Factions AI

**gloin99** · September 16, 2010, 07:29 AM

I'm sure most of you have noticed that in every campaign there are factions who are passiv, conquerers or victims. But why is that so? Do they have different AI's or priorities.
For example Mordor. Almost every time it is amongst the top factions:

The only time it doesn't expand itselve succesfully is when the player stands in its way and still it finds a way through Middle Earth:

What are the decisive criteria for a faction to expand. It cannot be money cause my allies don't change their behavior even if I give them tenthousands. Is there really a difference between the AIs or is it the starting condition.

**Narf** · September 16, 2010, 07:37 AM

The TW Ai have never been very impressive.

**gloin99** · September 16, 2010, 07:46 AM

Yes, but some factions alway manage to succeed(Mordor, Isengard, some times Dwarves) whilst others never do anything(Eriador, High Elves). That's at least how it's going on in my campaigns.

**Narf** · September 16, 2010, 07:58 AM

Simple then, starting positions.
And invasion.

**jản** · September 16, 2010, 08:18 AM

//

That is right and something that always was improved with every release of TATW.
And it still will get better with the future releases for sure.

It is quite hard for the AI (which is still based upon the M2TW AI) to work as in "real life".
In M2TW vanilla there also were inactive, passive factions. But there were simply more
factions. In TATW are only a few and the fact that alliances can not be broken like it was
in M2TW makes it even more difficult to have a balanced gameplay.

Sure Eriador often is quite passive but they are surrounded by other good factions with
which have mostly good relations (due to the faction_standings). So what should they do?
They nearly never get military access during a game and if they don't have it right from
the start, they will never simply walk through neighboring territories, because that would
lower the relations drastically.

To sum it up: 7 good factions against 6 evil factions - all of them mostly directly connected
or even surrounded making it really hard for all factions to be active fighters.

I see it more this way: in "real" middle-earth high elves or eriador would never be great
conquerers. That only would do the orcs and Mordor - all other factions would never travel
across the lands and try to conquer new lands (except rebel settlements) to enlarge their kingdoms.
They just stay inside their lore-wise boundaries. That's why i always change my winning conditions
to only hold 15 to 20 territories and only conquer some very specific settlements and destroy
one or two enemy factions.

And btw - there is a quite good way to make a passive faction turn into an active one:
Simply give a settlement (a castle if possible) as a gift or in exchange far away from their
own lands that lies in direct connection to an enemy. And than just wait ...

//

**gloin99** · September 16, 2010, 09:28 AM

Now I found something in descr_campaign_ai_db.xml. Large factions have an increased invade priority. So if a faction extends it becomes even more aggressive.

**Isack Citees** · September 16, 2010, 04:07 PM

Now I found something in descr_campaign_ai_db.xml. Large factions have an increased invade priority. So if a faction extends it becomes even more aggressive.

really?
I know a faction would have more resources to enable them to be on the offensive, but wouldn't they also have to divert more troops to subjugate their new provinces (culture-wise I mean) making it harder to go on the attack.

Look at Napolean's empire. Nationalism within its ethnic groups helped to overthrow it.
Is this the same in vanilla or does this only apply to TATW?

**gloin99** · September 16, 2010, 05:11 PM

That is file is about the factors that influence the decisions of the AI. For Example:

- 
<min_entry is_neighbour="true" military_balance="1.0" />

<max_entry is_neighbour="true" military_balance="2.0" />

<faction_attitude invade_priority="100" continue="true" />

</decision_entry>

- <decision_entry>

This means that if the AI's military is 1x to 2x stronger than the target faction the probability of an attack will be increased by 100 points. There are many factors that increase or decrease the priority and in the end the Ai decides what to do.
Besides some units and lower taxes are enough to calm down a foreign culture. In TATW it's no big problem. If it's necessary you can massacre the city after conquering (also used by many invaders in the history like Mongols, Timurids, Crusaders and many more).