AI Crisis and Great war behaviour

[Wave]

In case anyone has any knowledge of how the AI makes decisions past 1890 I'd be happy to know.
After my latest experience I'm rather sure that there is no difference in AI logic when the great wars are activated so they seem to be rather suicidal at times.

I was playing my mega france (overall score trough the roof, 300 land brigades and 400 to mobilize, 160 ironclads, too many cruisers and battle ships etc.) and Bavaria with their awesome 6 provinces, 30 brigades and a lot of bad attitude decided to back Poland (which ironically was way stronger than Bavaria but lacking industrial and prestige score to be GP) in a crisis against Austria that was the dominant force in middle europe as I had dropped Prussia to secondary power.
I joined Bavaria's side because Russia was more likely to join there and I though we'll just talk this out but during the last week of the crisis both GB and Russia joined Austria's side and a great war begun.

Given that it is rather stressful to fight on 3 fronts against 3 great powers it was a bit of a slow start but eventually I just crushed British out of the game and warscore was +40 on our side despite Bavaria getting occupied. So the logical decision to do á la AI? Give up in a great war, of course! :happy:

Gee, thanks matey! I just kicked so much tea drinkers around the globe that their population dropped with something like 10% and after that almost anschlussed Austria alone but now I'm paying daily reparations that are larger than your yearly income + I lost my navies and armies.

This is why I crank up my infamy and stick a middle finger up on any possible allies if I can manage without them.. Gotta annex Bavaria next...

 

[grommile]

The Bavarian AI was probably expecting that you would offer it some actual support on the European mainland, instead of faffing about blowing up the rosbifs while Munich burned.

 

[Owl Raider]

In case anyone has any knowledge of how the AI makes decisions past 1890 I'd be happy to know.
After my latest experience I'm rather sure that there is no difference in AI logic when the great wars are activated so they seem to be rather suicidal at times.

I was playing my mega france (overall score trough the roof, 300 land brigades and 400 to mobilize, 160 ironclads, too many cruisers and battle ships etc.) and Bavaria with their awesome 6 provinces, 30 brigades and a lot of bad attitude decided to back Poland (which ironically was way stronger than Bavaria but lacking industrial and prestige score to be GP) in a crisis against Austria that was the dominant force in middle europe as I had dropped Prussia to secondary power.
I joined Bavaria's side because Russia was more likely to join there and I though we'll just talk this out but during the last week of the crisis both GB and Russia joined Austria's side and a great war begun.

Given that it is rather stressful to fight on 3 fronts against 3 great powers it was a bit of a slow start but eventually I just crushed British out of the game and warscore was +40 on our side despite Bavaria getting occupied. So the logical decision to do á la AI? Give up in a great war, of course! :happy:

Gee, thanks matey! I just kicked so much tea drinkers around the globe that their population dropped with something like 10% and after that almost anschlussed Austria alone but now I'm paying daily reparations that are larger than your yearly income + I lost my navies and armies.

This is why I crank up my infamy and stick a middle finger up on any possible allies if I can manage without them.. Gotta annex Bavaria next...

The problem here is not the AI's behavior but rather the player's. There are several mechanics at work here. First and foremost the crisis mechanic, if you hover over the little flag below each nation in the middle section you'll see their preferences as well as detailed opinion reasons why(for example ally +100, political considerations -30), this should give you a good idea on what nations will do. Keep in mind though that these opinions can change, for example if Austria joins a crisis for X side than Prussia/NGF/Germany will immediately get a massive political considerations penalty to join that same side. So even if Prussia/NGF/Germany was inclined to join that side, once Austria did they might now be dissuaded to join it too. Second is the basic wars and war score mechanics, the war leader determines the vast majority of the war score. Since crisis wars don't allow for leadership changes than Bavaria who was first to support Poland would be the war leader no matter what, because Bavaria is so weak that means this side is doomed to lose as it's pathetically easy for anyone really to fully occupy Bavaria unless a very powerful next door neighbor zealously defends them. Here you made 2 mistakes, the first was joining Bavaria's side, the second was not defending Bavaria's lands during the war itself but doing your own thing which provided very little war score. Third is common sense, if you don't actually want a crisis war than why join the pathetically weak side instead of the strong side? If you joined Austria's side the crisis would have most likely ended immediately afterwards. Even if not with a strong Austria and a strong France together against poor Bavaria it's highly unlikely the other powers would join Bavaria's side, not enough of them anyway to shift the balance of power in their favor for an actual war.

Yes, the AI is prone to do stupid things. However not everything is the AI's fault. The player often makes a lot of mistakes he could easily avoid with some more knowledge and foresight. In Vicky2 just as in real life, war is a tool. Use it properly and it will be very rewarding, use it poorly and it will devastate you.

If you have a same game(autosave or otherwise) from right before the war or right as it begun I recommend you go back to that save and do the following:
1. Blockade the English Channel to prevent the UK from sending troops to the mainland. Bonus if you can sink the British fleet.
2. Send the rest of your ships to blockade the other powers in the following order: Austria(because they're the war leader), UK(because they're closest to you) and Russia(both the North and Black sea ports).
3. Create a hunter killer stack with your best attack general and all your guards(if you have any) and send it to Bavaria to hunt down any Austria/Russian forces attempting to invade it.
4. Send the rest of your army to carpet siege Austria(since they're the war leader) into submission.

This way you won't be fighting on 3 fronts, 2 at most but than Russia typically won't get military access through Prussia/NGF so they'll go into Austria making it a 1 front war really since you block the UK from interfering on the mainland. You'll also be maximizing war score gained and minimizing war score lost, which should end the war pretty quickly and let you add as many demands as your infamy/jingoism allow.

 

[Wave]

Thanks for the replies!

I guess I should have made it a bit clearer that I did indeed send large amounts of troops to fight Austria while a few armies crushed British islands but they managed to crush Bavaria.
Better luck next time and a little bit less ranting