tweaking raid behaviour

[tarloch]

i have been playing vanilla H/H and one thing i notice constantly is that the AI seems to want to constantly raid your towns.

not a problem this is AI just being aggresive i hear people say, but this happens even though you are rampaging towards the regions capital.
i have lost count of the amount of times the AI sends little armies past my attacking force to attack one of my towns. this effectively means that their forces are constantly getting split resulting in very weak defence and easy pickings for me

i dont want to play any mods as yet but i have noticed the raid behaviour is set to 1000 and region defence to 2000, has any modders reduced this to see if the AI stops splitiing its forces and focuses more on actually defending its provences from attackers?

i may try this myself, is it just trial and error and do i have to make large number changes (I.E. half it) for any effects to be noticeable

[fluffstalker]

I think its because the AI seems hard coded to love buildings, especially religious buildings. Not only will they build so many that they ruin their own economies, they will also attempt to conquer your own! Even if they cant conquer it, and all they do is cause a little damage every turn and sit on top of it while you destroy their province capital.

Fully agree, I think its an issue deserving of a look, and could go a long way to make the AI capable of self defense.

[Henry707]

Hello,

I know what you mean about the raids but then hey you just need to fight it as a guerilla war. It is a sound tactic to raid your rear areas, split your forces & slow down any advance.

In reality, raids would lead to a lot of pressure on you to stop these random attacks...

Henri

[BigB]

I know what you mean about the raids but then hey you just need to fight it as a guerilla war. It is a sound tactic to raid your rear areas, split your forces & slow down any advance.

In reality, raids would lead to a lot of pressure on you to stop these random attacks...

Key words being "in reality".

Since its not reality your theory falls apart. The raids dont hurt you at all so you can ignore them. If you ignore them there is no splitting of your forces. What happens is that the enemy ends up splitting their forces so they can raid you. This results in a weakened enemy that is easy to beat.

[fluffstalker]

Not sure what your saying here. Its a big disadvantage for the AI when he splits his forces. He may damage your random farms but he loses whole provinces, and you make back the cash anyway.

Its a sound tactic in reality, when facing a larger force, but for now the campaign map doesnt really allow for it. Trying to "raid" simply divides your forces into eatable chunks and leaves your cities unprotected, so theres no point in the AI doing it to you or you doing it to the AI, except that when he does it to you it raises your blood pressure.

[Djûn]

I have only really encountered such tactics when they do not have an army which can match my own. If I have defeated their main army in the field and scattered it, then the AI generally will send what remnants of its forces are left from it to harrass my towns, mines and farms. I haven't found anything wrong with it, nor have I found that the AI forgoes any opportunity to confront my stack with a stack of its own. To summarise: The AI only raids when it finds the opportunity to, or when a region defence is unfeasable given our military strengths.

[tarloch]

fluff has hit the nail on the head.
dune i am on my 2nd full campaign and the AI does this every single time, to say it only does it when facing a superior force seems rather silly to me as you are not going to attack with a small one are you? and i have seen it done in virtually ever situation i can remember not just the odd occasion. for example... 3-4 units left in the regions capitol while 3-4 more are sent past my armies to raid my towns; how then with this behaviour is the AI ever going to manage to concentrate its forces to mount a serious defence?

surely this dividing of forces to raid rather than defend the city cant be as the developers intended and is severly handicapping the AIs ability to hold a provence

[Djûn]

I'm just talking from personal experience. I am on my 4th campaign now as the Maratha Confederacy H/H and after defeating the Mughal's standing army in the field, they resorted to guerrilla tactics. The thing is that if there are 3-4 units in a city and 3-4 units harassing me, the harassing troops are usually irregulars or cavalry, not a field army consisting of a mixture of line, artillery, cavalry etc. Further, if they were to defend their city with 6-8 units , they still will get steamrolled by the full stack over the horizon. What I'm saying is that the AI does mount a defence with an army, though when it is defeated they will resort to guerrilla tactics. I have yet to see the AI have an army in a region and then proceed to divide it up in order to raid towns instead of attacking me.

[fluffstalker]

Guerilla tactics that are pretty pointless...And theres no need to send the kind of troops the AI sends. He sends like four or five units, a waste, if your going to raid then might as well send one fast cav that is sacrificial. Bring the rest of your troops inwards and concentrate, then pump out as much infantry as possible to man the walls, so on the turn the player attacks he at least will be facing some kind of army,instead of four mobs or something pathetic like that. Ill gladly let the AI rampage my farms and churches, go ahead. I think there was even a thread on the bug whereby you still get cash from a town even if its raided? I mean whats the point? Other than the annoying plumes of smoke, it can wait a few turns for repair.

Even irregs and cav would do better manning the settlement to give the firelocks some backup. Sending groups of them out to their deaths is stupid. One cav, or maybe one ligh tinfnatry unit, would be ok, as it would still prevent schools and farms from building/tecching, but it wouldnt sap the provincial garrison so much.

[tarloch]

i take your point dune but as fluff says if its just to harrass my towns then why send 4 units when one will do exactly the same job. yes i agree the stack you have just over the horizon will still beat the smaller stack inside the city but it will do so with far less casualties than if it has to fight larger battles that would make it combat ineffective alot quicker; therefore slowing your progress and also making you vulnerable to a counterattack which if the AI conserved its forces it would have a chance of achieving

here is the senario as i see it currently
1- capture a region
2- AI sends small groups to harrass my towns
3- these groups are either ignored or chewed up piecemeal
4- i advance to next capitol and fight basically citizens because the AI has squandered its troops attacking my towns
5- rinse and repeat

i dont know how the mechanics work but raid behavior is set to 1000 and region defence to 2000, lets summize then that the AI recruits a unit or indeed 3 units that turn and that recruitment phase has 2x the chance to stay and defend rather than raid, it would appear to me that it spends more time raiding than defending. maybe thats just the luck of the roll but that could also explain why it sends 2-3 units when one would do the job. however its worked out it would still appear to me that its not quite working as intended.
now i am no modder and this is probably too simplistic a view as to how the mechanics actually work but if indeed they do work along these lines then either the raid behaviour needs to be lowered or the chance that they will stay to defend greatly increased to compensate. any modders tested this yet?