AI so dumb it cant even hire mercenaries. When I started war, I had 100 gold, he could've hired mercenaries and destroyed me, because my army was only 400 men bigger. But noo, he better give me land.
AI base race
- Thread starter Sigebryht
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Would be too easy for the player though. "Hey, I've an army of 5,000 versus your army of 2,000. You gonna defend yourself or can I declare war on the next fool who refuse to be vassalized by me?" The snowball would happen too quickly in terms of expansions if the AI always surrendered to overwhelming forces. Now they at least stall the advancement of the player. Time as well as resources (gold for raising an army...). And well, sometimes it's just fun to fight, right?
But yes, if the AI was actually smart, like really smart, then the solution to the problem above might be possible to overcome. But as the AI works now, making them surrender to an overwhelming army, I'd argue, actually harms the quality of the game.
Vassalised mercs are a different story altogether. Egypt with vassalised mercs always summon them in every war. Even when they attack someone with only 1,000 troops. If they themselves have 7,000 men, they still hire their vassalised mercs to send a doomstack of 13,000 at a 1-county ruler of 1,000 men.
Ffs -.-' Did not even notice this. Thank you for pointing it out. I can't believe how they managed to mess AI so bad. IT USED TO BE GOOD
Does not defend own land, Can't use mercenaries right, does not use terrain strategically.
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In the AI's defense, Mercenaries need time to build their morale up to be of any use. If you're coming right away, it's just a waste of gold to have some mercs show up to be slaughtered. And depending on army composition a 850-man army could easily be slapped down by a 400-man one.
A lot can happen in a war. I've won Jihads defending against the Ummayyads as Tribal Africans by letting them kill myself in my deserts. I was outnumbered 3:1. They could blitz and catch you trying to consolidate your forces and win a series of smaller battles. Allies could join in. They could hold out just enough to run you out of funds so you White Peace.
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You know, my main force is in middlesex his in Leicester. I need to group my troops, at least I do that before first big battle on this game stage. He also should group up his men. So if he's Insta hire mercenaries, moves away from me, for example to Chester, his mercanaries morale would restore quite a bit till I could reach him. Than he simply could destroy me.
Or maybe it's too much for AI?
A lot of worthwhile mercenary companies cost 300-350 to hire, plus upkeep. His paltry sum isn't enough to keep them around for a drawn out defensive war. Hell, the minor 150g companies could've all been on contracts. Bottom line though, the AI does use mercenaries quite a bit, they just typically try not to bankrupt themselves doing it.
I'm sorry, but how can someone say the AI avoiding enemy armies is unrealistic? Sieges were the order of the day, not set-piece battles. Look up The Anarchy period of civil war in England.
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At least take the effort to understand what we are talking about before trying to rebut it. AI is not doing a strategic defensive retreat like Parthians vs Crassus or Croats vs Mongols, it is abandoning its own lands completely to besiege the attackers capital at a massive disadvantage. The attacker AI, which usually has enough troops to both attack enemy lands and defend own realm, does not attempt defending. This is not something that used to happen before. AI was made worse recently, probably around 2.8 update.
These 'yolo 100% on offense' things where a defender abandons his own defences to go ham on enemy base happened extremely rarely in history, like Rommels dash to the wire but they tend to turn disasterous, just like Rommels attempt. However it should not be difficult to use common sense and understand why what is going on in this picture is deeply stupid. Please don't do mental gymnastics to try and rationalize AI fail. Also don't even try saying it is the mod's fault lol, there are vanilla pics on first page.
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The AI is truly annoying. I'm trying to create the Habsburgs under Otto in the 936 A.D. start and I'd like to see Otto form the HRE, but the AI is just... ugh. In one of my many attempts to do so, Otto went for the Upper/Lower Loraine claim. Defending Loraine went directly to random northwards county (not even the capital). When the French renforcements came in, Defending Loraine went after Otto's army (which was sigeing Trier). The Defenders attacked the german army twice, to no avail. I was getting excited: finally, finally the AI will win this easy war. But then I looked at the warscore and the number started dropping. The thing is: Otto wasn't sieging the war goal: actually, it was trying to siege all the other provences BUT the war goal. While this was happening, France was still sieging some random german land. Eventualy, the german forces were depleted and Otto lost the war.
What I find infuriating is that neither the attacker nor the defender seem to know what they are doing. It's just randomness and despair: I yell at my computer, to no avail. "Please, Otto, please, just go after the war goal". The result of all this is that I'm getting tired of the game: the AI is just too... frustrating
What I find infuriating is that neither the attacker nor the defender seem to know what they are doing. It's just randomness and despair: I yell at my computer, to no avail. "Please, Otto, please, just go after the war goal". The result of all this is that I'm getting tired of the game: the AI is just too... frustrating
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