Is the "give vassals orders" working ?

[Blust]

I feel like they're doing their own thing alone, whatever the orders I give to them.

Latest example is Lithuania, on my Poland's playthrough. They never listen, I have to follow them and hope they don't go on kill themselves. Or maybe I'm missing something ?

 

[allfath3r]

This has been my experience as well. They will happily attach to me when ordered to do so, but all other orders they ignore.

 

[Blust]

Weird, because they attack random forts when I tell them to siege, but that's the only thing they listen to. They never stack on me when I order them to do so

 

[bbqftw]

No, they do not listen with any consistency.

Supportive and bringing them a 1k stack doesn't help. Last night I asked it to siege something in Egypt the vassal stack wandered off to upper Lithuania.

 

[atwix]

i got a 400+ dev vassal with 70k army, and they happily go for anything/anyone, including desieging rebels and killing them, when set to aggressive.

boy, what a difference to bankrupt rebel ridden vassals of previous patches...

 

[Vulkandrache]

i got a 400+ dev vassal with 70k army

If the Vassal was big enough they could do that stuff even before, but they had to be REALY big.
IM talking Yeren with almost entire Ming big.
Then they would walk around with a 50k army and take care of their own rebels.
Before that you had to babysit them.

But yes, even smaller Vassals now seem to be doing something worthwhile,
France and Castille PU shipping units to the Caucasus to help out is nice for a change,

but

boy, what a difference to bankrupt rebel ridden vassals of previous patches...

The target marker from the province screen still does basicaly nothing. Not for Allies, not for Vassals, not for PUs.
I cant be arsed to walk them on a leash, so i let them do their own thing
and use them as distractions while my army stand around sieging stuff.

 

[NC181818]

The siege order never works

 

[Sfan]

If the Vassal was big enough they could do that stuff even before, but they had to be REALY big.
IM talking Yeren with almost entire Ming big.
Then they would walk around with a 50k army and take care of their own rebels.
Before that you had to babysit them.

But yes, even smaller Vassals now seem to be doing something worthwhile,
France and Castille PU shipping units to the Caucasus to help out is nice for a change,

Definitely not. I remember a game in 1.18 with a Ming vassal who owned more than its starting territory, so more than 1k dev and 70k men. At some point they had 24k debt. There has been an improvement on that front, but orders, as you said, are still unreliable except "agressive" which is only good when they're big.

 

[PoulsenB]

Marking provinces as targets seems bugged, because AI just ignores it, be it subjects or allies. Subjects' AI is also wonky, but in my games they attach to me when I order them to do so pretty reliably (especially when they have a small army, like 4-8k of troops), tend to (but not always) stay back when they're ordered to be defensive, and go absolutely nuts when ordered to be aggressive (which is great for distracting enemy armies while I siege down all the forts for that sweet warscore %). Of course, from time to time they get themselves stackwiped stupidly or do the opposite of what I wanted them to do, but it's usually not that big of a deal.