Yeah allied units act like kids with too much sugar in their system. All over the place.
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Absolutely love this game... absolutely hate AI allies.
- Thread starter klopkr
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Yeah they are very stupid. I wish they improved QoL on that and the AI so its more helpful.
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So I just don't understand what the AI's goals are.
I started as one of my favourite minor starts: Caledonia.
I declare my first war on the yellow guys just east of me. I have tons of big allies. Once I declare they don't try to get access to help. Then one and only one for the entirety of the war puts his on a few ships and lands right next to me.
Every winter I get a tick of attrition so my siege stops. He proceeds to stand there next to my siege for the rest of the war. The enemy can't siege my capital either without getting the attrition tick so I can't lose.
Next their troops attack me 3 times and my ally not once comes to help and just stands next door. Finally because pops were killed from the fights I actually am able to siege the fort somehow with only 600 troops. I guess the defenders die somehow? Well anyways I finish the siege and it kills every pop left in the province because the depopulation from the fights. Finally my ally decides to move into the province. I screen cap here and just ended it.
I'm just not understanding what the hell is going on in my allies mind. They didn't fight a single battle and avoided all sieges.
It's not just broken for me. It's broken for the AI. We were just stuck in some kind of weird stalemate where the only way to win is to literally kill all their pops through battles.
I started as one of my favourite minor starts: Caledonia.
I declare my first war on the yellow guys just east of me. I have tons of big allies. Once I declare they don't try to get access to help. Then one and only one for the entirety of the war puts his on a few ships and lands right next to me.
Every winter I get a tick of attrition so my siege stops. He proceeds to stand there next to my siege for the rest of the war. The enemy can't siege my capital either without getting the attrition tick so I can't lose.
Next their troops attack me 3 times and my ally not once comes to help and just stands next door. Finally because pops were killed from the fights I actually am able to siege the fort somehow with only 600 troops. I guess the defenders die somehow? Well anyways I finish the siege and it kills every pop left in the province because the depopulation from the fights. Finally my ally decides to move into the province. I screen cap here and just ended it.
I'm just not understanding what the hell is going on in my allies mind. They didn't fight a single battle and avoided all sieges.
It's not just broken for me. It's broken for the AI. We were just stuck in some kind of weird stalemate where the only way to win is to literally kill all their pops through battles.
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Fellow player of Caledonii, I'm sad by just reading... (also looking at people who suggested me to use allies while saying I was wrong to suggest it is unbalanced)
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I'm asking it here to (I've asked it on another thread of the same type):
what are your relationships with allies?
In my roman campaign subjects are extremely useful (both old and new ones) to sieges, assaults and battles, not to mention carpet sieging.
however my relationships with them are ALWAYS over 100....
Maybe @Arheo can confirm that the behaviour change based on opinions?
what are your relationships with allies?
In my roman campaign subjects are extremely useful (both old and new ones) to sieges, assaults and battles, not to mention carpet sieging.
however my relationships with them are ALWAYS over 100....
Maybe @Arheo can confirm that the behaviour change based on opinions?
Did you activate the option for your army to allow other armies to follow/merge ?
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Yes. But I don't feel I should have to when I'm standing on a stalled siege and they're next to me or when an enemy attacks.
To the credit of the AI they did make their troops bounce around in place when the enemy came charging to attack me but they ultimately decided never to join.
I made a quick Video (no commentary) with Caledonia and attacked the same country as seen on your screenshot and for me it worked. The ally left of me joined my army and sieged together with me with half of his army and other half he hold ready in the territory directly above it and the ally under my enemy waited, which makes also sense. as we had no way to merge over land and alone they would have probably lost against the enemy in defensive position.
The only problem I´ve seen here in this quick 7 minutes were rather that both territories depopulated. Made the video from start, so that every step can be seen.
(war begins on ca. minute 4)
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Yeah I don't know what to say. You had your one ally and they chose to put a stack to help the siege. I guess I'll try again to see if I did something wrong but mine just wouldn't.
I've had this problem in other fights too though. I have had a successful campaign with caladonia where they helped me siege but later on I still had weird stand next to siege problems.
I wonder if I'm forgetting to let one of my stacks allow following? I'm gonna play the scenario a few times and try different things to goad the AI. They reset when you disband them right? So I have to manually make allies follow them each time? I wonder if I just have been missing that since I use to have all the settings stick in the older builds.
I think this spot is good for testing because there's only really one/2 paths for the AI so you can really see when they're being silly.
The county doesn't always die out if you never fight the enemy army so I guess that's partially luck too based on if the siege kills enough pops.
It just seems like sieges do not make sense for smaller nations. Can't siege the enemy without allies, might lose all the territory from pop death, might lose all your territory if you fight and lose, gotta deal with attrition in a way that any larger nation doesn't since you're at the cusp of it being relevant. I'm not sure how the AI is supposed to play this way much less a player.
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I dont believe that opinions play any role. If the opinion of your subject (depends on type as well) or ally is too low they won´t join your wars at all, but if they join, then the allied behavour should be undependent of how your opinion with them is.
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1.) Yes the levy stacks reset their settings every time you send them back home.
2.) An easy way as a player with those small barbaric tribes I found is to first concentrate on getting all you primary culture territories, which often can be done after 1 war where you need allies. After that you should have about 1 province with all cultures beeing your primary culture, which should result in having at least 1k levy troops more, sounds tiny but that alone helps a lot. After that you can concentrate on getting civilized as fast as possible, in the meantime your pops will ascent from tribesman and slaves to freemen, citizen and nobles and this should also give you some more levies. Often this is already enough to be much stronger than any tribe surrounding you.
I´ve seen AI tribes growing in a similiar way, although not from start, they need a few years and not every tribe is doing this.
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The point about 2k stacks not being able to progress a siege after 1 attrition tick is super valid. I noticed smaller AI countries have a problem resolving their civil wars, when both sides only have a 2k levy. After a battle and/or some attrition, they cannot siege. I just played a game as Athens and there’s always leftover Revolt tags on the map (e.g Elis and Eleian revolt coexisting in a state of perpetual war. Until I conquered them both, that is)
I agree that AI allies can be unhelpful, but I think it cuts both ways. Sometimes enemy AI can be equally confused and give you a freebie victory
I agree that AI allies can be unhelpful, but I think it cuts both ways. Sometimes enemy AI can be equally confused and give you a freebie victory
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That's totally true but also equally bad imo as a player.
I've started playing again as caledonia and noticed a few thing. First of all you need to really go through all your stacks and make them set to attach to every one of your levis inorder for the AI to help sieges even if they're next to it.
I'm not sure but I get the impression the AI sees 'don't attach' as 'Always stay out of my spot' when I always used it as 'help if you're near but do your own thing'. I also noticed that regardless of them being attached they'll act weird about battles, especially ones coming towards you.
When I was marching my stack into an enemy at first the attached ally was following then he decided to leave when a new ally stack showed up and decided to join the fight. So in the end they both showed up significantly late even though I started with 1 stack attached and in the same spot as me.
I'm also noticing that the AI LOVES taking over your sieges. And if it's not a province with a fort it seems like there's no real way to make sure it goes to you? How do I make a non fort province capital reliably come to me when me and my ally stand on it at the same time and have the same strength?
It seems that the most significant ally problem with fights is that they aren't able to coordinate an attack like the AI in other paradox games seem to be able to. Even when they're attached to you standing in the same spot.
I also don't think EU4 style access rules exist in this game. When I get military access I don't see my allies using it and I know I don't automatically get my enemies military access either. One of my problems was that my allies were just not getting any military access even though I can't find a reason they'd be denied by the nations between us.
This isn't just an Imperator problem though it might be worse here. There needs to be war coordination mechanics for all their grand strategy games.
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Caledonii was my favourite country to play. The trick is to always lead your army with your Ruler.
And therefore you need to micromanage everything. Allies were shunned because your starting Ruler had 8 Martial in 1.5. But now it's constantly 9 so you have that going which is nice.
In 2.0 I don't know how to play this game anymore. My staring Levies have 2 of them having 0 Food at the beginning. Am I supposed to levy them 6 months before I march?
The bad thing about Tribes is that they need time to promote Pops in order to get an Advanced Unit. Tribesmen only provide Basic Units. So Tribes are at an extreme handicap.
- Levies broken into 3 Armies, which 2 of them start with 0 Food. So either you stay home and wait for Food to replenish, or you take Attrition instantly. AI will reserve the Armies without Food at home. Essentially their offenses would begin with just half their strength. So defenders have an absolute advantage here.
- Tribesmen provide Basic Units. So no Heavy Infantries. Chariots are also counted as Advanced Units. So even if you get some Citizens and Nobles, you're wasting them on Chariots.
- Mercs for Tribes have increased Upkeeps. This is due to Tribes having had Retinues and they were free. So regular Armies of Tribes had a modifier for upkeep to all non-Retinue Armies. But after the Levy system, the Levies are made free. But if you hire Mercs, they still have increased Upkeeps.
What you need to do is ally Damonia and brigantes and what ever big boys you can find. Then use your council for a free month 2 war on the yeller fellows in the east and if you're really lucky they'll help you siege it and not kill all the pops so you can take it. Meanwhile your mission on the region will give you the rest of the claims you need so you can use the momentum and allies to kill volundia. By then you'll have two places to get levies from and enough troops to siege anywhere on your own. So break that alliance with Damonia and eat them up Asap. Then it's just a matter of picking off all the little tribes around and moving into ireland.
It's really just the beginning with the allies and sieges i'm struggling with.
