Rapid strength growth of kingdoms in 1.3 beta?

[Habut]

villages/towns/castles couldn't possibly provide enough soldiers for recruitment for all lords on the map, so AI is cheating. This could be fixed with certain new mechanics in game, but right now, it's in domain of science fiction to expect that fix.

This is wrong. You are wrong on a lot of accounts here actually. Let me explain. The quality of troops have increased first of all. That affects the "strength". Also they fixed the army starvation bugs. They also fixed AI not prioritizing recruiting and just running into war. Also add in new mercenary mechanics then boom you have jumps of overall strength. It is not that hard.

If you think for a second you can realize how those changes can affect the game. They all affect the number and overall strength of faction armies. AI doesn't cheat, AI just prioritizes recruitment instead of fighting dumb battles like 15v15 or 30v30 when they can have 80 toops.

Also villages/towns/castles don't determine the cap of how big armies you can have. With no dying and new children growing up you can have infinitely big armies because villages/towns/castles can and will provide infinite number of soldiers. The actual mechanic that determines the overall army cap is

(number of lords*lords troop cap) + mercenary armies + garrisons.

Number of settlements only determine the slope/growth(how fast you can raise army) not the maximum number of soldiers. However like I said that is also hard to determine because the ruler can enlist all the mercenaries and you will naturally see a big jump.

 

[Adijazz1706]

Watched 4 AI lords after 1.3 and they just go from village to village and recruit. They also take prisoners and recruit them. One thing i can say is a cheat is that they can recruit from raided villages however i observed something like this only when i was leading an army and entered raided village.

Edit: one more thing they do is take men from garrisons when they try to go back into battle fast. Here is another cheat, AI garrisons are recruiting and training troops even if owner is not in the settlment.

The raided villages one can be added for players if it is their own faction, its a nice touch

 

[pyerr]

This is wrong. You are wrong on a lot of accounts here actually. Let me explain. The quality of troops have increased first of all. That affects the "strength". Also they fixed the army starvation bugs. They also fixed AI not prioritizing recruiting and just running into war. Also add in new mercenary mechanics then boom you have jumps of overall strength. It is not that hard.

If you think for a second you can realize how those changes can affect the game. They all affect the number and overall strength of faction armies. AI doesn't cheat, AI just prioritizes recruitment instead of fighting dumb battles like 15v15 or 30v30 when they can have 80 toops.

Also villages/towns/castles don't determine the cap of how big armies you can have. With no dying and new children growing up you can have infinitely big armies because villages/towns/castles can and will provide infinite number of soldiers. The actual mechanic that determines the overall army cap is

(number of lords*lords troop cap) + mercenary armies + garrisons.

Number of settlements only determine the slope/growth(how fast you can raise army) not the maximum number of soldiers. However like I said that is also hard to determine because the ruler can enlist all the mercenaries and you will naturally see a big jump.

Man, I am afraid you didn't understood the single point, and you are talking about completely different thing. I will try to explain in numbers (in my bad english) :
You have a battle 200vs200 against AI. You completely destroy them. You will left with 150 (irrelevant) they are left with nothing. AI lord will respawn somewhere with 25% of his max troops that is 50. Then let just say, average amount of available troops per village is 4 for recruitment. In order for AI to refill his army to max capacity, he will need to revisit 37 villages. Another thing is all other lords recruiting from same villages , and on top of that villages don't respawn high tier troops that much.
conclusion: it's absolutely impossible for AI armies to recruit additional soldiers at speed rate that they are doing right now, including your own vassals when you establish your own empire. If someone have other theory on this topic, please educate me, Thx

 

[Genlador]

Man, I am afraid you didn't understood the single point, and you are talking about completely different thing. I will try to explain in numbers (in my bad english) :
You have a battle 200vs200 against AI. You completely destroy them. You will left with 150 (irrelevant) they are left with nothing. AI lord will respawn somewhere with 25% of his max troops that is 50. Then let just say, average amount of available troops per village is 4 for recruitment. In order for AI to refill his army to max capacity, he will need to revisit 37 villages. Another thing is all other lords recruiting from same villages , and on top of that villages don't respawn high tier troops that much.
conclusion: it's absolutely impossible for AI armies to recruit additional soldiers at speed rate that they are doing right now, including your own vassals when you establish your own empire. If someone have other theory on this topic, please educate me, Thx

First of all, doesnt the average village have like 10 recruits if you have access to all the recurit tiers, which I assume AI lords do (maybe that should be changed, I am not sure). Second, the main reason why a lord shows up with a big army soon after being completely wiped out is because he went to his castle and took troops from there. So it is not a cheat about recruiting from villages, if anything it is a cheat where their garrisons increase number of troops and level of troops automatically without explicit AI lord actions, thus providing a passively growing reserve of troops that the lord can access whenever necessary.

 

[Habut]

Man, I am afraid you didn't understood the single point, and you are talking about completely different thing. I will try to explain in numbers (in my bad english) :
You have a battle 200vs200 against AI. You completely destroy them. You will left with 150 (irrelevant) they are left with nothing. AI lord will respawn somewhere with 25% of his max troops that is 50. Then let just say, average amount of available troops per village is 4 for recruitment. In order for AI to refill his army to max capacity, he will need to revisit 37 villages. Another thing is all other lords recruiting from same villages , and on top of that villages don't respawn high tier troops that much.
conclusion: it's absolutely impossible for AI armies to recruit additional soldiers at speed rate that they are doing right now, including your own vassals when you establish your own empire. If someone have other theory on this topic, please educate me, Thx

I dunno where you get that 4 recruitment man. Lowest number is 12 assuming there are 2 notables. Lets say the lord doesn't have high enough relations he can definitely get around 10 from a ****ty village. Some cities have around 24 also. If it is his city then he can literally just get 24 from a city instantly. There are like 15 soldiers per settlement on average. So your calculations are waaaaay off.

It is 4 to you because you have low relations with notables.

 

[pyerr]

Ok, let's say village does have 10 recruits available. Villages have troop respawn rate, there is a perk to boost it. If you recruit all recruits, you will not be able to to recruit again for next few days, because there is no one to recruit , it's empty. So if every Lord always have all recruits available in every village, isn't that cheating by AI?
And NO, it's not 4 because I have low relations , it's 4 because I already recruited not long ago, there is a cooldown for respawning.

 

[ShotgunJed]

I use these two mods to help balance the map more:
- Configurable War Attrition
- Separatism Mod

Basically snowballing is almost non-existent. It took about 5 hours of playing my save before a single town was taken. Sturgia didn't get wiped out early, nor did the western empire. In fact, the western empire is still fully intact in my game.

And if snowballing does occur, or if things get too boring, thats when the second mod comes in handy. It creates rebellion factions randomly and when factions get too big. Only the aserai, sturgia and western empire so far have had a clan rebel and run their own faction, typically from a city that they owned previously. It makes the game really dynamic and interesting. This one aserai rebel faction had one city and one castle, and they are still alive in my save to this day somehow. I'm surprised the aserai didn't just get a huge 1000+ man army and take their city back. It doesn't overrun the map with rebel factions everywhere, which is a good thing. It doesn't get out of control.

 

[mexxico]

While declaring war kingdoms do not make cheat and do not declare war more frequently to player kingdom.

They declare war to kingdoms which has (total settlement value / total party strength) ratio high, this is one of the most important factor for now - it can be changed when new diplomacy (war-peace decleration) developments are implemented. For now they do not consider that faction is player kingdom or not while declaring war there is no additional bonus / score for player faction.

Currently war decleration / peace mechanisms are basic and they will be developed by time. For now one of the most important factor is (total settlement value / strength) ratio. With 1.3.0 AI lords are recruiting more and they are trying to fill their parties as much as possible also they start to get a small amount of daily xp to their troops (this is one of the three cheats ai do, we have to implement this otherwise it is so hard to lower recruit ratio). Previously game was not challanging at late game and lord parties were full of recruits and they were on map with less number of troops. Now recruit ratio is also dropped to 25-30% from 50% and average party size using ratio is increased to 80% from 55-60%. Thats why their strength is also increased and game become more challanging. In 1.2.0 an average lord party with 100 party size was on map with 55-60 troops now this number is 80, probably this is something good for game and more logical. I know there are missing features at diplomacy for now (they will be implemented by time) and it can be hard to get new settlements to your kingdom and protect all when you have stronger enemies. To be successful at this I suggest you to hire mercenaries or persuade some lords to join your faction before getting lots of new settlements. If you succeed this and decrease that ratio (total settlement value / strength) other kingdoms do not declare wars to you easily or they accept making peace for less amounts. If you cannot do these for now it will be hard to cope with other kingdoms.

Also soon (1.4.0) they will respawn with less troops (with only 10% of party size, currently this is 25%). Also will try to decrease escape chances more.

When you make peace (by paying money) they can redeclare war in a short time. This is one of the biggest problems for now for player probably. This will be fixed but I cannot make time estimation to fix because these war peace decleration systems will be connected to voting systems. There will be big changes there.

Watched 4 AI lords after 1.3 and they just go from village to village and recruit. They also take prisoners and recruit them. One thing i can say is a cheat is that they can recruit from raided villages however i observed something like this only when i was leading an army and entered raided village.

Edit: one more thing they do is take men from garrisons when they try to go back into battle fast. Here is another cheat, AI garrisons are recruiting and training troops even if owner is not in the settlment.

AI garrisons are not recruiting but they have also daily xp gain like other npc parties. If lord parties recruit from raided villages this is a bug and will examine this.

 

[Habut]

So if every Lord always have all recruits available in every village, isn't that cheating by AI?
And NO, it's not 4 because I have low relations , it's 4 because I already recruited not long ago, there is a cooldown for respawning.

Who said every Lord always have all recruits available in every village? No one claimed that, I have seen nobles recruiting only 1 recruits because someone did.

It was you who claimed there are only 4 recruits, which is only the case if you have low relations in a village with 2 notables. No one is talking about cooldown or respawning.

Like I said, there is no point in arguing this. Devs literally came out and told us what cheats there are in game currently. What you claim isn't there. Sorry.

 

[pyerr]

Ty Shotgun! Are both work on 13beta + hotfix?

 

[Relgior]

in my game northern and western imperium gave up and were down.

but southern empire is also down and held not only one fief.

but strengh is shown with 17000.
i have no idea where these 17000 are but i havent seen any army above 50 men.

southern empire is completly down but strengh 17000.

i think its a bug.
and my quest istianas plan will not end untill southern empire is at strengh 0.

they really have nothing i searched for the 17000 but there is nothing.

i started a new game as vasall because i like it.

hopefully they fix all the things then i play further with my kingdom

 

[pyerr]

Ty mexico, i really appreciate! Is it possible to put hard cap, and limit every AI, to be in only 2 wars max at the same time?
for example...

 

[mexxico]

Ty mexico, i really appreciate! Is it possible to put hard cap, and limit every AI, to be in only 2 wars max at the same time?
for example...

I will examine war declerations and count war peace declerations. Yes it is not good for a kingdom to have lots of enemies and it also damage lots of gameplay elements. I am aganist caps and without a cap will try to fix this if easy. Actually I do not want to make huge developments in these areas much because these war-peace codes will be changed completely soon.

 

[Pejot]

AI garrisons are not recruiting but they have also daily xp gain like other npc parties. If lord parties recruit from raided villages this is a bug and will examine this.

I saw a popup above city like the ones about buying selling. It said something like "X increased garrison size by y recruits". There was no lord in the city. Not sure what was the exact message. If I see it again I'll post a screenshot.

 

[Vesper_]

I will examine war declerations and count war peace declerations. Yes it is not good for a kingdom to have lots of enemies and it also damage lots of gameplay elements. I am aganist caps and without a cap will try to fix this if easy. Actually I do not want to make huge developments in these areas much because these war-peace codes will be changed completely soon.

Yes, caps its not a good idea, M&B will not be M&B if sometimes factions will not fall into wars with many enemies from all sides, like Swadia did Its also a good moment to create your own kingdom.

 

[Nordmann]

So, is this is why every single town and village has no recruits available at the moment?

 

[LordKaien]

If lord parties recruit from raided villages this is a bug and will examine this.

Yes they do it. Easy way to see it is to start a army with NPC, go to a raided village and you can see ''XXX +2 recruits'' and you can see the numbers in your army increase.

 

[bantad87]

These forums are weird sometimes.


Release week forum dwellers: Snowballing is bad, must be fixed as priority 1.
1.3 patch forum dwellers: Faction strength is going up too fast, making conquest harder.

Well, you can't have it both ways kids.

 

[Storm7Lightning]

Also soon (1.4.0) they will respawn with less troops (with only 10% of party size, currently this is 25%). Also will try to decrease escape chances more.

Wouldn't that bring us back to step one where lords were getting thrown around like ping ball balls between looter parties? It should honestly be 17%.

 

[redphoenix596]

Super good work for devs on 1.3! it is the best update, yet finally the game is exciting and fun to play, and there are actually garrisons that are worth fighting against (siege battles were just a joke before 1.2, repetative and 0 challenge, just roll over), and not easy to kill - and Ai is actually a challenge, before it was 0 challenge.

Peace deals AI is asking more money also, should be even more - before it was a joke, so this is anyway a super good change.

Whoever feels game is too hard, maybe use easier difficulty? thats why there are different difficulty levels. But for me personally the game is/was utterly boring and repetative since there was no challenge before 1.3.

I wish only that they fix the graphics problem with 1.3 so big battles dont go 0,01FPS (when 1.2 they go 60fps)