The Empires are taking over the map! Early game

[Dark-Soldier]

I don't know if this is just my current play through but i wonder if any other people are having this.

So i'm at day 120-ish playing as a caravan merchant and just started making my money.Haven't even started meddling with politics. I think this is still considered early game.

Anyways all of the empires are taking over everything in the map! The sturgions,the battanians...They have no city left...Gone..Boom...Entirely defeated and it's just a matter of time they subdue all the other AI factions.
They are melting through the map with an army size of 400+ while the other factions barely have 200+...

This means when i do want to meddle with politics when i feel strong enough i only have left with the empire factions which are technically the same...

So...In my opinion this is just too much...
The Empire AI should be less aggressive or the other AI's better at defending themselves... I could see cities been taking over,but not the whole faction destroyed so easily in a matter of a month or two...

Unless of course this is the point!

I would need to play more playthroughs to check if this happens again,that's why i'm asking the community

 

[Baldwin#]

I strongly believe it's random (?).
In my game, Sturgia and Vlandia totally wrecked the rest.

 

[hirovard]

in mine Battania destroyed the western empire, the northen empire has push into the Khuzait terratory slightly, the souther empire has taken a couple of sites from the Aserai.

 

[Dark-Soldier]

Was just checking if the Empire is op or not compared to other games. But yeah seems random enough by your comments.
I wish i could upload a picture

So it's day 180-ish
Western Empire conquered whole of Battania & Sturgia
Northern Empire On it's way to conquer Khuzate
Southern Empire On it's way to conquer whole of Aesiri

Vlandia staying neutral but seems like it's economy is weak.

 

[Ovelord Magnus]

I'm also quite deep into my merchant game, and Battania and Southern Empire have dominated almost the entire map on their own. Khuzaits are also doing quite well.

 

[dowdpride]

In my game the Northern empire has been devoured by the southern and western, who are each dominating their nominal expansion routes with ease

 

[Jolle773]

Similar experience, I wanted to run with Sturgia but after about 80 days the Valadians pretty much conquered the entire country.

 

[KojinPax]

Not too sure what day I am on but I joined the southern empire and they have conquered almost everything. Only factions left are Vlandia and the Asrai. But we’re sitting at 22 som thousand men while they both are only around 3,500-4 each. There doesn’t seem to be a game speed(progression) slider like in warband either..

 

[Aragon150]

I watched the south body the Aseri? my first play-through. Like uhh guys it's been a month chill

 

[ZephyR_GER]

the ai is in this early stage of the game too much aggressive. one 1000 men army is enough to wipe out 2 kingdoms at once. this steamrolling isnt good for the KI either

 

[Aragon150]

I have't seem the ai unify in a 1000 unless its their ruler and only once it seems the ai is being less unified since the last patch

 

[Livermore]

Same happens with me but with other factions, they should make it so a faction can't take all the map at least until the player is big enough

 

[Empress Ira]

For me the empires always get dummied, same issue of know snowballing tho. Just isn't the empire in my games.

 

[manuelcipo]

Same to me, Vlandia and Sturgia took over, now Vlandia owned Sturgia too, and whats left is one city for the northern empire, 4 city for aserai and 4 for Sturgia, Kuzhait have some more but Vlandia at this pace is going to own everything in less than 50 days.
It's winter 1 of 1093.

 

[Figulus]

I don't know if this is just my current play through but i wonder if any other people are having this.

So i'm at day 120-ish playing as a caravan merchant and just started making my money.Haven't even started meddling with politics. I think this is still considered early game.

Anyways all of the empires are taking over everything in the map! The sturgions,the battanians...They have no city left...Gone..Boom...Entirely defeated and it's just a matter of time they subdue all the other AI factions.
They are melting through the map with an army size of 400+ while the other factions barely have 200+...

This means when i do want to meddle with politics when i feel strong enough i only have left with the empire factions which are technically the same...

So...In my opinion this is just too much...
The Empire AI should be less aggressive or the other AI's better at defending themselves... I could see cities been taking over,but not the whole faction destroyed so easily in a matter of a month or two...

Unless of course this is the point!

I would need to play more playthroughs to check if this happens again,that's why i'm asking the community

Reverse for me...Khergits feasted on Empire butt.

 

[Switch-Hitter]

Did 2 playthroughs here to check. Southern Empire got wrecked in both playthroughs, no matter how hard I try to help.
First playthrough I admittedly spent too long faffing about amassing huge amounts of wealth. Like seriously, making money is easy, just loot EVERYTHING after big battles and the horses will account for the extra weight-carrying capacity. At one point I felt like a Byzantine Genghis Khan, what with the thousand horses I had to just carry the load around and the 500-600K i got didn't serve any purpose because there was nothing left to usefully spend money on...

Second playthrough with Southern Empire went alright at first; took on Azerai and beat them back to 2 cities, then suddenly Sturgia, Battania, Vlandia and Khuzait all gang up on the Southern Empire. The other Empire factions just had to deal with one enemy faction still got nommed, West by Battania and North by Vlandia, after which it's just a snowballing effect of losing more territory quicker than you can recover it.

Also, it seems that the AI doesn't take on fights that it will lose. As in: I've never see an AI succesfully defend a city in battle versus other AI. If the AI attacks a city, you know it'll be gone if you don't intervene. (I have seen AI abandon sieges countless times before coming to blows though.) But that means that when I conquer castles and cities with my 96-man strong warband of Elite heavy cavalry and infantry, and I move elsewhere, no matter who gets the castle, they'll end up losing it. And if I camp the castle, then they'll just conquer other castles and cities where I'm not present...
Plus I'm getting these random crashes only when I defend a city or castle, so I'm not inclined to do that often.

Also: defections. My god do they suddenly gutpunch a faction. I saw 2-3 families leave the Southern Empire, with all their lands in the span of 2 weeks. And that's when it was me and the ruling family, with our 300 men in total versus the world, with no holdings... And it could be fun you know; fighting the guerilla untill you're strong enough, but in the end, you just can't beat multiple factions when you can't be everywhere at once...

TLDR: Snowballing is a huge effect regardless of which faction and seems completely irreversible.

 

[manuelcipo]

Ok, new playthrough, day 57, Vlandia already own half of Sturgia, Kuzhait is already starting to steamroll northern empire, i'm not sure that anyone is conquering, i think it's more likely that entire Clan defect to the kingdom they are in war with, bringing all their fiefs and this just after a couple of castle get taken by the enemies, it's funny cause in today patch the 1.05 one fix was to prevent this from happening and i started the playthrough after the patch, clearly not working properly.

 

[Nordmann]

In my game, Battania has crushed two of the three Empires, and Vlandia looks like it's going to be the next victim.

I don't think this issue is specific to any one particular faction.

 

[ArenXXL]

In my games thus far I only had the Battanians taking over, other than that they have always been at least 3 BIG nations and a few smaller ones that still had some breathing left.

 

[ArenXXL]

In my game, Battania has crushed two of the three Empires, and Vlandia looks like it's going to be the next victim.

I don't think this issue is specific to anyone one particular faction.

I've played at least 4 different saves, most of them after they fixed the early game, twice battania dominated, once the southern empire did SOMETHING, then I joined Vlandia and we destroyed all our neighbours but the Khuzait and aserai were actually doing pretty well.

The only empire that never won anything was Sturgia, which leads me to believe the Sturgians have really poor troops.