Are the Timurids broken or is my AI broken?

**recentiy03** · August 15, 2011, 01:24 PM

I'm playing as Lithuania (with whichever AI is the one most popular on the forums, according to the description, SS 6.4, VH/VH, VeryBadAI, BGR 4) and it's looking like my AI is broken. It's the year of our Lord 1407 and the Timurids have been lingering quite a few turns without much success. They've sent armies to attack me as far north/west as Jaiksk, although it looks like a large portion of their army has essentially given up, which makes no sense given the difficult settings. Has anyone else experienced issues using BGR4 combined with VeryBadAI or are the Mongols just cowering in fear because they're surrounded by 2 top-4 factions?

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/9...sarebroken.jpg

**Diablo del Sur** · August 15, 2011, 01:47 PM

Portugal is the white colour in the map? WTF?

**recentiy03** · August 15, 2011, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by Diablo del Sur

Portugal is the white colour in the map? WTF?

Not Poland, but yeah, and I've had zero influence on that part of the map. They ate up the Moors, France, Castille and Aragon, and it looks like they won a crusade against the HRE and then took another province near it.

**Byg** · August 15, 2011, 01:57 PM

There's no reason for it to be bgr related. I think the ai simply has trouble handling tons of stacks of troops.

**Ichon** · August 15, 2011, 02:08 PM

I see Timurids do that quite often. I'm not sure why. Sometimes they will start moving again but for whatever reason they always move in a large group. I guess the horde mechanic? But Mongols don't seem to clump up so badly. Either way the Timurid and Mongol invasions seem badly scripted but the few people who have tried to do better have given up.

**bɑne** · August 16, 2011, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by Ichon

I see Timurids do that quite often. I'm not sure why. Sometimes they will start moving again but for whatever reason they always move in a large group. I guess the horde mechanic? But Mongols don't seem to clump up so badly. Either way the Timurid and Mongol invasions seem badly scripted but the few people who have tried to do better have given up.

It's not bad scripts. The more you script the more likely crashes etc will become. For this reason scripts are kept at a minimum. Mongols and Timurids have been a constant debate topic, nerfed, unnerfed, scripted, freed up...

Are the Timurids at war with their neighboring factions?

**recentiy03** · August 16, 2011, 09:22 AM

Originally Posted by bɑne

It's not bad scripts. The more you script the more likely crashes etc will become. For this reason scripts are kept at a minimum. Mongols and Timurids have been a constant debate topic, nerfed, unnerfed, scripted, freed up...

Are the Timurids at war with their neighboring factions?

Yep, they're at war with Lithuania, Hungary and the Fatimids.

**Ichon** · August 16, 2011, 10:43 PM

Originally Posted by bɑne

It's not bad scripts. The more you script the more likely crashes etc will become. For this reason scripts are kept at a minimum. Mongols and Timurids have been a constant debate topic, nerfed, unnerfed, scripted, freed up...

Well I still haven't heard a reason why they spawn all in one group on the edge of the map. I think a wave of concentrated spawns timed with the major invasions makes more sense and wouldn't burden the AI into such heavy debt.

**bɑne** · August 17, 2011, 02:14 AM

Originally Posted by Ichon

Well I still haven't heard a reason why they spawn all in one group on the edge of the map. I think a wave of concentrated spawns timed with the major invasions makes more sense and wouldn't burden the AI into such heavy debt.

About the position: If you spawn them someplace away from their holdings the AI will march them back to their lands instead of taking targets of opportunity as the player would.
About the debt: The economy script should minimize that issue.
About the waves: Could be spread out more, maybe. I suspect you will have more luck with scripting the advance completly.

**Ichon** · August 17, 2011, 05:50 PM

Originally Posted by bɑne

About the position: If you spawn them someplace away from their holdings the AI will march them back to their lands instead of taking targets of opportunity as the player would.
About the debt: The economy script should minimize that issue.
About the waves: Could be spread out more, maybe. I suspect you will have more luck with scripting the advance completly.

If the invasions simply spawned more army at certain coordinates once other cities are taken would the AI still march them back? IE- 3 Mongol stacks spawn in the initial invasion. When the first 2 cities are taken the next group of Mongol stacks spawn closer to the next enemy cities. Then the invasion would follow somewhat the historical path and not give the Mongols 30 stacks it marches slowly across the land. Of course if the Mongols stalled long enough without capturing the next cities another invasion group could spawn after 15 turns. If 3 of those groups are defeated then the Mongol invasion is defeated for the next 25 years. Then I would simply have that process repeat 3 times as well and if Mongols aren't a large empire by the end fighting against AI it would be surprising. Against a human player it would be 75-100 years of defending in the east against Mongol invasions and not able to use the map edge there as a defense and concentrate west.

The biggest frustration besides Mongol bankruptcy is how slow the invasions go. Often by 1300 they have barely made it to Kiev. Staggered spawns might sometimes actually allow the invasion to go quite quickly, other times it might be more slow. Especially if only a couple key cities in each region needed to be taken to trigger the next group. Mongols would only be facing 4 faction for the majority of the initial invasions. K-Shah, Cumans, Turks, and Kiev. The first Mongol invasions especially in Persia didn't sweep all resistance away immediately. Rebellions and some large cities were left alone and in the ensuing years had to be defeated which if the AI turns back some spawned units makes sense but still gives the invasion speed and can be more fun for the player to have at least a chance of fighting some Mongols as Hungary or Poland etc.

**GiddeeUpp** · August 15, 2011, 03:25 PM

Wow first time ive ever seen portugal with that size of an empire lol

**Ichon** · August 15, 2011, 04:01 PM

It happens sometimes if Portugal doesn't get back stabbed by Castile or defeats the backstab while managing to hold off Moors early. Portugal if it expands by sea into Morocco can then quickly dominate that area of the map. I've seen if 2 or 3 campaigns at least just since 6.3- probably more often prior to that.

It is easier to name the factions I've never seen become a super power than the ones which do.

Kiev, Sicily, HRE. Only AI factions I haven't seen take over at least 1/5 of the map without help. Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Crusader States, and France are next more rare.

Byzantines, Fatimids, Mongols, Norway, Hungary, Genoa, Novgorod are the most common dominators in the campaigns I've played. The rest somewhere in the middle.

**Alesianduke** · August 15, 2011, 04:47 PM

Also Cumans own most of the east with no help from me in my campaign and I did help sometimes the Fatimids and Novgorod when they got attacked by the Mongols.
It is turn 124 now and after about turn 90 the Cumans had 3 provinces left and now they took back all their territory from the Mongols + some of Novgorod, Kiev, Turks and former Kwar empire... it's weird but yeah... the Khan strikes back... in force... and I'm pretty sure when the Timurids arrive the Mongols are dead because Fatimids also took some provinces back from them... the mongol war machine is stuck).

About the AI... yeah he's kind of dumb sometimes... spams armies but does not know how to use them properly while the player (at least me) i only use 2 full stacks ingame to attack / start a war / defend against a war + some defenses in borderlands near the war zone (forts + extra units in those provinces).

**Mr Kriegtooth** · August 16, 2011, 04:25 AM

Too many Timurids are too many. Its a Rid Rush

That said, what the others have said. Limitations of the game in general

**Liandro** · August 16, 2011, 02:17 PM

That many troops you'd think the turn times would last a few minutes. That's almost as bad as the insane Mongol and Roman stacks.

**Kabeloko** · August 17, 2011, 03:20 PM

daaaamm what a mess...
in here i dont even see mongol/timurid progress, the fatimids seem to be able to hold and conquest everyone..
always busting my balls...

anyway, everyone that tries to fix them give up, its just too messy and frustrating...
heard about a mod once, (wich has nothing to do with the case in hand) of a mongolian guy that boosted them up(mongols) and called it something nightmare i think...
dont know if it went well, but if u would like to give it a try, its not SS tough...

**recentiy03** · August 20, 2011, 08:02 AM

Here is an update 25 turns after the OP:

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/8216/1433lith.jpg

As you can see, the Timurids are now progressing normally, which leads me to believe that at least part of the script issue revolves around their single-minded attack, because as soon as the jihad on Constantinople ended they broke their alliance with Egypt and attacked me as well.