[p][/p][p]The way our AI handles unit recruitment occurs over several distinct steps.
[/p][p]One of those steps is selecting a list of units to recruit into a specific force, with the goal of acquiring the necessary strength to perform a task.
[/p][p]When the AI is mapping out its shopping list of units that it wants to recruit, unit caps are not currently taken into consideration in a proper fashion. This results in the recruitment action failing as soon as a unit's cap is exceeded.
[/p][p]Recruitment action failure then occurs. Should the AI decide that its next task should be to attack a settlement, it’s generating a recruitment action and then expecting an increase in force strength to a level where it feels the settlement garrison that it's targeted for attack can be defeated. Without the unit recruitment task’s successful resolution, it holds up the subsequent task and leaves the AI in a paralyzed state. It’s a cascade of failures that result in certain factions failing to complete any aggressive actions whatsoever.
[/p][p]In order to be efficient in how resources are allocated and spent, the AI relies heavily on several beliefs around the current state of the game world.
[/p][p]Some examples of these assumptions are things like:[/p]
- [p]Cheapest unit that can be recruited anywhere in the faction[/p][/*]
- [p]Strongest unit that can be recruited anywhere[/p][/*]
- [p]Most cost-efficient unit (best cost to strength ratio)[/p][/*]
- [p]Estimated number of turns to reach the recruitment location of the strongest/cheaper unit[/p][/*]
Any mistakes when constructing these assumptions has been found to lead to a catastrophic failure in many of our AI systems.[/p][p]
If the AI believes a unit is free and provides any meaningful strength increase it will not allocate any resources to buy units – it wrongly believes it can fill its armies with powerful units for free and so will pursue that option and trigger a failure cascade.[/p][p]
If the cost of a unit is not properly evaluated, the AI finds itself in situations where it has budgeted some money that ultimately ends up being insufficient, causing overspending and running them into an irrecoverable, or very slow to pay off debt.[/p][p]
This is where pooled resources come into play – the AI’s ability to understand, plan and budget pooled resources is not ideal. Lately, AI has not been factoring in pooled resource to its costs properly, leading to incorrect beliefs about what it can and cannot afford, resulting in action failure.[/p][p]
These past weeks of investigation have shown to us that the majority of our internal systems were unprepared for actions that ostensibly could not fail, to fail. The cascading effect led to all sorts of problems – the AI couldn’t change stances properly, attacking on the campaign failed, recruitment failed, laying siege failed, and so on.[/p][p]
We’ve identified and resolved the leading causes for such failures, but it’s very likely there are other cases we are not yet aware of just yet. Resolving the immediately known causes of this problem is helping us to remove any denser levels of fog that may be obscuring other possible causes, and as they become known to us, we’ll resolve those too.
[/p][p]As it stands today, there are around 200 different pooled resources in the game and they are used in a large variety of ways. For us to be absolutely certain that everything is properly accounted for is a daunting task, but we will continue working on identifying and resolving any issues in the future, and will not deploy this Hotfix without careful monitoring of the effect it has, and will continue to stay committed to bringing more improvements as necessary.[/p][p][/p][p]— Radoslav Borisov // Lead Technical Designer[/p][p][/p]
[p][/p][p]News on Tides of Torment will take a back seat until we’ve resolved this issue. We’re looking forward to giving you your first complete look at this next DLC, but fixing this comes first.
[/p][p]In closing, please accept our apologies for the experience that you’re currently having with the game. I’ll be active across our different community spaces helping to keep you informed on our progress as we move towards the release of Hotfix 6.3.2.[/p][p][/p][p]— Freeman // Head of Community[/p][p][/p][p]SteamXFacebookInstagramDiscordBluesky[/p]