AI de jure madness

Lord_P · Feb 26, 2015

Really the only power that moves the AI is de jure, especially de jure capitals. The AI is absolutely fixated by the de jure capital of its primary title, going as far as revoking the county from its current holder and holding it itself, even if the AI ruler's primary demesne is somewhere else. Examples: Abbasid Caliph revokes Damascus, Sweden revokes Uppland, HRE revokes Jülich, Mamluk Sultan revokes Caliph's Cairo (and this is one of the most egregious examples. The Sultan revokes Cairo from the Caliph! The bastard granted him that title and now AI madness is going to revoke it!).

Sunspawn · Feb 26, 2015

Add to that the ERE revoking the EP and going theocracy.

Rorgloin · Feb 26, 2015

This problem REALLY should be fixed. Especially in some of the major egregious examples listed here, such as the Abbasids (who made a point of moving the capital to Iraq) and the revocation of the Caliph's Cairo.
Also, in the latest start date, the pope just moves his capital from Avignon back to Rome.

harrumph · Feb 26, 2015

What I don't understand is how inconsistent the AI is about this. Sometimes it's just dead-set on getting its de jure capital; sometimes it doesn't care. The HRE has had its capital at Kärnten, of all places, for over 200 years in my current game. Esfahan, on the other hand, has been revoked by every single ruler that's controlled it, including the Ilkhanate.

sos16 · Feb 26, 2015

Also if the player is a minor count in one of these de jure capitals ,he/she is completely screwed. Your liege keeps trying to revoke your county, it leads to war where you are considered the attacker and hence truce breaker since you just won a similar war an year ago.

Woopzilla · Feb 26, 2015

harrumph said:
What I don't understand is how inconsistent the AI is about this. Sometimes it's just dead-set on getting its de jure capital; sometimes it doesn't care. The HRE has had its capital at Kärnten, of all places, for over 200 years in my current game. Esfahan, on the other hand, has been revoked by every single ruler that's controlled it, including the Ilkhanate.

This is probably because the capital is in control of a vassal of a vassal... then the top liege can't revoke it.

On another note, I think the AIs war behaviour should be adjusted so that it 'remembers' de jure lands before drift occurred. I hate seeing the disjointed mess Europe becomes in the CM start date... you get random duchies in France belonging to East Francia via de jure drift and the King of France doesn't give a damn that his kingdom has been split in two.

harrumph · Feb 26, 2015

Ah, of course. And the HRE switched to primogeniture (like it always seems to), so the crown has never cycled back to the guy who could revoke it.

Lord_P · Feb 26, 2015

harrumph said:
Ah, of course. And the HRE switched to primogeniture (like it always seems to), so the crown has never cycled back to the guy who could revoke it.

The HRE staying in Elective is actually better for keeping the crown in one family. Heinrich Salian approves.

Kapitalisti · Feb 26, 2015

This also annoying when I conquer a duchy in a holy war, carefully distribute the counties to young men with good congenital traits, preferably marrying them beforehand to avoid the milf-hunting, and then give the ducal title to the guy NOT holding the de jure capital. My careful setup then becomes ruined in a few months. Nowadays I just give the entire duchy to a single guy.

PhalanxSender · Feb 26, 2015

Kapitalisti said:
This also annoying when I conquer a duchy in a holy war, carefully distribute the counties to young men with good congenital traits, preferably marrying them beforehand to avoid the milf-hunting, and then give the ducal title to the guy NOT holding the de jure capital. My careful setup then becomes ruined in a few months. Nowadays I just give the entire duchy to a single guy.

I do the same thing ... try to give the soon to be duke a good council based by landing guys with good stats and traits so he can use them. Then I usually make the mistake of giving the title to the wrong guy and a war is soon underway. Usually they are trying to revoke the marshal, so he has a larger levy than the duke and wins. Is there a list somewhere of the de jure capitals for all the duchies?

nanomage · Feb 26, 2015

PhalanxSender said:
I do the same thing ... try to give the soon to be duke a good council based by landing guys with good stats and traits so he can use them. Then I usually make the mistake of giving the title to the wrong guy and a war is soon underway. Usually they are trying to revoke the marshal, so he has a larger levy than the duke and wins. Is there a list somewhere of the de jure capitals for all the duchies?

If you switch to "de jure duchies" madmode and hover over the capital county, it will trigger the line "duchy capital" in the tooltip.

PhalanxSender · Feb 26, 2015

nanomage said:
If you switch to "de jure duchies" madmode and hover over the capital county, it will trigger the line "duchy capital" in the tooltip.

Thanks! So many little things in the UI that I don't know about. Just discovered a few days back from reading a post that you can search for traits by name in the character finder.

Crowford · Feb 26, 2015

Has anyone ever found out what is even the point of designated de jure capitals? All I have ever seen was it creating problems, while adding nothing to gameplay.

nanomage · Feb 26, 2015

I'm afraid it's exactly so that AI would move their capital to de jure capital or the realm, which is usually a good county.

Sunspawn · Feb 26, 2015

Mostly it's to allow AI to know which county to use as the capital - otherwise the devs would need to code AI behavior for picking a capital.

Flamestalker · Feb 26, 2015

Sunspawn said:
Mostly it's to allow AI to know which county to use as the capital - otherwise the devs would need to code AI behavior for picking a capital.

So they purposely made allot of starts (and therefore content) unplayable because you get immediately revoked instead of making a small AI change so the AI picks the county in their demesne with the most holding-slots, like most players would do? Coding in that the AI always wants to revoke the traditional capital seems just as much work to me, if not more.

Zolotaya · Feb 26, 2015

Woopzilla said:
... On another note, I think the AIs war behaviour should be adjusted so that it 'remembers' de jure lands before drift occurred. I...

No, just no.

500 years into a game and the petty king of Wessex still lusts for the white cliffs of Dover ... even though his dynasty has not controlled them for 400 years? No, thank you.

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AI de jure madness

Lord_P

Field Marshal

Sunspawn

Lazy bastard

Rorgloin

Major

harrumph

Second Lieutenant

sos16

Private

Woopzilla

Captain

harrumph

Second Lieutenant

Lord_P

Field Marshal

Kapitalisti

Field Marshal

PhalanxSender

First Lieutenant

nanomage

First Lieutenant

PhalanxSender

First Lieutenant

Crowford

Private

nanomage

First Lieutenant

Sunspawn

Lazy bastard

Flamestalker

Major

Zolotaya

Field Marshal