Stopping AI doomstacking?

[Mimey]

I admit I've only just started getting into the game (got it as a gift) and I gotta say...am I doing something wrong? Cuz every time I go to war the AI:

1. Always seems to pull more allies outta their ass (despite the game claiming they have few or none)
2. Doomstack the hell outta me.
3. Even if I have somewhat superior numbers I usually still tend to lose fights.

To the point I've only won wars that were massively one-sided affairs. I've never won what one might refer to as a 'fair fight'. So am I doing something wrong? Is there some game mech I'm not understanding? Or is the AI just that BS when it comes to warfare?

[Angel]

knights sway the tide of battle by quite a bit, if you can buff yours you may stand a better chance

you can always see what allies the AI has but I do agree they sometimes seem to pull them out of nowhere conveniently as I declare war on them lol, they do seem to have been made more aggressive then before

[Mimey]

Well to explain a bit more, I was playing as Ireland, was at Kingdom level, had an army of my own of about 6500 (4000 leves, around 2500 actual troops, 8 knights). The regular troops were a varied mix: Armored fighters, bows, pikes, light horses, and mangonels for sieges.

I was fighting Scotland, who had about 5000 troops and *at first* no allies.

War starts. Armies formed, roughly 3k per army and roughly even on knight split. I send em off to start doing stuff. I see the Scottish army so I pull together and attack. I start winning until BAM, huge extra army right outta the blue (and I know it wasn't mercenaries) just appears and it's around now 12000 guys I'm fighting and of course there's no winning that, so then my armies are routed and there's no coming back from that.

And I even had allies of my own, who had good sized armies to help, but they were all off in the distance doing their own thing, and so they ended up getting picked apart by the doomstack, and the war essentially was over through (IMO) no real fault of my own.

[Dizzy Ladybug]

The AI likes to get allies during a war; they do this by marrying close family off to secure alliances when they are declared on lol. they may also be able to negotiate alliances even during war

try to not mix your Men at Arms in single player. Pick one type (Archers, Light Cavalary, etc.) and stick with it. Yes, you want siege engines, but you want one type of MAA for actual combat. This is important for stacking MAA bonuses from buildings.

Are you tribal Ireland ?

[Sputnik]

Quantity
- Back in tabletop war gaming the rule of thumb was never to launch an offensive unless you have a 3 to 1 advantage.
- All things being equal. I think that about holds true here. On the face of it your 6.5K vs 5K seems far too optimistic.

Quality
- Knights are the bomb. But 6 knights seem very few for invading a kingdom, and there's a good chance most of them will get skewered before the war's end.
- 2.5K MAA are good, but I would have chosen Armoured Footmen as the vast majority. They're strong against Scottish Pikemen, and suffer no terrain penalties (Scotland has plenty). On the other hand, most Cavalry are weak against pikes and are penalised in Scotland's hills and mountains.
- 4K of Levees are very weak, but they still like to eat a lot. Take care they're not causing you supply attrition. So consider the campaign adage: "Travel divided. Fight united"

Timing
- Just because you declare war I doesn't mean you need to invade straight away. If you can manage the costs and supply attrition you can wait in or around Ulster until your allies show.
- Meanwhile you can hit invaders while they're experiencing landing penalties.
- Any enemies you can rout on your home turf will take a long while to return. On the other hand any of your armies routed can return to the fray quickly.
- When your allies DO show up let them attack first and take the bulk of the damage. After all taking down a Kingdom is a marathon effort and you'll need to minimise your casualties.
- When invading with allies, this often means making small moves to see if they're coming with your towards targets.

[Mimey]

Originally posted by dizzy ladybug:

The AI likes to get allies during a war; they do this by marrying close family off to secure alliances when they are declared on lol. they may also be able to negotiate alliances even during war

try to not mix your Men at Arms in single player. Pick one type (Archers, Light Cavalary, etc.) and stick with it. Yes, you want siege engines, but you want one type of MAA for actual combat. This is important for stacking MAA bonuses from buildings.

Are you tribal Ireland ?

I basically did the whole tutorial and then just kept on playing until I unified Ireland and kept going from there. I was at Kingdom level when I tried doing all this.

Ngl there, that seems totally antithetical to everything I've ever done in any other strategy game. Not saying you're lyin or nothin but I had no idea that was something I should even consider doing. I made a mixed-unit army as I thought that'd be the most effective means of fighting.

Also that seems really unfair the AI can do all that during war.

Originally posted by Sputnik:

Quantity
- Back in tabletop war gaming the rule of thumb was never to launch an offensive unless you have a 3 to 1 advantage.
- All things being equal. I think that about holds true here.

Quality
- Knights are the bomb. But 6 knights seem very few for invading a kingdom.
- 2.5K MAA are good, but I would have chosen Armoured Footmen as the vast majority. They're strong against Scottish Pikemen, and suffer no terrain penalties (Scotland has plenty). On the other hand, Cavalry are weak against pikes and are penalised in Scotland's hills and mountains.
- 4K of Levees are very weak, but still eat a lot. Take care they're not causing you supply attrition. So consider the campaign adage: "Travel divided. Fight united"

Timing
- Just because you declare war I doesn't mean you need to invade straight away. If you can manage the costs and supply attrition you can wait around Ulster until your allies show up.
- You can then hit invaders while they're experiencing landing penalties.
- Any enemies you can rout on your home turf will take a long while to return. On the other hand any of your armies routed can return to the fray quickly.
- When your allies DO show up let them attack first and take the bulk of the damage. After all taking down a Kingdom is a marathon effort and you'll need to minimise your casualties.
- When invading with allies, this often means making small moves to see if they're coming with you towards targets. [/quote]

In fairness I did say '8' knights, not 6.

Well on that that makes sense. I hadn't considered that Scotland might mostly make pikes/spears and such. And I did have a fair number of horses, so that'd explain why I seemed to get killed off, at least in part.

The Doomstack was still pretty nonsense though.

Honestly I did have allies, they just kept attacking everything else in Scotland, including far away from where I was, instead of doing anything productive. Our numbers would've utterly wiped the floor, even with them doing so much so suddenly to pull in more allies. But cuz we were scattered I got doomstacked and that was basically it.

But I suppose these are good points besides. I am VERY new at the game, and it just felt like I was massively getting trounced by fights I shouldn't be losing, though some of this stuff is 100% not anything the game tells you in the tutorial at all, so I'm not really surprised that I didn't know it.

I'll give this another go soon and hopefully I fare better.

[Sputnik]

Good luck Mimey. Meanwhile here's a good reference page:

https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Army#Men-at-Arms

[Dizzy Ladybug]

Originally posted by Mimey:

Ngl there, that seems totally antithetical to everything I've ever done in any other strategy game. Not saying you're lyin or nothin but I had no idea that was something I should even consider doing. I made a mixed-unit army as I thought that'd be the most effective means of fighting.

Levies are pretty awful in the game since they have terrible stats and those stats cannot be boosted. Different MAA regiments have differing stats and they can be boosted through stationing them in counties. When stationed, they get stat bonuses from buildings in your controlled holdings.

Levies are useful in the early game when you have nothing better, but eventually if you want to succeed militarily you want to start moving away from relying on large amounts of Levies and relying more on your hired MAA and knights because these two can be boosted tremendously.

Since MAA bonuses from buildings are percentage based, stats are pretty important for your MAA, so pick something with decent stats like Armored Footmen, if you can afford them that is. I'm not sure if the Irish have anything better early on.

Once you get some decently boosted MAA you'll find 12k levies are pretty pathetic in comparison.

[Ivendar]

What really causes problems in my opinion is mercenaries and holy orders. Being Astatru I attacked an enemy having 700 troops while having 1500 myself. Then he raised a holy order because being christ and he had 4000 additional troops a minute after war started. Even with additional allies no chance at that point and not being a king yet. So if you don't have enough gold backup or allies be careful if you attack someone of another religion if that religion has holy orders. Also the AI hires mercenaries as long as it has enough gold but those are at least more time limited and not that high numbers. Also AI doesn't get gold that fast as it gets faith I think. If you wonder how AI suddenly got many troops click their portrait and hover over their army size, there you can get a better idea what might have happened.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by dizzy ladybug:

The AI likes to get allies during a war; they do this by marrying close family off to secure alliances when they are declared on lol. they may also be able to negotiate alliances even during war

try to not mix your Men at Arms in single player. Pick one type (Archers, Light Cavalary, etc.) and stick with it. Yes, you want siege engines, but you want one type of MAA for actual combat. This is important for stacking MAA bonuses from buildings.

Are you tribal Ireland ?

I do wonder if the the AI is getting special bonuses here. It's almost impossible for a human player to get AI to agree to an alliance while you're at war. With the AI it must be like, 'of course my fellow robot! ,we must stop this human player.' LOL

[PDX-Trinexx]

Originally posted by dizzy ladybug:

try to not mix your Men at Arms in single player. Pick one type (Archers, Light Cavalary, etc.) and stick with it. Yes, you want siege engines, but you want one type of MAA for actual combat. This is important for stacking MAA bonuses from buildings.

This was solid advice before MAA stationing was implemented, but with the current build of the game there's nothing to gain from doing this as a regiment can only benefit from the buildings in a single holding. You're best off mixing your MAA types to account for any possible counters the enemy has, and then focusing your military buildings to match the regiment stationed in that specific holding.

[spasti696969]

In early game battles the most important thing is the knights. Much like battles in the early dark ages, you'll have 500, 800 guys on each side with only 20 or 30 doing the actual "fighting".

Before you unpause (January 1 867) right click on your character and click "arrange marriage". Take all the single ladies of your court and click "sort by prowess" to match them up. Then hit the matrilineal checkbox before you send the proposal. Every single woman in your court who isn't part of your family should be used in this fashion to free recruit a strong knight.

Usually you start with like 6 or 7 knight slots. Using this technique they'll all have 15+ or 20+ prowess. The AI will often bring knights with 6, 8 prowess, often Dukes or Counts rather than dedicated champions. You should be able to steamroll them in combat with even numbers at this point.

That'll get you through the first 5 years or so, so maybe 2 or 3 wars if you're going for an aggressive expansion. When you can, build up your Men at Arms and only raise them instead of the levies for combat. The levies are a massive drain on gold when they're raised. If you really need more troops you can just hire mercenaries with the gold you would have spent on raising levies anyways. You want the levies at home because their numbers keep the factions down.

Personally I prefer heavy infantry because you get the most "bang for your buck" so to speak. If you force them into retreat before 5 days you wipe the entire stack in a slaughter, so pursuit and screen are irrelevant at that point. I've heard others mention light infantry due to the fact that they're much cheaper and therefore their numbers can be increased quickly if a faction is rising. Use the mix that you think is best, it doesn't really matter too much. Use Horse Archers if you're in the steppes for example, that's fine too.

The point is you want to max out your ranks of Men at Arms and make sure all your knights are at least 15+ or 20+ prowess. A 5K army of Men at Arms and quality knights can easily take down a 30,000 army controlled by the AI.

The numbers you're seeing are probably due to mercenaries and Holy Orders. Sometimes they can surprise you with that. But using the techniques I described, even those should be no problem as well. You want the "quality" to be at either 4 or 5 stars, which you get to by having high Prowess knights and strong Men at Arms with no levies mixed in.

Combat Width is the reason fighting like this works so well. Essentially, you can only have so many troops on an imaginary "front line" dealing damage to each other. The knights join this "front line" as well, which is how they get injured and killed. So while the number of people dealing damage is limited, the damage they deal isn't. Therefore, if you have a small group of soldiers dealing out high amounts of damage, that's going to be far more efficient than a large group of low damage soldiers, because their output is more limited thanks to Combat Width. You'll have more of an advantage in the mountains, but at a certain point even plains are fine in terms of limitation.

[Dibago]

Originally posted by ShepherdOfCats:

I do wonder if the the AI is getting special bonuses here. It's almost impossible for a human player to get AI to agree to an alliance while you're at war. With the AI it must be like, 'of course my fellow robot! ,we must stop this human player.' LOL

Whike it seems to have a penalty for being at war when negotiating an alliance (without marriage), alliances through mariage are not that hard to make. I've been in plenty of situations where im attacked by a superior force and to save myself i just marry off my kids and siblings for alliances during the war. The only issue is that for obvious reasons i cant be too picky on the bethrodal. Maybe i would like to marry a speciffic kid to a spouse with certain traits or skills, but im desperate for an alliance so i have to forget that and only focus on troops and proximity.
Obviously the normal criteria for marriages still apply, like rank difference, relatioship, etc... Also if you aleady have a lot of alliances you might get a penalty for acceptance. But in general, i personally dont find it harder to get marriages even at war, so there is always that way to make alliances.
so i dont really feel it is that "one sided" since i have done that as well. I gotten plenty of alliances during war through marriage.

Originally posted by Mimey:

Also that seems really unfair the AI can do all that during war.

The same i said above, works for this. It is not that unfair becuase you can do most of it as well.
If you have family that can be married off for alliances do the same. the enemy brings a new alliance? you bring one as well, just make sure they have a good amount of troops (that can help you) and it is better if they are not too far from you (unless there isnt any other option).
Obviously you will need prestige to bring them in (if you are attacking) and depending on the relations he might refuse.

[Dizzy Ladybug]

Originally posted by PDX-Trinexx:

Originally posted by dizzy ladybug:

try to not mix your Men at Arms in single player. Pick one type (Archers, Light Cavalary, etc.) and stick with it. Yes, you want siege engines, but you want one type of MAA for actual combat. This is important for stacking MAA bonuses from buildings.

This was solid advice before MAA stationing was implemented, but with the current build of the game there's nothing to gain from doing this as a regiment can only benefit from the buildings in a single holding. You're best off mixing your MAA types to account for any possible counters the enemy has, and then focusing your military buildings to match the regiment stationed in that specific holding.

I really don't see the point in countering when the AI has an over reliance on levies and barely boosts their own MAA. Even with stationing I still think you are better off focusing on whichever unit has the best stats available to you. I mean, if you have a unit available with really high stats like Cataphracts, Crossbowmen, Horse Archers, Mubarizun etc. Why would you willfully build something with less stats ?

Focusing on boosting your damage/toughness seem far more important than countering a range of different MAA, since the AI really has no strategy when it comes to building them. The AI just builds a strange mix of MAA. It will even build more units than it has counties to station them in. That type of behavior is not worth countering.

Accolades are now a thing that boosts regiment sizes, so you'd have to create multiple accolades for different MAA types, so that seems kind of a waste. I'd rather create one accolade for a specific type (or the two accolades for archers) and then build other accolades to boost other stats; ie. Valiant for damage, Besieger for siege engines.I know countering has a place in multiplayer but I've never seen it matter in single player.

[Machiavelli]

You know can do marriage offers during war right? So they can get an alliance straight away like you do. This game is too easy, we don't need to nerf the AI even more. Did you know the AI can only do one murder scheme on you?

[Mimey]

Appreciated on all the replies btw folks.

I managed to stabilize things and conquer Scotland and Iceland entirely...then my ruler died and my spider's web of a family tree meant I basically lost essentially everything. And by the time I got stabilized again with my next ruler, well...let's just say the Mongols were basically ready to say "Hello" after taking over damn nearly all of Europe.