Repeatable AI Siege freeze.

[Humble Warrior]

Ok, been perservering with my NEW Campaign on Legendary.

Of course, on my very first siege had the BAI siege freeze, however, I didn`t get mad as I had enough good men to go and defeated his whittled forces.

Things weren`t too bad after that as the BAI in sieges seemed to come on and attack with no fault, even the reinforcements have worked fine so far in this new Campaign.

The game is very enjoyable when this bug doesn`t happen and there are a lot of good things I will at some point mention in a new thread.

However, at Hizen I had the BAI siege freeze again, but twice in a row. Perhaps this will help CA figure it out.

I was at Hizen and attacked by a Rebel force, in both cases the enemy force was about the same. About a 1000 men, I think, with 1 General and 1 Light cavalry.

I had no archers both times.

1st Siege freeze:
I defeated his bowmen and melee infantry easily and this is where the freeze happened. His Light Cavalry and General just stood nearby. I had a 1 General and Retainers left. I sped up time - nothing.

I inspired my General and led him out, of course, worried they would flee as soon as they touched the ground, but they didn`t.

The Light Cavalry attacked and I retreated back into the fort. Luckily, the enemy cavalry followed (the gate stayed open) and I was able to defeat them. The enemy General then turned around left.

2nd Siege Freeze.

Exactly the same. Light cav and General just stood there. This time I couldn`t bait his Light cavalry, so inspired my Retainers and sent them out. The enemy Light cavalry and General attacked this time and so I also supported my Retainers with my General. Just as it looked like my men were going to rout, his routed first and I won.


Perhaps CA can get some insight from this that will help them fix the AI siege freeze bug.

p.s. I also made a SAVE REPLAY of the 2nd battle in case CA wants it?

[daniu]

I know this is a somewhat older thread but I don't see a point in making a new one.

This happens to me all the time as well now.
I can basically rely on being able to hold against an unlimited amount of enemies with a single castle (if it's high tier enough and has a minimum amount of men) if the AI has a reinforcement stack because the reinforcements will never attack.
I do use a timer so I can continue the game, but it's often an undeserved win for me and really isn't good for the game; it feels like an exploit although it really is none.

If you don't manage to fix it, can't you at least prevent the CAI to start sieges with reinforcements?
It would be much harder to defend against three attacks in a row with the units getting worn down every time. Not perfect, but better than what is happening now.

Often enough, the CAI moves two stacks into support range, then attacks with the third one, producing the problem.
Just let each attack on their own until you get reinforcements to work properly.

[ChristianB]

Often enough, the CAI moves two stacks into support range, then attacks with the third one, producing the problem.

I've only seen this "freeze bug" once myself and the very same thing happened. Three stacks (two clans) attacked my castle, the one in Hattori starting region. The first stack attacked somewhat normally, but was defeated. All reinforcing units took a few steps, froze, took one more step, froze... It took ages for them to reach the walls. I'm glad I'm always using 20 minute battle time limit.

Of course I won this battle with relatively few losses (oh god Matchlock Samurai are awesome when defending walls).

[wolfbane751]

i havent seen the siege freeze in while now it never happens for me on my legendary oda camampaign to my dissapointment the only time i would have liked it to come up my 465 vs 265 saito with over 800 tokugawa rienforcements the saito just stay back and waited the tokugawa just charged strait thru the forest and over hills and assaulted my walls i killed them off but army was to tatterd to fight off the saito i was like noooo so mad lolz

[Emperor of The Great Unknown]

I see this as the AI not willing to attack cause your forces are to strong and instead just holding out the siege. I just find something else to do for an hour. If you can't do that then you in a world of hurt.

this happened to be me once but it was only after the AI attempted and failed to assault my walls.

[daniu]

I just find something else to do for an hour. If you can't do that then you in a world of hurt.

Again, I do that as well on fast forward, but it gives me a win I by rights shouldn't be getting.
It makes the game too easy in a cheesy kind of way; you only have to leapfrog your army from castle to castle, repel the attacks (which you shouldn't be able to if the AI weren't just sitting there) while you're replenishing and the enemy is not, repeat.

If the AI thinks it can't win, give it the ability to retreat from the battle at least.

[The Hedge Knight]

Can anyone confirm that this ONLY occurs on the mountain castle, not the coastal or the plains one?

If it does as per my theory i might be able to whip up some kind of a partial fix or workaround.

[daniu]

The coastal one is the one Kieran played in the preview, right? Nope, I had that there.
Not sure about the one on the plain (is that the one with the river surrounding it?); I think it started to happen there once but I lured them near by starting to move out.

If it helps I'll try to save the replays from when it occurs on the different maps.

[Popgun]

I've had it happen on all of them so I don't think its the map that is causing this.

[Lord Baal]

I see this as the AI not willing to attack cause your forces are to strong and instead just holding out the siege. I just find something else to do for an hour. If you can't do that then you in a world of hurt.

this happened to be me once but it was only after the AI attempted and failed to assault my walls.

Then the CAI should be forbidden of starting an assault that it wont finish! It's retarded, deeply and sadly retarded!!!!! I'll be very mad if this is the true cause of this.

[Humble Warrior]

Well, I`ve made many complaints on this and Craig several times assured it`s being `looked at`. Whatever that means.

So far it has meant several weeks of nothing and I am slowly beginning to think that if someone ELSE doesn`t complain about this they will just conveniently forget about it. CA will be lazy if not constantly prodded. What`s really sad is that plenty of people are getting this bug but they don`t say anything, so CA get lazy. If people would complain (yes whine) this would probably be fixed by now.

So I`m glad the issue is back up again. I think it seriously spoils the game. It has put me off playing the game for a few weeks now as it gets worse over time.

[BullGod]

I have seen some improvement in this area as a matter of fact. When defending against multiple stacks I noticed that reinforcements do stand and wait, but only until previous wave has been repulsed. Then they advance. It seems that AI is capable of controling attack strategy of only one stack at a time. But when it is no longer in action, another takes the lead.
Cavalry and generals are reluctant to attack the walls at times, yes, but it doesn't look that irrational to me. They are nearly always the only unit left on the battlefield. They might retreat, or scale the walls in suicide attack (sometimes it's not that suicidal and I've almost lost a battle when general and his bodyguards attacked what remained of my defenders) and I always think at that moment that common sense fights with bushido code in AI general's mind, causing the "freeze", as he is unable to face defeat and retreat, but isn't too keen on dying either

[skullman86]

I was actually thinking about this yesterday. I haven't seen it happen in a long time (knock on wood) and thought it might be a good idea to have everyone experiencing it take notes on specifics so that they they can be compared. If everyone has something in common, maybe that is what's causing the AI to lock up.

...It looks like The Hedge Knight has already started comparing notes, so maybe it would help to add a few other factors to the list?

-Number of armies present on the field (reinforcements as well)
-Direction of main attack on the campaign map
-Settlement fortification level
-Number of generals on each side
-Territory name
-Agents present
-Siege turn number or turns left before surrender

what else?

[BlueMonkE]

I had it happen recently. The Tokugawa were assualting my castle and they had brought siege equipment. I skirted out my yari cavalry and was able to rout the mangonels. Then, the wait. The Tokugawa just sat there. I don't play with a timer.

I eventually sallied out, and my troops made a good stand, buy were massively outnumbered, and led by a woman
( T_T)＼(^-^ )

Lost the defense, though I honestly think I could have held had they come inside, as they are supposed to do.

Oh, and I waited ages before sallying out, on fast forward, hoping something would happen. Nothing.

Bug sucks, and it's a big one; fix it.

[wolfbane751]

i usually play battle time limit with 20 minutes in case this happens but hasnt for a while and i can usually win or lose abattle (yes lose to the AI) within 20 minutes

[WingDing]

I hate this bug, too. I don't use the timer because my computer is too damn slow when huge battles take place so I have to leave the time open. My only solution for the severe advantage I get from it is that I don't run down the AI once I'm victorious. Another solution is to just meet the AI on the field and not even stay in the city, but that's often difficult to do when you're way outnumbered. I'm stuck having to do both at the moment.The other irritating thing from it is that I often have soldiers in fight-to-the-death mode and if they step one foot outside the city they instantly flee. So the only way I have to activate that stack of bow samurai sitting outside the city is to take the 7 guys remaining in my general's unit and ride up to them and hope they follow me back to the city and climb the wall. I have had worse bugs in games before so I can deal with it.

[daniu]

I am slowly beginning to think that if someone ELSE doesn`t complain about this they will just conveniently forget about it. CA will be lazy if not constantly prodded.

I don't think so, I do believe that it's a tough nut to crack.

The main reason I revived this thread was to bring up the suggestion of changing the CAI so that in case of sieges, it will send stacks one by one instead of preparing an assault by first setting up reinforcements nearby.
This should be much easier to change without breaking the rest of the AI's behavior.

[Astaroth]

Moved to Bug Reports.