The AI and the Vortex

[Floppy]

So I was wondering if the AI is actually supposed to have a shot at completing the vortex. In my VH/H campaign as Lothern they constantly fail at the 3rd or 4th ritual, even without my intervention.

I´ve now started the 4th ritual and if the AI has to deal with the same armies I have to, I can kinda see why. I got 3 chaos stacks full of gold chevron chosen, chaos knights and some monsters and two skaven armies with gold chevron, whatever they got. No idea how an AI is gonna stop that.

As for me. My ritual sites are Glaen Vale, Hoeth and Lothern. So ofc the enemies spawned in Northern Yvresse, all the way across the mountains (I hate Ulthuan). I guess I´ll meet them half way while the raze their way through Northern and Southern Yvresse towards Lothern....

Anyways, don´t see how the AI isn´t supposed to be totally trashcanned by that. Unless they get easier stacks ofc (which would be fine by me).
In my campaign at least they can´t get the rituals done anymore. Skaven are down to a very weak Clan Rictus. DE got Morathi left (and I thing Hellebron sits on one settlement somewhere), while Kathep sits in Naggarond. The Defenders have roughly the south half of the Southlands, minus the south west which is occupied by high elfs.

No idea whether their neighbours got them so bad or the rituals weakened them so much, that they couldn´t hold their borders anymore.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Well they used to have auto-resolve bonuses so that probably took care of the chaos armies. But now...

[Floppy]

Yeah removing those bonuses didn´t seem to smart an idea in regards to the vortex campaign.

Fine for the more sand boxy ME, although even there I´d like the canonically more prominent factions being more powerful for proper Warhammer vibe, but the whole premise of the vortex campaign kinda hinges on the main factions being powerful than other factions because they gotta deal with the chaos armies and interventions on top of everything else.

Good economy and confederation potential doesn´t seem to do the trick.

Maybe strong main factions should be an option at the start of the campaign. Similar to how you can decide between playing with historical AI or turning it of in paradoxs' Hearts of Iron 4.

I´m still gonna finish the campaign because I want to see the High Elf ending and because staving off the chaos armies is still entertaining. But at this point I practically can´t lose the race for vortex control anymore, despite never having actively waged war on the other main factions which is a bit disappointing.

[cybvep]

The AI progress varies. During my last Lizardmen Vortex campaign, the Dark Elves didn't have any problems with their rituals, but the Skaven struggled a lot and the High Elves weren't doing very good, either.

After the patch, sending intervention armies makes sense now, which is good. Waagh and brayherds armies seem to be doing better as well. I wouldn't want the CA to revert the changes, but maybe the power of ritual Chaos/Skaven/Norscan stacks can be tweaked for AI factions.

BTW the Chaos stacks spawned by rituals are harder to beat and more fun to fight than the Chaos invasion stacks in ME. THAT is something that definitely needs tweaking.

[Mojo Amok]

I've only played the post-Doomsayer patch Vortex with SFO/Grimmhamer, but there were definitely issues with the main AI factions getting skewered by this or that and being dysfunctional with the rituals. I don't even know if it was the interdiction forces or if they had just been floundering before then, but two factions actually failed the first ritual. I doubt they were going to get up off the canvas after that.

In the same playthrough, I also had the opportunity to 'colonize' a province near Malekith from a (modded) Skaven event around turn 50 and saw that his realm was in complete shambles. It looked like he might have only had Nagaroth, though I can't be sure.

As noted, this was an overhaul mod, but I suspect Vanilla at least can work similarly.