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Why is the AI so far in debt?

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josh127

josh127

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Ok, I get it that the AI goes to wars and overbuilds troops because that's part of how it deals with human players. That's completely acceptable. But then I see this:

2xkQbhK.jpg


What's going on here? To set the scene, it's only 1450. The Ottomans fought Albania, then Byzantium and annexed both. How are they 192 ducats in debt already? These were the typical lulzy wars too, no surprise alliances or anything.

I usually see this after the AI has fought some big wars, and that makes sense. In this case though there hasn't been a big war. In 1457 they've fought another war against the alliance of Dulkadir and Candar taking Dulkadir. I once again check to see if they want to fight the Mamluks with me and they're once again in debt. So, in this scenario I'm not sure why they are staying in debt.

Maybe they're just making a convenient excuse to not join my wars. :p
 
That is an AI behaviour often seen. I guess it's because they spam mercs till their resources are completely exhausted (aka maximum loans) should the war drag on.

They do recover eventually.
 
Nobody has answered OP's question yet. The AI should not be accruing debt against nations it outnumbers 5:1 or more. Being 192 in debt in 1450 as the Ottomans without fighting more than BYZ and Albania is gross idiocy.

So why is the AI doing it? Does it simply always take out heavy loans while at war, ignoring that it's fighting nothing and has a standing army that crushes its target?
 
Heh, yeah - not sure why they feel the need to go into debt for such small wars. I've seen Poland get over a thousand in debt extremely early in wars for Teutonic Order as well.

It's useful, however, for the big wars where you avoid accomplishing the war goal to drag it out (this is where the conquest CB shines). Eventually the AI hits bankruptcy, which is pretty much the death knell for that state. You can assault all their holdings for instant wins, take what you want, and watch them implode from rebels. They won't be able to fund anything in the way of troops, and then the escalating local autonomy comes in, making sure that whatever survives the rebels can't really do anything for the next 50 years.

If they're your allies, and you want them to aid in your offensive wars, send them a bit of coin. It seems like they're scripted to pay off debts first and foremost during peacetime.
 
Can you provide screenshots of the pages in the ledger covering armies and navies size? I just want to see how much they've exceeded their naval forcelimit (they always do for some reason).
 
cleef said:
If you're such a good friend and all why don't you help them pay their debt ?! :D
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Because I want their provinces -200. :p

Seriously though, I find myself doing that in a lot of games, and I can understand it when they've fought real wars. This is strange though because they haven't fought anyone real. They've been at +2 stab each time I checked too. One of my thoughts is maybe they got a horrible event right at the start, perhaps something specific to them. But if they did that, I wouldn't have expected them to declare that next war with Dulkadir.

FrosT37 said:
Can you provide screenshots of the pages in the ledger covering armies and navies size? I just want to see how much they've exceeded their naval forcelimit (they always do for some reason).
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In 1457 they have 84 ships with a 45 force limit (0/14/59/11). They have 40K troops with 37 manpower force limit. If building a zillion galleys is sending them that far in debt, why did it happen? I don't have screenshots of 1450 because I broke my time machine, but I'll assume they had a good number of those at that point as well.
 
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Ive been seeing my AI allies and vassals struggling with massive debt fighting wars...ive been sending france enormous sums to keep them afloat(4k debt isnt too uncommon) They are an insatiable moneysink :)
 
Go to observer mode and turn the aiview on, then hover mouse of AI flag shield and youll get more detailed info / observe what they are up to.
 
FrosT37 said:
Can you provide screenshots of the pages in the ledger covering armies and navies size? I just want to see how much they've exceeded their naval forcelimit (they always do for some reason).
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The AI exceeds its force limits because it is a soft cap, not a hard cap, and competent human players routinely exceed their force limits, so the AI pretty much has to exceed its force limits (since it doesn't get a force limit bonus just for being an AI).

One can, of course, reasonably question the nature of its decisions about how and when it exceeds its force limits, but if you question the fact that it does so at all, I have to question whether you're any good at the game.
 
grommile said:
The AI exceeds its force limits because it is a soft cap, not a hard cap, and competent human players routinely exceed their force limits, so the AI pretty much has to exceed its force limits (since it doesn't get a force limit bonus just for being an AI).

One can, of course, reasonably question the nature of its decisions about how and when it exceeds its force limits, but if you question the fact that it does so at all, I have to question whether you're any good at the game.
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When is really the main question here. I doubt anyone is questioning that the AI should do it at times. If this is all about player trolling in the strait, then it could use some work. Ottomans have far more building capacity than me, and far more income (capacity to go into debt) than I do. I'm not a threat to control the strait on them.

But let's take away the player strait gambit for a second too. It's not necessarily a bad thing for the game that the Ottomans have a big fleet of galleys. When the Iberians inevitably declare on me, I'll appreciate that fleet. Since they're the primary Sunni power in the med (and normally end up that way since Mamluks usually lose) they're the only ones out defending the rest of the Sunni minor powers from invasion. If this is an Ottoman specific situation, it might be one of those things that's the cost of having a useful ally.



Cataphract887 said:
Ive been seeing my AI allies and vassals struggling with massive debt fighting wars...ive been sending france enormous sums to keep them afloat(4k debt isnt too uncommon) They are an insatiable moneysink :)
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It's even worse when the other guy in the MP game is subsidizing France making them a monster while you're invading Europe.. "And I thought we were friends". (Actually he realized it was making things worse for me before I did)
 
Ottomans going into debt for galleys isn't defensible. The threat of a naval blockade destroying them absent dedicated player interference if they spam galleys without significant debt is remote. The debt hampers their progress, monarch point income, and ultimate land army capability to a more damaging extent than a small and almost entirely player-limited tactic does game to game. It's a bad trade, made especially worse because it's quite possible for a player to land-conquer the Ottomans from any direction as well.

When I smashed them with Tunis in sons of Carthage run, I did so with land units and didn't bother with their large navy (and this was pre-AoW navy too). I had out-raced them to Mamluks and could win outright. If they're loaning to load up on galleys gimping their expansion, they're making it easier to do things like "beat them to Mamluks" or "just beat them on land with Golden Horde in the 1400's".
 
grommile said:
The AI exceeds its force limits because it is a soft cap, not a hard cap, and competent human players routinely exceed their force limits, so the AI pretty much has to exceed its force limits (since it doesn't get a force limit bonus just for being an AI).

One can, of course, reasonably question the nature of its decisions about how and when it exceeds its force limits, but if you question the fact that it does so at all, I have to question whether you're any good at the game.
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Diplomacy is not your forte. That's fine, you'll get there.

Nobody is questioning the fact that they can and should go above their forcelimits, provided the right circumstances.
 
TheMeInTeam said:
Ottomans going into debt for galleys isn't defensible. The threat of a naval blockade destroying them absent dedicated player interference if they spam galleys without significant debt is remote. The debt hampers their progress, monarch point income, and ultimate land army capability to a more damaging extent than a small and almost entirely player-limited tactic does game to game. It's a bad trade, made especially worse because it's quite possible for a player to land-conquer the Ottomans from any direction as well.
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The AI tends to try to block key straits too. I think the risk of not being able to hold the strait is quite high. Couple with that the fact that the Ottomans main threats are the Catholics in a situation like Crimea declares on Genoa and the Emperor's Venetian (or Iberian) ally joins in. Genoa + Naples or Venice soloing their navy means 50% of their country goes undefended regardless of how large their land force is.

Sure the player can solo them, but let me pin them in half their country, I'll siege the other half and let the rebels do the rest of the work for me. Of course this is all unique to the Ottomans though (maybe Venice too), so if all countries are doing something like this, there could be a bigger issue. I've never seen it before or seen a discussion about it, so I'm not convinced that it's widespread.
 
Sure the player can solo them, but let me pin them in half their country, I'll siege the other half and let the rebels do the rest of the work for me.
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It's trivial as a player to shove them across the strait and force them to take -2 crossings or not cross, accomplishing the same outcome. It's my more common way of conquering Ottos, since I play ROTW more than Europe.

AI Ottomans getting wrecked by AI Venice at sea would unusual even if it didn't drive itself into debt...certainly less likely than Austria allying Poland and trampling Ottomans during said Genoa war when it's Genoa + Genoa allies + Austria + Austria allies against Crimea/Ottos.
 
Maybe it isn't because of its military at all.

There's a Hint that actually advises the player to consider taking out loans to build buildings. I wonder if the AI ever does this? The Ottomans start with lots of undeveloped land, so maybe they take loans to start developing.
 
TheMeInTeam said:
It's trivial as a player to shove them across the strait and force them to take -2 crossings or not cross, accomplishing the same outcome. It's my more common way of conquering Ottos, since I play ROTW more than Europe.
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I'm not sure how Byzantium, Candar, Karaman, etc do that in 1450 or 1457 in a way that's less resource intensive than building a bunch of galleys (not to mention trivial).

A) Maintenance on enough units to keep the Ottomans from just face stomping you would be through the roof. Even if you manage to win a battle, reinforcement costs would be strait up painful.

B) Manpower would be nothing, or you'd have to hire mercs which goes back to the money situation.

C) Galleys can go a ton farther over force limit for a lot less money than land units.

D) If you stomp the Ottoman navy you don't even need to keep your entire navy around.

Maybe you can make it work with units and a resource tight country in the 1450s, but I think most would agree that trivial.. no. If it was trivial it would be the go-to Byzantium strategy anyway.

net.split said:
Maybe it isn't because of its military at all.

There's a Hint that actually advises the player to consider taking out loans to build buildings. I wonder if the AI ever does this? The Ottomans start with lots of undeveloped land, so maybe they take loans to start developing.
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I'll check when I open it up again. They shouldn't have access to many buildings yet, so if that's the case it should be pretty easy to see. I also thought perhaps they just spent the money they had on galleys and reinforcements or a bad event or two pushed them into loan territory. If that's the case it could be pure bad luck on timing.

And the more I've thought about it, while 192 sounds like a lot of debt this early, it might not be for their economy.
 
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