AI: Dogpiling versus balance of power

[Incompetent]

Say you are Spain, with a negative attitude towards both England and France (who also hate each other). One day you see that England is wrecking France (no PU, just taking land). You don't want England to take over all of France, as then you'll have a huge blob on your doorstep. So there are two basic options to stop it:

1. While everyone is distracted, grab as much French land for yourself as you can. That way you'll have part of France on your side of the border when the inevitable fight with England kicks off.

2. Patch up your differences with the French and intervene on their side, driving back the English (either as part of a formal alliance, or as a separate war). This will restore the balance of power and perhaps give you a strong ally.

For players, this kind of strategic thinking is basic stuff, although it's not always obvious which option is right. But the AI needs to be taught to choose between them. At the moment, the AI basically goes for the vulture option, i.e. option 1, resulting in a great big dogpile as all of France's neighbours do the same. There are mechanisms to make AI Spain hate England in this situation (namely AE). But there's no mechanism to encourage Spain to befriend France. Also, if Spain accidentally wanders into France's core zone (e.g. by annexing a French core in a war against England or some third party), then the French AI totally shuts off any possibility of alliance with Spain, even when England is the existential threat.

How can the AI be changed to sometimes make alliances of circumstance to preserve the balance of power, instead of just always scavenging provinces whenever a neighbour is weak?

 

[drake546]

Someone a while back suggested a system which replaced AE with a Balance of Power mechanic. I thought it was a brilliant idea. My thought is that you'd rank all the nations by a score based on Development and Military.

The top 8 would be the "great powers" (sorta like Victoria 2). Anyone above the mean score gets a malus from the others. Then divide the rest into groups based on region. Anyone above the mean for the region would get a malus from the others.

This way anyone who gets too big for his britches gets a beat down by his neighbors, unless he breaks into the great powers. Any great power who gets too big for his britches gets beat down by the other great powers.

I'd like to give something like this a try, rather than the infamy/ae mechanic we get instead.

 

[MathewPerth]

Someone a while back suggested a system which replaced AE with a Balance of Power mechanic. I thought it was a brilliant idea. My thought is that you'd rank all the nations by a score based on Development and Military.

The top 8 would be the "great powers" (sorta like Victoria 2). Anyone above the mean score gets a malus from the others. Then divide the rest into groups based on region. Anyone above the mean for the region would get a malus from the others.

This way anyone who gets too big for his britches gets a beat down by his neighbors, unless he breaks into the great powers. Any great power who gets too big for his britches gets beat down by the other great powers.

I'd like to give something like this a try, rather than the infamy/ae mechanic we get instead.

This is genius. Can anyone find the thread?

 

[StatikShocker]

Problem is, this game has too many "-2000 hates you" modifiers, plus the questionable rival system, to allow for dynamic alliances and interventions. The A.I. is only able to dogpile, a.k.a make shortsighted decisions to augment their power, regardless of the political situation.

 

[DicRoNero]

This way anyone who gets too big for his britches gets a beat down by his neighbors, unless he breaks into the great powers. Any great power who gets too big for his britches gets beat down by the other great powers.

Basically, a badboy modifier from EU1. I hated it, you ended up being alone at the whole planet after 100 or 200 years into the game.

 

[drake546]

Basically, a badboy modifier from EU1. I hated it, you ended up being alone at the whole planet after 100 or 200 years into the game.

Well the whole point would be avoiding the alone on the planet thing. The system I envision would be trying to keep a relative balance of power, first on the regional level, and then on the great power level. Not with any hard lined coalitions, but just isolating nations from making alliances with other local powers if they get too powerful.

 

[SignedName]

Well the whole point would be avoiding the alone on the planet thing. The system I envision would be trying to keep a relative balance of power, first on the regional level, and then on the great power level. Not with any hard lined coalitions, but just isolating nations from making alliances with other local powers if they get too powerful.

That would mean players would have to stop blobbing after a certain point.

 

[Oyubi]

It may be the Serenissima Italia mod you remember this system from? I haven't played it in a long time but back when EU4 was still quite new it had a system like that in place in Italy. If you got too big the rest of Italy started hating you and you got dip rep hits and things. I don't think it changed the alliance system though since the last time I played it was before coalitions were introduced.

 

[Freudia]

That would mean players would have to stop blobbing after a certain point.

Realistically it would mean players would keep blobbing on their own. If they needed to get other nations into wars on their side, they'd take vassals along the way. More likely they'd just go over their forcelimit to make up the differential.

 

[Incompetent]

Problem is, this game has too many "-2000 hates you" modifiers, plus the questionable rival system, to allow for dynamic alliances and interventions. The A.I. is only able to dogpile, a.k.a make shortsighted decisions to augment their power, regardless of the political situation.

Yes, this is why I think a mechanical rethink is needed. It's easy to create a situation where everyone hates everyone and each country's only criterion for starting a war is whether there's an easy win on the table, but it's much harder to get countries with bad blood to realise they need to work together to stop a bigger threat. The coalition system can do this in theory, but in practice the implementation is too clumsy to lead to any sort of balance of power. In particular, by locking the members into a war, it makes the AI even less flexible diplomatically, whereas preserving the balance of power requires increased diplomatic flexibility.

Realistically it would mean players would keep blobbing on their own. If they needed to get other nations into wars on their side, they'd take vassals along the way. More likely they'd just go over their forcelimit to make up the differential.

Indeed, but that would still be better from the perspective of AI design than the current situation, where growing to a monstrous size (assuming you know how to play the AE game) actually makes the AI *more* willing to ally with you and help you conquer everything. So e.g. in the scenario I mentioned in the OP, maybe Spain will be 'outraged', but too chicken to do anything about it, but someone like Poland will go from being indifferent to being 'friendly' with England, because it wants a strong friend and is too far away to feel bad about what's happening. So now Polish troops are streaming west to assist in the English steamroller.

 

[Thrake]

I personnaly would just do the same: I'd dogpile France. See: England did all the hard work, at some point, it's just free landgrab at the expense of the English crown. Helping France in the other hand means likely a tough war to come. Basically England exhausted itself while I expand for free, so I can DOW France, landgrab and then jump at England as it's weak already. Only situation where I would consider helping France is if England is a monster that no European country is strong enough to beat, and if me+France can do the job. If we can't, then it's back to dogpiling: I need to expand faster than England to challenge them eventually.

I recon that a system where if one country grows too strong, then other nations should do their best to bring it down though, even if it means putting aside old rivalries (just to become rivals again when the threat is gone ). That's what any sane monarch would do, and how European politics went in the time after all.

 

[paulatreides0]

A balance of power could not replace AE, only complement it. That being said, any halfway decent balance of power mechanic would need to be accurate and not just include the ostracizing parts of balance of power, but also things like bandgwagoning where nations join the hegemon for protection - and I doubt a lot of people here would like that very much. Balance of power isn't just about everyone hating the hegemon - in fact, in any sensible BoP system, some people, including great powers, will someone more just because they are a hegemon.

That being said, there's nothing wrong the with the vulture approach. Historically a nation capable of using the vulture approach would have done so, especially if the nation in question was a rival, but there were multiple factors at play that prevented them from doing so- many of which the game does not model very well, and thus can't really be implemented without a massive overhaul.

No country in continental Europe really cared about the balance of power, so much as they cared about furthering their own position. The only country that really wanted an absolute balance of power was England, who had to depend on balance of power for its position as a great power.

 

[Chaingun]

Problem is, this game has too many "-2000 hates you" modifiers, plus the questionable rival system, to allow for dynamic alliances and interventions. The A.I. is only able to dogpile, a.k.a make shortsighted decisions to augment their power, regardless of the political situation.

You're kinda right on track here. As an AI programmer, I'm limited in what I can do when, for various reasons displayed to the user, countries are supposed to hate or like each others. Changing the game design is of course doable as well but is a more extensive process.

I completely agree with the thread starter that it's a problem AI is often siding with the strongest power, resulting in a very static game once you grow large enough.

We're certainly going to continue working towards solving it, it might however take some time. I do read threads like these all the time and pay attention to what people suggest.

 

[Alias72]

Someone a while back suggested a system which replaced AE with a Balance of Power mechanic. I thought it was a brilliant idea. My thought is that you'd rank all the nations by a score based on Development and Military.

The top 8 would be the "great powers" (sorta like Victoria 2). Anyone above the mean score gets a malus from the others. Then divide the rest into groups based on region. Anyone above the mean for the region would get a malus from the others.

This way anyone who gets too big for his britches gets a beat down by his neighbors, unless he breaks into the great powers. Any great power who gets too big for his britches gets beat down by the other great powers.

I'd like to give something like this a try, rather than the infamy/ae mechanic we get instead.

1st. I think this is a great idea however one of the biggest flaws in Victoria is the hard-coded limits. I would say nations n% above the mean should be great powers. This keeps there numbers small but fluid. or perhaps just have a negative modifier based on relative power.

You're kinda right on track here. As an AI programmer, I'm limited in what I can do when, for various reasons displayed to the user, countries are supposed to hate or like each others. Changing the game design is of course doable as well but is a more extensive process.

I completely agree with the thread starter that it's a problem AI is often siding with the strongest power, resulting in a very static game once you grow large enough.

We're certainly going to continue working towards solving it, it might however take some time. I do read threads like these all the time and pay attention to what people suggest.

Perhaps an existing mechanic may be of use. give heirs a family loyalty value that determines whether they inherit the diplomatic ties of their parent. When the king dies relations between some or all nations may be reset in proportion to that family loyalty modifier. In addition have neutral nations with a threatened attitude look towards joining the defender if the aggressor is either a threat, or if both are threats then the weakest side.

 

[londoner247]

You're kinda right on track here. As an AI programmer, I'm limited in what I can do when, for various reasons displayed to the user, countries are supposed to hate or like each others. Changing the game design is of course doable as well but is a more extensive process.

I completely agree with the thread starter that it's a problem AI is often siding with the strongest power, resulting in a very static game once you grow large enough.

We're certainly going to continue working towards solving it, it might however take some time. I do read threads like these all the time and pay attention to what people suggest.

Does the AI have long term goals that it tries to weigh current opportunities against or would that be too difficult with so many countries on the map so you can only have the AI considering short term opportunities? For example, does an AI Brandenburg sometimes set itself the goal of forming Prussia and then consider all actions against that objective?

 

[Arizal]

I have some suggestions (perhaps irrealist, but lets try). First, make the rivalry system less pregnant, or at least more flexible. This is mandatory if any alliance shift is to be possible. Maybe rivalry could annul itself : if two countries are rivals, but also rival to another country which is stronger than both of them individually, then they should seek alliance and have a modifier as such.

As you said, the current AI attitude is (always, except for AE) bandwagon : the AI joins the individual country which is the stronger in order to further its goals (as soon as this country doesn't actively wants provinces the AI also wants). What we need is for the AI to actively seeks to counterweight a country, but not suicidarily, as such a behaviour only facilitate the task of an average player. Maybe the rival system could again be of use.

As soon as one country ally is close to it and stronger than it, it should begin to seek other neighbour countries (a rival of the ally, perhaps) and try to do the maths : which potential alliance could counterweight its current ally? Then, it would act to secure such alliances of interest (even if the ally did nothing against the weaker country). Of course, trust would still have to be factored to prevent treason. Maybe we could even keep the current 80 trust = no betrayal. And maybe trust should multiply the strenght necessary for the ally to consider betraying (so that while normally, at 50, trust, the ally would betray as soon as the other has 125% more power than itself, at 79% it would wait until it has 175% (and if no alliance is possible then, it would be under the bigger country grasp permanently).

While talking about trust, what about scaling it differently, so that it goes beyond 100%? In effect, at 100%, an ally would reach the unbrokable bond threshold, and then trust would go until 125% to allow for room.

So in this post I propose two ways to use the rival system for BoP purpose :
- Nullify the rivalry effect for two rivals who are mutually rivaling another, stronger, country, and make them ally themselves. (as rivals are supposed to be roughly equal size countries)
- Make the actual allies of a country stronger than its rivals seek alliance with that country rivals on some conditions (while making trust a counter to such behavior).

There may be holes in those proposals, but this is the best I thought about in about 10 minutes.

 

[Alias72]

perhaps instead of rivals you have a nemesis. A nemesis is a single power whom you are opposed. This would drastically reduce the number of powers that refuse to align with each other.

 

[Arizal]

There should also be more directed alliances, as in : You are my rival, but I ally you against our common rival, and against him only. We could also choose if the alliance can be defensive or not.

This could mean a revamp of how the diplomatic monarch points are used. I would like it if they were in function of the usefulness of a diplomatic relation. So a royal marriage would factor less than a general offensive alliance (about as much as a guarantee).

 

[StatikShocker]

I think there is a need for a temporary "alliance" (more like a call to arms) where a war leader can request other nations to join their war, and the a.i. would weigh joining in based on the opinion of both war leaders and the relative strength of alliances, preferring to join the weaker side (maluses for joining the already stronger side).

 

[Rabid]

On a related note, I really think that the rivalry system, while fun to play with, is actually hurting the game more than helping. For example, a group of small states bordering a larger one; the small states will all rival each other, leaving them to either ally with their large neighbour for protection (probably ending up being diplo vassaled) or be eaten. Shouldn't they - at least sometimes - be able to see past their petty rivalries and band together to remain independent?

I see multiple times that what would look to be a state's most natural ally is essentially hard locked into being an enemy because they ended up as rivals somewhere along the line.