AI army pathing makes wars tedious and unfun

[AFKaiser]

When you are a big nation and want to declare war on someone, you want to send your stacks on nearby provinces to keep something like a "frontline" so that you can defend your stacks if attecked, or so that you can siege nearby forts without leaving occupied provinces unprotected. However, that 11k Uzbek stack has gone to Siberia to then proceed to carpet siege your provinces in Manchuria in the other side of the world, while leaving its country unprotected.
I remember some patches ago (Maybe 1.25 or 1.26?) when AI armies were competent enough to at least try to defend and keep their stacks around, but nowadays you have to block all posible escape routes for AI armies so they don't do dumb things. This overall kills the fun part of wars, and obligue the player to only declare wars where you can kill all stacks or at least don't let them run to the other side of your country to occupy steppe provinces.
In a game of war and conquest that is EU4, I think the most important thing to do is making war interesting and challenging, but right now it looks like "play tag" with enemy stacks, trying to kill them before they carpet siege everything, and the one that occupies the capital first and gets enough WS wins. I hope the devs are aware of this, and hopefully we can get a fix to this situation.

 

[RTErk]

I was actually thinking about posting something like this ! This mechanic that the AI just goes to the other side of the planet to siege some provinces while its capital is being sieged is just stupid. You get tons of war exhaustion for no reason !

 

[sekelsenmat]

I just watched an AI vs AI war: Burgundy (+Dutch minors) attacking some belgium minor + (defended Austria/Hungary)


Burgundy's armies were sieging and taking all of Austrian land, including Vien and what not. While all Burgundian provinces were besieged and taken by Austria

 

[redshirt4life]

It's stupid but easily countered by stacking seige bonuses. Their army can go do whatever they want to. The war will be over when they finally arrive anyway. This is even stronger when advanced forts come out because the AI often doesnt upgrade.

I've used this to conquer Russia, again and again, as the commonwealth. They would send their army through norway and the war would be over before they could do anything.

With aristrocratic ideas tons of army tradition and the right policies, the norm for my generals was 3-6 seige pips.

It was also handy enforcing a PU with Austria. Not only did I seige down most of Austria before they could respond, but I also managed to take every fort before another plater could stop me. By the time his armies moved in, there was nothing left to take. I PUed them and forced peace after calling in spain, and portugal. (He wasnt aware that this pulled me into a defensive war)

 

[ep1c_fail]

It's stupid but easily countered by stacking seige bonuses. Their army can go do whatever they want to. The war will be over when they finally arrive anyway. This is even stronger when advanced forts come out because the AI often doesnt upgrade.

I've used this to conquer Russia, again and again, as the commonwealth. They would send their army through norway and the war would be over before they could do anything.

With aristrocratic ideas tons of army tradition and the right policies, the norm for my generals was 3-6 seige pips.

It was also handy enforcing a PU with Austria. Not only did I seige down most of Austria before they could respond, but I also managed to take every fort before another plater could stop me. By the time his armies moved in, there was nothing left to take. I PUed them and forced peace after calling in spain, and portugal. (He wasnt aware that this pulled me into a defensive war)

That isn't "fun" though: it's simply min-maxing your base race capabilities. Part of the problem is that there really are no mechanics that reflect logistics besides attrition and gaining military access is far easier than it was in the early days of the game. The AI (and player) is able to march his armies to Timbuktu and back if it choses.

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

Yup - had this experience getting my PU on Austria; not a single battle at all with the 160k+ Austrian armies, nothing.

They were all in Norway occupying allied provinces (worthless bits of cliff face) while I captured Vienna and PUd them.

I was slightly put out as I'd spend ages building a good army with professionalism, tradition, high fire & siege generals, the works.

Funny to watch 100k Austrian soldiers laying siege to some fishing village north of Bergen, but not reaaaaallly a great strategic choice.

 

[redshirt4life]

That isn't "fun" though: it's simply min-maxing your base race capabilities. Part of the problem is that there really are no mechanics that reflect logistics besides attrition and gaining military access is far easier than it was in the early days of the game. The AI (and player) is able to march his armies to Timbuktu and back if it choses.

I'm just offering solutions for you. If the AI chooses to go around your force just take their forts faster then they can take yours. I wouldn't expect too many mechanics re-works in a game this old, but I'd appreciate it if they made the AI more adept at the game as well.

 

[sekelsenmat]

That isn't "fun" though: it's simply min-maxing your base race capabilities. Part of the problem is that there really are no mechanics that reflect logistics besides attrition and gaining military access is far easier than it was in the early days of the game. The AI (and player) is able to march his armies to Timbuktu and back if it choses.

At the time military access basically meant that the host had to feed the guest troops marching and there was always the risk of plundering even if we'll fed ... That's why it was rare. In the game there is no drawback.

On the other hand, a strong army would simply pass through weaker states and take whatever they wanted, like "stop me if you can", I think this happened a lot during the crusades. So weak states would "accept" access always, maybe even pay them to get out faster....

 

[AlazkanAssassin]

For chasing down enemy stacks, i would love it if there was a way to tell my stack to "follow and destroy" a specific enemy stack.
I hate having to keep redirecting my army onto whatever province the enemy happens to be in, hoping to catch them eventually.

 

[threetypesofcorn]

A right click or something to hunt an enemy stack is a necessary addition imo.
Thinking back on all those times were the interface tells you there will be a battle when it actually won't (and vice versa), making it all the more frustrating.

But you have to admit the AI is pretty good, when it manages to convince you to stop playing to begin with

 

[bube]

Makes me wonder wether if it would be a viable game mechanic or not to have attrition increase drastically if you spend too much time outside of your/your occupied provinces (or like, within 1-2 provinces of these).

Basically simulating supply lines in a way

 

[AFKaiser]

Makes me wonder wether if it would be a viable game mechanic or not to have attrition increase drastically if you spend too much time outside of your/your occupied provinces (or like, within 1-2 provinces of these).

Basically simulating supply lines in a way

I think this would make it even worse for the AI to fight the player, as they would send all their stacks outside their country and take the massive attrition. This is why AI doesn't get naval attrition: because they can't handle it.

 

[DarkSpiryt]

I would enjoy free update for AI ...

 

[iClipse]

Honestly, at this point I'd be happy if they just transfered the 'supress rebel' army behavior to normal enemies too. That way I'd be able to say to army: "Defend and resiege this area". Currently, if you have an area that's occupied 50% by rebels and 50% by an enemy, and you say supress rebels there, your army nicely goes retaking all the rebel owned provinces, but not any provinces owned by the enemy.

Especially nice since you can add this behavior for a 1-stack. As long as there are no forts and troops in an area, your 1-stack will take everything back without attention required.

And the best part? The code is already in the game.

 

[Jomini]

Makes me wonder wether if it would be a viable game mechanic or not to have attrition increase drastically if you spend too much time outside of your/your occupied provinces (or like, within 1-2 provinces of these).

Basically simulating supply lines in a way

This would be wildly ahistorical. During the EUIV era the overwhelming amount of the time the army lived off the land. Armies on the march would get food from the populace as they marched through. They might send out "foraging" parties or they might send suttlers to purchase food, but the single largest supply need was all but universally met from the field. Even in the late Napoleonic era, the most we see are a few depots where this sort of provision was done prior to the army marching through and some food brought with the army to ensure good eating before a battle (Napoleon never marched with more than six days of food with strict orders that this was only to be broken out immediately prior to battle).

Other stocks were also typically taken from the land during march. For most of the period and most states pay was more of a "plunder when you can" sort of thing than shipping specie forward for payments. Weapons in this era had essentially no supply needs absent fighting and even then powder was often obtained from enemy territory. Shot was typically recast in the field and rarely brought fresh in resupply. Uniforms were a late innovation, were typically not in need of replacement, and we often supplemented by local foraging.

Such logistical concerns as existed were never defined by straight line distance or overland adjacency. If you read through the campaigns of the era the trouble was moving men, powder, and particularly artillery they pretty much always followed riverine courses. This was inordinately faster than overland travel and, more importantly, an order of magnitude cheaper. If you possessed the hulls, oceanic transport was an order of magnitude cheaper yet again. And this speed mattered, both because it was far harder to siege places once they had been properly prepared and because the many months or years long sieges of EUIV were highly atypical, particularly in the north. Mass levies typically came at the expense of harvests and winter sieges were absolutely brutal to the attackers.

Put it another way: the British had an easier time of supplying their forces in Portugal or India than they did in France. Even more tellingly during Cambrai the forces at Bayonne had better supply than those at Guinegate even though the latter was only about 30 miles from Calais.

Supply lines are a modern phenomena. They evolved with the railroad and permitted the fielding of forces far beyond the capacity of the countryside to support on march. They also began supplying the consumables that modern armies require (e.g. petrol, spare parts, manufactured ammunition). Pretty much every intuition folks familiar with modern logistics have about supply is utterly wrong for the EUIV time period.

Now there were lines of communication and these were exceedingly important ... but those are bound up in a holy host of time lag issues that we largely ignore in game. Adding supply lines to EUIV would not simulate those and would rather make the game less realistic for the time period and much more Victorian.

 

[flammable888]

I think the enemy should defend its capital.or the nearby area.i would even give their army lots of extra bonuses in their capital area.maybe more morale and discipline with extra manpower replenishing quickly.
This would mean you would have to throw everything at it.probably hiring mers etc.this would be more interesting and realistic instead of the enemy army travelling across the map to siege a province 3000 miles from both your capitals.

 

[Ruian]

This started in 1.25 with all the money changes to my knowledge and it has been an issue since then. This might be when they introduced regions for the AI to evaluate and weight. For example, you have a large frontline army in a massive empire from China to Moscow. The AI sees you in the Russia area and scores China as very safe vs. very dangerous in Russia -> army goto China. They've tried to fix it numerous times and each time fails. At one point a dev acknowledged that they don't know how to fix it because the EU4 systems are so complex after using an old engine (or build? I'm not a software person) and adding tons of DLC/features. From a layman's perspective it seems like the AI has some problem calculating its own strength.

There seem to be some AIs that aren't so effected. It could be confirmation bias, but there could be a connection. The Ottomans, for example, seem to be out for blood the first time I fight them. They'll send stack after stack directly into a massive battle whereas Ming usually doesn't. This all changes when the AI has a massive advantage (or thinks it does), of course. I'm talking about mostly even fights here.

 

[AFKaiser]

This started in 1.25 with all the money changes to my knowledge and it has been an issue since then. This might be when they introduced regions for the AI to evaluate and weight. For example, you have a large frontline army in a massive empire from China to Moscow. The AI sees you in the Russia area and scores China as very safe vs. very dangerous in Russia -> army goto China. They've tried to fix it numerous times and each time fails. At one point a dev acknowledged that they don't know how to fix it because the EU4 systems are so complex after using an old engine (or build? I'm not a software person) and adding tons of DLC/features. From a layman's perspective it seems like the AI has some problem calculating its own strength.

There seem to be some AIs that aren't so effected. It could be confirmation bias, but there could be a connection. The Ottomans, for example, seem to be out for blood the first time I fight them. They'll send stack after stack directly into a massive battle whereas Ming usually doesn't. This all changes when the AI has a massive advantage (or thinks it does), of course. I'm talking about mostly even fights here.

I was also thinking about this issue as well. This was introduced in a November 2018 dev diary I think, when they said AI armies would be scriptable, but they aren't really. The ai_army folder just has a text which says like the capital is worth 10 times more because it's the capital.
The AI evaluation system for armies should, well..., evaluate better.

 

[Atlanteax]

Another solid strategy is to build forts along your borders in a fashion that makes it very difficult for the AI to slip past; or a a sufficient amount where a single small reserve army can sit in the open area and deter the AI mini siegers from trying.

 

[AFKaiser]

Another solid strategy is to build forts along your borders in a fashion that makes it very difficult for the AI to slip past; or a a sufficient amount where a single small reserve army can sit in the open area and deter the AI mini siegers from trying.

This is a valid strategy for current patches, but again, the current situation makes wars not being about "invading a country" but more like "don't let AI do stupid things in my Manchurian provinces while I'm sieging their whole country". I like your idea of building forts around vulnerable targets, tho. However, if you're playing as a horde (or any weak economy country) you might not have the funds to sustain those forts, or you simply find it even more tedious if AI manages to siege your border forts, in that case you'd have to unsiege those forts AND chase endlessly those stacks.