Ai Agressive only towards player?

[Blood4u]

Hi there i am currently in my France game trying to enjoy the game after a long break. Currently the ai is bothering me more than it should.

Hungary and Austria got into a war with ottomans, i just recieved half of the inhertiance from burgundy and i decided to take on a mission to vassalize liege when i started the war everyone on austrias side joined hungary aragon etc.

Now i am faced with 80 + k armies standing right at my door waiting for an garrison to fall while ottomans are just running rampart thorugh hungray.

I mean at the begining of the war they were fighting ottomans as soon as i declared every one just switched to me completly ignoring the ottomans that rape their country. Is this intented?

i mean normally this should be the smart choice and i should be rewarding for making them fight on 2 fronts but them completly ignoring the ottomans just to not let me vassalize an almost opm minor seems completly unintented or if it is then how are we suppose to play smart? Are we just suppose to brute force every single war?

I really want to know if this is a bug and faulty ai again because those 20 k troops from hungray clearly shouldnt be in my country when ottomans have half of theirs.

 

[londoner247]

The AI is a lot more selective in battles now and so they may be avoiding the Ottomans if they don't think they can win that war but focussing in you because they feel they have more of a chance. In Hungary's position you might well do the same thing rather than just sacrifice your troops to losing battles.

 

[Blood4u]

Still doesn't make sense tbh. You as hungary have the option to not join war against france and just focus with the plethora of allies around you to minimize or just win against ottomans but you decide to go against france let ottomans take your country and demand half of it for free while you still fight france .

How does any of that make sense the whole point is the war is for an opm that no one had to join and defend but they all decided to join because there is 80% chance to win the war with massive losses and lose 100% another war,seems like ai being dumb and just forced into destroying the player rather than living.

 

[londoner247]

Difficult to comment without the full picture but, as Hungary, you might not want to decline Austria's Call To Arms and lose your best ally, especially if that might mean that Poland and Bohemia decide to dog pile you because you look weak.

As for your general point, this thread includes comments from the former AI programmer in response to somebody else raising similar concerns.

 

[Blood4u]

Thanks for poiting out the Thread, it's exactly the same concerns and i do not belive the AI programmer even gives us the truth or if that is the case

Ottomans > france as it seems atm cause they seem to think im weaker than the Ottomans or as it's probably coded if the player attacks the nations forgets he is actually a nation and ai is a common force 3 countries can literally die and get annexed as long as it annoys the player ,yes annoy because i just lost alot of gold and 30 k manpower but thats about it just slowed all of my gameplay by 20-30 years just to annoy me while they get annexed .

This is the result after i white peaced liege just to prove how retarted the ai can be and how it just tries to fight the player if this is it's normal behaviour.

 

[Tacticus101]

No way those 20k Hungarian troops are going to be able to do anything against the Ottomans without the help of Austria. Since Austria is fighting in France, the best play Hungary can do is help crush France so that they can then go back and fight the Ottomans. Declining the call to arms and losing Austria as an ally would be the worst thing they can possibly do.

Now, the fact that Austria decided to defend Liege in the first place is possibly a weakness, but that is a completely different issue and nothing to do with prioritising the player.

Edit: I really cant see a problem with that picture. Hungary has troops unsieging its lands whilst Ottoman troops are distracted in Austria. The Austrian troops, now the war is over, will likely head back to try and fight the Ottomans in their lands along with Aragon and other allies. Fairly reasonable play there.

 

[in heaven]

There was a person who was playing as France and as soon as he started fighting busy Austria (fighting in the east), they instantly came to attack player who had much weaker allies in same war (like Milan).. Its not that AI thinks you're weak, it just attacks player and does not care about everything else..

 

[Zelius]

Who were your allies? Your France, with high autonomy in many of your provinces, was much weaker than Ottomans, taking note of superior early game Ottoman units + greater wealth + lucky nation status, especially if you hadn't unlocked Elan yet. Knocking you out immediately before you can occupy them seems like a smart play. Add to that, I assume the alliance against you (Austria & allies + Liege & their allies) was bigger than Hungary + allies? One further point is that naval invasions are relatively hard, and Aragon is more than pleased to march into France instead.

Your gamble would only have any effect if Austria/Hungary were sitting on sieges they were reluctant to abandon when you attacked, allowing you to gain a fort or two. There are no real 'fronts'. As it stands, you might have been able to make a separate white peace with Hungary due to half their lands being occupied. The real smart play would've been waiting until Austria and co. had actually taken significant losses before jumping them, instead of facing their full force. Or waiting more until Hungary and even possibly Austria would refuse CtA due to war exhaustion etc., and then attack Liege.

 

[wingzero890]

All of the above explanations are trying to apologize for what is really just horrendous AI.

France taking a OPM should be much lower on the priority list for that alliance block than Ottomans annexing half of Hungary.

The AI will break their country with thousands of ducats of loans and mercenary armies to try and stop the player, while leaving their lands undefended and slowly sieged down by another war.

This is not smart unless the only goal of the AI is to stop the player.

 

[Blood4u]

For those trying to prove that the ai is behaving correctly please relate the time when you are in a war with a big power and another big power attacks your most powerfull ally but the ai doesnt care and literally lends you all their troops even though in the end they will be 50 % annexed. The ai never does that for the player but against the player? It seems like this is the norm from now on.

 

[HaaYaargh]

No, I don't think you are right.

 

[Granite]

I don't think sharing anecdotal evidence for either side here is helpful to getting closer to the truth. Can anyone dig up the code for how the AI weighs its war declarations? I would do it, but I'm on mobile for thr moment.

 

[Chaingun]

On Normal difficulty there's even code that makes AI give preferential treatment to player, i.e. attack human player less than they would if it was another AI. AI only plays its best at Hard.

 

[Blood4u]

I don't want to missunderstand something but when i ticked ironman on and eligible for achievemants doesnt thise equal hard ? And if it does im thinking maybe there is an oposite ai treatment at hard, i still dont know if ironman = hard.

 

[londoner247]

I don't want to missunderstand something but when i ticked ironman on and eligible for achievemants doesnt thise equal hard ? And if it does im thinking maybe there is an oposite ai treatment at hard, i still dont know if ironman = hard.

Ironman is not the same as hard. You can actually play on ironman at any difficulty setting now but can only earn achievements on normal difficulty or harder.

 

[Fanstar1]

Ironman is not the same as hard. You can actually play on ironman at any difficulty setting now but can only earn achievements on normal difficulty or harder.

people usually play ironman only for achievements

 

[Muki13]

people usually play ironman only for achievements

Some also play in ironman because it helps them to limit savescumming and in the end its more fun like that. Feels more like a challenge and is more rewarding.

 

[pikaemperor]

Some also play in ironman because it helps them to limit savescumming and in the end its more fun like that. Feels more like a challenge and is more rewarding.

If only it could stop save scumming, a save scummer is going to do it either way as Ironman is as save scummable as a normal save.

 

[Tweakee]

The only reason the AI sometimes seems to seek out a human player is when the human player splits their armies into smaller sizes than the AI enemies have. The AI will always bee-line for isolated forces it thinks it can wipe. If you don't want to be the the target of the first major battle, you may sometimes have to keep your forces bunched up to deter an AI attack.

 

[Kryndude]

It's the way AIs behave these days. They seek only battles they can win. Just leave a vulnerable 10k stack or something on the other side of the map where AI can reach (eventually) and see what it does. No help nearby. The AI will come straight for that bait.