Bugs still ingame

[ByBurton]

I just felt like doing a list of bugs / quirky stuff I still know are a problem ingame, and I will list all I remember from the top of my head here.

• [ ] European bowmen won't set pitch alight
• [x] AI will not erase tower ruins
• [x] AI will not build more than 3 tower mangonels / ballistae or trebuchets / Fire ballistae
• [ ] Wolf won't man his towers with Arabic Bowmen
• [x] AI erases stables if they are not accessible
• [x] AI deletes all buildings outside its castle if not accessible (gate closed) sometimes.
• [x] Abbot and Emir do not buy bows
• [x] AI sets their bakeries to sleep if no flour is present in the stockpile. Even though some are still producing bread. Same with any weapon production or mills, or breweries and inns.
• [ ] Rat is too bad :( Please buff my poor ratty :(

I wanted to add, that I am royally impressed with your accomplishments, and I could not wait for the next update, so I installed Visual Studio and compiled it myself ;)

Edit: Maybe I will also add a few things I feel like mentioning:

• [x] The AI should put more units on their towers / walls (I am looking at you, Rat, Richard)
• [ ] The Rat should build a few more apple farms, or something, so he can actually earn some money. Would go a long way. I think the Rat is just a little too weak...
• [ ] The Sultan should rebuild firethrowers. And also have some defensive archers next to his attacking ones.
• [ ] Some AI opponents should have the number for attacker for their first attack set to something higher, because they attack very late anyways (Wolf for example)

Edit2: Another bug:

• [ ] The AI sometimes attacks the stockpiles for stone next to a quarry. And these sometimes stay, even if the corresponding quarry was destroyed.

[Heroesflorian]

The AI should put more units on their towers / walls (I am looking at you, Rat, Richard)

Not to forget everyone's favourite, King Phillip! :D

The Sultan should rebuild firethrowers.

Oh yes! And also Saladin and some others who seem to slack in that regard...

Wolf won't man his towers with Arabic Bowmen

Similarly, Caliph also doesn't use slingers atop his walls. And possibly there's even more such cases hidden in the AIV files.

AI will not build more than 3 tower mangonels / ballistae or trebuchets / Fire ballistae

While I definitely agree it's a bit sad that one couldn't even make Richard-style square castle with all mangonels/ballista with the limit of 3, I would guess an AI castle with 5 tower ballistae would be OP and they capped it at 3 due to that, considering that most AI characters do not make a lot of siege engines for their attacks either. Hence, I personally feel those two things should be changed "together", if possible.

[ByBurton]

While I definitely agree it's a bit sad that one couldn't even make Richard-style square castle with all mangonels/ballista with the limit of 3, I would guess an AI castle with 5 tower ballistae would be OP and they capped it at 3 due to that, considering that most AI characters do not make a lot of siege engines for their attacks either. Hence, I personally feel those two things should be changed "together", if possible.

Yes, it would make enemies stronger, but if we address their weak attacks, by strengthening their manpower, we can also strengthen the defences. Also, most aiv's show 4 siege engines / tower engines, which makes sense, because of mirroring. It just looks stupid seeing e.g. Wolf8.aiv with two fire ballistae on the right tower, but only one on the left....

[Heroesflorian]

Yes, it would make enemies stronger, but if we address their weak attacks, by strengthening their manpower, we can also strengthen the defences. Also, most aiv's show 4 siege engines / tower engines, which makes sense, because of mirroring. It just looks stupid seeing e.g. Wolf8.aiv with two fire ballistae on the right tower, but only one on the left....

Yep.

--

Also, regarding the "known bugs" list... I got some more ones to add to that:

• [x] AI deletes some or all buildings even INSIDE its castle despite being accessible (no gate, walls or other obstacles between keep, campfire and affected buildings) sometimes. (Note: Whenever buildings inside/outside the castle are deleted by bug, the AI does not get back any resources, which adds to the severity!)

• [x] When the AI deletes engineers guild, tunnelors guild or oil smelter buildings "by bug" or due to inaccessability, those buildings do not get fully removed, but have their frontyards remain in the game forever, preventing them from replacing those buildings again, which can severely cripple them for the entire game. (One notable exception to the crippling effect of this bug are intentionally-obstructed oil smelters as the AI will then keep the 10 iron for rebuilding them in stockpile at all times despite not being able to actually rebuild them, which works great as a workaround for the stupid (iron) purchase behaviour to ensure ongoing production of iron weapons/armour, which in turn can greatly strengthen The Marshal in particular.)

• [ ] AI instantly "disappears" all soldiers, workers and peasants inside and outside the castle, including those stationed on towers, etc. for no apparent reason sometimes. This does sometimes (but not always?) include tower-mounted siege engines as well, but strangely enough spares ground-based siege engines. Accessibility, unit limits, popularity, fire, plague, opponent attacks, lions and finances are all unrelated to this behaviour (yes, this is a really mysterious and scary one!). Peculiarly enough, this seems to occur mostly either in the starting phase of the game before any "hostilities" have been exchanged yet, or in the late game, striking an AI who is very close to dealing the finishing blow to its opponent, while besieging said opponent. Moreover, sometimes this unit despawning bug does not only occur "one-shot", but persist over some period of time, causing any newly appearing peasants and newly built tower siege engines to despawn again after a moment. In such situations, saving the game and loading the saved game seems to clear this bugged state.

• [ ] AI do at some (random?) point during the game stop creating "harassment siege engines" ("Störkatapulte" et al.), which can drastically reduce their total offensive power for the rest of the game as they lose the ability to put constant pressure on their opponents without those siege engines outside of major attacks. (Note: Possibly, saving and reloading can re-enable creation of harassment siege engines. At least this re-enabling has been observed once after saving and reloading to remedy from the disappearing units bug above.)

• [ ] When the AI loses a quarry, upon rebuilding that quarry a new ox tether will be placed - independent of whether or not the previous ox tether(s) were destroyed or not. This results in pretty absurd amounts of ox tethers when quarries get destroyed repeatedly, which can cause the AI to run out of houses/peasants... uargh... Generally, placing an additional house "somewhere", when needed, might be a useful addition to the AI in many situations.

• [ ] The AI often assigns (few/single) newly recruited units to an existing group of "harassment troops" (e.g. Marshal's knights, Abbot's monks, Sheriff's macemen...). Even when the group and the single new unit are on opposite sides of the map, the whole group will wait in place until the new group member will arrive at their current target location, instead of attacking hostile troops or buildings in the meantime. This can very well result in the entire group of harassment units dying by the time the single new troop arrives at their location (or dies on the way).

• [ ] When removing engineers from a siege engine while being at or above the per-player military troop limit (possibly in combination with hitting the global unit limit?), those engineers often either disappear or turn into hostile workers or soldiers.

[MaCl00]

And all ranged units seem to miss when aiming at a unit which is moving through bog (Pech).

[MaCl00]

AI deletes all buildings outside its castle if not accessible (gate closed) sometimes.

This happens especially when the AI is using drawbridges: Every time they are opened, the AI treats the drawbridge as moat and thinks that all the outer buildings are not accessible and deletes them. This only happens if there is no other exit and if there is moat left and right from the bridge. Best example frederick 1.aiv is effected by the bug while frederick 4.aiv isn't. When there are 2 drawbridges it usually doesn't happen because they don't open at the exact same moment (for example fredrick 2.aiv).

[PitchNeeded]

Another think you could possibly call a bug: AI raiding parties (such as Phillip, Frederick and Marshall's knights, Emir's Arabian swordsmen and Wazir's horse archers etc.) don't attack at all a player if their industries are all behind a wall. Not sure if it needs to be fixed with Emir and Wazir as they tend to send more siege forces instead which can actually be a good thing for them (although if there is already an Emir siege going on it would be great if it could be made so that Emir's Arabian swordsmen raiders would be sent to help his siege Arabian swordsmen in attacking the walls or if there is a Wazir siege going on that Wazir's raiding horse archers would be sent to join his siege horse archers), but for Phillip and Marshall whose strength is mostly based on their raiding parties of knights, it would be good if their raiding parties could specifically be sent to attack walls if there are no other targets.

[Panbutt]

I would like to add to this, some AI bugs I've noticed with Phillip, Rat, Pig and Richard.

-Phillip will never re-train tower crew archers that have been killed. -Rat, Pig and Richard are the only Lords that do not build moats, despite that they have tons of moat-digging units. -Pig builds one Pitch Rig, however never uses pitch and sells the pitch immediately when gathered. Allowing him to hang into at least 5 pitch before selling would allow him to use Oil Smelters effectively. It would also let him use defensive pitch as well. Pig is all about brutality, it makes sense for him to use boiling oil. -Pig will never sell food. Some of his AIVs have 2 granaries which means he can stockpile up to 500 cheese. Allowing him to sell food would give him a good economic boost.

I also want to say thank you for the community patch, it has pumped new life into Crusader and I love all the changes made so far <3.

[PitchNeeded]

I also want to say thank you for the community patch, it has pumped new life into Crusader and I love all the changes made so far <3.

Indeed it is brilliant! Already it has made some of the AI lords more difficult to beat, and I am sure the unit balancing would be good for multiplayer too, I haven't tried this patch in multiplayer yet though.

Two things: I think the marketplace should possibly be made free (or maybe cost them 5 gold instead of 5 wood) for AI's , as it is very hard for them to recover if their market is destroyed by an enemy and they have no wood left.

-Phillip will never re-train tower crew archers that have been killed.

I think (even with the Emir buying in bows now because of this patch) from what I have seen there is still a problem with Emir manning his towers with European archers if he is not attacking someone with a moat.

[PitchNeeded]

-Pig will never sell food. Some of his AIVs have 2 granaries which means he can stockpile up to 500 cheese. Allowing him to sell food would give him a good economic boost.

I wondered why Pig often seems to have so much cheese in his granary! Thanks for solving this mystery! Allowing him to sell food would be excellent for his economy. It means he would only need one granary too, so one of his granaries also could be removed and replaced with a fletchers workshop in the vanilla aiv patch!

[Heroesflorian]

-Pig builds one Pitch Rig, however never uses pitch and sells the pitch immediately when gathered. Allowing him to hang into at least 5 pitch before selling would allow him to use Oil Smelters effectively. It would also let him use defensive pitch as well. Pig is all about brutality, it makes sense for him to use boiling oil.

Speaking of that, some other AIs could profit from a change to that behaviour as well...

-Pig will never sell food. Some of his AIVs have 2 granaries which means he can stockpile up to 500 cheese. Allowing him to sell food would give him a good economic boost.

I think it would sell food at some point... possibly would require 3rd granary, though? (Similar to Frederick who requires 3 armouries to make sure it doesn't fill up completely before he starts selling weapons.)

This happens especially when the AI is using drawbridges: Every time they are opened, the AI treats the drawbridge as moat and thinks that all the outer buildings are not accessible and deletes them. This only happens if there is no other exit and if there is moat left and right from the bridge. Best example frederick 1.aiv is effected by the bug while frederick 4.aiv isn't. When there are 2 drawbridges it usually doesn't happen because they don't open at the exact same moment (for example fredrick 2.aiv).

Regarding the drawbridge bug... actually this issue also can regularly be seen in action on wolf6.aiv, if an enemy manages to get close enough to close the back-facing gatehouse with drawbridge. But, and this is what surprises me still, this does not occur every single time the gate with drawbridge closes (or rather, reopens), only sometimes. It seems to vary greatly in frequency even between multiple runs of an identical matchup.

[MaCl00]

It seems to vary greatly in frequency even between multiple runs of an identical matchup.

Yes I noticed the same thing. But I start to get the feeling that it happens more often with the mod on "high-speed" (eg 200+)...

[brooklynzsmac]

Sultan doesn't produce any food.

[PitchNeeded]

Sultan doesn't produce any food.

I wouldn't really call that a bug, its just part of his character, and kind of works for Sultan as he has a low population so any food he buys isn't eaten that quickly, and also he can focus on just defending his quarries which he does rather well (although he could do with sending a few more Arabian swordsmen to defend them), rather than having to defend lots of farms too.

I think therefore Sultan would benefit more from another quarry than farms for food but a few hops farms, an inn and a brewery would be good for Sultan I think. An inn is good for a low population character like Sultan, would look nice in Sultan's vanilla castle and would also fit with his party-loving personality.

[Lolasik011]

Same bug... Pig.

[ByBurton]

Poor piggy :(

[PitchNeeded]

Poor piggy :(

Indeed. I never knew about this bug and so it was a mystery and rather frustrating when occasionally during a skirmish match a certain AI would completely stop recruiting troops and start accumulating loads of gold instead.

[Lolasik011]

Is it possible to fix it ?

[Sh0wdown]

Is it possible to fix it ?

If you are referring to the ox tether spam, that will be fixed in the next release.

[Heroesflorian]

If you are referring to the ox tether spam, that will be fixed in the next release.

That sounds great!

[Lolasik011]

That sounds great! Wait next patch ^_^

[PitchNeeded]

Another bug that I noticed:

Often an AI's last stand defence mode (where they send a message expressing their worry about the attack, sleep all their buildings and try to recruit troops) isn't triggered by macemen, even when an overwhelming number of macemen attack them and are outside their castle attacking walls/towers for a while before they kill them. I have noticed this with Emir, Richard and Wazir, they often don't seem to react when I attack one of their towers with loads of macemen to get into the castle.

[TheSnowyChickens]

Question: Is it possible for you to fix graphic bugs? Like:

• "The Wall in the Gate/Tower"
• "The Stone (the highest Stone) (from Quarries, in the little stockpile) half chopped off, because the Quarry himself" (can't upload a picture, because windows ....)

• "The 1 block bigger hitbox from Apple farms" (in the under construction preview) (can't upload a picture, because windows ....)

or this STUPID flickering, between Stronghold and the desktop...

[PitchNeeded]

Two more bugs:

1. AI raiding troops sometimes wait in the field, or wait on aggressive mode, for new reinforcements to come rather than moving to their next target.
2. AI mangonels fire at deceased lord statues

[AdmiralRigby]

One important bug: Fire ballistas don't attack monks on their own. Even when given the command to attack a monk, they won't attack others after the selected one has fallen.

[PitchNeeded]

Also from my own observations, mangonels cannot seem to do any damage to fire ballistas.

[ByBurton]

One important bug: Fire ballistas don't attack monks on their own. Even when given the command to attack a monk, they won't attack others after the selected one has fallen.

They also do not attack the Lord.

[Heroesflorian]

@PitchNeeded mangonels can deal damage to fire ballistae though. They are not particularly accurate, but they fire at hostile ballistae in range, and when the rocks hit, they properly deal damage. But yeah, they're not particularly great weapons against single/few units in general, due to their bad accuracy, they're more of a crowd control weapon.

[Sh0wdown]

Closing this as most of them are fixed or fixable through AIC edits. If I missed something please create a new issue with one problem per issue.