DarthFormations' Siege AI

[Queen Annes Revenge]

First off, I must say great work with the basic improvements. Battles are much more fun with Darth Formations as opposed to vanilla.

Two things about the AI when it sieges me however. First off, as they're sitting around waiting for their catapults to break my walls, I can run archers out alone and annihilate almost half of their army whilst they sit and watch. This happens when I decide to sally out too. Is this like hardcoded passive AI from CA or something?

When they're actually ready to move in, however, they come hard and fast. It's a lot of fun. Yet when they scale my walls with their ladders or towers and fight off my wall defenders, their men just sit on the walls and do nothing for the entirety of the battle. They've lost some easy victories by leaving half their army on my ramparts.

Anyway keep up the good work, can't wait for the next version.

[Klink]

I'd like to second this. I really, really enjoy Darthmod in its various incarnations. So many things improved from vanilla, I bow and scrape in earnest gratitude. However, the stuck-on-ladder problem is a big problem, it's actually so that I have difficulties myself using ladders to capture settlements.

So, with all due respect, is there a way one can revert to vanilla ladder behaviour while keeping all other changes?

[DARTH VADER]

You can revert with this file:

Tell me if this is how you like it (Vanilla Ladders).
Then tell me if I am correct that I have modded it.

The spy/gate passiveness which affects all siege battle, is a bug that occures to vanilla.
The fact that everybody in the forums uses my files from various mods that are included, makes me quite unevidently guilty of bad sideeffects.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

i'll try that file. meanwhile, i don't seem to remember having the 'stuck on walls' issue in vanilla, but before LTC, i faced a decent sieging army maybe once or twice so my memory could be hazy.

to elaborate, as soon as the AI lands their troops on the walls they literally do nothing. crossbowmen won't even shoot anyone right below them. anyway, an easy way to win every siege is to take all your men off the walls, and wait until the computer scales them with ladders and towers. then you can destroy their army on the ground with yours, and then take care of the infantry stuck on the walls (which is easy because they basically insta-rout after the loss of their general).

[fran]

ehh darth
that file you gave here is same as the one that goes with the mod

[DARTH VADER]

Thank you Fran!

I am terribly sorry...my mistake.

Here is the vanilla file.

[fran]

We have a saying from where I am "he who works - errs"

anyway, this might be the place to put up a little workaround that I experimented with

the issue that is the problem is that the final soldiers never actually climb up, therfore the unit is "waiting" for them to arrive before doing whatever it would do (Fight, Fire, Attack, Move down...) but the guys never arrive so its stuck waiting forever, and at the same time a 2nd unit doesnt use the ladder because its still occupied

I managed to fix this, by changing one value in the Darth battle_config file

just find the line saying "step on distance" and change it from 1 (ladder) and 2 (siege tower) to 3.

this will fix the problem, now the units can climb up normally... note its not perfect, they dont do it in the best of discipline especialy last few men but they DO do it


without this, what happens is that all you need is 1 unit above a ladder to ensure victory... well after applying it here is what happened while my dannes were defending hamburg from the hre...

a ladder was raised, and i sent 75 viking raiders there... thought that would be enough? yes for the first unit, but since I burned the ram many more followed... soon the whole unit was wiped out, and a 2nd one, this time the elite huscarls sent to assist... but they started to loose to, so another unit of dis. feudal knights was sent, and archers to a nearby wall to rain arrows on the enemy... only then was I able to fend of the attackers on the walls, almost run out of units since there was a similar (albeit weaker) attack using a tower on the other side

this is how it looked, super awesom carnage on my walls

[Ludicus]

managed to fix this, by changing one value in the Darth battle_config file

just find the line saying "step on distance" and change it from 1 (ladder) and 2 (siege tower) to 3.

Good work;it works very well.
Congratulations,fran

Edit: I am using the number 4 for both (ladders and siege tower ladders)

[fran]

oh yeah just to add
my limited understanding of what i changed and how it works,

it sais "step on distance, in meteros square"

so I think it is a area (m2) centered around the point of the ladder, that if the soldier is inside of, then he can begin the climb

with values 1 or 2, the last 2 soldiers get pushed further behind the ladder too far, and arent inside the 1 or 2 square meters thus cant begin climb, and the AI pathfinding doesnt tell them to move backwards a step or two

with 3 (or more) that area is large enough to include them, and they can begin their climb

a sideefect is that it looks like the pass through the ladder because they are starting under it instead of infront of it, but thats a minor and hardly noticable visual inconvinience

[Queen Annes Revenge]

great find! i will fix this now and hopefully the cpu sieges won't be as lame.

[DARTH VADER]

This stat decides how quick (steps/time tick) the unit climps.

The solution you provide creates more merging/unhuman climp and more instant decide of ladder attack.
I was testing this setting before and decided not to put it bcs of this.

Still I am open to hear from all of you with the wide beta testing if you prefer it.

[Klink]

I have tried fran's solution for a good while now and am happy to report a major improvement. Can't recommend it enough. Am now able to breach inner castle rings using ladders, which was impossible before. AI also doing much better. Issues now are vanilla issues, such as soldiers frozen on parapets.

[chris_uk_83]

Maybe I'm being a noob, but what does 'climp' mean?

[fran]

maybe a typo for "climb"

[NoRbAk]

Lol! Climp! Darth's english is not perfect as he is Greek, but I think it's good enough!

Eycharisto Darth 4 your work!... what would we do without you?

I will try this fix because in my "huge" unit size settings, AI ladders ALWAYS get stuck, half on the wall half down, and that's the end of the ladder (and tower) attack.

I usually simply put 2 or 3 archer units in each city (even if I know it will be sieged by a 2500 men army), fire-shoot the rams until they burn, then retreat to center of the plaza and let the time expire. Sad? surely.

Once I even sallied with my general once the enemy was inside the city, and they ran to kill it, forgetting to take the plaza and I won when the time expired... with 5 bodyguars against 1500 men.

I don't care if the visuals are not realistic, I hate to have the AI stuck whenever they use ladders and towers.

Also it would be nice to see them use more than only 1 ladder, 1 ram and 1 tower...

TX

[Queen Annes Revenge]

i played a few more sieges today. the good news is that fran's fix works very well... i would recommend changing the values as he suggested. the bad news is that sometimes the ai units still get stuck on the walls, but now i see the exact cause of this problem:

i've been playing all my defending sieges against milan for many turns. they take their genoese crossbowmen and scale the ladder, but one crossbowman is stuck at the bottom, running circles around one of the ladders. it's always just one guy, and the cpu can always run additional units up the ladder placed by the crossbowmen without a problem. with fran's fix it appears to me that this problem only occurs with genoese crossbowmen.

anyway using fran's values i had some exciting battles at the walls today, great job!

[Ludicus]

i've been playing all my defending sieges against milan for many turns. they take their genoese crossbowmen and scale the ladder, but one crossbowman is stuck at the bottom, running circles around one of the ladders

Try the number 4.(for ladders and Siege ladders).
It works very well for me.
I can assure you (after multiple tests) that you will not see any crossbowman stuck at the bottom.
They all climb up.
(Darth´s last mod,and nothing else added)

[DARTH VADER]

I will test myself and tell you. Glad to hear that you found an enhanced solution to mine whatsoever.

[Broomish0]

Can i just open that file as it is or do i need to open it with a specific file or do i need to unpack something?

[paleeagle]

I have tested this aswell and have to say that it works very very well.

Seige AI is greatly improved for a slight odd look in the ladder climbing. Well worth it though

Well done.