AI won't fight their own war

[Mercury Knuckle]

So I'm called into an ally's offensive war to take a nearby county, our armies plus a third ally's are on par with the enemy and their ally. Pretty simple right? My army arrives to the scene and the enemy is sitting on the war target not doing anything, they outnumber me 2 to 1, so I can't take them alone. So where are my allies? They're besieging all the castles of the enemy's ally.

"Okay," I thought, "Maybe if attack these lands we will draw the enemy from their stronghold." Soon enough, their counties fall one by one, it's not contributing to the war score, and it's ticking up in the enemy's favor because they still hold the contested land, and yet the enemy stays put, not even trying to come after us or my ally's capital which is open for the taking. At this point I thought, "Okay, we will force the enemy ally to bow out of the war by occupying all their land." (is that a thing in CK3?). So we occupy the entirety of the enemy ally's land and they are still in the war. (I guess negotiating a separate peace isn't a thing). "Alright, now we assault the enemy with all our armies." But no, for months on end, my allies stay where they are (far away from the war goal) the enemy stays on the war goal, meanwhile the war score slowly ticks to -100% and my precious war chest is in the double digits and falling.

At this point I'm literally ranting at my computer.
"Come on, we can take them with our forces let's go already!"
"You DO know if you do nothing you will lose by default, right?"
"Look, I don't have a stake in this conflict, I only accepted your request because for prestige purposes, and now you are costing ME money by prolonging this war to capture an OPM. If you don't move from that spot in 2 months, I'm walking!"

I this point I closed the game.

Okay rant over. The defenders seem to think they can outlast us (and they're right), the offense doesn't seem to know how wars work. What do I do in this situation? How can I coax either army to act without directly marching into a meat grinder? Do I just take my ball and go home?

 

[x4077]

Do whatever it takes ( small fight, siege one territory ) to get >0 war score contribution then go home and leave your ally to their own fate. Trying to rationalize the actions of a completely random chance weighted AI will only give you the lunatic trait IRL.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

occupying the entirety of the (main) enemy IS an automatic 100% warscore (yes, it's still a Thing) so you must have missed something.

but yeah, if they don't get the county, oh well.,..

you couldn't mow down the allies' troops?

 

[Mercury Knuckle]

occupying the entirety of the (main) enemy IS an automatic 100% warscore (yes, it's still a Thing) so you must have missed something.

but yeah, if they don't get the county, oh well.,..

you couldn't mow down the allies' troops?

Maybe I didn't make it clear, or some info got lost in the wall of text. Here are some pictures

The players are:

• The main enemy is the count of Csanad
• The enemy's ally is the duchess of Transylvania
• My main ally is the duke of Temes pushing a de jure claim
• There are two other allies on our side, but they're not important
• And me, a count in Scotland who's only here because the Duke's daughter had good traits

As you can see, the entirety of Transylvania is occupied by us, it adds to my war contribution, but not the war score. The enemy and his ally are firmly rooted on the war goal, and wouldn't go for the Temesian capital nearby. My allies are all firmly rooted on the last castle they besieged, and not moving because they can't find any targets? Notice the bag with the down arrow, they'd better move soon. If you do the math, the enemy outnumbers my army 2.5:1, but with all our combined forces we are evenly matched. I was hoping that, per EU4 rules, Transylvania would step out of the conflict once all her lands were occupied, but I guess that's not a thing in CK3.

Both sets of A.I.s are waiting for the other to do something (or they're waiting on me). I can't get my allies to move, and I can't get my enemy out of their shell. The defenders have the right idea, but what are my allies thinking?

Do whatever it takes ( small fight, siege one territory ) to get >0 war score contribution then go home and leave your ally to their own fate.

[Sees 62% contribution] "Okay, bye then."

 

[prismaticmarcus]

go there. they'll follow you.

 

[junassa]

Next time in this situation (when you can't just obliterate the enemy on your own) attach your troops to theirs. If they still won't attack then get some contribution and bail.

 

[Secuter]

go there. they'll follow you.

Not always. The AI in this game is even for PDX standards downright retarded. There are several well-written posts attesting to that on this forum as well. We simply have to face that this game was released in a half-baked manner, largely empty and with a horrible AI. Of course it is by design empty so that PDX can use the next 10 years filling it with DLC's. Thus not only charging us for an empty AAA title once, but several times over with a spam of DLC's.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Not always.

in this case? of course they would.

 

[Secuter]

in this case? of course they would.

I'm really not sure why you want to defend this game so hard - and I'm not just talking about this post. It is by nearly all measurements not a very good game - just look at the posts on this forum where dedicated people who really want the game to be good keeps highlighting areas that are either not done, not thought through, not even developed despite the fact that you'd expect those areas to be developed. We paid a AAA game price for this game, and we still got an empty husk, waiting to be filled by DLC's.

The AI sometimes stands around waiting for the enemy to siege down their holdings. Then when the enemy moves to siege the next castle, they walk in starts to retake that same castle. Rinse repeat. If the player goes in to attack the enemy (expecting the AI to follow - and win) then you'd be sorely disappointed, because the AI may just stand there and wait for you to die and do nothing.

The AI is too retarded to expect anything of. That's also why we sometimes see near-infinite wars, because the AI simply doesn't know what to do.

 

[junassa]

There's been a thread on this already but from experience:
1. If the player is the primary attacker/defender, then the AI will follow the player.
2. If the AI is the primary attacker/defender (and can't win on its own) then the AI expects the player to follow it.

 

[BarneyRubble]

Frustrating ain't it?

 

[InsidiousMage]

1)The AI will generally follow the player into battle if it is the player's war and the combined AI/player forces outnumber the enemy forces.
2)Occupying allied territory does nothing for warscore, only occupying territory of the war target gets you warscore.

 

[AlipheeseXV]

Maybe I didn't make it clear, or some info got lost in the wall of text. Here are some pictures

View attachment 785532

View attachment 785533


The players are:

• The main enemy is the count of Csanad
• The enemy's ally is the duchess of Transylvania
• My main ally is the duke of Temes pushing a de jure claim
• There are two other allies on our side, but they're not important
• And me, a count in Scotland who's only here because the Duke's daughter had good traits

As you can see, the entirety of Transylvania is occupied by us, it adds to my war contribution, but not the war score. The enemy and his ally are firmly rooted on the war goal, and wouldn't go for the Temesian capital nearby. My allies are all firmly rooted on the last castle they besieged, and not moving because they can't find any targets? Notice the bag with the down arrow, they'd better move soon. If you do the math, the enemy outnumbers my army 2.5:1, but with all our combined forces we are evenly matched. I was hoping that, per EU4 rules, Transylvania would step out of the conflict once all her lands were occupied, but I guess that's not a thing in CK3.

Both sets of A.I.s are waiting for the other to do something (or they're waiting on me). I can't get my allies to move, and I can't get my enemy out of their shell. The defenders have the right idea, but what are my allies thinking?



[Sees 62% contribution] "Okay, bye then."

Your pictures don't match what you assume is happening:
- main enemy count of Csanad seems correct
- enemy ally Duchess of Transsylvania seems correct
- your main ally duke of Temes... isn't pushing anything de-jure! The war clearly states "Temesian Ducal Conquest of the county of Csanad" - which is available via the "Ducal Conquest" perk in the left tree of the diplomacy life style!
Also, are you sure you are allied to a "duke of Temes"? Because, well, see the coat of arms of Temes? It is as small as that of the county of Csanad. Transylvania is bigger for duchy level and the coat of arms of Hungary as kingdom title is the biggest in the picture.
If you still have the save of this game, check again what is really happening there.

Then, for the AI-war-behaviour:
The troops of the side you are part of seem to be roughly 3.800 men. The enemy roughly semm to have nearly 3.000 men.
So the 'lack of initiative' on your side of allies may be that they deem their troops not 'stronger enough'!
I will give you an example I already witnessed: I've seen vassals of mine having a peasant revolt, resulting in around 1.500 peasants (which are only levie troops) besieging the capital of my vassal... while my vassal raised his 1.800 men (including 500 men-at-arms) and... just stood in a nearby mountain tile while deeming his own troops 'not strong enough to beat the peasants'...
Seems the same is happening here.

You can run a little test if you aren't on ironman mode:
Switch characters to your ally without unpausing. Just select the army and click on the enemy in Csanad without unpausing. You should get a 'battle prediction symbol' on the map. Study what prediction is given - it may predict a bad result.
It may be the reason your AI allies aren't moving into battle.

 

[Mercury Knuckle]

- your main ally duke of Temes... isn't pushing anything de-jure! The war clearly states "Temesian Ducal Conquest of the county of Csanad" - which is available via the "Ducal Conquest" perk in the left tree of the diplomacy life style!
Also, are you sure you are allied to a "duke of Temes"? Because, well, see the coat of arms of Temes? It is as small as that of the county of Csanad. Transylvania is bigger for duchy level and the coat of arms of Hungary as kingdom title is the biggest in the picture.

Yeah, you're right. I just saw "Ducial conquest" and used the wiki to see that Csanad is de jure of the Duchy of Temes, which was the source of my assumption. I didn't have the game running and relied on the screenshots to give more details to a question I wasn't originally going to go into more detail.

If you still have the save of this game, check again what is really happening there.

...

You can run a little test if you aren't on ironman mode:
Switch characters to your ally without unpausing. Just select the army and click on the enemy in Csanad without unpausing. You should get a 'battle prediction symbol' on the map. Study what prediction is given - it may predict a bad result.
It may be the reason your AI allies aren't moving into battle.

Unfortunately I was in ironman, hence why I quit and vented and asked on these forums. I tried to give them one last chance before deserting, and then I disbanded. The count of temes and his allies did eventually move from their spot, but only when their supplies ran out and only moved to where I was standing in the picture.

Funny story, after the war inevitably ended in the defense's favor, my niece came of age and when searching for a spouse by 'alliance power' the man at the top of the list was the recently-widowed Count Bálint of Csanad. If I didn't know any better, I swear his character model was giving me a smug expression.

 

[Slow Bathroom]

I really wonder why there's no separate peace like in EU4.

 

[helveticadomes]

remember me at following situation.
AI act plain stupid:
AI Duke (call me to offense War) against other Kingdom,
instead of besiege that Duke the Enemy King decide to beige multiple of my territory which give him 0% war-score (Duke was, like me, one of his Neighbors)
later, i think because of attrition he start to walk against the dukes holding with his 6k Army (split in 3 parts) , abort, returns and start to walk again, i stop to count after 5x (till one of his army suffer enough to be below a specific value) only then he start to siege.

and sadly it lead to this questions:
does AI really understand: (at the moment i would answer No to this points)

• where the war-goals are? (siege land of a enemy-ally that give 0 war-score instead of target, even if border war-target)
• what war-goals are? (stand on enemy land therefore gain no supply, but not move army to a land where it can siege)
• what war-goals are? (walk away from siege, even if only a few days left. when player walk to next siege for example)
• distances, and know the situation of an ally? (call to attacking war when ally is at war // or need months to get there)

to your situation:
as long as you don't profit from the war, just get some war-score (even if you sacrifice 1K levies, they are useless anyway)
after that, abandon your ally, because even if he lose, you don't have to fear any consequences

 

[Dread Og]

our armies plus a third ally's are on par with the enemy and their ally.

That's the problem. The forces are "on par" with each other. The AI gets extremely hesitant when the forces are similar because it probably knows taking a battle where the enemy has defensive terrain/buildings would cause it to lose. This is when the AI plays a game of chicken and the war drags on forever. The AI is aggressive when it knows it can win when which is why I make sure I have overwhelming force if I'm going to use AI allies (or help them). I wouldn't bother helping your ally in this case. 1. You don't have to and it's very rare that they demand you help and 2. You've already helped so they can't do that anyway (you got at least 1 war score for them). I would just avoid the frustration entirely in this case and leave your ally to its own devices.

There is no excuse for the AI not to be able to figure out "Oh my number > their numbers? Atek!!!"

The AI does aggressively pile on when it has the numbers. It's probably properly calculating that a battle in a forest where the enemy is getting defensive bonuses is a bad idea because the forces are similar. I would still make the AI behave differently because in real history generals would take battles that weren't perfectly favorable and the game would flow better if the AI sought out decisive battles even when the forces are similar.

 

[Nevars]

That's the problem. The forces are "on par" with each other. The AI gets extremely hesitant when the forces are similar because it probably knows taking a battle where the enemy has defensive terrain/buildings would cause it to lose. This is when the AI plays a game of chicken and the war drags on forever. The AI is aggressive when it knows it can win when which is why I make sure I have overwhelming force if I'm going to use AI allies (or help them). I wouldn't bother helping your ally in this case. 1. You don't have to and it's very rare that they demand you help and 2. You've already helped so they can't do that anyway (you got at least 1 war score for them). I would just avoid the frustration entirely in this case and leave your ally to its own devices.



The AI does aggressively pile on when it has the numbers. It's probably properly calculating that a battle in a forest where the enemy is getting defensive bonuses is a bad idea because the forces are similar. I would still make the AI behave differently because in real history generals would take battles that weren't perfectly favorable and the game would flow better if the AI sought out decisive battles even when the forces are similar.

I agree with your assessment but AI do aggressively throw themselves into suicidal charge against overwhelming force if it's their capital that were sieged tho.

 

[PDXOxycoon]

Hi, I'm just popping in to say I'll give an explanation to what's going on a bit later, but I don't have time to do so today so will hopefully get one in tomorrow. I'm going to be doing a more in detailed dev diary on how the war coordinator works at a later date.

 

[Montelbon]

Hi, I'm just popping in to say I'll give an explanation to what's going on a bit later, but I don't have time to do so today so will hopefully get one in tomorrow. I'm going to be doing a more in detailed dev diary on how the war coordinator works at a later date.

Very much looking forward to an explanation. I myself have had a lot of frustrating moments like this where an ally and I could easily win a war, but the ally seems to 'freeze up' and refuse to do anything of consequence. I would love to learn how to better work with the AI as an ally