AI needs to factor its debt into peace considerations

[durbal]

One of the main reasons the AI is so prone to debt spirals after losing a grueling war is because it absolutely refuses to peace out when the war is lost. It just spams mercs and goes hopelessly into debt before the inevitable bankruptcy. Why does it use it as a malus when accepting a call to arms yet during a war it goes all out in a grueling war for a couple provinces? Any sensible player would use the possibility of a future of crushing debt when considering when to make peace. Why doesn't the AI?

I'm not saying the AI should just peace due to its debt (i.e. not giving up instantly when in a defensive war and already in debt) but it needs to factor in how much debt it can reasonably take on before it's unable to recover.

 

[masterpaul666]

I agree, this actualy makes a lot of sense. Like every loan would be -1 war enthusiam? or something similar.

 

[durbal]

I just fought a second war against the same tag when the enemy started with 10 loans (mostly due to the previous war). By the end of the second war it had 20+ loans. They are now unable to recover and will be bankrupt soon enough since the country is overrun with rebels and they have no manpower and no money to build an army.

 

[gigau]

Either you feel it's a bug and you should post it in the Bug Reports sub forum. Or it's a suggestion, and it should go in the Suggestions sub forum.

In both of these sub forums, you'll have higher chance of it being read by PDS.

 

[Dominion]

If debt becomes a modifier it'll get more difficult to evaluate the willingness of your allies to stay in your war.

On VH there's the golden rule: If anything moves to an allies' capital, rush over there because as soon as its sieged down, he's out.
That has at least some counterplay to it.

Debt doesn't. A single lost battle can mean they mercspam, realize they have indebted themselves, peace out and delete their mercs again. Now they're in debt and lost the war on top of it.

Same goes for enemies. If debt has already occurred and counts as a modifier it means they loaned for nothing.

Last resort mode is actually designed not to trigger if it would bankrupt them or if it doesn't make sense anymore.
Maybe they could improve on it, but situations like that are pretty hard to evaluate for AI nations.

 

[ArzhurG]

I agree, this actualy makes a lot of sense. Like every loan would be -1 war enthusiam? or something similar.

This might give them too many reasons to peace out early on in the war before the merc spam has started. It could also mean an instant peace when they start mercing as Dominion mentioned.

What might get around these issues would be a factor which increases the decay of the length of war modifier.

• At 0 loans the modifier would be 1 (multiplying by 1 gives the same result as now).
• Then it would increase for each for each loan taken.

This would mean that the action of taking a loan wouldn't make them more willing to peace out directly. However, the longer that they have a loan the less willing they are to continue fighting. The factor doesn't need to be linear so that one or two loans wouldn't have barely an effect, while many would have a large one.

 

[Dominion]

Length of war modifier is essential for AI <> AI wars though. The lower it gets the less AI nations prone to accumulating debt will blob.

That's an indirect nerf to Poland, Russia and Hungary.

If that's someone's goal, be it. Just wanted to point it out.

 

[ArzhurG]

Length of war modifier is essential for AI <> AI wars though. The lower it gets the less AI nations prone to accumulating debt will blob.

That's an indirect nerf to Poland, Russia and Hungary.

If that's someone's goal, be it. Just wanted to point it out.

I'll start with the fact that I'm not sure how much debt nations like Poland and Russia get into so what I'm about to say could be wrong if they can deal with a large amount of loans.

If a non-linear factor would be used then the first few loans (by few I mean a normal amount for nations, which is most likely not the one or two which I suggested in my previous post). Then it would only come into effect for large amounts of loans which is what we are trying to stop.

Also by not having large amounts of debt these nations could then declare their next war quicker (I'm assuming that large debt stops nations from declaring wars, but I could be wrong), enabling their continued blobbing. Basically this could get nations out of wars which are too costly, allowing them to get into other more beneficial more quickly.

You know the AI better than me though so you are in a better position than me to know if this theory is correct or not.

 

[Dominion]

Good point and yes, it would work in the old model and still to a certain extent with current loan and merc changes.

The remaining problem is that it will make nations a lot more vulnerable and/or illogical.

The idea behind last resort mode or certain movement patterns (threatened > avoid enemy troops, siege their weakest fort or carpet siege provinces farthest away from your borders) and other types of behavior is to make it as costly as possible for the attacker to gain something.

Including loans in modifiers would now counteract core functions in an illogical way (win a battle > enemy mercspams > loan modifier forces them into a peace > mercs get deleted again > losing nation now has loans, lost more territory than it would in the current system and its enemy is coming out stronger than it would on the current patch) but also only serves a "I feel like I've already won, they should just surrender unconditionally" notion.

We've all had to fight wars where we knew we could win blindfolded. Doesn't mean we should be handed the victory as easily as possible. I would prefer if they'd optimize last resort actually to make it more efficient (distance modifier/region modifiers and much more).

And to claim that it's for the good of the AI is ignoring that, using the opening example, the nation you've just kicked into 20 loans is dead anyways. But not for everyone.

You're going to eat them, you've already won 2 wars.

But if they go bankrupt other nations will jump them. Stronger, healthier nations you haven't destroyed yet will acquire their provinces.

Makes for a much more fluent expanasion instead of increasing the speed at which you're able to pick 1 country after the other.