AI Austria needs to blob less in HRE

[Bibor]

In my latest game, AI Austria got up to 4 reforms. I didn't influence European politics that much (as GB), except kept France in check by holding onto my cores.
The Reformation also wasn't a thing. In the end I was the only fool (alongside Pomerania) that went Protestant.

It's 1650s and Austria could easily enact the rest of reforms by 1820.

However, it shot itself into the foot by gobbling up too many HRE minors and the only reason it has negative influence is beacuse the lack of nations in HRE.

1) it keeps to much land for itself (instead of expanding into, say, Italy, Hungary or Poland)
2) it's terrible at dismantling large HRE nations. Not that it doesn't do it, he did and successfully, just not often enough.

 

[makaramus]

so you say it should be more stupid?
Austria allready nerfed this patch let ai be good if he can

if taking lands for itself working more compared to giving it back then he is doing right thing

well sure if AI austria is forming hre %30 of times no doubt there will be a change but no need to rage because AI passed 4 reforms?

 

[Bibor]

AI Austria goes ham within HRE way too often if it loses emperorship, even for a brief while.
I'm fine with it if it doesn't dip it into negative HRE influence when it regains emperorship.
And yes, it should look to expand outside HRE, if anything else, to add provinces to empire.

If forming HRE is just a human player thing, why is it in the game at all? Just limit it to 3-4 of the early decisions and let it be the end there. No point in having player-only mechanics in the game.

 

[Twoflower]

so you say it should be more stupid?
Austria allready nerfed this patch let ai be good if he can

if taking lands for itself working more compared to giving it back then he is doing right thing

well sure if AI austria is forming hre %30 of times no doubt there will be a change but no need to rage because AI passed 4 reforms?

I am not sure if you are willfully misunderstanding the OP, being a troll or are linguistically challenged.

His point was that in his game, it would have arguably been smarter for Austria to not take the land for itself, because that would have allowed him to enact all HRE reforms. Revoking the privilegia is quite objectively better than a few measly provinces.

 

[makaramus]

austria eating HRE when lost emperorship makes sense... its his culture group and since they didnt elect him no reason to play it cool. so he dows members of hre if emperor cannot stop him.

about annexing provinces in hre while still emperor... AI meant to create fun enviroment for player not have to play to win
if austria managed to reform holy roman empire every game it would be much worse. let it do some mistakes while almost succeding

 

[Regaccio]

This is just a side effect of how the AI works. Austria is a powerful nation, especially if it gets the Hungarian union, and if it isn't the Emperor, then all it sees nearby is a collection of weak, disunited statelets with its culture group. There's no reason it shouldn't gobble them up for fun. I'd actually argue this is a good thing for balance because if Luxembourg or something becomes the emperor, and Austria is hardcoded not to empower itself by eating minors, then all of Central Europe is basically free game for France, Poland, Kalmar/Sweden, Ottomans, etc. At least if Austria loses emperorship it can "self-correct" its course by becoming stronger through conquest. Though this of course has the side effect of screwing them later - but arguably, the AI shouldn't even be trying to release nations to make the HRE bigger because coding the AI to voluntarily release lots of little vassals could have disastrous consequences.

 

[ChloePech]

I also think giving the emperor AI a bigger focus on stopping the Shadow Kingdom would be good and lead to some interesting variety.

 

[illathid]

This is just a side effect of how the AI works. Austria is a powerful nation, especially if it gets the Hungarian union, and if it isn't the Emperor, then all it sees nearby is a collection of weak, disunited statelets with its culture group. There's no reason it shouldn't gobble them up for fun. I'd actually argue this is a good thing for balance because if Luxembourg or something becomes the emperor, and Austria is hardcoded not to empower itself by eating minors, then all of Central Europe is basically free game for France, Poland, Kalmar/Sweden, Ottomans, etc. At least if Austria loses emperorship it can "self-correct" its course by becoming stronger through conquest. Though this of course has the side effect of screwing them later - but arguably, the AI shouldn't even be trying to release nations to make the HRE bigger because coding the AI to voluntarily release lots of little vassals could have disastrous consequences.

It shouldn't be tied to Austria but to being emperor. So if Austria, or any other AI, is the emperor, it doesn't shoot itself in the foot.

 

[Xetfield]

Is it even possible to program Austian AI to be so smart? I mean, I've never seen strong restrictions of any AI country not to go into some areas

 

[Regaccio]

It shouldn't be tied to Austria but to being emperor.

It is, that's what I meant. All AI, when Emperor, will not blob in the HRE, including Austria. All AI, when not emperor, will act normally, and for powerful countries like Austria that means blobbing, especially in their own culture group. There's nothing unique about Austria's AI as far as I can tell, it's tied to being emperor. The problem is that the AI can't know if they're going to be emperor at some time in the future, and so what you call "shooting themselves in the foot" (eating up smaller, weaker states) might actually be the optimal play. There's simply no way for them to tell if they'll be emperor someday so the best thing the AI can do is hedge their bets and expand anyway.

In theory the AI could be improved so that it actively pursues passing all reforms even if they're not currently Emperor, and can predict if they'll become Emperor in the future, but that would be very difficult to balance so I suspect it's been left as-is while more important AI issues are dealt with (e.g. sleeping colonizers with 50k in Brazil)

 

[Dominion]

1.22 or 1.23 made it only blob if it lost emperorship. Did it blob in your games while being emperor?

 

[Sunspawn]

IMO, AI nations with a possibility of gaining the imperial crown should aim for that and act diplomatic within the empire instead of acting like a gluttonous monster.

 

[illathid]

It is, that's what I meant. All AI, when Emperor, will not blob in the HRE, including Austria. All AI, when not emperor, will act normally, and for powerful countries like Austria that means blobbing, especially in their own culture group. There's nothing unique about Austria's AI as far as I can tell, it's tied to being emperor. The problem is that the AI can't know if they're going to be emperor at some time in the future, and so what you call "shooting themselves in the foot" (eating up smaller, weaker states) might actually be the optimal play. There's simply no way for them to tell if they'll be emperor someday so the best thing the AI can do is hedge their bets and expand anyway.

In theory the AI could be improved so that it actively pursues passing all reforms even if they're not currently Emperor, and can predict if they'll become Emperor in the future, but that would be very difficult to balance so I suspect it's been left as-is while more important AI issues are dealt with (e.g. sleeping colonizers with 50k in Brazil)

But the OP was saying that Austria was blobbing while still HRE. So assuming this report is correct, something isn't functioning right.

 

[Regaccio]

But the OP was saying that Austria was blobbing while still HRE. So assuming this report is correct, something isn't functioning right.

I assumed that OP meant Austria started as the Emperor but lost it, wasn't the Emperor while it was blobbing, then it became the Emperor later, but had inadvertently screwed itself during the period inbetween. If Austria was indeed the Emperor while gobbling up everything in sight then yeah, that sounds very wrong. Otherwise though, it's just a case of the AI not being able to/not being designed to think too far ahead.

 

[Ironside121]

IMO, AI nations with a possibility of gaining the imperial crown should aim for that and act diplomatic within the empire instead of acting like a gluttonous monster.

I'd agree- with the exception of certain Ruler Personalities/Traits.

 

[Bouchart]

I'd agree- with the exception of certain Ruler Personalities/Traits.

Austria has a bias towards Diplomatic personality rulers, if memory serves.

 

[Ironside121]

Austria has a bias towards Diplomatic personality rulers, if memory serves.

Even better, makes it less likely that they'll blob, with it very rarely happening.

 

[bbqftw]

This generally only happens if Austria rolls a militarist which is rare.

 

[Coffer]

This generally only happens if Austria rolls a militarist which is rare.

In my experience it happens almost every single time, with or without a militarist ruler, with Bohemia being the one doing it the entire rest of the time.

I assumed that OP meant Austria started as the Emperor but lost it, wasn't the Emperor while it was blobbing, then it became the Emperor later, but had inadvertently screwed itself during the period inbetween. If Austria was indeed the Emperor while gobbling up everything in sight then yeah, that sounds very wrong. Otherwise though, it's just a case of the AI not being able to/not being designed to think too far ahead.

It does indeed still attack randomly while being emperor. At least it's to a lesser degree and most of the time it diverts its attention to Bohemia, but that's still not ideal and they certainly do try to have a look at whoever else in the HRE they can lay their eyes on as well.

The problem is that the AI can't know if they're going to be emperor at some time in the future

That sounds like suboptimal underdeveloped AI to me. As an HRE member, one of the goals considered by an AI should absolutely be becoming emperor, especially if they're in a position to do it in one way or another. Right now they're not thinking about it at all and acting like a normal AI because their priority system does not include working towards becoming emperor at all. You can forgive, say, new favorite blobber Lubeck for doing it, but Austria and Bohemia being bloodthirsty is a problem - they're rightly punished for being bloodthirsty, but that very same punishment drives them to keep being bloodthirsty, so you end up with a vicious circle and all the reforms just about never being passed by anyone because of the low number of princes and the extreme vulnerability of a lot of post-Austria/Bohemia emperors, especially OPMperors.

I'd actually argue this is a good thing for balance because if Luxembourg or something becomes the emperor, and Austria is hardcoded not to empower itself by eating minors, then all of Central Europe is basically free game for France, Poland, Kalmar/Sweden, Ottomans, etc.

That's why the current voting system isn't good enough. If the emperor cannot defend the empire from outside threats, it should be voted against, especially if those enemies actually make territorial gains or, worse, the emperor himself gets curbstomped, but right now RMs+alliances are an overly important factor in deciding the votes compared to the need to be protected by a big figure. +50 is not a big enough modifier - it gives the likes of Brabant too much of an opportunity to take the throne and then die with it. Hell, that's what happened in my latest TO->Prussia attempt where I kicked them to the curb - the voters certainly didn't seem to care as they hated me even more and Austria continued to be completely ignored.

 

[TenshiN]

In my first 1.24 game, Austria passed all the reforms and formed greyskin by 1760. First time i have seen this since, like, 2014. So i guess our experiances may vary greatly.