There's tradeoffs to everything, and this is not by and large really an actual problem.
The Ai not being able to explore much beyond supply range seems an actual problem when AI only starts to colonize around 1600.
There's tradeoffs to everything, and this is not by and large really an actual problem.
The Ai not being able to explore much beyond supply range seems an actual problem when AI only starts to colonize around 1600.
I've seen a lot of misconceptions here and elsewhere about what advantages the AI gets over the player (besides the ones rolled into 'Bonuses' and 'Lucky Nations', which are explained through tooltips in the game options menu), so I thought I'd make a post and clear up in which exact ways the AI 'cheats'. Some of these cheats are crutches that it is my goal to eliminate, while others are more or less necessary for gameplay or performance reasons (for instance the +1 diplomat is necessary because the AI only handles diplomacy about once a month and therefore can't do the cancel diplomat, use diplomat, resend diplomat thing players do).
First, let me dispel some common misconceptions:
- The AI does not cheat with dice rolls, not even Lucky Nations. If you believe this to be the case, you are experiencing confirmation bias (ie you notice the times it rolls well a lot more than you notice the times you yourself do).
- The AI does not cheat with land attrition. No, really. Not even a little bit.
- The AI does not get extra manpower or free units.
- The AI does not cheat with sieges.
Now, a list of how it actually cheats:
- AI does not get naval attrition. It does avoid going too far out of range with most of its naval operations though, to somewhat simulate it.
- AI can see through fog of war, but pretends it can't in most cases.
- AI gets +1 diplomat that it reserves for non-maintained actions because the diplomatic AI 'ticks' means that it can't do the recall-send strategy that players do with maintained diplomats.
- AI gets +1 free leader pool because it's not nearly as good as a human at planning out when it will need leaders and needs to keep them on hand always.
- AI does not pay hiring costs for advisors, only maintenance, because their hiring code isn't that good and otherwise they waste a lot of money.
- AI can reassign admirals to a fleet that is at sea.
- AI gets slightly fewer revolts in its home owner area (the provinces connected to its capital).
- AI gets less native uprisings, because it is less than optimal at keeping its colonies garrisoned.
Finally, for the sake of fairness, here is how the human cheats:
- AI is willing to use up its last diplorelation for a human (it reserves one for humans so you're not always getting 'can't afford another relation').
- Humans cannot get inherited by other countries, in a PU or elsewise.
- Humans cannot be replaced as warleader in a war unless they are a vassal.
- Humans can save and reload when things go badly (unless you're playing ironman).
- Humans have a human brain.
On balance, AI isn't that big a cheater is it?
Overall I've been satisfied with the AI. However these bonuses are either a) excessive or b) have no justification.
The part about being able to assign admirals at sea actually got me in one of my games. The sicilian fleet was trapped, and I checked and neither my fleet nor theirs had an admiral, so I went full steam ahead with an attack.
And then suddenly they had an admiral :sad:
It's funny how the notion of "fairness" even comes into play here. After all, "AI" is just an illusion: hand-written code created to animate the game map and give the user something to beat up on.I've seen a lot of misconceptions here and elsewhere about what advantages the AI gets over the player (besides the ones rolled into 'Bonuses' and 'Lucky Nations', which are explained through tooltips in the game options menu), so I thought I'd make a post and clear up in which exact ways the AI 'cheats'. Some of these cheats are crutches that it is my goal to eliminate, while others are more or less necessary for gameplay or performance reasons (for instance the +1 diplomat is necessary because the AI only handles diplomacy about once a month and therefore can't do the cancel diplomat, use diplomat, resend diplomat thing players do).
First, let me dispel some common misconceptions:
- The AI does not cheat with dice rolls, not even Lucky Nations. If you believe this to be the case, you are experiencing confirmation bias (ie you notice the times it rolls well a lot more than you notice the times you yourself do).
- The AI does not cheat with land attrition. No, really. Not even a little bit.
- The AI does not get extra manpower or free units.
- The AI does not cheat with sieges.
Now, a list of how it actually cheats:
- AI does not get naval attrition. It does avoid going too far out of range with most of its naval operations though, to somewhat simulate it.
- AI can see through fog of war, but pretends it can't in most cases.
- AI gets +1 diplomat that it reserves for non-maintained actions because the diplomatic AI 'ticks' means that it can't do the recall-send strategy that players do with maintained diplomats.
- AI gets +1 free leader pool because it's not nearly as good as a human at planning out when it will need leaders and needs to keep them on hand always.
- AI does not pay hiring costs for advisors, only maintenance, because their hiring code isn't that good and otherwise they waste a lot of money.
- AI can reassign admirals to a fleet that is at sea.
- AI gets slightly fewer revolts in its home owner area (the provinces connected to its capital).
- AI gets less native uprisings, because it is less than optimal at keeping its colonies garrisoned.
Finally, for the sake of fairness, here is how the human cheats:
- AI is willing to use up its last diplorelation for a human (it reserves one for humans so you're not always getting 'can't afford another relation').
- Humans cannot get inherited by other countries, in a PU or elsewise.
- Humans cannot be replaced as warleader in a war unless they are a vassal.
- Humans can save and reload when things go badly (unless you're playing ironman).
- Humans have a human brain.
On balance, AI isn't that big a cheater is it?
Riddle me this if the AI doesn't "cheat". I'm England. I'm at war with Scotland. I beat the Scottish army - completely destroy it. I end up with a siege force in every single Scottish province. Lo and behold, a few months later, an 12k strong Scottish unit spawns in "Highlands" with perfect morale, right on top of my siege troops. Not cheating at all, right?
Riddle me this if the AI doesn't "cheat". I'm England. I'm at war with Scotland. I beat the Scottish army - completely destroy it. I end up with a siege force in every single Scottish province. Lo and behold, a few months later, an 12k strong Scottish unit spawns in "Highlands" with perfect morale, right on top of my siege troops. Not cheating at all, right?
You'd think there'd at least be an event sent to any nations at war with Scotland to tell them that happened...Riddle me this if the AI doesn't "cheat". I'm England. I'm at war with Scotland. I beat the Scottish army - completely destroy it. I end up with a siege force in every single Scottish province. Lo and behold, a few months later, an 12k strong Scottish unit spawns in "Highlands" with perfect morale, right on top of my siege troops. Not cheating at all, right?
The Ai not being able to explore much beyond supply range seems an actual problem when AI only starts to colonize around 1600.
Based on the way people were complain I had assumed they were. Does the rebel script spawn more based on something like year/type of rebellion/revolt risk etc?
Thats William Wallace and his highlanders! Its a scripted event that might trigger to make Scotland less of a pushover for England. I have seen it happen to AI England to, so it's not a cheat.![]()
They aren't created proportionally.
Event that spawn rebels have a size modifier (usually between 1 and 3) which gets multiplied by the normal spawn size in that province.
The problem there is that most small AI nations can't handle them properly.Thank God Rebels are not always generated in numbers below the country´s force-limits (or manpower), as some have suggested. Otherwise Rebels would be the same pushovers they were in EU3.
The problem there is that most small AI nations can't handle them properly.