AI wishlist

[The_Tom]

I've had this game for two months and I've got the AI mostly figured out. It's very good in comparison to games like the TW series and games like CoH (which has the worst AI out of any RTS I've ever played, try a skirmish it's hillarious). That said, the AI in EU3 occasionally behaves in a way that crushes my will to continue playing. We're talking acts of such breathtaking incompetence that I have flashbacks to games like Medieval II TW and FEAR2.

I had some downtime yesterday and came up with a few ideas. Please, please share yours as I doubt that I have seen everything.

1. AI really needs to keep a reserve of regiments at its capital. The number of regiments could scale with that nation's force limits...or something. This would prevent the inevitable collapse of nations like Great Britain and Spain as a result of them stationing all of their forces overseas.

2. Perhaps the AI could also prioritize its current national focus province in a similar way? Then again, I'm not sure how well the AI chooses its national focus. Eh?

2.5. AI should get lowered revolt risk on higher difficulties.

3. AI should not automatically raise war taxes for every single war. Seriously, stop it! It's embarassing to see France's RR go through the roof because it dow'd a distant OPM that it cannot even reach. Sad to see AI nations break like this.

4. AI nations like Castille should be made to see the incentive of crushing their immediate rivals before going on crazy misadventures in unprofitable, inhospitable lands.

5. AI should not immediately disband all of its ships the moment that a more advanced model becomes available. This leaves them helpless for some time and is absolutely insane behavior by any standard. It should phase out its older ships, though (25% at a time?).

However, I see no reason why the AI should scuttle its transports for any reason ever. All transports carry one unit, and newer transports aren't that much better suited for combat.

 

[naggy]

1 has been reported in the bug forums. I seriously hope they fix this.

You have 2 #2's.

3 - Yeah. The AI's use of war taxes remind me of why the AI has no naval attrition - it just seems to always do it wrong.

4 - Or at least protect themselves from France.

5 - I want to say this was put down as a bug. But yeah, it's hilarious to watch Britain disband its fleet right as you're thinking of doing something to them.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

This is actually an idea I was toying with in my head - A home garrison requirement.

Perhaps you should make your provinces 'interior' or 'frontier' and if you don't keep at least 50% of your manpower within 'interior' you suffer RR or WE...

'Interior' could be defined as your capitol, and it's surround provinces - perhaps expanding as your empire expands.

I despise watching nations 'bet the farm' on their attacks. Home garrison would preserve their units and prevent the constant revolt cycle that torments any nation larger than Saxony.

EDIT: REFITTING SHIPS FFS!!! I can't deal with upgrading 30 carracks to caravels to galleons to wargalleons to twodeckers to threedeckers. Just let me upgrade them from a home port for a reduced cost!

 

[anomanderus]

Constantly prerferring quantity over quality and never westernizing, or even being aware the westernization decision could possibly exist are some of what I take offence at. Other things are where the ai won't accept rebel demands immediately if they are logical- like shiite rebels who spawn when persia spawns as sunni rather than shia, even when they only have 2 sunni provinces. Also, playing japan I noticed that once you take a province from ming it will continue to dow you whenver the truce wears out for the next ten, twenty, two hundred years that you hold that province. Eventually I just trapped his army and bled him dry, which is another problemo, that the ai can't understand that isolated enemy islands are a bad idea to go on to when the enemy holds them. Also not chasing rebel stacks down, ming collapsed for about three decades after that war, being in a constant state of black bars on brownish gold because the main ming army near the end of the war had spent time sieging every province- and as a 30 regiment doomstack too, which helped drain his manpower on his own soil.

Also, not knowing how to use navies right is annoying, plus times when the ai makes peace for stupid concessions, like the time when I watch Lithuania-Poland make piece with the GH- even though they had half his territory and he had only one of their provs- for, wait for it! wait for it! THE REALEASE OF THE WHOLE CRIMEA NATION. Yes, he released a two province minor which got absorbed back into the GH by patriot rebels shortly after. The funny part is that chain of events led moldavia to declare war, only to have the land path opened again by the loss of crimean lands to the GH by rebels and then he lost half his own territory.

Also, stupid dogpiling. It's fine when the nation in question is collapsing, but playing on my own I've been in multiple wars and winning easily only to have more ai nations join in, possibly in the mistaken belief that they could win. This happens other times with countries like ming.

Also, poorly protecting its own interests- I'd like the muslim superpowers to remain super enough to hold off the europeans, like they historically did, rather than castille getting a land path straight to his colonies in india.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

Let the national focus more more often later in the game (when we all have surplus magistrates)

Give missions to move the focus for a follow-up mission to build upgrades in that area?

 

[unmerged(91610)]

This is actually an idea I was toying with in my head - A home garrison requirement.

Perhaps you should make your provinces 'interior' or 'frontier' and if you don't keep at least 50% of your manpower within 'interior' you suffer RR or WE...

'Interior' could be defined as your capitol, and it's surround provinces - perhaps expanding as your empire expands.

I despise watching nations 'bet the farm' on their attacks. Home garrison would preserve their units and prevent the constant revolt cycle that torments any nation larger than Saxony.

EDIT: REFITTING SHIPS FFS!!! I can't deal with upgrading 30 carracks to caravels to galleons to wargalleons to twodeckers to threedeckers. Just let me upgrade them from a home port for a reduced cost!

Yes. Mid-and-late-game, it's too easy to best (let's say) France. They put a lot of their troops overseas in some colonial war, and you swoop in and conquer most of the country before they can move anything back (if they even can). And even if they do land some of those colonial armies, you just focus on them upon landing. All too easy.

 

[Kapt Torbjorn]

6. The AI should prioritize chasing down a fleeing enemy army and annihilating it over parking their army in the province they just made said enemy army flee from and waiting for the fort to fall.

Related...

7. The AI should (in high attrition provinces), detach a siege force to sit in the province, and then withdraw the bulk of their forces to a province behind it, and move that army into the sieged province if an enemy force starts moving towards the small siege detachment.

That's two more I'd like to see implemented.

edit:

8. Tweak the AI so that it isn't so stubborn in peace deals. As it stands it seems that you need to crush their entire army, and besiege all their provinces just to demand a couple of provinces. Which, shoots their WE through the roof, and then every country nearby ends up dogpiling them, which ends up leading to the collapse of some mega-gigantic empire like France or Austria just because they were too muleheaded to cede 2 measly little provinces until their entire empire was laid to ruins.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

Here's another gem I just thought of:

When a province is under siege, you should be able to buy another 1k garrison strength at the cost of population (limited to larger cities of course) Possibly repair breaches that way as well. No reason at ALL Constantinople should fall to 2000 infantry with it's 200k population, only 1% of which is defending :wacko:

Just offset this with provincial RR.

And...

When you're recruiting in multiple provinces to save time, you should be able to create a rally province that they actually spawn in. As you grow larger, say for every 10 provinces, you can add another rally province and assign each territory to your choice. That would prevent the -1000 battles that make me mad.

And...

Build queue PLEASE? Not having this is why I MUCH prefer continental empires to colonial. I'll happily take the -30% production hits with my 25 textile manufacturers. If I could queue new self-sustaining colonies with walls > marketplace > courthouses I'd be happy with that.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

6. The AI should prioritize chasing down a fleeing enemy army and annihilating it over parking their army in the province they just made said enemy army flee from and waiting for the fort to fall.

I'm not sure what makes that decision in the AI, but I'd prefer them chasing down my routed armies LESS! Seems that nations that are abundant in manpower prefer the seek & destroy method. Those are usually the ones I end up actually fighting WARS against, and not just quickly implementing a beatdown.

 

[Kapt Torbjorn]

I'm not sure what makes that decision in the AI, but I'd prefer them chasing down my routed armies LESS! Seems that nations that are abundant in manpower prefer the seek & destroy method. Those are usually the ones I end up actually fighting WARS against, and not just quickly implementing a beatdown.

Yes but it's no fun just having a comp stomp.

I'd prefer it if the AI actually offered a decent fight. Even on very hard it's just 'burn the land, retreat, wait for the to starve, then slice and dice what's left'.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

Yes but it's no fun just having a comp stomp.

I'd prefer it if the AI actually offered a decent fight. Even on very hard it's just 'burn the land, retreat, wait for the to starve, then slice and dice what's left'.

It just needs more variables on how it responds to threats. The AI seems to have NO idea the land it is sieging is scorched, would be the reason it's such an effective tactic (though admittedly didn't work while I was playing a OPM)

 

[Kapt Torbjorn]

It just needs more variables on how it responds to threats. The AI seems to have NO idea the land it is sieging is scorched, would be the reason it's such an effective tactic (though admittedly didn't work while I was playing a OPM)

It would be nice.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

I'd also like to say that accepting the demands of Greek patriots and ceding my one province to Byzantium is a nice alternative to hitting the resign button :rofl:

 

[anomanderus]

I'd also like to say that accepting the demands of Greek patriots and ceding my one province to Byzantium is a nice alternative to hitting the resign button :rofl:

I'd rather quit, than be beaten by the computer. Sometimes, though, sometimes I think it's learning.

 

[The_Tom]

It just needs more variables on how it responds to threats. The AI seems to have NO idea the land it is sieging is scorched, would be the reason it's such an effective tactic (though admittedly didn't work while I was playing a OPM)

How could I forget this one? Yes, it is painful to watch.

In general, the AI needs to learn to spread its doom stack to multiple provinces when it can get away with it. Example: My pathetic 10 regiments are watching 40 enemy regiments perish in an adjacent, scorched province. Logic dictates that the enemy home in and crush me and then disperse throughout the immediate vicinity to take my land.

 

[Trin Tragula]

4. AI nations like Castille should be made to see the incentive of crushing their immediate rivals before going on crazy misadventures in unprofitable, inhospitable lands.

The problem here is that the AI gives too much weight to religious enemies. If they are close to someone of another religious group they'll favor attacking them in most cases (I've tested this a lot when modding India as there are lots of both muslim and hindu countries there).
The AI will continually ignore even easy, rich, same culture, same religion targets to go for far off heathen nations much of the time.

 

[unmerged(199227)]

The problem here is that the AI gives too much weight to religious enemies. If they are close to someone of another religious group they'll favor attacking them in most cases (I've tested this a lot when modding India as there are lots of both muslim and hindu countries there).
The AI will continually ignore even easy, rich, same culture, same religion targets to go for far off heathen nations much of the time.

Perhaps some of the solution could lie in separating Portuguese into their own culture?

 

[Doomdark]

Many good suggestions here. Much of it is already on my todo list for future patches/expansions/sequels. Adding some more.

 

[unmerged(10773)]

Many good suggestions here. Much of it is already on my todo list for future patches/expansions/sequels. Adding some more.

Future patches... yeahh

Future expansions... even more yeahh


Sequels... mega yeahh !!!!!!

 

[Boris ze Spider]

The problem here is that the AI gives too much weight to religious enemies. If they are close to someone of another religious group they'll favor attacking them in most cases (I've tested this a lot when modding India as there are lots of both muslim and hindu countries there).
The AI will continually ignore even easy, rich, same culture, same religion targets to go for far off heathen nations much of the time.

This was the case in the real world at that time, and it still is a problem today