Alliances are Useless, AI is Stupid

[unmerged(61166)]

I'm playing as Aragon and have an alliance with Savoy, and a personal union with Naples. Castille Attacks, Savoy and Naples enters the war, and their armies do absolutely nothing. I can't play this game when allies don't help, because the AI doesn't have the coding to help.

 

[Cossack8559]

What do you expect Naples and Savoy to do against Castile? Now France on the other hand. In my experience i've had plenty of help from allies. I've also had wars where my allies do not contribute. Funny thing is, i do the exact same thing to the a.i, some times i send troops and help, other times i sit and watch.

 

[Joe_Chip]

The worst part is that powerful enemies, like France, usually have one hell of AI. Managing their armies perfectly, merging and splitting them as needed. Meanwhile your allies have been set on derp mode and you see shit like them not attacking while having superior forces when the enemy is right in the next province, or splitting their armies into weaker ones for no reason and getting destroyed.
And there is this weird thing that some times a powerul nation would occasionally lose a war even when having the bigger force. Just because its armies did't show up anywhere. No one knows where they are. Probably on vcation. And there is the recurring problem that AI's do not grasp the relevance of provinces that much. They can declare a war on you on some colonies and send all their armies to siege them for 0.2 war score each, while you siege their mainland with no opposition and of course, whin due to a much higher score.

 

[Temujin64]

Playing as Ireland, I've managed to avoid going to war (started as Connacht, patriot rebels took Meath, Munster, Ulster and Leinster and gave them to me). I owe England not attacking me, even when they had a casus belli, to my alliance with France who are fulfilling their destiny as the BBB.

 

[Cossack8559]

Strange, guess i get lucky with my allies then. I mean, Bohemia even sends troops from central Europe just to deal with my rebels.

 

[Demon Firebrand]

Even if your allies derp out, the enemy AI still considers the strength of your alliance when considering peace and war enthusiasm, so they aren't completely useless.

As for actually helping in your war? I haven't had that happen yet...

 

[lemonsquid]

as said before, dont get angry at your allies for not helping when its probably something you have done, AI is looking out for itself lol

Edit: AI says to itself, "Hey maybe if we dont hurt Castille, they will free us from Aragon oppression!"

 

[sw2413]

i love the A.I I'm playing in Italy(naples) and spain has helped me in ever war ive bin in since day one
even just watching the A.I go to war with each other it still plays out pretty well

 

[Yorkie-GBR]

Playing now with Ironman, I won the HYW as England with the aid of Portugal, with out that I doubt I would have won it.

Now I have a PU with France, a RM and Alliance with Portugal and Spain [WHo is in a PU with Aragon obviously].

With this alliance setup I can concentrate on other things like colonising, accept every war going and still come out on top without the need for me to actually do anything.

France is my Bitch! =D

 

[RogerWilco]

I've seen the AI have trouble when there is no direct land route to where their armies would be needed. But if they can just walk somewhere, they're fairly useful and effective.
Helping them out in turn can even be a good thing too. I once helped the Danes agains the Hansa and got two provinces out of it, while they got the aggressive expansion penalty.

What is clear though, is that for each stack, the AI decides if it's used to siege or to hunt, and after that doesn't really change it's mind so it will happily siege with a stack of 20, while enemy armies of 2-3 run circles around it.
An ally in hunting mode with a big stack can be very useful though, you can just siege and save your units, while his army kills everything and suffers the casualties.

 

[unmerged(32416)]

I started with diplo ideas and managed to ally France when playing a still pretty small Brandenburg. Poland was getting scary but France joined the war beat them to a pulp and I could siege it up.
Can't say the AI is perfect but I am very impressed with how much better it is then EU3. I see it actually doing what most people do in war; Beat the enemy army, split into as many siege stacks as possible. Win.
They also have a tendency to try and back other allied forces up in wars if they can beat bigger stacks combined, I see them also attaching units... Nah the AI is impressive compared to how it's been.
An allied nation not helping you is probably because they have some degree of self-preservation. It is your war after all, not theirs.

 

[benice1234]

I was playing as Aragon with an allied Portugal against Castile. Portugal sat their 15 man stack in their capital and let me die. :angry:

 

[RogerWilco]

I started with diplo ideas and managed to ally France when playing a still pretty small Brandenburg. Poland was getting scary but France joined the war beat them to a pulp and I could siege it up.
Can't say the AI is perfect but I am very impressed with how much better it is then EU3. I see it actually doing what most people do in war; Beat the enemy army, split into as many siege stacks as possible. Win.
They also have a tendency to try and back other allied forces up in wars if they can beat bigger stacks combined, I see them also attaching units... Nah the AI is impressive compared to how it's been.
An allied nation not helping you is probably because they have some degree of self-preservation. It is your war after all, not theirs.

I agree. The AI is pretty good. Sometimes it gets confused though. I once helped Danmark in a war it started against Poland. But nothing really happened as their units were mostly stuck in Scandinavia and apparently it's not very good at figuring out amphibious landings. Once I landed a few troups in Danzig, they landed their troops there as well and they were very effective from that point.

Check if they have war exhaustion and things like that because it will make the reluctant to help out.

 

[InnocentIII]

What do you expect Naples and Savoy to do against Castile? Now France on the other hand. In my experience i've had plenty of help from allies. I've also had wars where my allies do not contribute. Funny thing is, i do the exact same thing to the a.i, some times i send troops and help, other times i sit and watch.

+1

I've had allies who did a great deal, and allies who did nothing. The AI is far more helpful and dependable than I am.

I agree. The AI is pretty good. Sometimes it gets confused though. I once helped Danmark in a war it started against Poland. But nothing really happened as their units were mostly stuck in Scandinavia and apparently it's not very good at figuring out amphibious landings.

I''ve seen this as well as the target. Vs my Ottomans the AI would land dribs and drabs of troops in Crimea. Sometimes 14k but often 4-5k every month or so. I had 4-5 20k armies and I kept one nearby to clean up the incursions.

 

[Da-V-Man]

I've found allies help a great deal as long as they don't have to go too far out of the way to get there, which is actually what I would do as well. I too wouldn't send my armies half-way around europe for nothing.

 

[unmerged(32416)]

Speaking of AI getting confused I helped scotland pwn england and they had one province left to siege and englands army was no longer. I waited 3 years for them to move their army one province until I got tired of it and sieged it. Then they peaced with england

 

[Maria Theresa]

I am very pleased with the AI so far. They help all the time when they can and are quite good at doing so aswell. Huge improvement from Eu 3.

 

[hwoosh]

I'm playing as Aragon and have an alliance with Savoy, and a personal union with Naples. Castille Attacks, Savoy and Naples enters the war, and their armies do absolutely nothing. I can't play this game when allies don't help, because the AI doesn't have the coding to help.

It sounds like their armies couldn’t make their way to help. Savoy would probably need to get military access through France, and Naples through what, the Papal States, Ferrara, and France? And that early in the game, they might not have very many transport ships, either. The AI does seem to have trouble transporting troops, or is unwilling to ferry part of its armies if it doesn’t have enough for the whole.

 

[unmerged(32649)]

The AI is excellent. Playing Russia I declared war on Sweden. France as Defender of the faith launched an amphibious invasion on St Petersburg. Once it landed it didnt lay siege but moved into Sweden to try and prevent me from besieging my war goal. Its exactly doing what its supposed to do within the limits of its capability.

 

[billclintonmask]

I am playing Brandenberg. Austria allied me day one. I also got an alliance with Poland day one. So I was pretty much set to run rampant and expanded so fast that I had a coalition of every nation that shared a border and some that didn't popped up against my little 8 provence self. Luckily Austria and Poland were there to clean up when those guys wanted to tussle with me. Now that it's been about four decades of near constant warfare, I accomplished my early game goal of capturing Danzig and getting the first 3 economic NI decisions out of the way, I'm going to focus on some internal growth and economic development.