Getting AI allies to actually help

[Ride4Ruin]

How do I get my AI allies to group up with me? The enemy has grouped up into a 15k strong army, and my allies keep running around as 2k to 3k groups getting stomped on and running up warscore for the enemy.

Is there any way to get the AI to stop feeding the other guy warscore, or are allies just completely useless in this game?

[Taiwan Number One]

Are your "allies" tribal vassals you've called to war?

[Racketeer]

Generally allies will try to attach to your army themselves if you have a big stack just waiting in one of your provinces. They may not do that, but they generally do.

[Victim of the Demiurge]

Originally posted by Ride4Ruin:

How do I get my AI allies to group up with me? The enemy has grouped up into a 15k strong army, and my allies keep running around as 2k to 3k groups getting stomped on and running up warscore for the enemy.

Is there any way to get the AI to stop feeding the other guy warscore, or are allies just completely useless in this game?

AI is ♥♥♥♥,
and by ♥♥♥♥ I mean unbearable total failure (still a huge improvement over KoH though)

I keep seeing Charlemagne getting stomped by 5-10x weaker and multiple times smaller saxons because he keeps sending his levies one by one on theoderic's stack of doom
(actually it's theoderics pile of useless crap, but for 8th century tribes works fine)
and ends up being defeated by a <3k tribal li guy with a >15k serious army

[Racketeer]

Originally posted by Slava Slavyanam:

Originally posted by Ride4Ruin:

How do I get my AI allies to group up with me? The enemy has grouped up into a 15k strong army, and my allies keep running around as 2k to 3k groups getting stomped on and running up warscore for the enemy.

Is there any way to get the AI to stop feeding the other guy warscore, or are allies just completely useless in this game?

AI is ♥♥♥♥,
and by ♥♥♥♥ I mean unbearable total failure (still a huge improvement over KoH though)

I keep seeing Charlemagne getting stomped by 5-10x weaker and multiple times smaller saxons because he keeps sending his levies one by one on theoderic's stack of doom
(actually it's theoderics pile of useless crap, but for 8th century tribes works fine)
and ends up being defeated by a <3k tribal li guy with a >15k serious army

He gets devastated more by the attrition and pagan defense bonus rather than by sending small stacks.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

a simple thing you'll quickly learn about Crusader Kings II: The AI is incompetant. I've seen the AI drag out wars that should last a few months several years because they can't decide whether or not they want to attack or siege. One time as Ireland, I had allied a blobbed West Francia, I had conquered Scotland when Sjaeland declared war for it, I called in Francia as a ally, and they did pretty well, they shipped a 5000+ army into Scotland and beat back the Sjjaelenders, but then he procceded to put said army in Sjjaellend and lose it to attrition when he logically just should have stayed in Ireland/scotland, I ended up losing Scotland BTW.

TL;DR: The AI's stupid don't rely on it's help.

[Dragonrubi]

Look guys when the AI calls me I do it usually for not losing prestige but I usually don’t care a bit about my ally unless then I have something to win easily. If they win or lose not my concern.

The same can apply in the other way around:

So perhaps the AI is actually “smart” and not so “stupid” as you claim, why they should help you if you are losing badly?

Besides that also happen in real life allies can be so stupid:
For example in WWI (even with modern communications) ask to the Germans about Austro-Hungarians that were more a burden than help, or many screw ups between French and Brits. with their “coordinate” attacks
Imagie in the middle age

Originally posted by Squizznar:

TL;DR: The AI's stupid don't rely on it's help.

I am not sure if I agree with the Stupid part but we TOTALLY agree in not rely in their help.

Perhaps if you are small and have a very big “boy ally” may be quite useful if it’s a steam roller even with the AI limitations

But WARNING I learned in the hard way that marrying a daughter to ally with a "big boy" one or 2 generations later may cause that the same big boy may declare war on you to press a claim of a subject over your entire kingdom

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by dragonrubi:

Look guys when the AI calls me I do it usually for not losing prestige but I usually don’t care a bit about my ally unless then I have something to win easily. If they win or lose not my concern.

The same can apply in the other way around:

So perhaps the AI is actually “smart” and not so “stupid” as you claim, why they should help you if you are losing badly?

Besides that also happen in real life allies can be so stupid:
For example in WWI (even with modern communications) ask to the Germans about Austro-Hungarians that were more a burden than help, or many screw ups between French and Brits. with their “coordinate” attacks
Imagie in the middle age

That's one theory, and then there's just the developers programmed ♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI. Which is far more likely.

[Dragonrubi]

Originally posted by Squizznar:

Originally posted by dragonrubi:

Look guys when the AI calls me I do it usually for not losing prestige but I usually don’t care a bit about my ally unless then I have something to win easily. If they win or lose not my concern.

The same can apply in the other way around:

So perhaps the AI is actually “smart” and not so “stupid” as you claim, why they should help you if you are losing badly?

Besides that also happen in real life allies can be so stupid:
For example in WWI (even with modern communications) ask to the Germans about Austro-Hungarians that were more a burden than help, or many screw ups between French and Brits. with their “coordinate” attacks
Imagie in the middle age

That's one theory, and then there's just the developers programmed ♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI. Which is far more likely.

How do you dare >:( it’s not a theory? >:( it’s called fanboy apology :P

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by dragonrubi:

Originally posted by Squizznar:

That's one theory, and then there's just the developers programmed ♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI. Which is far more likely.

How do you dare >:( it’s not a theory? >:( it’s called fanboy apology :P

That's one way of looking at it, lol.

[Ride4Ruin]

Well, I got what I asked for, and it turned out to be absolutely terrible.

My AI "ally" waited until a big battle was in progress, jumped in with a force of a hundred or so guys, and replaced the center commander (martial skill 25, inspiring leader) with a martial skill 2 commander. They promptly folded and took my entire army down with them.

And yet you people defend this type of stuff? Ridiculous. Maybe this is why there are such obvious problems that are just left completely unfixed. No one is willing to admit that there even are problems.

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by Ride4Ruin:

Well, I got what I asked for, and it turned out to be absolutely terrible.

My AI "ally" waited until a big battle was in progress, jumped in with a force of a hundred or so guys, and replaced the center commander (martial skill 25, inspiring leader) with a martial skill 2 commander. They promptly folded and took my entire army down with them.

And yet you people defend this type of stuff? Ridiculous. Maybe this is why there are such obvious problems that are just left completely unfixed. No one is willing to admit that there even are problems.

Well I just acknowledged the problem, so you can't say no one is.

[Jirki88]

Well, I can sure see why you think this stuff sucks badly, but at the same time I can't but feel that maybe this is very representative of the feudal ages with greedy, proud feudal lords that rather look to their own (often stupid) interests than their allies...

[Daddy ♥♥♥ Cannon]

Originally posted by Jirki88:

Well, I can sure see why you think this stuff sucks badly, but at the same time I can't but feel that maybe this is very representative of the feudal ages with greedy, proud feudal lords that rather look to their own (often stupid) interests than their allies... :ambition:

The apologist is strong in this one.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game just as much as anybody else, but I also know it has its problems.

[Jimbo]

I too, have noticed that my allies do not always join up with my forces when they have no other enemies to fight, so I do see a bit of a problem here as I think the developers should fix or at least look into it.

Remember though, make sure your allies are not fighting any other wars before you call them in, or not you will be lucky if they'll ever show up to help you.

[Jonocat25]

To my knowledge, the best way to avoid the whole fractured levies problem is to get a holy order/mercanary company as an ally. They rarely split into smaller forces