AI Germany and Going "Oppose Hitler"

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Mr_Dimento

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Dec 11, 2018
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The expansion is rapidly approaching and I am wondering if this is going to be fixed for the release of La Resistance. The problem is that AI Germany almost never goes "Oppose Hitler" on ahistorical, but many other countries, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, France, United Kingdom all do their alt history paths quite frequently. I am really hoping that the % for Germany going democratic/monarchist is increased because this will make playing in Europe a lot more interesting then what it is now.

This would be an easy change and I am hoping if others are wanting this too. Thoughts on this and other things?

Another thing that is rarely ever picked is the USA "Limited Intervention" I think I've only seen that one a few times myself.
 
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Fairly sure the Devs gave a comment about Germany ages ago (probably not lomg after WtT) saying that Germany will almost always stick with Hitler because changing ideology often breaks the game. Turning Democratic/Monarchist will make it about 20000x harder for any other fascist nation to do anything (and essentially ensuring the death of Mussolini) but the most problematic thing is when they turn democratic. Germany is the main generator of world tension in the game, if they turn democratic you could be looking at games where you don't have enough WT until late in the 40s/ever for democratic nations to do anything. This could kill runs for any player who chooses a democratic nation. Currently the chance of that happening is so low on alternate that it's fine, but if they upped it so players are seeing it a decent amount of time (even if it were around 10% of the time), you'd face a large amount of players having to ditch their runs because they just can't do anything.

Tl;Dr With the way the game is set up Germany is the driving force of the game and WT, if it often turned Democratic/Monarchist it would A- Mess up alignment so massively on the continent it'd stomp everything in sight and B- Lead to a large number of games where Democratic nations would have no war other than anything given in their focus trees.
 
Yes, my argument is however with the inclusion of all new alt paths for many different countries, this does not matter anymore because other countries will go fascist/communist and attempt global hegemony.

Hence it is no longer necessary to force Germany down Hitler path.
 
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Apart from it's not enough though. Most nations that'll attempt to go fascist or communist are minor nations. When the AI plays nations like Hungary they often fail when taking out Austria, and would be absolutely destroyed by any democratic power if they were ever brought into conflict (which they're often not as they won't get war goals against most majors and the wargoals they get generate next to no world tension).

The only nations we can look at as balances to Germany are other major nations, so let's look at the nations with reworked focus trees.
Japan- Starts facist and it's alternates (which it already often takes) either leaves it communist; where it does nothing, monarchist, which leads to a soviet war (the one I war which Germany will always be able to do) if it ever progresses the tree that far, which it often doesn't, or democratic, where it does nothing.

UK- The UK often tries to flip to a different ideology in alt history but due to the mechanics it uses it very rarely does. I don't have any metrics to measure it other than my own games which I know isn't particularly scientific, but I've played a boatload of games with historical focuses off and I'm not sure I've ever seen the UK manage to turn communist and I think I've seen them go fascist once. Because they have to do everything by event the UK basically never flips, I often quit my games around 1942/3 so the UK might almost always eventually flip, but if it isn't flipping until that late in the game you've got a serious problem and it isn't a viable substitute. The most often thing I see is the UK goes down the decolonisation focuses near immediately weakening themselves substantially and then just sits there doing nothing ideology wise. The only ideology I've seen them successfully do a few times (and they seem to take this road far less often) is monarchist, where they get an option to ally with Germany anyway, which means they'll be pretty much useless, most of their focus tree involves reclaiming their colonies and the other bit is destroying Italy, the only fascist nation left on the planet.
Furthermore the UK is one of most picked democratic nations (and I think one of the most picked in general) so if they're the only nation people are relying on to be a counterbalance then they're screwed if they're playing as the UK.

USA- Does anyone ever see the US go into civil war? I only ever see the US take the tree up to the safe still democratic point. In my 100 or so hours since MtG came out (and I only ever play with historical off) I have never seen the US go into one of their civil wars. Even if they go communist I'm fairly sure they get very little (although I can't remember), and the fascist civil war is meant to be very hard even for players, so there's very little chance of them winning even if they did go into it.

France and the Soviet Union- These trees are old and the alt history is poor. The Soviets can't turn away from communism and the French (on the rare times they go commie) do nothing but drag the SU into a war when they get attacked by Germany. I understand France is getting an update to its tree in la resistance but yknow.

Furthermore all these dlc are different and players may only have one. Paradox are most concerned with not breaking their game, and if you only have WtT for example there would be no other nation which would be able to change focuses to combat the lack of WT.
If you really want to play with Germany going democratic that badly just change it in the settings so they follow that path. I know that disables achievements and that's annoying, but game balance comes over having a nation go democratic more often.
 
The UK can become communist, the AI is just horrendous at handling that transition. I've seen it flip in 1944.

This thread highlights one of the biggest issues with alternate history. I think designing alternate history focus trees that are fun to play is just part of the equation. That is not enough. Alternate history content needs to be designed that is 1. Fun for the player and 2. Capable of being done by the AI.

Obviously one can't expect AI Napoleonic France to actually succeed in conquering the continent, but the fact is that when the AI goes down alternate history paths it usually botches the transition or dithers for years on end taking exclusively industrial, naval, and airforce focuses.
 
Yeah I have to agree with you. The AI needs to be able to follow these routes. Paradox has made routes which are more and more challenging to pull off, to try make it harder/take longer/have more interaction for players trying to switch ideologies, but it's made it near impossible for the AI to actually follow these paths.

Also that was my point about the UK, it often takes the alt history paths of fascist/communist but never gets there because the events make it take so long. Britain only just being able to take any focus that allows it to generate WT or declare wars in 1944 is ridiculous, by that point in the game there's no point.
 
Yeah I have to agree with you. The AI needs to be able to follow these routes. Paradox has made routes which are more and more challenging to pull off, to try make it harder/take longer/have more interaction for players trying to switch ideologies, but it's made it near impossible for the AI to actually follow these paths.

Also that was my point about the UK, it often takes the alt history paths of fascist/communist but never gets there because the events make it take so long. Britain only just being able to take any focus that allows it to generate WT or declare wars in 1944 is ridiculous, by that point in the game there's no point.

This is one of those situations where I'm actually ok with the AI cheating a bit. It's very cool that the developers introduced some immersive and interactive mechanics like organizing the blackshirt marches, managing the trade union demands, and occupying the dominions, but it's obvious the AI itself cannot handle these things. I think things would work out better if the AI was essentially able to cheat and automatically transition to communism/fascism without having to deal with an interactive mechanic intended for players. This also applies to the occupy the dominions mechanic. For AI Britain, the 'occupation' should be simulated by RNG with one or two dominions being guaranteed to be puppeted.

I also believe that it's necessary to add in more events and railroading to facilitate fun alternate history games. In Little Entente runs for example, once Germany is defeated(which isn't too hard) then the game is effectively over. You can tackle Japan, but it will be a curb-stomp. It would be more interesting if some event railroading an unholy Alliance between the Soviet Union and Germany kicked off when Germany begins losing. That's just an example. I think many more things like this are needed for better and more fun alternate history games.

Kaiserreich is a positive example. Whatever people may think of it, the fact is that it manages to strike a balance between railroading(The German Empire always remains the German Empire, and France and Britain will always be some flavor of revolutionary socialist) and an unstable, unpredictable global balance of power. Paradox has never really tried to replicate this even as the amount of alternate history paths have proliferated. Obviously, it's a growing problem.
 
The expansion is rapidly approaching and I am wondering if this is going to be fixed for the release of La Resistance. The problem is that AI Germany almost never goes "Oppose Hitler" on ahistorical, but many other countries, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, France, United Kingdom all do their alt history paths quite frequently. I am really hoping that the % for Germany going democratic/monarchist is increased because this will make playing in Europe a lot more interesting then what it is now.
In my opinion "interesting" would better be described as "unexpected" here, because the resulting game situation is often less interesting due to AI ineptitude. It would also be easier if the alt-history scenarios would be based less on random just-because-I-want-to, but actual diplomatic developments representable in the game.

Another thing that is rarely ever picked is the USA "Limited Intervention" I think I've only seen that one a few times myself.
Limited Intervention attempts to use the AI strategy plan system, but badly. By default the USA AI has an extremely strong bias towards the historical Neutrality Act option, picking it much earlier than in the historical focus list even. If Germany or Japan are at war, the USA switches over entirely to wanting nothing but intervention. So for it to become a real possibility, Germany or Japan has to go to war extremely early and even then the result is highly predictable in either case.
Rebalancing the numbers in these strategies should be less controversial than the Oppose Hitler probability.
 
If I want to see AI Germany go Democratic or whatever I just set the the game rule. Really don't see the problem here.
Because that's a fixed choice. Wanting the have the random chance of Germany going with Oppose Hitler is really quite different from that, and it's what going ahistorical is about - seeing what happens.

Selecting that Germany 100% goes Democratic is as bad, for that, as Germany going 100% with Hitler.
 
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Because that's a fixed choice. Wanting the have the random chance of Germany going with Oppose Hitler is really quite different from that, and it's what going ahistorical is about - seeing what happens.

Selecting that Germany 100% goes Democratic is as bad, for that, as Germany going 100% with Hitler.

You know that there is the game rule option "random", that does exactly what you want? For every country with alternative paths, if you want to?
The difference to the earlier "historical focus off" option is, that with the game rule it goes straight down that new path, which is also exactly what you want (no more communist UK in 1944 e.g.)
The chances are weighted too, but can be changed in the "00_on_actions" file as you please. Right now it is

random_list = {
50 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_FASCIST } }
35 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_KAISER } }
15 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_DEMOCRATIC } }
}

that is 50% chance for Hitler, 35% for the Kaiser, 15% for democratic Germany
 
You know that there is the game rule option "random", that does exactly what you want? For every country with alternative paths, if you want to?
The difference to the earlier "historical focus off" option is, that with the game rule it goes straight down that new path, which is also exactly what you want (no more communist UK in 1944 e.g.)
The chances are weighted too, but can be changed in the "00_on_actions" file as you please. Right now it is

random_list = {
50 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_FASCIST } }
35 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_KAISER } }
15 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_DEMOCRATIC } }
}

that is 50% chance for Hitler, 35% for the Kaiser, 15% for democratic Germany


Setting to random disables achievements otherwise I would totally be fine with setting things to random.
 
Germany is 10x times (!) more likely to go Fascist than Non-Aligned/Democratic. I have never seen it in hundreds of hours.

The game's reliance on railroaded focus trees instead of solid sandbox mechanics as a base means most alt-history goes bonkers anyway. Paradox only balances alternative branches stuff with Historical AI mode in mind.

Still, they could do something. Even with Historical AI off, how many times have you seen Himmler/Goring or MacArthur/Dewey rule Germany/USA? The game plays identically if Hitler or Roosevelt are removed but PDX didn't care to "even the odds" on non-historical, unfortunately.
 
Can only hope to see changes with all of this in the upcoming patch.
 
You know that there is the game rule option "random", that does exactly what you want? For every country with alternative paths, if you want to?
The difference to the earlier "historical focus off" option is, that with the game rule it goes straight down that new path, which is also exactly what you want (no more communist UK in 1944 e.g.)
The chances are weighted too, but can be changed in the "00_on_actions" file as you please. Right now it is

random_list = {
50 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_FASCIST } }
35 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_KAISER } }
15 = { GER = { set_country_flag = GER_AI_RANDOM_DEMOCRATIC } }
}

that is 50% chance for Hitler, 35% for the Kaiser, 15% for democratic Germany
Nope, it doesn't. Random detaches completely each tree from the others, so you get no cause-effect at all, with countries selecting branches...well, at random.
 
AI is set to avoid Oppose Hitler because it cripples Germany and Germany is the main aggressor of the game. It will probably stay so until the Soviet rework which will have a world communism path, making it a main aggressor so Germany can go Oppose Hitler and then the Soviets will go aggressive.

Similarly the US is set to almost always stay democratic otherwise it's severely crippled. Same story with communist Japan.
 
The game I'm playing right now AI Germany opposed Hitler and won. I set all nations to Random and all kinds of interesting things are happening. Poland and Germany are allies and fighting Soviets.
 
UK- The UK often tries to flip to a different ideology in alt history but due to the mechanics it uses it very rarely does. I don't have any metrics to measure it other than my own games which I know isn't particularly scientific, but I've played a boatload of games with historical focuses off and I'm not sure I've ever seen the UK manage to turn communist and I think I've seen them go fascist once. Because they have to do everything by event the UK basically never flips, I often quit my games around 1942/3 so the UK might almost always eventually flip, but if it isn't flipping until that late in the game you've got a serious problem and it isn't a viable substitute. The most often thing I see is the UK goes down the decolonisation focuses near immediately weakening themselves substantially and then just sits there doing nothing ideology wise. The only ideology I've seen them successfully do a few times (and they seem to take this road far less often) is monarchist, where they get an option to ally with Germany anyway, which means they'll be pretty much useless, most of their focus tree involves reclaiming their colonies and the other bit is destroying Italy, the only fascist nation left on the planet.
Furthermore the UK is one of most picked democratic nations (and I think one of the most picked in general) so if they're the only nation people are relying on to be a counterbalance then they're screwed if they're playing as the UK.
The one time I've seen the UK go communist, they failed to decolonise and then lost the civil war, lol
 
AI is set to avoid Oppose Hitler because it cripples Germany and Germany is the main aggressor of the game. It will probably stay so until the Soviet rework which will have a world communism path, making it a main aggressor so Germany can go Oppose Hitler and then the Soviets will go aggressive.

Similarly the US is set to almost always stay democratic otherwise it's severely crippled. Same story with communist Japan.
I wrote a small script to visually compare the first pick probabilities of national focuses, loosely resembling a dartboard. Area is proportional to probability. Left is Japan, right is Germany:
first_pick_JAP.png
first_pick_GER.png

The Unthinkable Option (ai_will_do=2) and Oppose Hitler (ai_will_do=1) are brown in both charts. So the situation is quite different between the two countries.

For Japan, the first pick is extremely likely to decide the political course (yellow=purge, orange=kodoha, brown=unthinkable, green=civilian) and the probabilities are comparatively equal. Even in the rare cases where it goes for Manchuria, army, or navy first, the probability distribution does not change severely on the second pick. The newly unlocked focuses have equal or lower ai_will_do compared to the Unthinkable Option.

For Germany, the chart just illustrates the usual - they will almost always pick industry (yellow) or Rhineland (green). If they do pick Rhineland first:
second_pick_GER.png

The situation in the second pick gets even more lopsided. Note how much smaller the ai_will_do=1 circle becomes while simultaneously being split into more pieces.

So there really is no common theme of setting the "self-destructive" paths to similarly low probabilities. It is likely rather a product of internal conflicts about the system's mechanics and the overarching design goal. For example take a look at these tight-lipped developer responses from an old thread about the topic.
 
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