AI Generals: using, behavior, armies...

**siebenbürgen** · December 23, 2016, 08:45 AM

Hi

How does AI use his generals?
I have noticed that AI prefers not to use his generals on strategic map when he has enough troops - he uses his captains instead.
The generals just sit in their towns and castles during a war.
Is there any way to make AI use his generals more often?

What does control AI generals' behavior in a battle?
Also I have noticed another thing - it is quite often that AI general charges with the rest of his troops and dies after first minute of fighting.
How can I change AI generals behavior to make it more careful?
How can I make him retreat when it is obvious that he is loosing?

How does AI build his armies?
It is quite irritating when half of strategic map is covered with hordes of little "armies" led by faceless captains.
How to make AI build big strong armies led by generals?

I would be grateful for any kind of help, thank you.

**Gigantus** · December 23, 2016, 09:51 AM

Moved from text editing workshop

**CavalryCmdr** · December 23, 2016, 10:37 PM

1. You cannot, at least no one has yet found a way. AI will spawn Generals if needed to lead smaller armies but for whatever reason will generally not use them for 'real' armies.
2. Mostly it's due to the fact that generals units have 2 hp, the AI over-estimates how powerful that makes them (this is also why the AI tends to keep only generals in towns for a garrison.) Additionally config_ai_battle can be modified to make all cavalry more cautious, which will effect the general
3. It's rather complicated really. The AI will recruit whatever, then assemble armies. Most of the 'little "armies" led by faceless captains' are trying to assemble into a coherent force influenced by the personality in descr_strat, but has a tendency to recruit whatever is available, which leaves many units that are not immediately needed for an army. Modding descr_character.txt:

Code:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
starting_action_points 11999 ; default value for all characters and pathfinding calculations

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

and making sure the AI dose not use defend_raid or invade_raids in the descr_campaign_ai_db.xml will help but not fix the problem. For the best results Generals and Captains should have just enough movement to go from one settlement to any given neighbor settlement. Obviously this is nearly impossible, modding the map is pretty much essential to help this, but you will never be able to fix it completely.

**siebenbürgen** · December 25, 2016, 11:29 AM

For the best results Generals and Captains should have just enough movement to go from one settlement to any given neighbor settlement.

So as I understand it the main problem for scattered squads is that they are unable to gather due to the big distance between settlements... Thank you very much, I'll try to manage it with mapping.

**bitterhowl** · March 13, 2019, 06:29 AM

Originally Posted by siebenbürgen

Hi

How does AI use his generals?
I have noticed that AI prefers not to use his generals on strategic map when he has enough troops - he uses his captains instead.
The generals just sit in their towns and castles during a war.
Is there any way to make AI use his generals more often?

Did anybody solved this?

**z3n** · March 13, 2019, 03:24 PM

Not that I know of, I suspect invade_buildup decision would be the most likely to create an opportunity for the AI to pull a general out of a town and use them instead but you can't really prove that.

Invade_immediate is the most aggressive and one I like to use most. M2TW AI at *minimum* will take 2 turns to attack an undefended town that it can reach by going outside of its own town.

First it has to hop out of its own town, sit there for a turn, then next turn it will move toward it if it doesn't wait for reinforcements first by moving to its own border of the enemy town and waiting.

**bitterhowl** · March 13, 2019, 07:58 PM

As for battle behavior - making general avoid attack is making by this parameter

Code:

<melee-manager>

<open>
          
      <general_unit>
                <max-engage-dist>10</max-engage-dist>
            </general_unit>

**bitterhowl** · May 19, 2020, 05:52 AM

Here are results of hotseat method tests of my Westeros submod AI. Turn 300+

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Another test turn 200+

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Another test

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

So we can see many armies led by named_characters. I use beermugcarl's recomendations about fixing general's behavior. AI that I use in my submod is mixture of PiterAI and beermugcarlAI + my manual fixes.

**Macaras** · May 01, 2022, 09:01 AM

So we can see many armies led by named_characters. I use beermugcarl's recomendations about fixing general's behavior.

Bitterhowl, could you post a link to these recommendations please?

BTW, do you know guys what make the ai use generals in its armies in a smarter way? I have some of the armies without any generals and then other armies with 2 or more generals. Is there any way that would make ai have all the big armies with generals?

**bitterhowl** · May 26, 2022, 05:54 AM

Originally Posted by Macaras

Bitterhowl, could you post a link to these recommendations please?

BTW, do you know guys what make the ai use generals in its armies in a smarter way? I have some of the armies without any generals and then other armies with 2 or more generals. Is there any way that would make ai have all the big armies with generals?

https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...ht=beermugcarl

**Anthonydu33** · August 10, 2022, 07:57 AM

Hello,

Any news about these recommendations?
I tried to create a hidden trait like beermugcarl according to the difficulty level of the campaign but my trait is engaged at each whatever the difficulty level..

my edct file :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**z3n** · August 10, 2022, 01:46 PM

You need a campaign script with a check for difficulty level.

**Jadli** · August 15, 2022, 05:07 AM

BTW, one note to making difficulty scripts, not sure if I already posted it here somehwere...

Its applies only to a faction, not campaign wide, all other factions are on normal. Which can be issue especially in hotseat mode (and thus also for testing). Not sure if in SP the difficulty you set applies for the AI or not... but its definitely the best for if you are creating the DifficultyLevel on turn 1, to check it only during the first faction, and then terminate it.