AGC-EEP: Iberian Peninsula

[Toio]

I could. But I don't really have a problem with the Portuguese AI TPing there. It's when he TPs there alot and then switches to making it a colony that the problem kicks in.

Of course the AI is going to colonize if he places TP's in Tassaret, what do you expect. Where do you want it to colonize? Cape verde , agree, Gambia ??, Leone??
You also said it's very bad for the Portuguse if they go to tass and nouk. I was trying to help.
Don't you want to take my help?. Let me know and the discussion/help will cease.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

You would have it like this
continent =
region = the cape
area = table

You can't do it this way. Area is typically a group pf provinces. For a few of them, usually islands, an area is just one province. But you can't tell the AI to jsut colonize Table unless you take out all the other provinces that are in the same area as table.

this would get you there , it could send traders to Karroo or cickei first.
The trick is to get POR down to table and that requires stepping stones for their explorers.

Ideally we don't want Portugal to colonize Table. It needs to be left for the Dutch. This is actually a big problem and believe it or not the Portuguese AI will take Table or other "The Cape" provinces as colonies for Portugal even if it isn't on it's list for expansion. Although it will do it less often if it isn't on it's list. I'm not positive that you're implying that Portugal ought to be taking Table but just in case I'm putting this comment here.

The reason that the Vanilla is so much better for you is because there are only 30 odd AI 's, the default, white sheep and peaceful ones do not explore so POR and Spain have all the freedom they want to take their time and colonize the new world.

They have all the freedom they want because no else is exploring as much. It's the same with the vanilla or the AGCEEP. I understand "areas for expansion" better than you're giving me credit for Toio.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

Of course the AI is going to colonize if he places TP's in Tassaret, what do you expect. Where do you want it to colonize? Cape verde , agree, Gambia ??, Leone??

No actually if you take away the bonus for "neighbour," have a decent size number for "expansion," and have the other provinces with better percentage chances for colonization and TPing the AI will usually just TP them and either not colonize them or not colonize them for sometime.

You also said it's very bad for the Portuguse if they go to tass and nouk. I was trying to help.

It's ok if it TPs them just not colonizes them in the 15th century.

Don't you want to take my help?. Let me know and the discussion/help will cease.

You're help is fine. But so far I've just been helping you, which ok with me too. I was just saying that your posts seemed to imply that I know alot less than I do. So I was trying to point out that posting with that supposition isn't neccessarily relevant. Nothing more nothing less. No insult intended. No boasting intended.

 

[Toio]

You're help is fine. But so far I've just been helping you, which ok with me

LOL ooh stitch LOL,

You definetly do not read my articles, I said "say you want to colonize table" enough said there are others.
You get tooooooo defensive and you have tunnel vision in a majority of issues for my likeing.
Best of luck, Best we go our own way, we might in the future reach the same conclusions with EU2.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

This is not true. My blunt and harsh manner is done to draw attention to what is being discussed, not to convince or get a certain reaction. My premise is that you will think logically about what is being said and not get bogged down with the fact that I say things a little differently than you. Failure on your part to do that is not my fault. It is not a flaw in my reasoning it is a flaw in yours should you do this.

I submit that you might want to reconsider your premise. The evidence might suggest that people DO in fact get bogged down in how you things, and your tone and style make it MORE difficult for people to think "logically" about what is being said. Whether this is your fault or not is pretty much irrelevent - your premise is flawed.

If only I had known that the straw man argument was the way to win all these debates I could have been so much more efffective around here.

I'm missing what you're trying to say here. If you want me to understand this last statement please expound on it.

I'm suggesting that your entire approach to the question of primary sources is to use a straw man argument. To summarize:
idontlikeforms - primary source X says Y and that supports my argument
second party - Well that's only one primary source, and you have to be careful when evaluating the reliablity of primary sources
IDLF - primary sources are the best information we have. Your argument that we cannot consider primary sources is simply wrong. We have to use primary sources to understand history because those people were actually there.
SP - Secondary sources are also important in understanding history.
IDLF - Your dismissal of the value of primary sources shows your general wrong headedness.

Now it's possibel I've missed some of what you've been trying to say about the relevence of primary sources. But to me it looks like you're engaging in a classic straw man argument. I try to avoid straw man arguments, although I suppose it's possible that this post is exactly that. If so, I'd appreciate it if you could point me to any poster saying that no primary sources should be considered.

I probably shouldn't bother with these posts, but I was hoping to try to help. You see you did NOT win that particular argument with me, and if I did not post you would, by your own standards, be certain that you had won it. (Not that I'm saying that I won it...)

edit:

It's about which viewpoint is the correct one. At least to me anyways.

And I think this is the root of the problem. There is, and cannot be a 'correct' viewpoint for any of these debates. Unless the debate is about something like 'when did Castille conquer Gibraltar' (and even those questions may not have a definitive answer) every single debate here comes down to subjectivity. "Should Portugal be able to conquer Granada?" There is no correct answer to that question. "Should Sao Tome produce sugar" There is no correct answer to that question. The answer always depends on (among other thigns) what you're trying to do, and what you think all the different things in the game represent.

 

[Khephren]

IDFL

You also have IBERIA as part of your AI for POR.

Iberia comprises of the following:

Iberia (442 Algarve, 443 Andalusia, 430 Aragon, 432 Asturias, 431 Cantabria, 436 Castilla, 429 Catalonia, 440 Estramadura, 433 Galicia, 427 Gerona, 445 Gibraltar, 444 Granada, 435 Leon, 438 Murcia, 428 Navarra, 434 Oporto, 441 Tago, 823 The Azores, 817 The Canary Islands, 439 Toledo, 437 Valencia)

Can this be the problem with why you have Portugal taking on Granada and Gibraltar even though there is no core????????

I actually do think this might make a slight difference. If you look at the vanilla ai files, I believe it is Prussia's ai ( as well as OE ) that has "europe". Now obviously europe has no colonizable province, so I've always 'assumed' that these parameters are for colonization and expansion. On the other hand these might well be beta tester mistakes.

 

[Castellon]

Hmm!

Guys I normally don't tred these water but seems I am forced to interfere.

Everyone that posted off topic in this thread is Officially warned.

That is everyone that made comments not directly related to the topic of the Iberian Peninsula.

That includes those that were discussing other members posting habits or personal habits or actions.
It also includes those that were making personal attacks of any kind.

If anyone does not think they should be included in this warning feel free to PM me and I will take it under advisement.

 

[Castellon]

If you feel a member is being disruptive, you report them to a Moderator.
If you feel you are being mistreated you report that to a Moderator.

What you do not do is have a free for all and Hijack a thread!

My first reaction was to ban everyone for a few days, but let's see how the PMs sort themselves out. Everyone can give me thier side of this.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

I actually do think this might make a slight difference. If you look at the vanilla ai files, I believe it is Prussia's ai ( as well as OE ) that has "europe". Now obviously europe has no colonizable province, so I've always 'assumed' that these parameters are for colonization and expansion. On the other hand these might well be beta tester mistakes.

According to Daywalker they don't make a difference. I've rarely found him to be wrong. Asfar as facts about the AIs are concerned, I've caught him being wrong only once so far. That's pretty impressive if you figure just how much I know by now about the AIs. He's earned my respect and trust.

 

[Toio]

I actually do think this might make a slight difference. If you look at the vanilla ai files, I believe it is Prussia's ai ( as well as OE ) that has "europe". Now obviously europe has no colonizable province, so I've always 'assumed' that these parameters are for colonization and expansion. On the other hand these might well be beta tester mistakes.

I have removed Iberia from all Portuguses AI files for their expansion areas in AGCEEP as well as redating the reqounista events. Tested 8 games, results (1419 - 1500) are this:

Portugal never attack Granada unless they are allied with Castile and Castile commences the war. The result of this war is, due to the Portuguse having superior leaders than the Castilians the resulting victory over Granada will give Gibraltar to Portugal. This is the only time that Portugal fight Granada. This does causes problems later on for POR if their alliance with Castile is broken.
8 games from 1419 - 1500 is not much to go on, but I am very happy with the results.

Conclusion: In my opinion Areas of colonization are also uses for expansion.

I have looked through AGCEEP files for Aragon, Castile, OE, Venice, Genoa, Portugal, france and Burgundy and there seems to be many files with errors in there 3 area files. I will start to delete and repair these and have further tests. Will let all know.

If you can help test, this would be appreciated.

In regards to vanilla AI files, due to there being not many nations that have them, the programmers (my opinion) needed to have files that covered the majority of contingencies for Europe etc etc.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

I also agree we should switch options a and c, and setup the same events for Aragon. It might be good with two separate sets since they can happen for both nations then. The only thing I'm not entirely comfortable with is the province revolt risk. Would POR and ARG have higher revoltrisk here than someone else, like ENG or some Italians? There's lack of consequence.

Norrefeldt, I agree 100% with your proposed changes. Also the increased RR to ARG or POR doesn't make sense to me either. Fact is, not a single piece of data supports any foreign (non CAS) attempt to conquer Granada as even a remote possibility. Granada was no longer open for the grab unless a nation wanted to take on CAS also. The possibility that in EU2 someone else (other than ARG or POR) conquers Gibraltar or Granada is real but small. We can live with it, since this things usually correct themselves with time due to the difficulty to hold to contested provinces that are far away.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

TEST RESULTS ON THE PROPOSED GRANADA CHANGES

TITLE:
Proposal of changes to AGCEEP Granada events and settings to improve gameplay and historical accuracy.

ABSTRACT:
The main goals of this work is to develop a game system for Granada that, and in this order, is a) more fun to play, b) more historically accurate, c) allows AI GRA several paths and the possibility of expansion, and d) allows AI CAS (SPA) to DoW GRA at any time and to conquer Gibraltar when the opportunity presents. The aparent contradiction of the goals is not so, if GRA and CAS/SPA usually, but not always, choose to behave as they did IRH, but their freedom is respected to behave differently. Finally we don't want to help Granada too much, it has a hard won reputation of difficult country that should not be destroyed lightly.

MATERIALS
Changes made to AGCEEP v. 1.32 prior to test. Comparison done with EU2 vanilla 1.08.
I use 1.32 because I have it in a non .exe file type. .exe file types are useless to mac players. Please make sure new versions are also released in a zipped non .exe file type, so we can all enjoy them.

File 1419_GRA_Grenada.inc
-Relation with Portugal changed to 150 (perhaps not necessary)
-Relation with Castile changed to 150 (absolutely required)
-Relation with Aragon changed to 150 (perhaps not necessary)
-Added national provinces 438 (Murcia) and 443 (Andalusia)

File 1419_CAS_Castille.inc
-Relation with Granada changed to 150
-Added national provinces 444 (Granada) and 445 (Gibraltar)

File 1419_ARG_Aragon.inc
-Relation with Granada changed to 150

File 1419_POR_Portugal.inc
-Relation with Granada changed to 150

File Granada.eue
-Added new events 176001 to 176013
-Modified events 1721 (text and choice b) and 1722 (text)
-eliminated event 176000
-Added new random events 176020 to 176024

File Castille.eue
-Added new event 142006

File monarchs.gra
-Added new monarch list for Granada

File leaders.gra
-Added new leaders list for Granada (3 leaders of 3,2,3,0)

File country.CSV
GRA changed Land from 4 to 8 and Quality from 2 to 3.

METHODS:
I selected neutral country CYP (Cyprus) using Montezuma cheat. CYP was not actually played and every interaction refused. No DPs moved. Big standing army and fleet at full maintenance at all times to prevent surprises. Designed for minimum interaction. Fog of war off. 6 games played (A to F) in AGCEEP modified as indicated in MATERIALS, at very fast, hard, coward. Autosave every year. After 10-20 years, games saved and restarted as recomended to wake up AI. Games played until 1500.

RESULTS:

Loss of Gibraltar (all to CAS/SPA except F)
A- 1491
B- 1487
C- 1427
D- 1495
E- 1456 and 1489 (recovered through defection in 1467)
F- 1493 (to Naples, Ferrante II's fault)

Annexion of Granada (all by CAS/SPA)
A- 1497
B- 1491
C- 1492
D- alive in 1500
E- 1493
F- alive in 1500

Wars of Granada after 1450
A- 1481 GRA to SPA,POR,ARG / 1491 SPA,POR,ARG to GRA / 1497 SPA to GRA
B- 1455 ARG to GRA / 1481 GRA to SPA,FRA,NAV / 1491 SPA,ARG to GRA
C- 1480 CAS,ARG to GRA / 1491 CAS,ARG to GRA
D- 1467 ARG,FRA,POR,BUR,NAP to GRA / 1479 SPA,ARG to GRA / 1483 BRI,ENG to GRA / 1491 SPA,FRA,NAP to GRA
E- 1452 CAS to GRA / 1481 GRA to SPA,ARG,ENG / 1491 SPA,ARG to GRA
F- 1459 ARG,CAS to GRA / 1481 GRA to SPA,ARG,NAP,DEN / 1491 ARG,SPA,NAP to GRA

CONCLUSION:
More partial games were played. Several starts where produced from a 1450 save-game, resulting in 30-40% of wars after the event of 1452, but it might be skewed due to presituation. Early wars are possible but unlikely.
Survival of Granada until 1490 appears not to be a problem in the set-up. The interaction is more aggressive than before. The loss of Gibraltar is very variable, with a higher probability around 1452 and after 1478. GRA does better at wars, yet at the end is almost always defeated. In the two cases where GRA survived, it was because SPA failed at one or two wars, yet GRA was left very weak and with -200 relationships, so it is a question of time. After break up of vassalage in 1478, SPA may declare war. If it doesn't, GRA will DoW SPA in 1481 and SPA will DoW GRA in 1491 by event. This two wars usually kill Granada, specially if Gibraltar was lost before 1478.
GRA defends quite well in wars when CAS/SPA is not involved, winning the majority of them. GRA appears to be stronger in the set-up (historically correct). In about 10 wars when CAS/SPA was not involved, GRA lost one (paid money) and won the rest. When CAS/SPA is involved, GRA loses about 60% of the wars. Only once of about 30 wars between GRA and CAS/SPA, was GRA capable of winning territory.

It is important to give GRA two diplomats on January 1419 so a human player can cancel vassalage and DoW. Granada is already too poor to support her armies, yet to have to wait until October just to cancel vassalage is unfair to a human player. A human player wants to strike CAS ASAP, in February 1419, when CAS has spent all her money in TCs, and GRA on armies, and before Alvaro de Luna appears in Dec. 1422.


ANNEX:
Coments on Granada events:

Event Date name Default effect*

176001 1419 Banu al-Sarraj 1 Cosmetic
176012 1419-1550 Proclam. of al-Andalus New cores
176007 1425-1476 Loss of Gibraltar Re-vassalization to CAS, high relationship
176002 1427 Banu al-Sarraj 2 Cosmetic
176003 1429 Banu al-Sarraj 3 Cosmetic
176004 1432 Banu al-Sarraj 4 Cosmetic
7123 1441-1444 Help from Mameluks Cosmetic
176005 1445-1454 Banu al-Sarraj 5 Cosmetic
176013 1452 Frontier wars Relationship to CAS, sometimes war
176006 1462 Banu al-Sarraj 6 Cosmetic
176008 1465 Abu al-Hasan's rebellion Cosmetic
7121** 1478 The war of Granada 1 Loss of vassalage and relationship. Often war
176009 1481 The war of Granada 2 GRA DoW CAS/SPA
7122 1482 Muham. XII's rebellion Cosmetic
176010 1483 Muham. XII captured Cosmetic
176011 1489 Muham. XIII abdication Cosmetic

* By Cosmetic I mean that they change stability, revolts, DP sliders, cash or troops but should not affect survival of GRA.
** Modified.

All events work as designed. The five Granada random events also work as designed.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

I have just a question, not about Portugal/Granada, but about Castille/Aragon/Spain. It is : why do we have to completely annex Castille when we play as Aragon in order to become Spain ? The way the events work now, is that whichever holds Toledo (province 439) gets the possibility to become Spain. But Toledo is Castille's capital, so Aragon has to annex Castille to get it. Is it really unconceivable to have Aragon becoming Spain in place of Castille, when Castille still exists ?

It is a complex question and the answer is not simple.
The idea of restoring the hispano-christian visigoth kingdom was born in Asturias, and the first ruler to claim the title of "Hispaniorum imperator" was apparently Alfonso III "The Magnus" (886-911) of Asturias-Leon. Since then, only the kings of Leon and Castile claimed that title, although they failed to enforce it. Against such claims, Portugal, Navarra and Aragon tried to assert their independence. Only Sancho III "The Older" of Navarra (1004-1035), after seizing control of Leon and Castile claimed the title, but such claim died with him and the partition of his lands between his three sons. The re-conquest of Toledo, the visigoth capital, in 1085, together with the union of the crowns of Leon and Castile in the hands of Alfonso VI of Castile (1065-1109) meant the revival of the title of "Hispaniorum imperator" for this king. The ascent of the bastard lineage of the Trastamara to the crowns of both Castile (Enrique II, 1369), and Aragon (Fernando I, 1412) made it possible the union of both kingdoms (the catholic kings, Isabel and Fernando were second cousins). The ascent of a Castilian lineage to the triple crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) was the result of the "Compromiso de Caspe" where of the 9 representatives (3 for each crown), the Trastamara candidate got 3 votes from Aragon, 2 from Valencia and 1 from Catalonia, fulfilling the condition that he should have 2/3 majority and votes from all three crowns.

The conquest of the New World was a Castilian enterprise, both in manpower and resources, and for all the Austrian kings from 1516 to 1705, Castile provided the bulk of the funding, since their taxes went directly to the crown, while taxing in Navarra and Aragon was subject to special agreements (Fueros) and the king needed the agreement of the Courts of Aragon (not easy to obtain) to raise monarch funds there. The Comuneros revolts against Carlos I (V of Germany) was the opposition of Castile to fund European wars that did not concern them.

So now we can answer the question. The formation of Spain was a Castilian impulse, more or less agreed by the majority of Aragon.

The idea in EU2 appears to be that in the absence of Castile, Aragon can take the torch. In AGCEEP appears that holding of Toledo is important for historical claims.

I would agree that anybody holding the bulk of the peninsula could claim Spain. I do disagree with EU2 vanilla, that Spain is neccesary for the explorers and leaders to conquer the New World. That was a Castilian enterprise from the beginning. But in the end, the EU2 system works adequately, so I do not propose to change it.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

After 3 weeks of discussion over the new proposed changes by me for Granada, I don't recall any opposition to them, but I am too lazy to re-read 9 pages. It is time for a final discussion before submission. This are all the proposed changes to AGCEEP Granada:

File 1419_GRA_Grenada.inc
-Relation with Castile changed to 150
-Add national provinces 438 (Murcia) and 443 (Andalusia)

File 1419_CAS_Castille.inc
-Relation with Granada changed to 150
-Add national provinces 444 (Granada) and 445 (Gibraltar)

File Granada.eue
-Add GRA historic events 176001-176013 as coded in Post 451 (pg 19) of this thread
-Change GRA event 7121: effect of event, add option b and change name and description as coded in Post 457 (pg 19) of this thread
-Change GRA event 7122: effect of event, and name and description as coded in Post 458 (pg 19) of this thread
-Change GRA event 7123: name and description as writen in Post 456 (pg 19) of this thread
-Eliminate event 176000

File NationSpecificREs.eue
-Add GRA random events 176020-176024 as coded in Post 455 (pg 19) of this thread

File Castille.eue
-Add CAS event 142006 as coded in Post 477 (pg 20) of this thread

Add new File leaders.gra
-Add new leaders list for GRA as coded in Post 461 (pg 19) of this thread

File country.CSV
-GRA changed Land from 4 to 8 and Quality from 2 to 3.

Give two diplomats to GRA at start to make it more playable by humans.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

Norrefeldt, the GRA monarch list is still waiting for more ID's to have monarchs up to 1819. I am using all the initial ID's from 03720 to 03739, but about 10 more are needed.

 

[unmerged(31425)]

I'm suggesting that your entire approach to the question of primary sources is to use a straw man argument.

You got to clear out your mailbox for me to repsond to your post. And I got 2 of them too, just so you know how much to clear.

 

[unmerged(25696)]

It is a complex question and the answer is not simple.
The idea of restoring the hispano-christian visigoth kingdom was born in Asturias, and the first ruler to claim the title of "Hispaniorum imperator" was apparently Alfonso III "The Magnus" (886-911) of Asturias-Leon. Since then, only the kings of Leon and Castile claimed that title, although they failed to enforce it. Against such claims, Portugal, Navarra and Aragon tried to assert their independence. Only Sancho III "The Older" of Navarra (1004-1035), after seizing control of Leon and Castile claimed the title, but such claim died with him and the partition of his lands between his three sons. The re-conquest of Toledo, the visigoth capital, in 1085, together with the union of the crowns of Leon and Castile in the hands of Alfonso VI of Castile (1065-1109) meant the revival of the title of "Hispaniorum imperator" for this king. The ascent of the bastard lineage of the Trastamara to the crowns of both Castile (Enrique II, 1369), and Aragon (Fernando I, 1412) made it possible the union of both kingdoms (the catholic kings, Isabel and Fernando were second cousins). The ascent of a Castilian lineage to the triple crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) was the result of the "Compromiso de Caspe" where of the 9 representatives (3 for each crown), the Trastamara candidate got 3 votes from Aragon, 2 from Valencia and 1 from Catalonia, fulfilling the condition that he should have 2/3 majority and votes from all three crowns.

The conquest of the New World was a Castilian enterprise, both in manpower and resources, and for all the Austrian kings from 1516 to 1705, Castile provided the bulk of the funding, since their taxes went directly to the crown, while taxing in Navarra and Aragon was subject to special agreements (Fueros) and the king needed the agreement of the Courts of Aragon (not easy to obtain) to raise monarch funds there. The Comuneros revolts against Carlos I (V of Germany) was the opposition of Castile to fund European wars that did not concern them.

So now we can answer the question. The formation of Spain was a Castilian impulse, more or less agreed by the majority of Aragon.

The idea in EU2 appears to be that in the absence of Castile, Aragon can take the torch. In AGCEEP appears that holding of Toledo is important for historical claims.

I would agree that anybody holding the bulk of the peninsula could claim Spain. I do disagree with EU2 vanilla, that Spain is neccesary for the explorers and leaders to conquer the New World. That was a Castilian enterprise from the beginning. But in the end, the EU2 system works adequately, so I do not propose to change it.

Well, that's clear enough. That's somewhat not plausible to allow Aragon to become Spain alongside Castile. Thx.

 

[17blue17]

Conclusion: In my opinion Areas of colonization are also uses for expansion.

Toio, I wanted to give you encouragement/support relating to your conclusion. While I do not claim to be an expert I have done some testing of this same idea over the last couple week ends. I saw the idea in another old post on AI's and I took a vanilla EU2 set up and edited a number of AI files with the assumption that areas of colonization are also used for expansion and the countries seem to respond by attacking in the edited areas of colonization/expansion. I was also able to fine tune things by editing the provice.csv file to change what provinces are in what areas or what continent. For example I made areas I wanted CAS to attack "iberia" and areas I did not want them to attack non iberia areas. It does not work perfectly but it does in my opinion appear to have an impact. I suspect the further away an area is the less of a expansion impact it has but I don't have proof. For example I could not get CAS to attack flanders just because I marked Flanders as being in the "Iberia area" but closer to home it does seem to have a larger impact. Another example was trying to get a fantasy persia to attack into egypt. First I set egypt in Persia's expansion area with some success. Next I edited the province.csv and changed egypt from "africa" to "asia" and it made a much larger difference. I also suspect culture has an impact on how the ai decides where to expand. So maybe there are a number of factors involved.

My point is that you might want to focus both on the expansion set up in the ai file and the area/continent/culture setup in the province.csv file.

 

[|AXiN|]

I would agree that anybody holding the bulk of the peninsula could claim Spain. I do disagree with EU2 vanilla, that Spain is neccesary for the explorers and leaders to conquer the New World. That was a Castilian enterprise from the beginning. But in the end, the EU2 system works adequately, so I do not propose to change it.

This does raise the question, though, of whether we should add for Castile a representative group of events, explorers and conquistadors for a no-Spain situation, so that they still colonise.

 

[Toio]

Toio, I wanted to give you encouragement/support relating to your conclusion. While I do not claim to be an expert I have done some testing of this same idea over the last couple week ends. I saw the idea in another old post on AI's and I took a vanilla EU2 set up and edited a number of AI files with the assumption that areas of colonization are also used for expansion and the countries seem to respond by attacking in the edited areas of colonization/expansion. I was also able to fine tune things by editing the provice.csv file to change what provinces are in what areas or what continent. For example I made areas I wanted CAS to attack "iberia" and areas I did not want them to attack non iberia areas. It does not work perfectly but it does in my opinion appear to have an impact. I suspect the further away an area is the less of a expansion impact it has but I don't have proof. For example I could not get CAS to attack flanders just because I marked Flanders as being in the "Iberia area" but closer to home it does seem to have a larger impact. Another example was trying to get a fantasy persia to attack into egypt. First I set egypt in Persia's expansion area with some success. Next I edited the province.csv and changed egypt from "africa" to "asia" and it made a much larger difference. I also suspect culture has an impact on how the ai decides where to expand. So maybe there are a number of factors involved.

My point is that you might want to focus both on the expansion set up in the ai file and the area/continent/culture setup in the province.csv file.

There are also core provinces and nations on the combat list to consider as well when viewing why the AI goes in a certain direction.


Thanks for the input, very much appreciated.