Campaign madness

[cranston]

I started Imjim on Daimyo and the AI is driving me to madness.

The first thing they do is consolidate their armies into one giant stack, supply be d***ed.
So I consolidate as well to match them.
And then we play cat and mouse.
They move into one of my provinces, I move after them, they flee. Rinse repeat.

Then a couple of times the AI had 2 army stacks in one province.
The bigger one fled from me, but the smaller stayed unmolested.
During the AIs turn, the small stack evacuated.
Deeper into my territories.

Another instance, I attacked an isolated territory.
The AI army stack there fled.
Into one of my territories.

I reloaded.
Split my army by taking out 2 units, and garrisoning them one each in each of my territories adjoining the enemy territory.
Attacked again.
AI army fled again.
Into one of my other territories.
Battle started, but because I only had 3 units on map, I refused to attack.
Battle ended with no casualties on either side.
My loss. WTH?! I thought I'm the defender?!

Another crazy thing which happened once.
I attacked a territory, and the defenders fled, into the territory I launched from...
There must be some kind of mad genius general leading their army...

On an unrelated note, can someone suggest how I should fight against an army with 12 units of light cavalry?
A Sengoku infantry square is plain ridiculous.
All that accomplishes is my infantry standing still and taking punishment and/or shooting at each other.
Any way to pin light cavalry in place?

[rbodleyscott]

With regard to the campaign issues, there is a section on campaign strategy in the manual.

I would also note that while the AI sometimes ignores supply issues, it does suffer the consequences of supply shortages, and it is usually not wise to ignore supply issues in an attempt to match it. When the AI builds a doom-stack, your best strategy is guerilla warfare. If you attack two of his provinces, preferably as far apart as possible, with half of your main field army against each, his doom-stack can only drive one of your armies out, and there will be a chance each turn that your other army will capture his province. All the while, if his doom-stack is above the supply limit, he will be suffering attrition.

Rinse, repeat.

Then a couple of times the AI had 2 army stacks in one province.
The bigger one fled from me, but the smaller stayed unmolested.

This would be a bug. If it happens again, please could you take a screenshot.

Battle started, but because I only had 3 units on map, I refused to attack.
Battle ended with no casualties on either side.
My loss. WTH?! I thought I'm the defender?!

We will look into this issue for update 1.2.9.

[jack54]

I attacked a territory, and the defenders fled, into the territory I launched from...

Aside from the treasury occasionally auto spending all of my tax revenue this is the only issue I have with the Game. I imagine if the army is considerably smaller it could happen.

[rbodleyscott]

I attacked a territory, and the defenders fled, into the territory I launched from...

Aside from the treasury occasionally auto spending all of my tax revenue this is the only issue I have with the Game. I imagine if the army is considerably smaller it could happen.

The provinces are quite large. It is unlikely there would not be more than one route between the two.

[cranston]

I attacked a territory, and the defenders fled, into the territory I launched from...

Aside from the treasury occasionally auto spending all of my tax revenue this is the only issue I have with the Game. I imagine if the army is considerably smaller it could happen.

The provinces are quite large. It is unlikely there would not be more than one route between the two.

That is true, but realistically, the reason why it doesn't happen is the lack of logistics.
A fleeing army is one without a logistics train and be forced to live off the land.
Also have to remember that they are being pursued.
Under these circumstances, it should not possible to maintain a coherent army.
Certainly not one large and organised enough to beseige the garrisons.

[rbodleyscott]

The provinces are quite large. It is unlikely there would not be more than one route between the two.

That is true, but realistically, the reason why it doesn't happen is the lack of logistics.
A fleeing army is one without a logistics train and be forced to live off the land.
Also have to remember that they are being pursued.
Under these circumstances, it should not possible to maintain a coherent army.
Certainly not one large and organised enough to beseige the garrisons.

You have a point, although the army concerned was not fleeing, it was merely retreating to avoid battle. And as well as the provinces being quite large, each turn represents about 6 weeks.

However, certainly an army that is forced to retreat into the province the enemy came from should suffer some additional penalty, even if only extra attrition.

[cranston]

Why isn't the japanese force above suffering short supply?
I've only just moved to patch 1.28, and I've not noticed this happening before.

[rbodleyscott]

Why isn't the japanese force above suffering short supply?
I've only just moved to patch 1.28, and I've not noticed this happening before.

It probably is suffering Supply Shortage,but that does not get reported to you in the tooltip - your staff do not have direct access to this information. The tooltip only shows when your own troops are out of supply.

In the campaign log, however, you will see the enemy lose men due to shortage of supply at the end of the turn.

However, note also that Supply is not just from the province but also from adjacent friendly provinces. As they have 3 adjacent provinces, but you only have 2, their supply limit will be higher in that province than yours. (The AI side also get slightly more supply to allow for the difficulty level force ratios, otherwise the AI would be out of supply more easily than the player).

[cranston]

I'm not sure now, but I think I could see the AI's supply shortage status in the past.

Whatever the case, the following 2 pics show that japanese forces are not suffering attrition.

[rbodleyscott]

I'm not sure now, but I think I could see the AI's supply shortage status in the past.

Only in the log.

Whatever the case, the following 2 pics show that japanese forces are not suffering attrition.

Supply limits are working as intended. We have checked them thoroughly again over the weekend.

You are working on incomplete information - as is normal in warfare - which makes it seem that the AI is getting a "free lunch" when in fact it isn't.

In addition to the supply limits being different for each side in each province for the reasons stated above, and the AI getting a moderate supply bonus proportionate to the relative overall size of forces set by the difficulty level, your scouting estimates of the enemy army may be overestimating their strength by up to 33%.

For the next game we will report enemy armies being out of supply in the tooltip. It is isn't strictly realistic to do so, because it is giving away more information than your staff would always have, but it will help to stop players worrying that the AI is immune to supply issues. It isn't.

What difficulty level are you playing at? All other things being equal, on Samurai level the AI will have a 25% lower supply limit than you, on Busho 10% lower, on Taisho 5% higher, Daimyo 18% higher, Shogun 34% higher and Tenryu 50% higher. These ratios correspond to the relative overall force sizes at these difficulty levels - the intention is that both sides should have equal difficulty with supplies relative to their overall force size. There would not be much point in the AI having larger forces on higher difficulty levels if it could not bring them to bear due to the supply limits.

It isn't historically unrealistic that one side's commissary should be more efficient than the other's. In this case the relative efficiency depends on the difficulty level set.

[cranston]

I think I see. I'm either playing Daimyo or Shogun.
It's probably mainly my intel overestimating their strength.
Just an update: A couple of turns later, Hanyang fell while I took Choongju and the japanese indeed suffered attrition in that turn.

Thanks for looking into it.