WANTED: feedback on new AI tweaks in April 28th patch

[unmerged(2456)]

I agree with you in principle. Idealy that would be best, but since it was that way in the intial release its likely because they found the AI can't handle money proprely in some fashion, either because it doesn't know how to use troops well (you know, just sitting around as you've doubtlessly seen) or doesn't know if its better to build a mine (for the long term added income during the war) or go to war first to get more land hopefully to increase income and then build the mine later.

 

[Sterkarm]

Just finished the first session of an MP Game (King of Men made a post on this issue from the game in the General Feedback thread). Had fun bashing pagans to the north of me as King of Poland. I took out Prussia, Pruthenians, Memel, and Lithuanians relatively easily as they were all at war with other nations and a human player wouldn't have stood a chance. However, when I fought 4 prov (total) Yatvyiags, they seemed well organized. I used all vassal troops from Duchy of Mazovia. the Yatvyiags split into two armies (1 small headed to Memel, another large one, about 2500 men, headed to Plock). My armies got around them, but they would have taken Plock and seriously damaged my war effort had my vassal not shown up with about 2000 troops and weakened them enough for my 1000 man army to move in for the kill.

 

[past caring]

yes, but war efforts where so costly and it wasn't "total war" - so the endeavours where limited by either money or resources (food),

so an AI with no money - and high martial ratings - able to relentlessly assaulting my realms with massive armies for about 2 years - I can't accept that,

that's a basic rule and it's quite well modeled in CK - but it should also apply to the AI = no money = no war or short war or limited period

I couldn't agree more. **

I've had a few more run-throughs playing as Castile - and whilst I've now (eventually) got a game going where I'm doing OK, I'd say that's largely down to luck. "Luck" in the sense that it was one of the few games where I wasn't DoWed very early on by some combination of Toledo, Sevilla, Valencia and Badajoz. When that happens you are screwed......

However, I played one game where I had fought Toledo and then Zaragoza and was going quite well. As soon as those wars were over Sevilla stepped in - even with the recruitment bonus given by El Cid, I simply couldn't recruit quickly enough due to being utterly skint.

** It seems to me that it's acombination of things that's the real problem;

1) The AI cannot go bankrupt.
2) A muslim or pagan AI absolutely will not agree to peace as long as it perceives itself to be "winning".

In the above game, Sevilla wasn't beating me by that much - and was soon on 0 gold. But it would not agree to peace - even if I offered to give up a couple of provinces.

In desperation, I tried using the "gold" cheat, and offered Sevilla the maximum gold possible - 500. Still nothing.

And another game I had to give up.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

I played Castile for about 150 years yesterday (on normal/normal) and had few problems uniting the Iberian peninsula under my banner. I went deeply into debt on numerous occasions had ended up having to sell off quite a lot of my improvements (via events) before getting back to a positive cash situation again. All it required is a degree of patience, a willingness to go deeply into debt, and a lot of careful planning. By 1110-1115 I had wiped out the last muslim enclave and was ready to begin my campaign to free North Africa.

I think most people run into problems in the region for a variety of reasons:

1. Lack of patience: if you try to bite off more than you can chew then you're in for a world of hurt. Slow down the rate of your expansion and remember that the reconquista doesn't have to be completed by 1069.
   
   
2. Poor target selection: don't DOW the "big boys" early on. Instead, poach a small emir or tiny sheik who lacks vassals.
   
   
3. Game settings: if you're playing vh/vs then yeah...you're probably in for a nasty beating. The game is being actively balanced for n/n play and you're taking your life in your hands at higher settings and should expect to lose a disproportionately large number of early games -- particularly in that region.
   
   
4. Fear of debt: players seem to think that it's "game over" when they drop below a 0 bank balance. That isn't the case at all. I spent more than a decade in debt and lost a number of my province improvements via events, but that certainly didn't end my game. In fact, I had to go on an unexpected crusade when one of my kings died and I was suddenly at ~ 0 piety and had rather nasty crusade expectations. It was better to go massively into debt than risk being excommunicated so...
   
   
5. Fear of temporary losss of territory. Yeah...you're going to lost stuff if you're attacked unexpectedly in force so don't panic when you do. I lost my capital on several occasions and there were quite a few provinces that changed hands bck and forth during a few defensive campaigns. As long as you preserve your army (and go into debt) you can eventually turn the tables to reclaim lost ground and gain new territory.
   
   
6. Unwise law selection. Simply put, Iberian realms are probably best played using royal preorg or feudal contract (NOT popular or traditional) and royal supremacy for the first 25 years or so. It will mean that you'll have to contend with a few events that can be tricky, but the merits outweigh the temporary setbacks. Later, switch to feudal contract (if you haven't already) and probably eccl. balance. Church supremacy or monastic supremacy are a killer in the early game.
   
   
7. Crap tactics. The new war AI is definitely more of a challenge, but is still beatable if you're cautious. You stand a much better chance if you are the one initiating the wars and if you assemble the bulk of your forces *before* declaring. You might also want to wait a bit before making your advance and make flank attacks or prong attacks...never thrust into a center position where the defenders will dog-pile you. That's probably going to mean that you'll lose a few provinces of your own at first, but in the long run it should prove worthwhile.
   
   
8. You *will* lose some games. CK isn't supposed to be a cakewalk or a guaranteed win. If you get unlucky with what the AI nations do then you *will* lose. In hands-off games the "target" is a muslim Iberia in about 25-33% of games, and this should really drop down to about 10% (or less) if there's a human in the region. Your game might just be one of those games.

 

[unmerged(3746)]

I just wanted to say that the AI is far too easy ALREADY, so please don't even think of giving the AI the concept of bankruptcy to wrap its extraordinarily weak intellect around. It will kill the game.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

2) A muslim or pagan AI absolutely will not agree to peace as long as it perceives itself to be "winning".

That's because the AI does not understand the concept of losing or gaining provinces in war with different religions.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I my last game I noticed the following.

I was Duke of Bretagne and vassal of King of England in the 1066 scenario.

Engeland dow'ed the county of Glamorgan. King William raised the regiments in his demesne, but never asked his vassals. The regiments then stood in there provinces for a few months. I thought it was a case of the wellknown sleeping AI, so I saved and reloaded. But nothing happend the regiments kept standing. I waited a few weeks and saved/reloaded again. Again nothing, then after a few weeks 1 regiment (about 800 men) moved to Glamorgan, and started a siege. While the other regiments kept standing in there provinces.

Glamorgan raised its regiment and the English lost or retreated. Glamorgan disbanded its regiment after a while the english regiment, now down to about 500 men, started the siege again. It took a while but conquered Glamorgan, then Engeland made peace without taking Glamorgan.

I myself had dow'ed the Duchy of Leinster and fought a succesfull war taking Dublin. After making peace with Glamorgan, King William finally started moving all its regiments to Leinster. To win a battle and conclude a peace.

 

[ulmont]

While I am seeing more aggressive mobilization, it doesn't seem to be saving the AI.

What I think would be good would be for the AI to have some different DOW logic for cross-religion vs same-religion wars.

After a realm has mobilized, there's no reason for a cross-religion ruler not to just DOW whatever vassals of that realm happen to be closest at hand and begin the war there; you start seiging and taking over land faster that way.

To use Byzantium as an example, with the war starting, this should encourage the Seljuks to just DOW the Armenia - Armenia Minor areas as they are closer, which should better represent these kinds of wars.

In a same-religion war, there's no point in ever DOWing a vassal (without a claim, anyway), as it can only hurt you, so should still be avoided.

-Richard Campbell.

 

[Damocles]

Hey Mr. T,

I've really enjoyed my last couple of games of CK. One was an Iberian game as Aragon and the other was as Trapezous. Naturally, I ended up as both the King of Iberia and the Emperor in both games but I didn't find it a cakewalk in the least! It was a pleasant challenge.

There were a few things I noticed, but nothing that hasn't been brought up before. Only two things I really wish to comment on:

A) When opposing rulers are at war, they should deliberately attack each other's vassals. In fact, the vassals of both rulers should enter the war automatically. Or maybe in such a way that they attack those adjacent to their own vassals.

B) I know its been said a million times...But its still sad to see an army set off from Ireland, England or Norway and land in the Levant around the same time as the Muslim armies are landing in Ireland, England and Norway.

 

[Hyzhenhok]

In my latest game, I just concluded a long, bitter drawn out war between Aragon (me) and Castille. It was very entertaining. I failed to bring my first levies together well enough, and Sancho and Rodrigo simply smashed through a series of smaller 1000-2000 man armies with the frighteningly unified Castillan army of 5000 men. Great improvement - I had more manpower total, but found myself on the ropes at quite a few different moments during the war. It became a war of attrition - it took more than five years for me to come out victorious, and all I had to show for it was a single county.

It was also frustrating to throw 200 prestige and 300 gold on failed assassination attempts against El Cid. Amazing that the human player actually feared an AI character!

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Hey Mr. T,

I've really enjoyed my last couple of games of CK. One was an Iberian game as Aragon and the other was as Trapezous. Naturally, I ended up as both the King of Iberia and the Emperor in both games but I didn't find it a cakewalk in the least! It was a pleasant challenge.

There were a few things I noticed, but nothing that hasn't been brought up before. Only two things I really wish to comment on:

A) When opposing rulers are at war, they should deliberately attack each other's vassals. In fact, the vassals of both rulers should enter the war automatically. Or maybe in such a way that they attack those adjacent to their own vassals.

B) I know its been said a million times...But its still sad to see an army set off from Ireland, England or Norway and land in the Levant around the same time as the Muslim armies are landing in Ireland, England and Norway.

Working on both.

Hopefully the Apr 28th AI is a marked improvement on this (muslims AI is now inclined towards a more defensive stance unless it achieves massive superiority -- although it will still send an expeditionary force if it feels that it has sufficient overall numbers to both attack and defend. We really don't want to put them on 100% defensive stance because it would pretty much remove any challenge from the player. That said, there are definitely more tweaks in the works that will show up in future patches.

 

[unmerged(6777)]

In my latest game, I just concluded a long, bitter drawn out war between Aragon (me) and Castille. It was very entertaining. I failed to bring my first levies together well enough, and Sancho and Rodrigo simply smashed through a series of smaller 1000-2000 man armies with the frighteningly unified Castillan army of 5000 men. Great improvement - I had more manpower total, but found myself on the ropes at quite a few different moments during the war. It became a war of attrition - it took more than five years for me to come out victorious, and all I had to show for it was a single county.

It was also frustrating to throw 200 prestige and 300 gold on failed assassination attempts against El Cid. Amazing that the human player actually feared an AI character!

I had a similar experience on the weekend playing Castile...a nail-biting 10 years or so where I wasn't sure whether I was going to survive or not because El Cid was slain in the very first engagement. I did eventually prevail but it took me about another 10 years just to dig myself out of debt. Then, of course, I decide to start maurauding in the Holy Land with only a handful of regiments and get my ass handed to me on a platter by the Seljuks. It was all I could do to keep a toe-hold in the Levant until I could ship (at ruinous expense) the army over from Spain that I should have shipped earlier (but was too cheap to spend the gold on).

I ended up playing about 10-12 solid hours -- the first time I've been able to do that in ages since most of my games are hands-off high-speed observation affairs -- and had a blast. Of course I also have a couple pages of notes that I made of "things to fix/tweak before 1.05" but that was, of course, the point of taking the day to play instead of script.

 

[unmerged(25476)]

After 1 really bad mis-start... ( went back to HOI2 for a bit to try out the new patch and completely forgot that demenses size was now determined by intrigue not stewardship... oops..)

anyway.. AI appears to be much more enthusiastic on defenense and offence and much more likely to defend properly... I'm not strong enough to do much yet but a war between Byzantium and Seljuks looked to be alot more even than in the past... ( byzantium at least was mobilizing like crazy and actually using troops with some sense)

good iteration. in my opinion... we'll see how my game plays out..

 

[Damocles]

Perhaps when a Christian ruler takes a province from a Muslim ruler and vice versa, there should be a period of revolts, so that if it isn't garrisoned and held for 10-20 years, it would eventually declare independence and/or pledge allegiance to the kingdom it is in if its a core territory.

For instance, the Crusaders were only able to carve out a thin crescent of territory along the coast and only because that was where they could naval assistance. I wish there was a way to model that...as venturing further in was almost impossible. One kingdom managed it but it was the first to go under to...

 

[unmerged(21937)]

It is possible to have foreign religion provinces revolt often, pagans already do so and moslems might as well when you try to convert 'em. That would hurt the income quite bad, but it's not possible to have rebels declare independence however.

Problem with making all wrong religion stuff revolt would be that while it would not ruin those crusader realms that are still part of some bigger kingdom like Germany as they could still get troops from there, it could make crusading far less entertaining for the player.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Personally if the conquest was done similar to same religion wars, ie occupied instead of conquered, this would help a lot. Whoever lost it would get almost allthe downsides of losing it for the duration of the war they get now and the conquering party would get none of the upsides until they finished the war. This IMO would also signifigantly help the AI figure out when it needs to make peace since same-religion wars don't seem to have nearly as much problem.

 

[lenny]

Last night I had my first real war against the AI, when my liege (King of Germany) dowed me (Duke of Lower and Upper Lorraine, Luxemburg, Brabant, Frisia, Mecklemburg, Pommerania, Prussia, and Podlasia), and here is a mini AAR (played on VH/furious):
I had just dowed the Count of Holstein, who had rebelled from Denmark, when the King decided to strike. He had a head start because he was already at war with some Russian principality and had mobilized large parts of the realm's troops. (In fact, the reason for the dow might be that I repeatedly refused his requests for mobilization.)
My eastern demesne province (a rich province in Podlasia) fell quickly to the King and his host of 10000 men, while his Saxon and Brandenburg armies marched on Mecklemburg. (My demesne there was Mecklemburg and Lübeck. Further I had Anderbach, Breda and Lorraine.) After a grand mobilization, I assembled 4 armies: The first in Andernach (8K), the second in Lorraine (+10K), the third near Mecklemburg (~12K) and the forth in Danzig (5K). During this stage, I avoided all battles against superior odds, even by immediately withdrawing from any engagement. The King's armies took Mecklemburg and Lübeck, and his southern troops closed in on Lorraine.
So far, the AI did quite well, but mainly due to the element of surprise and the advanced mobilization. But as soon as my armies had gathered, the tides turned: The 1st army marched on Nassau and took it. Parts of the second army engaged German troops south of Lorraine, and only withdrew after German reinforcements outnumbered mine (Losses of about 4K on both sides, the King’s slightly more than mine.) The 3rd army destroyed the Saxon and Brandenburg troops and retook my provinces, while the 4th army, avoiding the King's host moving west, reclaimed my eastern province.
(Note that after the fall of Nassau I could have ended the war with a massive victory, as my Bavarian ally had taken the second of the King's demesne province. At that point, I had lost, or more precisely withdrawn from, any battle, and half my demesne had fallen. Yet, my warscore was ~13K. Nonetheless, I decided to continue the war, for the fun and to help Bavaria.)
The second southern battle (in Nordgau) went better, as the German armies arrived piecewise in chunks or about 1500 men, and I destroyed ~6K German troops with only 1500 losses on my side. The Germans tried to outflank me, and about 10K marched pass Lorraine towards Andernach/Breda. However, I managed to root them (and destroy the better part) with my armies coming down from Mecklemburg or returning from Nassau. After Bavaria made peace, I took the second German demesne province and made peace. (For a hell lot of prestige.) The King and his 10K men from the east arrived at some point, but there was no battle against them. Also, I had achieved strategic superiority at that point.

Now some conclusions:

• The initial German onslaught was only possible because the King had a head start. Nonetheless, he managed it quite well, and if my demesne would have been more concentrated, I think I might have had more troubles. (BTW, is the human played also forced to accept peace, if his demesne falls?)
• The AI might need to be more aggressive against enemy armies, also on the offensive. The King basically went after my provinces, allowing me to assemble my troops and choosing the battle ground.
• Warscore might need a rework, with battles counting a lot more. I could have ended the war with a victory netting me ~13K prestige at a point where I had not won a single battle, and half my demesne was occupied by the King. Maybe force peace could also be adjusted, such that it is only possible when the ruler in question does not control any province, not when he has lost control over all his provinces?

Hope this helps.

 

[Alwin von Arlt]

Ai

Well I'm not sure if this is part of it, but I noticed new kingdoms being born during the game, 2, naples and ireland in 1 game alone, while before it was like 1 in 20 for either of them.

I was an English vassal during an early crusade to Jerusalem. I noticed SOME English troops mobilized, hanging out at Essex not doing a thing, and the other have of the army actually going away to fight. after the Crusades, which brought what I thought were good victories for the crusades... actually lead to the Muslim take over of Wales/England and Scotland. The AI did some good techniques and I had alot of fun battles, the AI is alot better.

What would make the game even better, would be if there'd be a papal call whenever a "traditional" area for Christiandom was conquered by arabs that there would be a "crusade" of sorts to rechristianize the area. Might not be the right place for it, but just a thought.

Another game as the King of Denmark vs Mecklemburg and Pommerania, while having near equal troops, the AI was battling solidly, and attacked, and didn't leave too much room to take a significant advantage easily. Some troops I wasn't sure what their purpose was, just chillin in Stettin, but all in all, my vassels were being attacked, I counterattacked, gained 2 provinces lost a home province, got it back + 2 more... oops lost another province elsewhere. Its getting there, now just get rid of the occasional muslim state in the middle of Germany, and we'd be getting somewhere, otherwise I'm back to playing, thanks for the hard work Paradox!

AvA

 

[unmerged(6777)]

Merge footprint: SQL error reset

 

[Lucius Sulla]

Ok, finally I have been able to notice any change IA-army wise, and I must say it has been very pleasing.

Being me, as King of Aragon, I conquered the kingdom of Jerusalem and awarded it to my second son. Ten years later, the Fatimids attacked it, winning decisive battles and starting to devour the territory of the crusader kingdom. As Jerusalem itself fell, I hurried to declare war to the Fatimids and sent only my 10.000 strength regiment of Valencia to Ascalon, hoping to reconquer it and cut in half the muslim thrust, headed now to Acre, the last bastion of the crusaders. I must say I got quite emotioned at the good representation of the game.

I only sent 10.000 because, when I declared war I noticed the fatimids were 24.000 men strong in total. Thus, I reasoned, I would only find armies 5 to 6 thousand strong, to the most. I had good militar stats, so was confident to defeat all opossition without the need to raise an army that would make me go bankrupt.

Boy, I was wrong. Finally, the IA seemed to know how to pile up their armies. I conquered the shore up to Acre, and there, I found the muslim army. 14.000 men. I was really impressed. Fought them... and lost. I think I have never been so happy to get my ass kicked out from Outremer. Acre fell, and then, only out of pride and getting severly bankrupt (I reached -1200 ducats in a pair of years) I launched a severe offensive with ALL my realm to give back the throne of Jerusalem to my second son... AND give the throne of Egypt to my third son (yeah, I like creating independent kingdoms ). It took me no less than 5 years to finish the task, and only thanks to the donations awarded through the states generals event, that appeared twice during the war, I was able to reach the end of the 2nd crusade with a... 5.000 ducats debt. I lost a lot of infraestructure and took me nearly as much years to recover economically... but boy it was fun. And I always faced big armies... each time they had enough troops to muster, they actually grouped them, so I did not have to fight the 10.000 against 1.000 to 2.000 troops frequent and easy battles that were so easy to find (and win) in the previous patches. There was plenty of this, alright... but only after having a pair of BIG field battles (and one was far more narrower than I had expected to top it).

So... very good work, in my oppinion.