Vampire Counts AI in Single Player Campaign

[Wartoga]

Seem kind of overpowered. They are rolling up the southeast quickly and pushing into the mid. The reason seems to be that the campaign script is spawning some really scary stacks for them, like a lot better than the stacks Empire AIs get. Each of Vampire stacks is worth twice the gold of an Empire stack, filled with the likes of Knights of the Black Grail, Von Carstein Cavalry, and expensive elite infantry. Empire stacks are mostly swordsmen, halberdiers, a few flavor troops, and basic knights. Empire armies just fold when they fight VC armies.

I tried calling a crusade against the VC main castle, hoping to get a united force to crush their armies, and that was hilariously bad. Everyone in Empire showed up, then just stood 1-2 tiles away from the castle without laying siege to it for several turns. Vampires brought their stacks too, and the whole mess just waited around without attacking each other. Once I took the castle by myself, the Empire armies just went home and the Vampires got right back to conquering everything in sight.

[tennisgolfboll]

Its funny if you chose to play stirland.


Your economy can barely keep 1 full stack of basic troops if you keep your settlements undefended. The vampires are right next to you and ive counted as many as 7 full stacks in turn 3. And not basic troops but like you say blood dragon knights, grail knights, blood dragon troops etc

[warl0rd13]

To be honest, there are some factions that I really don't think you could be blamed for using cheats with them, I use the money cheat a lot with this mod because the battles are really awesome but the game cheats way too much.

[Wartoga]

To be honest, there are some factions that I really don't think you could be blamed for using cheats with them, I use the money cheat a lot with this mod because the battles are really awesome but the game cheats way too much.

I'm actually less concerned about the balance between player and AI here, and more concerned about the balance between AIs. They all cheat, but Vampite Counts cheat much harder, which means that in a couple of dozen turns I'm looking at the map being mostly owned by them even if my own faction can hold out. By the time Chaos invades in force there won't be an Empire, except maybe in the north.

On the whole I don't really mind AI "cheating" in this mod, if you can even call it that. It simply plays by very different rules from the human player, getting its armies assigned to it via a script instead of having to build them. It makes for a lot of big battles with big armies, and that is a good thing IMO. Any variation of non-spawning Medieval 2 AI I ever played could never challenge me - it always falls to me concentrating my forces into a doomstack and steamrolling its weaker separate armies and towns, from which it can never recover. I just want the AI factions to be balanced enough relative to each other to mostly preserve the lore-faithful shape of the world except where the player or special events get involved.

[tennisgolfboll]

I'm actually less concerned about the balance between player and AI here, and more concerned about the balance between AIs. They all cheat, but Vampite Counts cheat much harder, which means that in a couple of dozen turns I'm looking at the map being mostly owned by them even if my own faction can hold out. By the time Chaos invades in force there won't be an Empire, except maybe in the north.

On the whole I don't really mind AI "cheating" in this mod, if you can even call it that. It simply plays by very different rules from the human player, getting its armies assigned to it via a script instead of having to build them. It makes for a lot of big battles with big armies, and that is a good thing IMO. Any variation of non-spawning Medieval 2 AI I ever played could never challenge me - it always falls to me concentrating my forces into a doomstack and steamrolling its weaker separate armies and towns, from which it can never recover. I just want the AI factions to be balanced enough relative to each other to mostly preserve the lore-faithful shape of the world except where the player or special events get involved.

This isnt true. AI vs AI isnt very unbalanced. Nothing near to AI vs player.

Stirland mostly holds out fine vs the vampire counts if both are AI

In fact ive played alot of campaigns in this mod and though stirland is very close to the vampires and often gets attacked by them i have never seen them destroyed by the AI vampires.

[Wartoga]

I noticed Ostermark AI having a problem too that affects the Empire's ability to contain Vampire Counts. Firstly, they don't start out at war with VC, leaving Stirland to fend for itself. It's kind of odd that VC aren't the enemy of every "good" faction considering their nature. Secondly, Ostermark is completely fixated on taking Mordheim, which is guarded by an extremely strong rebel stack. Whenever Ostermark gets an army spawned they just go and throw it away trying (and failing) to take Mordheim. This leaves them without troops to deal with other threats, including the Vampires.

@tennisgolfball
Stirland AI fared very poorly in my campaign. Their eastern towns were overrun by Vampires and their western town by Beastmen, leaving them with only the capital which then fell to heresy. Vampires then started to steamroll Talabecland and Ostermark before I intervened all the way from my Ostland base.

[tennisgolfboll]

I noticed Ostermark AI having a problem too that affects the Empire's ability to contain Vampire Counts. Firstly, they don't start out at war with VC, leaving Stirland to fend for itself. It's kind of odd that VC aren't the enemy of every "good" faction considering their nature. Secondly, Ostermark is completely fixated on taking Mordheim, which is guarded by an extremely strong rebel stack. Whenever Ostermark gets an army spawned they just go and throw it away trying (and failing) to take Mordheim. This leaves them without troops to deal with other threats, including the Vampires.

@tennisgolfball
Stirland AI fared very poorly in my campaign. Their eastern towns were overrun by Vampires and their western town by Beastmen, leaving them with only the capital which then fell to heresy. Vampires then started to steamroll Talabecland and Ostermark before I intervened all the way from my Ostland base.

Ok. You have had some bad luck.

Ive done 3-4 full campaigns with empire and many more to chaos undivided turns and stirland has been fine every time for me.

Nice to hear you got them controlled.

[tennisgolfboll]

I noticed Ostermark AI having a problem too that affects the Empire's ability to contain Vampire Counts. Firstly, they don't start out at war with VC, leaving Stirland to fend for itself. It's kind of odd that VC aren't the enemy of every "good" faction considering their nature. Secondly, Ostermark is completely fixated on taking Mordheim, which is guarded by an extremely strong rebel stack. Whenever Ostermark gets an army spawned they just go and throw it away trying (and failing) to take Mordheim. This leaves them without troops to deal with other threats, including the Vampires.

@tennisgolfball
Stirland AI fared very poorly in my campaign. Their eastern towns were overrun by Vampires and their western town by Beastmen, leaving them with only the capital which then fell to heresy. Vampires then started to steamroll Talabecland and Ostermark before I intervened all the way from my Ostland base.

Ok. You have had some bad luck.

Ive done 3-4 full campaigns with empire and many more to chaos undivided turns and stirland has been fine every time for me.

Nice to hear you got them controlled.