Endlessly marching armies and other "quirks"

[unmerged(12444)]

First tryout of the demo as Milan.

1. My ally Papal State got me involved in a war with France. France eventually started a siege of Roma with a mere 2 regiments (1 cavalry, 1 foot). Papal State meanwhile began loading and unloading nearly 5000 troops on and off my Corsica province. For nearly 3 years, over and over and over. Eventually France took Roma, and finally after peace those tired Papal soldiers disappeared from the Ligurian Sea.

2. Venice marched 4 regiments of foot soldiers from Brescia to Verona, and back again, while at the same time marching 1 regiment of horse between the same two provinces but in the opposite direction. This went on for at least 10 years that I noticed.

3. Meanwhile Venice lost Ferrara, which they had conquered from Modena, to Rebels who had sieged it for nearly a year without interference from those busy marching Venetian soldiers just up north of them. Only after losing it did Venice send troops to Ferrara and siege it back. Meanwhile, the rebels had moved to Modena. Which they sieged for a while, until Venice retook Ferrara - then the rebels moved BACK to Ferrara, retook it, and moved out again ... whereupon Venice moved BACK in and retook it ... whereupon the rebels came back from another siege of Modena and retook Ferrara ... finally I got fed up and asked for military access from Modena, and evaporated the rebels myself.

4. That war that Papal State dragged me into with France? What actually happened was Papal State declared war on Auvergne, France's ally ... DURING a war between Milan (me) together with Papal State and Bremen against Mantua, Modena, and Wurtemburg ... WHILE troops of Modena were besieging the Papal State province of Romagna. Why on earth would the AI choose that moment to launch an attack from Avignon to Auvergne, which was allied with the biggest military power in the area at the time? Can I suggest a basic programming line in the AI please: "Don't start a new war while a core province is being besieged by the enemy in a current war".

I do like many of the improved features of the game, but these kinds of things will keep me from buying it till some serious patching is done.

 

[Jodien]

I had the same things in my Castile game. France captured all my Aragon origin provinces in just 2 months!!! I could not figure out how the war waging works yet. My full morale armies seem to immediately lose the battles as the first dice are rolled. Most of the times you get the messages saying you lost as soon as you engage the enemy. This is very irritating.

 

[Chaingun]

Can I suggest a basic programming line in the AI please: "Don't start a new war while a core province is being besieged by the enemy in a current war".

EDIT - EXAGGERATION: Actually that's far from a basic programming line. It's something that involves a huge number of checks and weighting calculations. It's not like it's possible to describe anything of that to the computer like you do, but instead in what in the end are mathematical equations.

But I agree AI needs some "tweaking" in most areas.

In your case: While in war it's usually a bad idea to DoW anyone else for its duration in ~95% of all cases. There should be a rather high requirement for total success and estimated success in the current war before a new war is considered at all by the AI... If the AI cannot handle such a complex decision, the simplest thing is to prevent it DoWing at all while in war, which in turn is bad though since it makes it 100% predictable for the human.

 

[unmerged(12444)]

Actually that's far from a basic programming line. It's something that involves a huge number of checks and weighting calculations. It's not like it's possible to describe anything of that to the computer like you do, but instead in what in the end are mathematical equations.

What I proposed is very basic. When an enemy starts a siege on any of the AI core provinces (or any owned provinces, etc.), set a flag Core_Under_Threat. In the DoW programming code, simply check this flag.

 

[Piggy]

Im also a little miffed at how the armies retreat.

Playing as england and fighting scotland I would win a battle and the scottish army retreats to a province that I control (had taken it from scotland). So I have to march across to that province and fight them, I win the battle instantly. Then the scottish army retreats back to the province I had beat them in the previous round so I march back and fight them there, win right away and what do they do? They march back to the province I beat them in the time before. These are both provinces I controlled at this point, why are they going there when they could/ should have retreated north into their lands?

This went on and on and on untill the army was finally destroyed completely. I tell you my guys were a little tired of marching back and forth to the same provinces 10 times!

 

[Chaingun]

What I proposed is very basic. When an enemy starts a siege on any of the AI core provinces (or any owned provinces, etc.), set a flag Core_Under_Threat. In the DoW programming code, simply check this flag.

Sure, if done the ultra-simple you can do it like that (with the modification you will need a reference count of sieged provinces or you won't be able to remove flag without checking all owned), but:

1+ province(s) being under siege really says nothing about how the war really goes. If done like that, the human player can send 1000 men to "siege" one province of the AI and then it won't declare war on anything else. Nor will it take into account forces not sieging on AI territory, or forces on border ready to strike. Due to these and similiar issues that pop up during AI programming it gets more complex than it looks. If the simple route is chosen it periodically translates into irrational AI behaviour instead. (Not to say that Paradox' AI haven't had its fair share of that already though.)

Also consider that this needs to be checked at worst several times/second depending on game speed. (But so does any remotely intelligent solution I suppose.)

 

[unmerged(1823)]

been tweaked since demo

 

[Piggy]

been tweaked since demo

Thats the answer I was hoping for.

 

[unmerged(3338)]

The "retreating army ouflanking you into your own province" was the first thing I noticed with demo. This was an annoying problem with both EU1 and 2.

It especially seems to be a problem with the single province German states...they need someplace else to go other than one of my provinces!
My provinces are MY provinces! Not theirs!! Stay out!

 

[Duuk]

Actually that's far from a basic programming line. It's something that involves a huge number of checks and weighting calculations. It's not like it's possible to describe anything of that to the computer like you do, but instead in what in the end are mathematical equations.

if (at_war && under_siege(capital province)) return;

in the AI logic call that would have it declare war.

 

[Duuk]

been tweaked since demo

Rockin

 

[Lucasiewicz]

been tweaked since demo

Does this mean it has been tweaked for the retail-version or that it has been tweaked for a first patch?

 

[Chaingun]

if (at_war && under_siege(capital province)) return;

in the AI logic call that would have it declare war.

^ See my second post in this thread. It can be a start, but I doubt the final behaviour should be nearly as simple as yours unless we want exploitable behaviour. It does not take allies into account (meaning if you're under siege your AI one province ally can still DoW someone else and further worsen situation anyway), etc. etc. forever, which is why programmers miss this stuff the first time around.

I'll have surrender my first post though, as it was exaggerated to some extent in regards to this particular issue. Thinking of it, making passive AI decision is easier than to making active decisions. Example: It's easier to decide when the AI definately shouldn't DoW than who it actually should DoW.

Edit: I realize it's pretty stupid to write "DoW" and not "DOW" when used as a verb, but that's because I've been playing Dawn of War lately.

 

[Jodien]

The defeated army must retreat to where it came from. Most of the time I had to follow the defeated enemy army all the way deep across my country, while the enemy was pouring lots of 1000 men single regiments from the actual front to lay numerous sieges and assault them. In this way France occupied all of Spain in an army's movement time and got a 100% warscore!! AI is using gamey tricks. Ridiculous!!

This way, wars will surely degrade down to ''who-storms-the-provinces-fastest'' contest.

 

[Chaingun]

Army retreats could probably be made better yes... It's a bit annoying to try to catch retreaters now, especially if they end up running between two provinces.