A different way to play the game

[Violent AI]

I wanted to make the AI more aggressive in taking provinces in a war (like a player does) so I made the following changes in the defines file (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Europa Universalis IV\common\defines.lua) by changing both values to 1 in these lines.

PEACE_TERMS_PROVINCE_NOT_ADJACENT_MULT = 0.5, -- AI desire for a province is multiplied by this if it is not adjacent at all (including vassals and other provinces being taken in peace)
PEACE_TERMS_PROVINCE_NO_INTEREST_MULT = 0, -- AI desire for a province is multiplied by this if it is not on their conquest list

20 years in, the ottomans have been dogpiled and austria has full annexed hansa

 

[Cataphract887]

Thats the kind of stuff ive been modding. Playing vanilla 1.13 atm, but ill get back to it soon enough.

Bumped up aggressiveness a bit, especially on hated enemies. Increased base manpower regen to help AI cope. The goal is just to make the AI play more humanlike, and humans declare alot of wars and take land like mad. So quite often the AI digs its own grave this way, but thats exactly what humans do(then they reload\restart) but ive seen things like teutonic order conquer northern poland, then have poland resurge later when teutonic order got themselves in huge trouble themselves. It seems much more dynamic

It hasnt been working that well since the fort update though. The AI is really struggling financially and really cant play the game as it stands. Im thinking of re-recreating the AI Bonuses list with the following; 50%- fort maintaince, 33% land\naval maintenance, some significant mercenary maintenance reductions. Maybe colony maintenance cost reductions if thats possible. I find the default AI bonuses to be obnoxious as it feels like ai is just cheating for all its stuff, but making it be bonuses to cover flaws\weaknesses i dont mind.

 

[Issac1709]

Thats the kind of stuff ive been modding. Playing vanilla 1.13 atm, but ill get back to it soon enough.

Bumped up aggressiveness a bit, especially on hated enemies. Increased base manpower regen to help AI cope. The goal is just to make the AI play more humanlike, and humans declare alot of wars and take land like mad. So quite often the AI digs its own grave this way, but thats exactly what humans do(then they reload\restart) but ive seen things like teutonic order conquer northern poland, then have poland resurge later when teutonic order got themselves in huge trouble themselves. It seems much more dynamic

It hasnt been working that well since the fort update though. The AI is really struggling financially and really cant play the game as it stands. Im thinking of re-recreating the AI Bonuses list with the following; 50%- fort maintaince, 33% land\naval maintenance, some significant mercenary maintenance reductions. Maybe colony maintenance cost reductions if thats possible. I find the default AI bonuses to be obnoxious as it feels like ai is just cheating for all its stuff, but making it be bonuses to cover flaws\weaknesses i dont mind.

-50% fort maintenance? come on now they will have level 4 forts in every province

 

[Cataphract887]

-50% fort maintenance? come on now they will have level 4 forts in every province

Does the AI actually calculate willingness to build forts on that? That remains to be seen. And i didnt mention this, but forts are much more expensive upfront to limit spam

 

[yerm]

-50% fort maintenance? come on now they will have level 4 forts in every province

Nah, not true at all. The AI is horrible at economic management, throwing them a bone with forts won't really alter it. They still cost a fortune to build in the first place anyway. They still merc heavily into debt on the side. Forts are just one more little tax they can't manage, so setting the price at effectively "off" when "on" works.

I actually like heavily modifying lucky/ai bonus, as I find that -ae and -unrest ideas give too much of the wrong crutch, and instead give +manpower, -interest, -maintenance (especially fort and merc), and various MP benefits like -idea and -core cost. The AI's biggest weakness I find is depleted manpower and idiotic loans and expenses, so I boost them where they need it, and reduce bonuses where it just removes game elements (lucky and bonus means never a coalition, and impossible to support rebels outside a disaster, boo no fun).

I haven't tried making the AI actually more aggressive in the defines, I'll probably try this tonight. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Issac1709]

Does the AI actually calculate willingness to build forts on that? That remains to be seen. And i didnt mention this, but forts are much more expensive upfront to limit spam

Nah, not true at all. The AI is horrible at economic management, throwing them a bone with forts won't really alter it. They still cost a fortune to build in the first place anyway. They still merc heavily into debt on the side. Forts are just one more little tax they can't manage, so setting the price at effectively "off" when "on" works.

I actually like heavily modifying lucky/ai bonus, as I find that -ae and -unrest ideas give too much of the wrong crutch, and instead give +manpower, -interest, -maintenance (especially fort and merc), and various MP benefits like -idea and -core cost. The AI's biggest weakness I find is depleted manpower and idiotic loans and expenses, so I boost them where they need it, and reduce bonuses where it just removes game elements (lucky and bonus means never a coalition, and impossible to support rebels outside a disaster, boo no fun).

I haven't tried making the AI actually more aggressive in the defines, I'll probably try this tonight. Thanks for the suggestion!

How about buffing both their spy offense and willingness to fabricate claims.

 

[Violent AI]

Using the settings I suggested in the original post, I ran a couple of games on observer mode and had interesting results. There's a lot of border gore and AI often returns taken provinces because it can't core them or OE etc.

Unfortunately the latest game overwrote the autosave for the last one, so I have screenshots for only the latest one now.

Some interesting things among a lot:

Hungary took Wien around 1460s and westernized later from the decision.

Sweden and Hungary no longer exists.

Mexico has lands in Portugal.

It's Tuscany you see in the Mamluk territory around Sinai. They had a lot more land, but lost it to rebels (AI's inability to handle rebels is a big reason why many nations have got their lands back after losing them to other nations)

Overall, I find that the changes in the world are more dynamic and I will be playing a lot more with these settings.

 

[Violent AI]

I chose another approach this time, by making all rulers have militarist personality. Militarist rulers forge a lot of claims, go to wars a lot, and take a lot of provinces in peace deals, instead of just cores/claims.

The only change to the base game is in this file:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Europa Universalis IV\common\ai_personalities\00_ai_personalities.txt

All the personalities except human will have the first three lines similar to:

ai_capitalist = {
chance = {
factor = 100

Change the third line factor value to 0 instead of 100 for all ai personalities, except ai_militarist

 

[Violent AI]

This is my first game with these changes (as Perm):

Europe:
Bohemia and Hungary ceased to exist by 1500, and there were around 25 princes in HRE at that time. Now there are 22 princes and only 2 electors left.

Asia:

Ming has conquered all the way upto Delhi

All of this without any intervention from me.

 

[Will Steel]

Oh man, this is amazing. I think we should balance this out and create a mod out of this.