CAI lacking

[Jimmy_Aus]

I have just reinstalled and started playing shogun 2 for the first time in a couple of years.
First thing I did was install darthmod as I remember it being a great addition to shogun2 and fixed the hell out of empire (please don't recommend I post this on DM sub forum, that's not whats this is about). I'm playing hard difficulty because its been a while and very hard generally means very irrational/stupid/spammy.

Every game I play a small clan far away from me with many enemies already will declare war for little to no reason (fair enough) but then send all their forces across the map at me leaving themselves defenseless surrounded by enemies. During the many turns their armies take to get to me and when I crush their attack none of their hostile neighbors take their land meaning they will probably repeat this behavior. In addition to this, crummy clans in the same position often will send a never ending stream of boats to harass me in extremely repetitive battles that cannot be auto resolved without losing (I have mostly avoided this by sticking to land focused clans). The sea harassment clans generally spend all their resources on wasting my time at sea leaving them open to attack by hostile neighbors but never happens.

I have three specific questions but any thoughts on the AI are welcome.
1) Does vanilla shogun2 have this annoying behavior where weak clans are given a free pass by their enemies to remain defenseless so they can attack the player?
2) How bad is naval spam in vanilla?
3) I have heard AI hasn't really been improved in the DLC is this true?

On a closing note I am planning on starting a vanilla game soon as I get a chance to see for myself, I am just trying to get a heads up of what to expect and start a discussion on the state of TW CAI. Also I have vowed to never buy another TW game/DLC for release price until AI has been prioritized and been significantly improved.

[chris))((]

I can only speak for FotS, because I have only played that in the last months and I only play on legendary:

I have not played Darthmod and can confirm everything you said. The AI sends armies from the other side of the map every few turns, mostly without getting conquered (but normally most factions are allied against me). They also harass me with huge amounts of very small navies that always flee when attacked. You cant really follow them, because there are always half a dozen other navies that block your ports and bombard the crap out of you if you do so.

But: If the enemies lose their complete army and only have one province, they will agree to become your vasalls (often they will declare war again later). Also: I'm not really complaining about that because I want a challange when I play on Legendary. Could it be better/more realistic? Sure! But Legendary is by far the biggest challange of any Total War game yet and I like challanges.

Also: If I remember correctly, the AI fleets were very harassing in Shogun 2 and they also sent armies on fleets over the sea. Only, fleets became much more annoying since they can bombard in FotS.

[TrizzyG]

Well I did have Satsuma launch a force of men at Hitachi as I was taking Kazusa.

The thing is, the Matsue had conquered most of Kyushu and were allied to the Satsuma as well as me (Tosa).


I don't recall hostile clans sending armies at me from across the map unless they have hostile clans near their own borders.


I play incredibly defensively during the first half of the game, so by the time I start getting involved with alliances and war there's a pretty clear line between pro-Shogunate and pro-Imperial.