AI Bankruptcy

[bly08]

In my current run, nearly every neighboring major has gone bankrupt multiple times after losing just one war. They first declare bankruptcy immediately after a peace deal with money demanded. They then spawn rebels that can't be killed because the country is bankrupt, the rebels eventually break and bankrupt the country again. Meanwhile their AI neighbors are truce cycling and carving up land for themselves. This has happened to Uzbek, Poland/Lithuania, Hungary, QQ, and Muscovy to a lesser extent.

I'm wondering why this issue has persisted for so long and what exactly is the cause? Why does the AI go bankrupt while only being forced to take out 5 loans? What is their loan size based on when fully occupied? What is the AI threshold for declaring bankruptcy in terms of income vs. interest? Isn't this the exact type of behavior Revanchism was created to help avoid?

Instead of being surrounded by strong neighbors, I'm fighting bankrupt armies that run away from me and suicide to rebels. Every country except for the top 5 GPs effectively dies after one war. It's been more than a year since the peace deal change was introduced, why has this not been fixed?

The AI has become, to put it bluntly, a joke. It was much better a few patches ago. My runs are easier despite the state flashing and CorrTerr changes. There are no more hard wars. Micro is essentially chasing down stray enemy stacks.. The hard caps of CorrTerr and APC do not come close to balancing out the AI's regression.

I know you guys don't test the game and it's impolite to get angry. But it really leaves a bad taste when you fix things like the parliament and Ming HRE exploits and leave the AI in this state. I'm wondering what you actually think makes the game difficult and enjoyable. It's not to pay a little more money to buy down APC, it's the AI, overcoming impossible odds, and picking between options that are not immediately obvious.

A few pictures for your enjoyment:

Uzbek after losing to Transoxiana:

A year later after I take some land and about 10WS of ducats:

Hungary bankrupted by Poland/Venice

Poland bankrupted by rebels

Hungary bankrupted again by rebels

Lithuania bankrupted by rebels after losing one war more than ten years ago

Poland bankrupted again after losing to Bohemia. Every screenshot is within a span of 10 years and streamed.

 

[rimworld inbox]

I think the cause is more due to the AI being allowed to declare bankruptcy manually. This is an extremely dangerous tool that the AI constantly misevaluates when to use.

Funny how being able to 5x loan in the peace deal turned out in many ways even more degenerate than the "bank of Lubeck" strats it was intended to solve.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

There is a big need to rework AI indeed.

I don't know if it's coincidental or not but I think that hordes are suffering particularly from these reworks. When I look north of transoxiana it's rebel town (before Russia takes over of course).

 

[Bodi]

I'm not sure if it's really possible to both have a competent AI with the current diplomatic system. AI does stupid choices because a modifier said so or a random roll happened. AI isn't supposed to win, it's supposed to immersed you in the game.

Loan sizes are based on development and loan limits on current income vs current interest. It's quite common for AI, or me when inattentive, to go bankrupt when occupied because the max borrowed amount can shrink to a quarter or less. Five loans is not much if the AI keeps his territory, but added to existing loans and a drastically reduced income base, it is an assured bankruptcy. AIs left as OPM after a war almost always go bankrupt.

 

[Ruian]

I noticed the exact same behavior on VH. I believe it's a combination of things all working together. For one thing, most of the land in the middle of the world is utter garbage that produces little income. Making large nations with lots of dev take loans hurts them a lot whereas it barely scratches Venice. Countries like Timurids, Muscovy, all hordes, etc taking 5 loans means the game is over for them usually.

The other big thing is AI won't attack rebels because it's too scared for some unknown reason. This has the effect of wrecking their countries. I had a 10k stack of rebels spawn next to my tributary that ran around for 6 or 7 years sieging down provinces (only 1 of mine was a valid target). It sieged the same fort 3 or 4 times because the AI wouldn't attack it. The guy getting sieged has 30k troops... why won't he attack?

They also don't defend their own territory in wars a lot of times. I have a few screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

First war against Spain- note no ducats taken in peace. They took about 5000 in debt and then would no longer defend their allies.

Second war against Spain ~20 years later, I took ~200 ducats in peace deal. The colonial nation tariff nerfs really hurt them badly. I didn't do a "fully occupy until they get 20 war exhaustion loloolol" strat. They had ~5 war exhaustion when I peaced them out.

The Mamluks decided these peasants are just too scary for them, so they let them siege down Cairo first.

 

[Darth.]

The other big thing is AI won't attack rebels because it's too scared for some unknown reason.

Can confirm this just from the rebel suppression mechanic. I miss the automated rebel suppression - at least that worked properly. Now all it does is "avoid strong enemy" when it has 50k troops and a 3 star General to a leader-less 30k rebel stack. Or in the early game 25k to a 18k rebel stack.

 

[magni_]

I saw this happening a lot in my Games as well, main reason seems to be that after losing a war, nations with bad income nearly never recover, best example was moskau in my Burgundy Game, after fighting them in one war where they were not even the war leader, and peacing out for money + war reps, they wen't bankrupt 5. !!!! times in the next 40 Jears with out me ever fighting them again

 

[Ruian]

I saw this happening a lot in my Games as well, main reason seems to be that after losing a war, nations with bad income nearly never recover, best example was moskau in my Burgundy Game, after fighting them in one war where they were not even the war leader, and peacing out for money + war reps, they wen't bankrupt 5. !!!! times in the next 40 Jears with out me ever fighting them again

Yep, that's what happens. Their provinces are not very good, yet they have high development. This is also why hordes (played by a human or otherwise) have such large financial problems. You are paying for corruption on garbage land that earns nearly nothing. It basically forces you to either play with bankruptcy strats, micro like a boss on speed 2, take money against strong opponents continuously, go for trade company land first, or a combination of those. Gone are the days of expanding from Manchuria to Astrakhan and ruling the steppes.

 

[swietymiki]

It's even worse when they get into a bankruptcy spiral and get beaten up by literally everyone until their entire nation breaks apart. Something which didn't happen that much before the changes to taking money in wars.

In my last Delhi game, my neighbour Bengal which was doing pretty well until that point, got invaded by Ming (playing without Mandate of Heaven lol). They only annexed like 2 provinces but of course the smart AI took as many loans as it could to recruit troops. First bankruptcy fired after the war ended, so I went in to take the free land. After that point they kept spamming rebels and getting invaded by all minor nations around them, bankrupted 3 or 4 more times in under 5 years and got reduced from 30 to under 10 provinces. Easier game for me, I guess.

 

[magni_]

In my last Delhi game, my neighbour Bengal which was doing pretty well until that point, got invaded by Ming (playing without Mandate of Heaven lol). They only annexed like 2 provinces but of course the smart AI took as many loans as it could to recruit troops. First bankruptcy fired after the war ended, so I went in to take the free land. After that point they kept spamming rebels and getting invaded by all minor nations around them, bankrupted 3 or 4 more times in under 5 years and got reduced from 30 to under 10 provinces. Easier game for me, I guess.

Nations that Require Tolerance of other faiths have a rly hard time to stay stable when bankrupt.

 

[BugJr]

I never played with the old peace deal money mechanics, and I really think they should be re-implemented. Sure you can't take 10,000 ducats from Lubeck nowadays, but at least you don't have even the most major and mighty nations being reduced to ash after one peace deal for some gold.

 

[Dell19]

Even when winning wars the AI can wrack up a lot of debt and I believe that the AI still takes loans to embrace institutions which it then struggles to pay off so simply changing the money peace deal mechanics probably wouldn't be enough to fix the AI.

I would love a dev diary covering the work into making the AI better rather than another mission tree diary...

 

[zdlugasz]

Yeah, previous system was much better. It allowed to use OPMs and natives as piggy-bank, but at least they had that money so did not go bankrupt. I do not know how those 5 loans are calculated now, but countries with significant development are not able to repay such huge loans.
As Byzantium I got 800 from Ottomans, fortunatelly they earn significant money from trade (still own COT or two), disbanded something and managed not to sink after first war (but I fully expect them to bankrupt after the following war).

In 1356 mod there is huge Yuan, with over 1000 development. After 1st war against some neighbouring horde they had to pay 2000 ducats of reparations and immediately went bankrupt.
Solving preceived "exploit" devs made game worse again.

 

[Ruian]

Yeah, previous system was much better. It allowed to use OPMs and natives as piggy-bank, but at least they had that money so did not go bankrupt. I do not know how those 5 loans are calculated now, but countries with significant development are not able to repay such huge loans.
As Byzantium I got 800 from Ottomans, fortunatelly they earn significant money from trade (still own COT or two), disbanded something and managed not to sink after first war (but I fully expect them to bankrupt after the following war).

In 1356 mod there is huge Yuan, with over 1000 development. After 1st war against some neighbouring horde they had to pay 2000 ducats of reparations and immediately went bankrupt.
Solving preceived "exploit" devs made game worse again.

Yes, there was *gasp* some strategy involved in looking at the ledger to see who had a lot of money that you could attack if you needed money. I don't even play in Europe so Lubeck was never a thing for me. The loans are calculated based upon development. More dev = bigger loans. That's why a nation like Muscovy has a hard time. Their provinces are mostly very poor but they have a lot of total dev.

The Ottomans on the other hand can come back from loans because they have an excellent trade node and high value trade goods.

 

[Reman]

Perhaps part of the issue is how loan sizes are calculated? Loan sizes were fine when interest, which is based on the principal, was all that mattered. Now that you can demand 5 loans in peace, and since each loan gives a flat 0.1 inflation for some reason, loan sizes are much more important. The way loans are calculated was never particularly coherent, but it wasn't much of a problem until recently. Rebalancing loans to be based on tax+production values instead of total dev would help areas with lower development, and factoring in the average price of goods produced would help poor fish+wool areas compete with areas filled with spicy ivory.

Bankrupt AIs are far more common recently, but they usually occur at the low-mid tier nations. I've pummelled 3k dev Ottomans over and over again in my campaigns and they didn't bankrupt. Same with large France/Spain. Ming only bankrupts when they hit low mandate due to the -50% goods modifier. In a recent Japan game I took reps + max cash from Ming every 5-10 years for a century by using Ryukyu as a truce reset, but Ming only encountered trouble when my high-dev Indonesian tentacle wrapped around and started touching them.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

Bankrupt AIs are far more common recently, but they usually occur at the low-mid tier nations. I've pummelled 3k dev Ottomans over and over again in my campaigns and they didn't bankrupt. Same with large France/Spain. Ming only bankrupts when they hit low mandate due to the -50% goods modifier. In a recent Japan game I took reps + max cash from Ming every 5-10 years for a century by using Ryukyu as a truce reset, but Ming only encountered trouble when my high-dev Indonesian tentacle wrapped around and started touching them.

oooh I've not experienced quite the same thing. This patch I've bankrupted quite easily all these nations you mentioned. Also I bankrupt Ottomans somewhat unintentionally. I needed to make peace, they looked alright, but I looked at the ledger on the offchance they had a loan. They had 3 loans if I recall correctly. That + the peacedeal was enough…
I'm mentioning them specifically because that's like the golden standard, the Ottomans are the Lannisters of EU4. Always pay their debts. Or so I thought ^^

 

[Reman]

oooh I've not experienced quite the same thing. This patch I've bankrupted quite easily all these nations you mentioned. Also I bankrupt Ottomans somewhat unintentionally. I needed to make peace, they looked alright, but I looked at the ledger on the offchance they had a loan. They had 3 loans if I recall correctly. That + the peacedeal was enough…
I'm mentioning them specifically because that's like the golden standard, the Ottomans are the Lannisters of EU4. Always pay their debts. Or so I thought ^^

8 loans was enough to make them cave? That sounds like an issue with the AI manually declaring bankruptcy then, which may be influenced or exacerbated by factors that have yet to be discovered. All but the most distressed nations should be able to go way further in the loan tank than that, but if the AI is manually pressing the bankruptcy button, well...

 

[bly08]

I'm ok with removing opm banks, though the change came right after tributary banks was discovered. I'm not ok with changing a base mechanic, ignoring testing, then abandoning the mechanic with no mention of the problems created. It's like having to tell a child to clean up after themselves. When you make a mess of the game, fix it. And maybe learn not to do it over and over again.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

I think there was a slight delay? So they might have been pushed with some other AI war or some army rebuild. That was quite early on, they had expanded quite largely into Hungary (up to Austria, really) while I had them contained with initial lands + beyliks on the other side. I took from Trebizond to Edirne following the coastline (including Constantinople, I had Trebizond already though) to give some perspective. I did actively try to leave them in the worst shape as possible as usual, but I didn't trap their armies while their country was occupied or something. And 3 loans… isn't that much. I think it was 3. edit: of course as you say it's 3+5 = 8 after peace deal, but I mean if you know you'll bankrupt someone merely when he's at 3 loans that's a very big deal.

Well they didn't recover (!!!) until after they went bankrupt, couple of times, got I think 1 disaster, and ONLY THEN they managed to regain a foothold and make some more territorial gains (!!!), while I had my attention focused on India (Paradox™ approved conquest).

 

[rimworld inbox]

Here is my hypothesis for how AI decides to manual bankrupt:

If peacetime, and current income is higher than all unavoidable expenses (interest, state maintenance, mothballed fort cost), then bankrupt.

The problem is often occupation tanks current income. So the day after peacing put the country looks at its tanked income and immediately kills itself.

Doesn't help that the AI still puts up idiotic institution spread edicts for no reason.