First, 1.5 improved many things, but the tactical AI in wars is not as good as it used to be.
I regularly see AI now stuck in provinces (friendly, or sometimes after a siege). Sometimes, it suffers from attri, but still does not move. Sending units with attach ticked does not work. Once a vassal stack sat like that for 10 years. Another time, it was 40k french sitting, and loosing a war just because the rest of the army was defending alone.
Then, there is the buggy attach to unit. Sometimes AI attaches fines. Sometimes, for some reason, it won't. Worst, sometimes, they follow you, then stop, then follow again, so it delays both army. Chasing down stacks in shattered retreat this way is very inneficient, often times, it delays enough for a month to tick, ie too late for a stack wipe. Also, sometimes AI just leaves your stack because it suffers from attri. Come on, if I ticked to follow, it means I need AI to win a big fight! IF I want AI not to follow to avoid attri, I would not have ticked... Even if it were to be a bad move to follow me, AI should learn - I'm the boss, and you don't debate the boss orders!
There are also regular occurence where AI with full morale in neighbour province (friendly, so it is not even about a siege) will not move to join in a close fight. AI used to join, so I sometimes count on it (and I do when I can not win alone anyway!). When it is lost in advance, it should not join, but when it is close without help, it should really join in.
Last, it just moves where it wants to, and siege province right in front of much larger ennemy force. So, the ennemy finishes it sieges, and then, crushes friendly AI. For ex., it once sieged Seminole (dead end, south eastern most province of the US), while 4 times larger ennemy was besieging Apalachee. This is especially frustrating when war goal is to show superiority, when I do my best to reach the goal, or prevent ennemy from reachiing the 80%, and AI ruins it all. Since it unreliably attaches to own stacks, I can't even prevent AI from doing bad moves.
It feels quite frustrating to loose ironman just because AI is too hot-headed to reliably fight in tough wars.
I regularly see AI now stuck in provinces (friendly, or sometimes after a siege). Sometimes, it suffers from attri, but still does not move. Sending units with attach ticked does not work. Once a vassal stack sat like that for 10 years. Another time, it was 40k french sitting, and loosing a war just because the rest of the army was defending alone.
Then, there is the buggy attach to unit. Sometimes AI attaches fines. Sometimes, for some reason, it won't. Worst, sometimes, they follow you, then stop, then follow again, so it delays both army. Chasing down stacks in shattered retreat this way is very inneficient, often times, it delays enough for a month to tick, ie too late for a stack wipe. Also, sometimes AI just leaves your stack because it suffers from attri. Come on, if I ticked to follow, it means I need AI to win a big fight! IF I want AI not to follow to avoid attri, I would not have ticked... Even if it were to be a bad move to follow me, AI should learn - I'm the boss, and you don't debate the boss orders!
There are also regular occurence where AI with full morale in neighbour province (friendly, so it is not even about a siege) will not move to join in a close fight. AI used to join, so I sometimes count on it (and I do when I can not win alone anyway!). When it is lost in advance, it should not join, but when it is close without help, it should really join in.
Last, it just moves where it wants to, and siege province right in front of much larger ennemy force. So, the ennemy finishes it sieges, and then, crushes friendly AI. For ex., it once sieged Seminole (dead end, south eastern most province of the US), while 4 times larger ennemy was besieging Apalachee. This is especially frustrating when war goal is to show superiority, when I do my best to reach the goal, or prevent ennemy from reachiing the 80%, and AI ruins it all. Since it unreliably attaches to own stacks, I can't even prevent AI from doing bad moves.
It feels quite frustrating to loose ironman just because AI is too hot-headed to reliably fight in tough wars.