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Oh wow, I stand corrected. This is depressing: not a single country in the world views me (Venice) as a friend. Not even vassals that I have 200 relations with. Even countries Venice THINKS its friends with (when I loaded as a different country) don't have me as a friend. In fact, most have me at Threat Level 400 (which I presume is the maximum threat level possible, since I didn't see anything higher). While I can't say I'm totally surprised (I haven't been able to make an alliance with anyone other than countries I release)... I still feel bummed that the world hates me. I mean, it's not like I'm on a world conquest mission. I'm a trade-focused nation. Hell, why can't people treat me like Aragon or Castille, who everyone seems to love? :(
Well, the world is just comming out of the medieval age. Doing business on a big scale was viewed as a pretty sinful thing, I think. And then there's the fact that your country isn't just the only Trade League with Conquest-focused missions and directly responsible for the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire in the eyes of some.
 
Oh wow, I stand corrected. This is depressing: not a single country in the world views me (Venice) as a friend. Not even vassals that I have 200 relations with. Even countries Venice THINKS its friends with (when I loaded as a different country) don't have me as a friend. In fact, most have me at Threat Level 400 (which I presume is the maximum threat level possible, since I didn't see anything higher). While I can't say I'm totally surprised (I haven't been able to make an alliance with anyone other than countries I release)... I still feel bummed that the world hates me. I mean, it's not like I'm on a world conquest mission. I'm a trade-focused nation. Hell, why can't people treat me like Aragon or Castille, who everyone seems to love? :(
Relations and Trust also effect AI behaviour. Befriend is just for nations the IA wants to have as an ally. You can have Relations 200, Trust 100 (utterly), and a threat level of 400.
 
Relations and Trust also effect AI behaviour. Befriend is just for nations the IA wants to have as an ally. You can have Relations 200, Trust 100 (utterly), and a threat level of 400.

How does trust factor into AI behaviour? I've always been curious about that element of the game.
 
How does trust factor into AI behaviour? I've always been curious about that element of the game.

Me too. it seems to me that the higher the monarch's diplomatic skills the less important trust factor is. Especially if you use SOI too boost up rulers skills.

Edit:

EU3 Wiki said:
Trust is an important factor in AI calculations. The more an AI nation trusts the player, the more likely it is to follow him into war.
 
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From the In Nomine Manual: "Trust is different from relation
and reputation, as you may have very good relations currently and have a very fine
reputation, but some particular country may not trust you at all, since you have been
dishonouring alliances, breaking truces with them or similar things."

From the Divine Wind ReadMe: Legitimacy & Trust now affects voting in the HRE.

Like others said, it also has to do with following into war, call to arms, and choosing sides in a war. I've also found that when offering Loans, the IA is more likely to pay back loans to people they trust more.
Trust also deals with Personal Unions; see this link.
Diplo-Annexation also deals with Trust to some extent.

It would be nice to have an idea on how Trust effects the game.
 
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I used to think long time ago that AI did some stuff purely out of spite, like human would, but thats just wrong. With the AI, there is nothing personal, if it attacks you its because somewhere in its code you did something that activated couple of flags changing the equation just over certain value triggering the declaration of war.

One of the most frustrating things is when you treat the AI as human, for example, youre allied with an AI for decades, come to its wars every time, and then when you attack someone, it doesnt come to help, breaking the alliance. The thing is, the AI probably calculated your size, compared it to its size, checked if there are any provinces it wants held by you, and concluded that youre its natural rival, so its not in its interest (long term) to help you.
Too bad for the AI, I do hold a spite then :D
 
I don't think that Paradox will ever release information about their AI. Every company has something that gives it an edge. Paradox has good AI. If Paradox released its AI competitors would pop up and Paradox would lose market share. They wouldn't be able to copy Paradox's AI but they would see what mix of techniques Paradox is using. It would give competitors confidence "oh Paradox is simply doing X, Y, and Z, I can to that".
 
I don't think that Paradox will ever release information about their AI. Every company has something that gives it an edge. Paradox has good AI. If Paradox released its AI competitors would pop up and Paradox would lose market share. They wouldn't be able to copy Paradox's AI but they would see what mix of techniques Paradox is using. It would give competitors confidence "oh Paradox is simply doing X, Y, and Z, I can to that".

I'm not sure if you're serious.
 
Yeah I'm being serious. The AI is no where as good as a human, but it is much better than one would expect given such a complicated game. A small team could easily make a grand strategy game almost as good as EU3 except that the AI would be much worse. Without good AI grand strategy games aren't fun.
 
Wow, guys, this is great stuff, very interesting, thanks.
Yeah EU3's AI seems acceptable. I mean what game would you consider as having a better AI than EU3?
Starcraft, but it's in a different genre so I don't think it counts.

I'd really like to consolidate the information in this thread and have it stickied... this is incredibly useful.
Caban, if I could relinquish control to you, I would. Your best bet is remaking it. I don't want the responsibility
 
I don't think that Paradox will ever release information about their AI.
They probably won't, but it would be nice to know the mechanics of the game. Like how, exactly, Trust works. What causes it to increase or decrease and what does having Trust mean? Most games say: if you have a high x, you can do y or y will happen. Prestige and Infamy are well laid out. If you have a high Prestige or Infamy, the modifiers give you bonuses that you can see. I'd like the same with Relations and Trust.
 
What causes it to increase or decrease

You get a lot of trust from a nation when you accept their calls to war. You get a small amount of trust added when they honour your calls. Similarly refusing to come to war when you are called will decrease trust by a lot. Generally honouring guarantees, alliances and so on will make most nations end up trusting you, regardless of whether or not you are allied to the nation in question. On the other side of the spectrum claiming thrones, dishonouring alliances and so on will make many nations distrust you.

These are the things that come to mind right now that have been mentioned on this forum before, someone may be able to give you a more in depth description.
 
Starcraft, but it's in a different genre so I don't think it counts.

Only problem is, Starcraft I AI cheats like a w**** (gets free amount of resources every time tick) in order to make it even remotely capable of competing with human. Overall its decent, and thats all about it.

But its the same thing with EU3, its AI is decent, it covers all the basis, uses most features available in game, and thats about it. Unlike most other games, however, it does not seem to cheat, as in get the free bonuses (unless you wish to set it up like so). At the same time, from my years long experience of playing EU3, IMHO it does not really excel in anything, until recently, it actually had some quite annoying and exploitable bugs.

As for AI code, im not saying they should release the whole thingy, BUT, most of the people i spoke to, believe that the AI is basically some kind of logic that weighs and compares certain values and then activate predefined responses accordingly. If thats true, then it would be great if we could have some of those values exported into text, or those lua files, and thus made available for modding.

For example, lets assume that part of the AI logic decides when to attack someone. I think its pretty obvious that the AI compares its own unit pool size to target country, its own stability, WE, number or wars etc etc etc, and then decides if it wants to attack or not. So there is probably a number somewhere in there basically saying if A+B+C > D, then declare war (of course its much more complicated than that), but the point is, if it works anything like that, changing those numbers would completely change AI behavior, and some people on this board would be able to create AI mods, now just consider for a second, how frigging awesome it would be to instal different AI packs, finding the one that suits you the best?
 
until recently, it actually had some quite annoying and exploitable bugs.
It still have, even though they have fixed the "1 regiment delaying the whole army-exploit" the naval AI is still extremely lacking. Just the other day I had a small enemy patroll sailing straight into my whole battle fleet that was just standing guard. And the AI still doesn't check if there is a huge battle fleet parked in the sea zone next to the single carrack.

Overall though, the AI is quite capable in the "grand strategy" department. It's the tactical part that is not quite as good.

EDIT: And of course the AI's willingness to chase down the enemies rebels, thereby helping the country they are at war with..
 
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Only problem is, Starcraft I AI cheats like a w**** (gets free amount of resources every time tick) in order to make it even remotely capable of competing with human. Overall its decent, and thats all about it.

Actually the Starcraft AI does not cheat. It often gets accused of cheating though because it is pretty good. The Insane AI does cheat.

Still Starcraft is a very different game from EU3 and knowing more about the SC AI won't help much in creating a grand strategy game. Blizzard is more open about the AI for its games because it doesn't rely on having good AI to make sales. SC makes money by having a story in the single player, and intense competition in the multiplayer. Good AI is important to them, but not key to their revenue. Whereas for Paradox good AI is key to their revenue.