Why the AI doesn't challenge you to duels?

[Mukaparska]

Dueling feels like cheating, since you can duel and make gains, but the AI never duels you. In warrior lodges, it's always you who challenge others. If someone has a strong claim on your title, feel free to duel him if you feel like it, he never challenges you.

 

[Chac1]

Sorry, but the AI has challenged me to duels multiple times in my current play-through. Perhaps that's because I'm playing a Norse kingdom?

 

[jonjowett]

Probably a part of it is that player characters tend to skew old and high-stat and warlike.

• If you're old or have a disease, any blood duel is dishonourable, so probably the AI is blocked from these challenges (except in exceptional/event-driven circumstances).
• If you have PCS>50 (which is not hard: I routinely manage 100-150), that's better than almost everyone else in the world, so a normally-cautious AI character probably wouldn't challenge. (Brave/ambitious might override this.)
• Players are probably more warlike than AI characters (I often dip out of all wars so I can duel/etc, then declare war again a few days later). Most types of duel require that both parties are at peace, ie. being at war blocks AI from duelling you (except for specific event chains etc).

NB: This is all speculation on my part - I believe the details of who the AI chooses to duel are fairly hard-coded, so we probably will never know for sure.

Also, I have definitely been honour-duelled in warrior lodges. And also insult-duelled after winning a warrior lodge event-chain contest (and insulting the loser). I haven't ever been blood-duelled by another warrior lodge, but that's probably due to either being at war or having such high PCS that I'm not eligible to be picked.

 

[jonjowett]

Probably a part of it is that player characters tend to skew old and high-stat and warlike.

• If you're old or have a disease, any blood duel is dishonourable, so probably the AI is blocked from these challenges (except in exceptional/event-driven circumstances).
• If you have PCS>50 (which is not hard: I routinely manage 100-150), that's better than almost everyone else in the world, so a normally-cautious AI character probably wouldn't challenge. (Brave/ambitious might override this.)
• Players are probably more warlike than AI characters (I often dip out of all wars so I can duel/etc, then declare war again a few days later). Most types of duel require that both parties are at peace, ie. being at war blocks AI from duelling you (except for specific event chains etc).

NB: This is all speculation on my part - I believe the details of who the AI chooses to duel are fairly hard-coded, so we probably will never know for sure.

Also, I have definitely been honour-duelled in warrior lodges. And also insult-duelled after winning a warrior lodge event-chain contest (and insulting the loser). I haven't ever been blood-duelled by another warrior lodge, but that's probably due to either being at war or having such high PCS that I'm not eligible to be picked.

I thought of another couple of factors:

• Players who focus on duelling will often have the "recent duel" flag/modifier, which can be set by any kind of duel (targeted decision, battlefield duel, event-driven), and which means they can't be challenged via the normal targeted decision, so they are more likely than the AI to be unchallengeable.
• AI only check targeted decisions every N months. For duelling, I expect N is probably 12 (maybe 6, maybe 24, but I think 12 is most likely). So, a player would need to be a valid duel target (no recent duel, not at war, etc) for on average N/2 continuous months in order to receive a challenge from an AI. This is less likely for players than for AI, because players are more likely to be warlike and/or duel-focused.

 

[Mukaparska]

Probably a part of it is that player characters tend to skew old and high-stat and warlike.

• If you're old or have a disease, any blood duel is dishonourable, so probably the AI is blocked from these challenges (except in exceptional/event-driven circumstances).
• If you have PCS>50 (which is not hard: I routinely manage 100-150), that's better than almost everyone else in the world, so a normally-cautious AI character probably wouldn't challenge. (Brave/ambitious might override this.)
• Players are probably more warlike than AI characters (I often dip out of all wars so I can duel/etc, then declare war again a few days later). Most types of duel require that both parties are at peace, ie. being at war blocks AI from duelling you (except for specific event chains etc).

NB: This is all speculation on my part - I believe the details of who the AI chooses to duel are fairly hard-coded, so we probably will never know for sure.

Also, I have definitely been honour-duelled in warrior lodges. And also insult-duelled after winning a warrior lodge event-chain contest (and insulting the loser). I haven't ever been blood-duelled by another warrior lodge, but that's probably due to either being at war or having such high PCS that I'm not eligible to be picked.

Yeaah... I've played CK2 for like a decade now, and I don't remember ever being challenged to a duel. Definitely not in this playthrough. Something must be broken in my game. I wonder what would it take to fix it?

 

[Menkerot]

AI doesn't do many things as always, hence the player can easily defeat any opponent. Same goes for, say, using mercenaries.

 

[Chac1]

Oh, but the AI definitely hires mercenaries in my game. Maybe not enough mercenaries, but it hires them, definitely.

 

[Menkerot]

Yes, but not often and most of the time it's you who defeats the AI because of mercenaries and holy orders. Maybe it's because most of the time AI has no money on hand to pay them.

 

[Chac1]

Yes, but not often and most of the time it's you who defeats the AI because of mercenaries and holy orders. Maybe it's because most of the time AI has no money on hand to pay them.

Perhaps, yes. However, I review the mercenary screen often and see the AI has hired anywhere from six to ten mercenaries on every turn. You may not be facing them, but they are at work everywhere.