AI gather local troops ability

[alreadyded]

You can edit it so it only fires once. The reason for it is because the CAI in vanilla is not good at all, adjusting the scripts to only create a few tier one units when first besieged and using a new CAI is my suggestion, it isn't even worth playing a campaign to me otherwise. No one here agrees with my opinions though.

[Withwnar]

Is there a simple way to edit the AI-gather script so that it is every 10 turns instead, for all settlements that have AI-gather?

In campaign_script.txt this sets the wait to 5 turns:

set_counter Anorien_Siege 5

There are two of those and that's just for Anorien (Minas Tirith). Change them to 10 and do likewise for all of the other settlement counters (set_counter XXX_Siege 5).

You won't see the change until you start a new campaign though. campaign_script.txt isn't save game compatible.

I suspect that the 5 turn countdown is not so much for prolonged sieges than secondary attacks. e.g. You lay siege, GS (garrison script) kicks in, you fight and lose but largely destroy the garrison, a few turns later you try again ... now they are weakly defended (from the previous battle and not enough time to recruit a decent garrison). The GS kicking in again (soon) helps them out.

Also, prolonged sieges whittles away their garrison, including the GS units. So kicking in again during a prolonged siege helps them. I know that it doesn't make sense (where did they come from?) but that's how the script was written: it sees that the settlement is under siege this turn but can't tell whether this is a new siege or still in the prolonged one. On the plus side it means that places like Minas Tirith are more likely to be epic battles, not your stack versus a couple of units in this epic battleground.

I can't remember if that happens when I am the one being attacked, but it doesn't seem like it should, because the attacking army plays on the tile the defensive army sits on. I.e. the army of Mordor that hit me fought me on my tile (from whence I was laying a siege), so my victory should have left me right where I was, right? I am not certain, because nearly every time one of my armies is attacked, it is by the garrison of a settlement I'm sieging, in which case we fight on the settlement map. But I can't see why it would make sense for me to be moved when I win a defensive battle.

Yes, I think you're right. But I can't think of any other reason why your army would relocate after a battle, not if you won it.