AI joining the Empire - How does it work now?

[Father of Nations]

You are wrong... From the wiki:

• +0.10 monthly if there are no internal wars in the Empire.
• +0.005 monthly for every Free City in the Empire.
• +0.003 monthly for every Prince over 25 in the Empire.

And i'm 100% sure that I have been getting more IA each month the more princes I release.

So obviously they‘ve changed that too, or it’s just me mistaking it. Still, when observing the AI in 1.30.3 it just manages to enact at most two reforms before the reformation kicks in, just like it always used to be. And that’s basically it, even after the league war heretics are never fully eradicated. Yet we’ve got 4 or 5 additional reforms.

As for the incidents, I don’t see any way the player or the AI emperor can influence them so to me it’s just a gimmick not an actual mechanic.

 

[Maldazar]

As emperor you can certainly influence them and as player (non-emperor) you have a small influence as well, as the IA gained or lost changes based on the amount of support that the emperor gets in his chosen option, specialy the support of ellectors makes a bigger diference in the IA swing.

And,AI is in 99% of the games NOT SUPPOSED to pass those reforms, as the whole idea of the HRE reforming and uniting is a-historical and more of a gimmick for the player and for MAYBE a VERY rare/lucky AI to be able to do, but yeah, only 1 or 2 reforms ever passing should be the norm as it's more historical

EDIT: Just to make something clear, I'm NOT saying it's perfect right now, I do believe it should be possible for example to convince small nations to join without declaring war on them or by having luck (that they feel threathened enough) maybe something similar to the requirements of vassalizing someone inside of the HRE, basicly an option to: Presure to join the empire. Because it's not that logical that I have to actualy go and declare war on a OPM next to the empire , ocupy their entire country, just so that they bend the knee (while they would already accept to become my vassal no problem). What i'm just saying is that it's also NOT as bad as people are saying, it's just a diferent playstyle that aperently some people dislike, which again, is fine, but it doesn't mean it's broken or impossible right now.

 

[Father of Nations]

only 1 or 2 reforms ever passing should be the norm as it's more historical

You don’t add features that the AI is unable to use unless you’re developing a multiplayer game.

 

[Maldazar]

You don’t add features that the AI is unable to use unless you’re developing a multiplayer game.

Again, they are not unable to use them, but, with the NORMAL flow of a game, they will not be used a lot, because a united HRE is NOT the prefered outcome for the game. So yeah, it's rail-roaded for it to not unify naturaly, same as it happened in history. Same as we have lots of other rail-roaded events, buffs (lucky nations), regions for institutions, etc...

But is it impossible for AI to use it? No, but it would need a lot of low chance stuff to happen in a certain way and in MOST games it will not happen.... But that's OK IMHO.

 

[Father of Nations]

Let’s agree on disagreeing on this because there is no way I will see a feature that the AI is de facto unable to use as a good game mechanic.

Besides that, I think that the main problem people had with the state of HRE in 1.30.1 wasn’t the IA gains (which are needed to make up for the additional 5 reforms) but the fact that the AI enacted Ewiger Landfriede thus basically disabled normal gameplay in continental Europe. Since Ewiger Landfriede is not required for further reform progress they could’ve just scripted the AI to less likely pick this reform, instead they just basically reverted everything to 1.29.

 

[love sweden]

That is just not true. I have had 4 nations join the HRE on their own in my current run (which I started in the most recent patch, the 1.30.3 ) and i'm well on my way to passing the revoke privilegia (so 1 before the last) in less then 100 years. This without abusing mechanics (what would be abusing mechanics anyway?) just by releasing lots of nations (i have 85 members of HRE right now) and by using the 'expand HRE' CB a little (but not a lot, added like 5 nations with it so far I think).

Can you post a screenshot of the game

 

[Maldazar]

Nothing very impressive, probably most people can do a lot beter, but it's been a fun game. As you can see, 2 reforms too go before revoke and 17 years to do that (to stay bellow the 100 years, that should be very easy, as the last reform just started giving me extra 25% IA and the next one gives that as well, so with the next one passed I should be gaining around 0.5 each month WITH people at war, so that's 100 months (9 years) even if I don't gain any more IA. If I would have released more vassals I could be further already, but I wasn't feeling like playing the 'conquer / core / release' game, just to remove 10-20 years from revoke, I have more fun like this.

EDIT: Danzig and Teutonic joined on their own, same for Bosnia and Ragusa. The rest I forced to join with the new CB. Pope joined with a new event/incident after I completed the Reign in Italy. (which I did just by raising everyones opinion to 150 with the help of some bestow imperial grace (which again, is not optimal, since it 'wastes' some IA)

 

[EarlKonrad]

So obviously they‘ve changed that too, or it’s just me mistaking it. Still, when observing the AI in 1.30.3 it just manages to enact at most two reforms before the reformation kicks in, just like it always used to be. And that’s basically it, even after the league war heretics are never fully eradicated. Yet we’ve got 4 or 5 additional reforms.

As for the incidents, I don’t see any way the player or the AI emperor can influence them so to me it’s just a gimmick not an actual mechanic.

Technically the AI is doing worse after 1.30. they used to pass 2 out of 5 reforms at most. Now they can pass, at most, 3 out of 10 reforms (not counting the 2 optional reforms).

I'd like seeing the HRE sometimes reach the diet or even the decentralised path. Each reform passed by the Emperor is making the entire HRE stronger, even if each individual buff is small. That helps the HRE to not get smacked by either France or Poland.

 

[Father of Nations]

Technically the AI is doing worse after 1.30. they used to pass 2 out of 5 reforms at most. Now they can pass, at most, 3 out of 10 reforms (not counting the 2 optional reforms).

I'd like seeing the HRE sometimes reach the diet or even the decentralised path. Each reform passed by the Emperor is making the entire HRE stronger, even if each individual buff is small. That helps the HRE to not get smacked by either France or Poland.

The AI definitely should be given the chance to play the HRE game, because the only time the HRE are doesn’t get eaten up by France or PLC is when Austria insanely blobs. In either case it’s a waste of all the resources invested in the development of HRE mechanics if the AI is unable to use them.

 

[Jomini]

The problem I have with IA right now is that the only person who can influence it is the Emperor. In the past you could play as, say BB and add your provinces to move the HRE along and then when you fought the League War you were not starting from potentially zero (e.g. France gets all of Burgundy and tanks the IA gain of the AI for decades). Now, in order to "play the HRE game" you basically need to become Emperor ASAP and then used the paywall-locked feature to increase your IA gain rate.

Historically quite a few of the HRE princes were invested in the strength of the HRE as well. There should be a way, like in previous patches, to shore up the HRE even if you do not hold the Emperor title. Right now, there is just very little one can do before winning elections. At the very least AI emperors should try to build up authority, but I have all too often seen them throw it away (e.g. declaring low yield wars and losing the peace dividend). I mean frankly, I should be able to follow historical English policy which, at least at times, attempted to shore up the authority of Austria in some meaningful fashion.

The HRE, its expansion, and the all rest should really be more than just a set of Austria only features. I mean is extremely telling to me that basically every single HRE post about managing things are always Austria with the full DLC setup and in rare cases Bohemia. I would be much more pleased if I could see shots of Denmark managing the HRE game where they ended up the preeminent Protestant power instead of yet another Austrian run where Austria, ahistorically, focused primarily on increasing the prince count of the HRE.