ability to control armies and the kingdom as a whole. As long as it makes no difference whether you are a king or just a vassal, the gameplay is the same. If the player does not correct mistakes and continue to wage war, the AI will lose everything that was captured by backbreaking work.
I will give an example, it took about 1600 days of the campaign, I captured everyone except the Kuzaites and Asseray and decided that I wanted to rest (But of course, no one gave me "peace", my kingdom strength was 27 thousand against 6-8 thousand and I must pay tribute in 4 thousand denars) And even if I agree to pay to give, my vassals all vote against, and I have to spend 5+ thousand influence for this peace to take place.
Well, I decided not to do anything. The war continued, the Kuzaits began to recapture my Imperial cities, the Asseai went to Vladnian and Batan. In total, while I was engaged in peaceful affairs, I lost about 5 castles and 3-4 cities. What did my armies do, you ask? They captured the newly captured fortresses and lost them again, instead of defending the cities and fortresses that are currently under attack. These were 3 armies. The other 2 went somewhere in general to the edge of the map, to capture one single fortress of Sturgia, why 2 armies of 1500 people each?
In general, you understand me, I hope. Personally, I believe that it is simply necessary to make mechanics that allow players to personally control what their vassals do if they themselves are not able to figure it out.
I really like the idea of the player, once in charge of their faction, being able to dictate the actions (to a point) of armies their vassals create. That is, after all, realistic.
BUT as to whether this would reduce the amount of calculations the AI have to do, which Mexxico said was a limiting factor, I'm not sure this would be the case. Even if you are telling the AI to do certain actions based on certain parameters, the AI still would have to do calculations to see what parameters exist/are being met, just as they would if it was their "decision" and not yours.
This is just speculation on my part; maybe a developer can say if this is true or not.
BUT as to whether this would reduce the amount of calculations the AI have to do, which Mexxico said was a limiting factor, I'm not sure this would be the case. Even if you are telling the AI to do certain actions based on certain parameters, the AI still would have to do calculations to see what parameters exist/are being met, just as they would if it was their "decision" and not yours.
This is just speculation on my part; maybe a developer can say if this is true or not.
Well, as I see it - we just give a certain clear command. Attack a city / fortress. And we indicate which fortress or city.
AI will not need to calculate which fortress would be better to besiege, how many soldiers are there, whether the army has enough strength, because we have already decided this. This will be a direct order, even if it may fail. AI just have to calculate from point A to point B and do the action - Siege-Assault)
It will be good if someone from the developers comments on all this.
Ok, I misunderstood you then. Yeah that sounds like a great idea, a simple direct command to take a siege or raid a particular settlement, or maybe even chase a particular enemy party or army.
It doesn't seem like too much to ask, after all they give you the ability to tell your companions to go do a quest for you. You should have the same amount of control over your vassal's armies.
This is a really good idea. It's like a temporary policy and could fit somewhere on the kingdom screen. Do things like set targets for siege, target armies, defend villages, or go forth and raid either caravans or villages. Setting a command should cost x amount of influence to last for so many days before it would have to be renewed. Then, every party that completes any command gets an influence bonus.
Not a dev, but they would still need to check their food situation en route or else you'd have the illogical result of armies disintegrating due to starvation while marching to a target. They'd also need to run the decision on whether parties/armies in sight are a threat or not.
Yertyl
Veteran
I have noticed a strange behavior today that might have something to do with the spreading of long term and short term AI over different frames:
When an army is in siege and a larger army comes to threaten them, I have seen two examples where the army does break off the siege when they come close -- but then instead of running first travels towards another siege target for a moment (which often leads it towards the enemy it should be fleeing from) and only then starts running, at which point it is often way too late.
I have sent the save files this time, in case you are interested.
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I have noticed a strange behavior today that might have something to do with the spreading of long term and short term AI over different frames:
When an army is in siege and a larger army comes to threaten them, I have seen two examples where the army does break off the siege when they come close -- but then instead of running first travels towards another siege target for a moment (which often leads it towards the enemy it should be fleeing from) and only then starts running, at which point it is often way too late.
I have made two save files this time, in case you are interested.
This can be situation now because it seems path to new selected target for long term AI is at way of enemy armies around. Nothing to do for this for now. So we can skip this. Because besiegers are disorganized and have speed penalty it is hard for them to get rid of this situation. Maybe they should start fleeing earlier in short term AI but not big problem for now.
In addition, Artificial Idiot is often gathering great and big army, starting the siege after all, and after two or three days of siege it leaves to "defend" something on the far edge of the map. And swiftly marches to save those suffering people. As rapid as 1 km per hour. Of course they cannot arrive in time. Why the army prefer tactical choice over strategic? Why it goes through the whole map, spending influence in vain? Not good.
My suggestions:
Limit the armies by clan tier or severly increase current influence. 4th level means 3 warband in total, 5th - 6. 6th - 12.
Assigning defending roles to armies/warbands. You know, like ice hockey.
Limit the scope of operation for the army. It should not react to the events so far away. To the word, if army never knows enemy numbers, why it should know about the raid itself?
Make a priority. Army never raid or defend villages, only castles or cities. Single warbands do what they want.
My suggestions:
Limit the armies by clan tier or severly increase current influence. 4th level means 3 warband in total, 5th - 6. 6th - 12.
Assigning defending roles to armies/warbands. You know, like ice hockey.
Limit the scope of operation for the army. It should not react to the events so far away. To the word, if army never knows enemy numbers, why it should know about the raid itself?
Make a priority. Army never raid or defend villages, only castles or cities. Single warbands do what they want.
Brotila
Recruit
Hi, I would like to add to this without sounding confrontational, however I'm frustrated and disappointed by dev decisions. To make this easy I'm just going to use my latest campaign as an example. I'm playin as a vassal to the Western Empire. I have noticed it is almost impossible now to find Vigla recruits (at least in my game), which means I can't field any melee cav. Which REALLY sucks because my fief is Ortysia and the Aseria want to be at war with us constantly, or rather war with me. So I have no cav, fighting against armies with 40% cav. It has made me a cavalry god because I have had to become the only horsemen for my army now, because at the most I only ever have 4 cav at a time which I usually get as prisoners, when I do find them. Perhaps, there are some cav spawns in the north and south empire but we are constantly at war and for some reason my fief is targeted more than other's (not even high prosperity because of settlement issues that I cant resolve because no peace = no time) and since we are in a dogpile rotation of Aserai- North Empire- Sturgia, I never have time to go and check other villages for horsemen.
Now that you understand what's going on, I would like explain my real issue. My allies (fellow vassals) are COMPLETELY USLESS. Or I should say on their own. They constantly make armies sucking up most available parties. Their target priorities are honestly stupid, and their responses put them in a loop of indecision (running in a circle trying to decide whether to attack or defend). They almost never win against enemy armies, and they mostly just lose at everything A LOT. And since the Devs have said "Hey you know that cool feature in Warband where you could SUGGEST a target to allied armies, well that's too much micro management and this isn't an RTS silly" I have to constantly fight ALL of the War campaigns, pulling what parties I can get, constantly fighting back the Aserai then peacing out to quickly retake lost land from North Empire and Sturgia, then the Aserai declare war again the process repeats like clockwork. And yet after all my hard work crushing enemy armies we end up having to pay Tribute when we (I) wipe the floor with them. In fact, if your kingdom needs money, no worries just Declare war on us the Western Empire, and no matter how the war turns out we're gonna get dog piled and you're gonna get paid. Really wish the Khuzait would snowball all the way down the Aserai side of the map...also would absolutely love some peace time so we can build our armies back up and work on some fief infrastructure...I would also like to be able to field some equites at least or light cav...thank you for reading.
Now that you understand what's going on, I would like explain my real issue. My allies (fellow vassals) are COMPLETELY USLESS. Or I should say on their own. They constantly make armies sucking up most available parties. Their target priorities are honestly stupid, and their responses put them in a loop of indecision (running in a circle trying to decide whether to attack or defend). They almost never win against enemy armies, and they mostly just lose at everything A LOT. And since the Devs have said "Hey you know that cool feature in Warband where you could SUGGEST a target to allied armies, well that's too much micro management and this isn't an RTS silly" I have to constantly fight ALL of the War campaigns, pulling what parties I can get, constantly fighting back the Aserai then peacing out to quickly retake lost land from North Empire and Sturgia, then the Aserai declare war again the process repeats like clockwork. And yet after all my hard work crushing enemy armies we end up having to pay Tribute when we (I) wipe the floor with them. In fact, if your kingdom needs money, no worries just Declare war on us the Western Empire, and no matter how the war turns out we're gonna get dog piled and you're gonna get paid. Really wish the Khuzait would snowball all the way down the Aserai side of the map...also would absolutely love some peace time so we can build our armies back up and work on some fief infrastructure...I would also like to be able to field some equites at least or light cav...thank you for reading.
D0c1
Knight at Arms
i just want to point out that mexxico suggested "assigning targets" to clan parties or "marking" targets for AI -through menus-. not suggesting actions to allies based on relations like in warband. he should suggest this and it MUST be accepted.
a blog mentioned being able to order parties in the army to raid villages too. so ordering parties in your army (face to face) MUST be accepted too.
here are the relevant parts of mexxico's post
Brotila
Recruit
Yes, I did hear about that, but I thought the devs rejected it because it was "too much micro management" and they went on to say that Bannerlord is not an RTS.
I do like Mexxico's suggestion, but honestly I would still be happy if they brought back the warband features. I was very surprised they didn't carry those over from Warband, as I had thought they were kinda must have features. But I'm not a dev and can only offer my opinion for what little is, knowing what little I do about game development.
Wow. 'Bannerlord is not an RTS', might technically be correct, but seem to confirm that the ambitions behind this game are being readjusted to ever deacreasing levels. I sincerely hope they wake up.
Yertyl
Veteran
I think I found a situation that nicely demonstrates the problem when armies do not cooperate, but also don't disband:
In this situation, Car Banseth and Manurath are under Vlandian control, and Dunglanys is about to come under siege. We can see 3 Battanian armies (Pryndor's, Maurina's and Ergeon's). They are
I think this leads to a snowball effect where the weaker faction in a war has weaker armies, which leads to a higher chance of wasting time by raiding and exposing said armies by running deep into enemy territory, which leads to armies getting picked off more easily, which further weakens the faction and so on.
Especially weaker factions could reallly really use a mechanism that disbands armies when they are effectively only wasting time so they can unite their forces.
In this situation, Car Banseth and Manurath are under Vlandian control, and Dunglanys is about to come under siege. We can see 3 Battanian armies (Pryndor's, Maurina's and Ergeon's). They are
- preparing to raid the village near Charas
- raiding the village Bog Beth
- Preparing to besiege Charas (spoiler alert: they won't succeed).
I think this leads to a snowball effect where the weaker faction in a war has weaker armies, which leads to a higher chance of wasting time by raiding and exposing said armies by running deep into enemy territory, which leads to armies getting picked off more easily, which further weakens the faction and so on.
Especially weaker factions could reallly really use a mechanism that disbands armies when they are effectively only wasting time so they can unite their forces.
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