Tsardoms Total War - AI Faction Behaviour

[Wallachian]

Hello everyone. I am opening this thread to encourage our players to report on the behaviour of the AI factions.

Things such as:

- AI being too passive or too aggressive
- AI behaving weird (for example the known issue of Balkan factions sending armies to Italy)
- the Ottoman faction being too passive and not expanding in the Balkans or not being able to conquer settlements in Anatolia
- AI factions being randomly destroyed for no reason
- AI factions being destroyed too quickly by other factions which are normally way smaller or weaker

Please feel free to share screenshots and detailed reports. It would help the AI team greatly

[l5c4sl3m0s]

Reporting an "interesting" behavior in my view, not so common in vanilla and other mods, which is breaking the siege without having to send an army into battle.


The Hungaria declare war againts me (I'm with Wallachia) at first they attacked my region in the north called Fagaras - it all took me by surprise, I didn't expect that after I broke the alliance with them and lost relationship, they will declare war on me. So they surrounded with good troops of Knights and could not withstand an assault attack, so I sent a smaller force in order to make them attack me and I retreated, thus breaking the siege and they were trapped in the battle zone, where a army gets too close to each other and he loses the movement points; retreating my smaller army he stopped at a strategic point of bridge. The Hungarian army went through a few turns without going to retake on the siege, which gave time for my reinforcements to arrive.

I don't know if this is more common than I think, but it's a good solution to avoid war of attrition by sustaining big losses.

[Anubis88]

My Ottoman campaign, seems quite balanced so far.

[jurcek1987]

My Ottoman campaign, seems quite balanced so far.

I really like the look of this map. Milan is a powerhouse and Florence expanded nicely. Previously I disliked Trinacria cutting into Naples but since the Aragonese took over the kingdom in the 15th century it's okay. Serbia is falling apart, Albania is still alive, Hungary didn't lose any regions while Moldova and Wallachia captured historic regions. Athens are a bit too strong while Venice too weak but all in all it's a very nice map. I'd be interested to see how the Ottomans are doing when in AI hands

Can you show us the northern part of the map?

[eyelurker]

I quite like the diplomacy and i find my allaince to be quite trustworthy but there are a few quirks. This is on hard mode

- Peace treaty is very difficult unless you have at least trustworthy reputation and outright impossible if relationship are at abyssmal. Can be somewhat avoided if you're at war with faction that are not your neighbor in which peace treaty is much easier to accomplish.

-doing any treaty is difficult if faction relation is at terrible usually demanding outrageous amount of gold for a simple trade treaty and only if you're rich enough.

-Generally abysmal relation means no treaty will be made. It's a good thing the relation decay are quite fast.

[michal77]

I have started my first campaign as Ottomans on VH/H (newest 2.0 with hotfix) and I think Byzantines could act a little better:

So they send almost full stuck near Bergama where I have only 2 units, but they just stuck near it for 5 turns not attacking, allowing me to send reinforcements. That may be related to pathfinding problem.

https://imgur.com/a/8MdIDMn

Also, they send their emperor near my capital with only 2 units, so if I would like to I can kill him.

https://imgur.com/Hl5k4sO

AI would benefit if you managed to make it form 1 big stack instead of few smaller ones. I know it's related to engine limitations, but it's partly possible. Divide and conquer AI and PiterAI did that quite good.

BTW in every battle preparation I have advisor saying please remember to activate the scripts [...] I remember it from EB2, so it's just old massage, or it's really skynet activating, or should I activate it somehow?

But overall reaaaaally admirable mod, thank you very much.

[Anubis88]

Ottoman campaign 1415.

Venice is close to gone. I just conquered Bulgaria too a few months ago, and now Serbia declared war on me so they saved me from doing it myself

Interesting things; Milan won the crusade vs Smyrna, i don't have the power to evict them yet. Timurids conquered the Karamans, but aren't showing any interest in me yet.

The most shocking thing is however the expansion of the Knights of St. John. They seem to be using their Navy amazingly well. I saw them conquering Chios from the Genoese, but when i checked the map i saw that they conquered both Crete and Thessaloniki! Never seen that before, good for them.

[Peresvet]

Ottomans AI is passive in my campaign. They dont attack Byzantium and stay at home. And armies with not full units are moving on map.

[Anubis88]

Ottoman campaign 1456.

I just took Constantinople as planned 3 years ago, and trying to expand historically.

The strongest opponents i had so far are probably Wallachia and the Knights surprisingly. The Knights still have a decent part of Asia under their control, and their armies are quite strong. What makes it fun is that they actually conquered those places from me, i simply didn't have armies to spare to defend them. At one point they had the entire southwest coast from Adana to Smyrna, so good for them, the Crusading fighting spirit going strong.

Wallachia is also annoying. Twice i had to to conquer up a few of their cities only to give them back in exchange for peace. I've now took Mehmed the Conqueror, my Grand Vizier and another 2 strong FM armies to finally stop Wallachia from being so annoying. I'm planning to conquer everything from them apart from the capital, then return it all to them but this time ask for vassalage. We will see what the AI will say about this. It feels quite historical though. However once i toggled the fow i saw that they have huge armies yet again, so i don't know if it will work out. Perhaps Lord Dracul will hold yet again.

The Timurids however are a big issue. They haven't attacked me yet, just conquered Karaman and they are standing around. It might be because they are broke with those huge armies, i don't know. However, if they attacked me like they should, there is no way i would have the time to recreate the Ottoman conquests.

As for the Political Situation i'm actually a long time ally with the Golden Horde and the Despotate, but basically at war with literally every other nation on the map

[Wallachian]

Except the Timurids everything looks really GOOD! I mean even if Wallachia has big stacks they don't seem to have become some big blob or anything like that which is good. Hungary looks like it's struggling a bit being eaten by Bosnia and Bohemia.

But the Timurids are indeed a problem.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

How cool, I do love to see other peoples historical campaigns. Must of been fun.
Any cool battles?

[Anubis88]

How cool, I do love to see other peoples historical campaigns. Must of been fun.
Any cool battles?

It is fun

Had plenty of interesting battles, although i miss fighting the Timurids. I'm not touching them though, not yet. Maybe as Mehmet's days start getting numbered i will move my military machine to the east.

I had great battles vs Wallachia and the Knights... A few years back i got obliterated in when going deep into Wallachia... Was really shocked that i lost the battle. I thought i would knock out Wallachia for good but actually lost my elite army. Fun stuff

[Miszel]

My Venetian campaign, i tried not to abuse computer stupidity and not be too agressive, Ottomans grew to be a very powerful enemy, can't wait to start fighting with them.



Currently im fighting in italy, Milan is spamming army after another, Papal states hate me too but i managed to turn the tide of war by allying with Florence. I tried to help Trinacria in their war against Naples because Neapolitans harassed my Dalmatine posessions but they backstabbed me. Croatia and Ragusa are my loyal allies, with Croatia serving as a buffor state against Bosnia and Hungary.

[Anubis88]

Nice! Which year is it? Karaman is really strong, probably stopping further Ottoman expansion since they have to worry about their back

[Anubis88]

Further feedback from my Ottoman Campaign;

- I've managed to vassalize Wallachia according to plan to safeguard my northern border.
- I've betrayed my long term ally of the Serbian Despotate to conquer the Balkans as it should be. However, i got attacked at the same time by the remains of Serbia, Albania and now even Hungary. Serbia, Albania and the Despotate might seem small, but they actually have huge armies so it's going to be a bloddbath.
- I gifted Corfu and Modon to Venice, hoping to restore some of their past glory.

Current plans are attacking the Hospitallers in Asia and kick them out to Rhodes; then i will betray the Golden Horde to establish a foothold in the north of the Black sea. Once the Balkans are pacified i will even fire an expedition to Italy, just to scare those silly Italian statelets. At one point i will have to face the music and kick the Timurids out of Asia as well. I hope i will have enough time to do everything, and plan on besieging Vienna in 1529.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

Fantastic I really must get into my new campaign

[Miszel]

Nice! Which year is it? Karaman is really strong, probably stopping further Ottoman expansion since they have to worry about their back

1381 but im playing 4 turns a year. Yeah, Ottomans are having some problems with Karaman now just as they started to expand into Wallachia.

[eyelurker]

My Venetian campaign, i tried not to abuse computer stupidity and not be too agressive, Ottomans grew to be a very powerful enemy, can't wait to start fighting with them.



Currently im fighting in italy, Milan is spamming army after another, Papal states hate me too but i managed to turn the tide of war by allying with Florence. I tried to help Trinacria in their war against Naples because Neapolitans harassed my Dalmatine posessions but they backstabbed me. Croatia and Ragusa are my loyal allies, with Croatia serving as a buffor state against Bosnia and Hungary.

Damn. Usually my AI Ottoman flop real bad and fail expand beyond it's border and if i play long enough tends to get ganked by Roman, Hospitaller/Aydin and Karaman

[Miszel]

Ottomans can choke around gallipoli but once they get hold of Adrianople they tend to snowball in my campaigns.

[The Despondent Mind]

Playing on Normal, I have only played 2.0 as Bohemia(1475), so I don't know how the ai acts at sea, I always fear the most obnoxious behavior of pointlessly attacking your port to declare war, and then doing absolutely nothing. That is the worst.

On the land its weird, it can declare war on me and then do nothing, just kinda gather a lot of troops at borders or cities, but do just nothing. Other than that, I like it cause the small armies are rare, and fat juicy stacks are common, and near settlements.