Did AI peace treaty aggressiveness increase since a few years ago?

[AngsD]

Hey.

So I'm what would probably be classified as a casual player. I've played since EU2, and first began "winning" in EU3, having about 200 hours in EU2, 200 in EU3 and 400 in EU4. I prefer playing minor to medium powers and sometimes pick up the odd non-European nation. I think you should know this beforehand, because I'm going to complain a bit about what it's like to be a player in my position.

I think something is up with the game balance. I think that the AI has become more aggressive in peace deals. Am I wrong? It could be interesting, except the game mechanics' positive feedback loop is so strong that France usually eats Spain, or the other way around.

The latest numerous games, say, 9 or so, I've collapsed to some absurd superblob this way. Taking over Africa and SE Asia as Kongo and getting completely obliterated by Spanish Western Europe. Uniting India but then losing a quarter of my territory to Ming after one war. These massive losses are fun to see happen every once in a while, but I'm kind of sick of it. Why does the AI insist on taking such large swathes of land? I feel that someone at my level has no input when each region gets a superpower that never collapses.

I used to play on Normal, but after seeing these things happen, I first stopped playing Ironman, then turned off Lucky Nations, to try and turn down the blobbing... And now I took a jab at Genoa on easy, and France took over Northern Spain by 1490, and after a reload, it happened again in around 1510. Austria inherited Burgundy (fine) and Aragon (ouch). No, turning down the difficulty does not prevent this from happening - that's the problem.

The thing is, I have the feeling that the game has been tuned more competetive, and that's great, but it kind of feels like Stellaris or Civilization at this point. Which would be fine if I played Stellaris or Civilization. I own both. The AIpeace deals are so all-in it's difficult to see the ebb and flow of history I would like to see in this game. Like if the superblobs eventually collapsed from their own weight, as they did in the real world.

I understand that I'm able to do absurd things myself from a historical perspective. Perhaps the balance changes have been done to counteract this. But the thing is, while I struggled with the game mechanics and didn't do these things, the game's pace was much more akin to a simulation. As is, I feel detached.

It's not about losing. I can pick up France or Denmark or Ming or whatever and win fine. But growing from a minor or a non-European nation seems to be more difficult at this point, for a player of my level, to a degree that I feel no control over the game.

Again, I'm probably a casual player. Perhaps I don't play enough games. Am I just unlucky? I'm fine with being wrong.

I also recognize I could return to a previous game version. But I'd like all the new content and detailing of nations that Paradox has provided over time. The base version is just outdated at this point.

So, rant over. I'm going to ask directly for a few solutions, because they may have been provided: Paradox could add an aggressiveness slider, and I can just accept that the AI has been improved beyond my level and turn it down. I'm fine with that. I want to continue purchasing expansions and support the development of the game. Other, better players can keep enjoying the game for what it is otherwise.

I would also appreciate if someone knew of a mod that solved my issues. I know there's a large community, but haven't engaged with it much.

 

[Sfan]

The AI is indeed more agressive and expands faster. This was done to adress the complains of experiences players who found that there lacked challenge after 1600 because you always could outgrow the AI simply because of how passive they were. No matter what your start was, an experienced player always became the strongest power around 1600 just because countries like the Ottomans were doing nothing outside of completing their missions and then sat idle for most of the game, even in Very Hard.
Now they are expanding a lot more agressively, and AIs in general tend to dogpile someone a lot more, which makes AI more unstable but potentially stronger, and the game more interesting in general imo. The downside is that there are complaints from more average players because the Ottomans in particular are now extremely strong.

I guess Paradox considered the more "casual" players mostly played majors, and that's the basis of their reasoning.

I don't know if that's a good design choice overall, but it definitely improved the experience of players with several thousand hours.

As for what you're asking, I have no idea. I'm part of the small fraction of players who find that the game is still too easy once you pass the first 30 years without dying.

 

[CountKino]

In a fairly recent patch, they changed the AI to make it the same on Normal as it is on VH, just without the enormous bonuses. So it is generally quite aggressive and if it sees you doing particularly well, it will gun for you.

My advice to you is allies. You need to play diplomacy well as a small nation, have large powers around you protect you while you grow.

(Genoa can be pretty difficult to play btw, starting with land the Ottomans want generally speaking makes the game tough! It could lead to alliances with their rivals though)

 

[AngsD]

The AI is indeed more agressive and expands faster. This was done to adress the complains of experiences players who found that there lacked challenge after 1600 because you always could outgrow the AI simply because of how passive they were. No matter what your start was, an experienced player always became the strongest power around 1600 just because countries like the Ottomans were doing nothing outside of completing their missions and then sat idle for most of the game, even in Very Hard.
Now they are expanding a lot more agressively, and AIs in general tend to dogpile someone a lot more, which makes AI more unstable but potentially stronger, and the game more interesting in general imo. The downside is that there are complaints from more average players because the Ottomans in particular are now extremely strong.

I guess Paradox considered the more "casual" players mostly played majors, and that's the basis of their reasoning.

I don't know if that's a good design choice overall, but it definitely improved the experience of players with several thousand hours.

As for what you're asking, I have no idea. I'm part of the small fraction of players who find that the game is still too easy once you pass the first 30 years without dying.

It all makes sense. Infact I usually got bored in the later game through my own massive blobbing. I just dislike the super-blobs that very rarely breaks. Infact the aggressiveness and expansion of it is exciting - I just don't want to see France and Spain united for several hundred years each game. (But again, might be unlucky.)

In a fairly recent patch, they changed the AI to make it the same on Normal as it is on VH, just without the enormous bonuses. So it is generally quite aggressive and if it sees you doing particularly well, it will gun for you.

My advice to you is allies. You need to play diplomacy well as a small nation, have large powers around you protect you while you grow.

(Genoa can be pretty difficult to play btw, starting with land the Ottomans want generally speaking makes the game tough! It could lead to alliances with their rivals though)

I actually tried to ally with Spain in the Genoese game, but they got their asses kicked by France-Scotland. Allied with Savoie and Papal States earlier in the game too, but as I had to expand, I took them as rivals. They were useless at that point anyways.

I usually use allies to stalemate any encroachment I'd otherwise face and expand through exploiting bad alliances or minors. Didn't work out this game tho.

I didn't know Genoa was dificult either, btw, I basically just sold off the land and used the money to conquer a few weak neighbours lol. I can climb from a German OPM to all of Europe easily, so I guess that explains a lot of this game. Still was kind of disappointing to see superblobs as with the last games before. I guess I have to look into modding myself to create a factionalism system or (what another user suggested elsewhere) implement a system where armies get more expensive to maintain for each province they travel from your capital, preventing weirdo blobbing for myself as well.

 

[Dominion]

None of the things you mention should ever happen to you or any player for that matter.

Nothing to do with level of play. I didn't get declared on on normal difficult.
End of sentence. I just didn't get declared on on normal difficulty.
The only game I can remember it happening was a Trebizond run some 1000 hours of playtime ago.

Pick stronger allies. Or any, for that matter.
Learn diplomacy, how to keep alliances stable, how to check if they follow a CtA or deny it.

If them declaring isn't the issue, but rather them expanding into anyone or anything, that's a recent change to counter player aggression and was demanded by a huge part of the community. I doubt it's ever going to change since it was well received.

 

[AngsD]

None of the things you mention should ever happen to you or any player for that matter.

Nothing to do with level of play. I didn't get declared on on normal difficult.
End of sentence. I just didn't get declared on on normal difficulty.
The only game I can remember it happening was a Trebizond run some 1000 hours of playtime ago.

Pick stronger allies. Or any, for that matter.
Learn diplomacy, how to keep alliances stable, how to check if they follow a CtA or deny it.

If them declaring isn't the issue, but rather them expanding into anyone or anything, that's a recent change to counter player aggression and was demanded by a huge part of the community. I doubt it's ever going to change since it was well received.

I don't know who I was supposed to ally with. Did with Spain and it worked until the DoW. Denmark was too far away. Poland was a contender, but didn't want to hear any of it. Couldn't ally with France or Austria due to ambitions. It's easier starting as Wurtemberg, lol.

But yea, I don't mind the difficulty. It was indeed the expanding that bothered me. Not the losing. I should be able to handle the game fine.

With the changes, the game feels less like a historical simulation (which it wasn't much of to begin with sure, but still) and more like Civilization.

I guess I'd just appreciate an aggressiveness slider.

 

[Dominion]

I understand the sentiment, but this is a case of a game evolving and some being left behind.

Feel free to throw your idea in the suggestion board.
I do remember a different PDX title introducing sliders recently. You could reference it.

I can not remember which one it was sadly, would be nice if someone else playing other PDX titles could chime in here.

I do not know how introducing sliders regarding aggressiveness etc. turned out in that other title, but it should have observable results by now you can reference when writing your suggestion.

 

[AngsD]

Even EU used to have aggressiveness sliders at some point. I don't remember when.

Thanks for being helpful. Procuring a truly good suggestion is time-consuming, but I might be able to pull something up over the week.

If anything, Crusader Kings still plays how I like it.

 

[Sfan]

Sometimes when I read your comments I don't know if we play the same game @Dominion . I get declared about one game out of two and I mostly play normal. Sometimes you can't get better allies, sometimes they dishonor, and the AI is a lot quicker to react when your ally will dishonor now than in older patches (it has changed about a year ago, can't remember the patch). That does not mean I lose provinces in wars, I lost provinces maybe twice last year (both in the same campaign iirc) in almost 2000 hours of 2017 gameplay, but the AI definitely does declare, even in normal. That may be due to playstyle, I don't fill FL at all cost if I'm short on money. That can even be good to force the AI to declare in some situations, you can fight someone without all of his allies and with all of yours, even those who would have "distance penalty" for an offensive CtA, and without spending favors to call everyone. But I doubt it's only about the playstyle, I don't see how you can consistently not get declared if you play some tags.
Idk, just load a game as Novgorod for instance, and try to consistently prevent Muscovy from declaring. I'm not saying you can't win the first war 10 times out of 10 in normal, but I sincerely doubt you can prevent the AI from declaring 10 times out of 10.
I say Novgorod as an obvious example, but it can happen in similar situations with any tags.

 

[Dominion]

Sometimes when I read your comments I don't know if we play the same game @Dominion . I get declared about one game out of two and I mostly play normal. Sometimes you can't get better allies, sometimes they dishonor, and the AI is a lot quicker to react when your ally will dishonor now than in older patches (it has changed about a year ago, can't remember the patch).

I don't pick unstable allies for the bigger part of the game and I don't follow calls to arms.
You don't need allies for anything except their standing forces.
Old England was one of the best allies in the game (not so much nowadays) because they lost their mainland provinces followed by sitting around without going into debt or declaring war on anyone.
Meaning you always had a ton of soldiers deterring enemies.

Nowadays it's a bit more difficult, but checking by "declaring on your ally's allies" (opening the DoW interface, reading tooltips) every 3 months to look for debt, manpower, war exhaustion and other modifiers still gives you a good picture.
Be aware of your potential enemies and the attitude towards enemies modifier. That one caught me off guard when I started playing the game.

1.24 made all of the above almost irrelevant though. You can now see an enemy's morale.
Check the ledger every month. If a potential enemy has max morale he's going to declare. Pick a random ally. Your potential enemy is in DoW mode and will declare on someone.
It'll rarely be you unless your timing was off in which case you celebrate because their calculations are off. They didn't have time to account for your additional ally.

It's either a ton of ledger checking and map staring or a matter of picking stable alliances.
Provinces of interest are worth noting at this point as well. They do tell a story of their own, especially since Gnivom successfully reworked them (successful for the bigger part. A few annoying things are still in the game).

Additionally it helps knowing what the AI can and can not declare into.
For a while (not sure if it's still the case) they were unable to attack into you if they thought highly (+100) of you.
You get a stabhit for declaring into someone who thinks highly of you, AI nations didn't understand that and refused to attack if either opinion was above 100.
Royal marriages can also not be attacked into and the AI is reluctant to break those as well.

Of course if someone blasts through the game on speed 5 while being allied to Muscovy and Poland he will get declared on five times per run.
That's the player's fault though.

Idk, just load a game as Novgorod for instance, and try to consistently prevent Muscovy from declaring. I'm not saying you can't win the first war 10 times out of 10 in normal, but I sincerely doubt you can prevent the AI from declaring 10 times out of 10.
I say Novgorod as an obvious example, but it can happen in similar situations with any tags.

Last time I had a Novgorod discussion with someone I went into a game to prove him wrong. Declared on a Russian minor, Muscovy declared on it, I vassalized him and got into a defensive war, destroying Muscovy in the process. They were a non-factor by 1455.

I know you can get sandwiched between Denmark and Muscovy if Muscovy calls in Denmark with promise of land, but there are ways to mitigate it.
Not prevent it, but mitigate it.
So far I've been lucky enough not to run into that scenario and I opened five times as Novgorod for the sake of proving him wrong.

Either way I am - to stick to your Novgorod example - running my nation with a 10% chance of getting declared on, others run a 100% chance.

I can see how that can make people feel like I'm playing a different game.


EDIT: Both of my AARs are probably a good - even though radical - example of what I'm talking about.
In one of them I was allied to the Ottoman Empire. Not a single DoW the entire game.
The other one was my first VH run and I didn't 'feel' the numbers like I'm used to, followed by several declarations of war.
It's all a matter of experience.

 

[bbqftw]

Calling the papal states or Savoy useless allies reflects a certain lack of understanding.

Often midsized ally that doesn't get declared on / declare on others is a lot better than big ally that is threatened by multiple powers.

E.g.bohemia is typically a nice guy, doesn't do anything crazy. Doesn't have a navy. Often a better ally than Poland because Poland starts with some very aggressive haters. Despite Poland fielding 2-3x more troops.

I agree with dominions Novgorod example. Little things we do like allying OPMs, immediately building to force limit, rushing tech 4 and using march as necessary make a big difference to getting DOWd by muscovy early.

 

[Dominion]

Everyone is a better ally than Poland I'd rather be allied to an OPM than to his debt-riddled pain of a nation that's trying to give off the impression they can be of use while every single major player in the region - which includes most major players in the game - has POI on them.

Ally them, call them into your own offensive war, deny Call to Arms at the first opportunity given. Even if it's an OPM declaring on them.

 

[petertju]

I understand the sentiment, but this is a case of a game evolving and some being left behind.

Feel free to throw your idea in the suggestion board.
I do remember a different PDX title introducing sliders recently. You could reference it.

I can not remember which one it was sadly, would be nice if someone else playing other PDX titles could chime in here.

I do not know how introducing sliders regarding aggressiveness etc. turned out in that other title, but it should have observable results by now you can reference when writing your suggestion.

HOI IV is the best example of a game with sliders, at a certian point too many players were complaining about the easy AI, and they made a slider which gave certain countries (for example Germany or Russia) production and power boosts.

Dev's have said before that they don't want to if I remember correctly. Their reasoning behind it is that it would create different scenario's to test which would take more of their resources to test all of them.

 

[Sfan]

I did not mention Novgorod as a hard country, just as an example of a country who lack the diplomatic option the prevent Muscovy from declaring on you sometimes, if they feel like starting by you instead of Tver or Ryazan. You say you crushed them, fine, I don't say a good player can't win it. I just say in some situations the AI will attack you. Same things for Albania or Byzantium in certain patches, sometimes you were declared on before you could get your first ally and the only option was a restart. As I said, I almost never lose territory, I usually win it, white peace, sell out my ally or worst case scenario release nations of my culture group. But I'm surprised you manage to not get attacked even when you don't play as a major.

What you say about picking stable allies is obvious, but there are only European countries who can be qualified as consistent allies. Some countries like Poland, Muscovy or TImurids are notoriously bad allies but for others that's more dubious, especially in ROTW. In India for instance, you could perfectly well decide to get along with Delhi and have them dogpiled by Malwa and Jaunpur without calling you in because this was all because of a guarantee of Jaisalmer, and the next game go with Jaunpur instead and have them sandwiched by Delhi + Bengal. If Bahmanis decides to attack you and Delhi/Jaunpur dishonors, I wouldn't put it entirely on the player here. You can't ally the Ottomans from any start, that's something only major powers near them or Sunnis rivalled with their rival can do reasonably early. Outside the insanely boring European region where it's easy to see who will attack you and who is a good ally, most regions are way more unpredictable. And if you start as

If I pick up recent games where I was attacked, I fail to see what really could have been different, but I'm open to any of your advice. Outside coalition wars which can be attributed to laziness (even with it's always when an ally dishonors that they fired in my recent games), I've for instance been attacked by Castile + Portugal as Dahomey. I won it, fairly easily, but tell me how you can prevent them from forging a claim on the coast from your starting position, or which ally will deter them from thinking they can take you with their 60k men in 1500 when you start out as an OPM without instutitions. I was allied with Kongo, and there are no other fetishist nation nearby. France refused because of distance, Morocco because of their alliance with Songhai (and they're also a very bad ally) and I could not even see Ottos.

 

[Dominion]

What you say about picking stable allies is obvious, but there are only European countries who can be qualified as consistent allies. Some countries like Poland, Muscovy or TImurids are notoriously bad allies but for others that's more dubious, especially in ROTW. In India for instance, you could perfectly well decide to get along with Delhi and have them dogpiled by Malwa and Jaunpur without calling you in because this was all because of a guarantee of Jaisalmer, and the next game go with Jaunpur instead and have them sandwiched by Delhi + Bengal. If Bahmanis decides to attack you and Delhi/Jaunpur dishonors, I wouldn't put it entirely on the player here. You can't ally the Ottomans from any start, that's something only major powers near them or Sunnis rivalled with their rival can do reasonably early. Outside the insanely boring European region where it's easy to see who will attack you and who is a good ally, most regions are way more unpredictable.

Never follow calls to arms, pick as many allies as possible.

I run around with 8 relations most of the time, sometimes as early as 1460. Maybe that's the detail we're missing in our conversation.

If I pick up recent games where I was attacked, I fail to see what really could have been different, but I'm open to any of your advice. Outside coalition wars which can be attributed to laziness (even with it's always when an ally dishonors that they fired in my recent games), I've for instance been attacked by Castile + Portugal as Dahomey. I won it, fairly easily, but tell me how you can prevent them from forging a claim on the coast from your starting position, or which ally will deter them from thinking they can take you with their 60k men in 1500 when you start out as an OPM without instutitions. I was allied with Kongo, and there are no other fetishist nation nearby. France refused because of distance, Morocco because of their alliance with Songhai (and they're also a very bad ally) and I could not even see Ottos.

You mean for 'Where the heart is'?
I didn't get to the point of Portugal having a chance of declaring on me.
Think they had one colony, maybe two.

I'll see if I can grab a screen, but no one fabricated on me and they certainly did not declare.
I didn't play beyond the achievement.

 

[Sfan]

The number of relations is the difference then. I don't find it valuable to stack allies bringing 8 to 10 k men at the cost of dip points (and early on you can't have other allies, you're limited to big countries with "threatened by" modifer and countries of the same size), given that, as I said, I don't lose those wars. But I assume that in some areas, especially India, that would deter any agressor to ally random states like Koch, Rewa Kantha or Garhwal even if they're a bit useless.

 

[Dominion]

The number of relations is the difference then. I don't find it valuable to stack allies bringing 8 to 10 k men at the cost of dip points (and early on you can't have other allies, you're limited to big countries with "threatened by" modifer and countries of the same size), given that, as I said, I don't lose those wars. But I assume that in some areas, especially India, that would deter any agressor to ally random states like Koch, Rewa Kantha or Garhwal even if they're a bit useless.

Sidenote: Found the screen. Europeans did not colonize in my Dahomey run.

And my dip slots are mostly vassals.
Less work, no need to check regularly because they're always in your wars and their base force limit means you+vassals can field a much larger army than you could by directly owning those provinces.
Another bonus point: Their standing forces will get counted towards yours even if they're disloyal (unless the war you're being threatened with is a war for independence by said vassal)

The critical point is being behind in dip tech from your swarm. They can turn disloyal pretty fast if you don't pay attention.
But even then the only war you could possibly face is a war for indepence. Again, because your vassal's units are being counted towards yours despite being disloyal.

Until that critical point you can use them as a shield while expanding freely, beyond that point you're close to being a GP and don't care anymore.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

OP

You're not wrong about the AI's aggressiveness overall, or about the fact that the game isn't tuned for ebb and flow. That said, I think you may have been a bit unlucky; French Spain and Spanish France aren't unlikely, but they can balance, or both collapse and be replaced by other powers (I'm pretty sure I've seen AI Burgundy form France, though that may have been last patch). Central Europe and the HRE generally go without a dominant power, usually there are a few decent sized blobs, but nothing comparable to Ottos or Ming. Successful Austria is a rare beast indeed, in my experience; never mind passing more than a couple reforms, I don't remember the last time I saw them get the Hungary PU. If your Austria got Burgundian inheritance + Aragon (and Naples?), that sounds like a definite outlier.

And aside from trying to moderate AI aggressiveness, the other possible solution is for you to work on stepping up your own play. It wouldn't have to be about mega-blobbing - I understand where you're coming from in terms of missing a sort of simulation-y, immersive feel, and that definitely won't be there when you're at 12/6 diplo relations and no-cb trucebreaking to intentionally force disasters - but there is certainly more you can do in order to leverage a minor start, or to punch above your weight as a medium sized power. You mentioned uniting India and then losing to Ming; if applied properly, India's development base is more than enough to beat Ming at full Mandate, and if you can do that, you can border them, tank their mandate, and rip them in half (literally, take a peace deal that snakes all the way from the Himalayas to Beijing.)

I'm not saying you /should/ do that - play how you want - but don't underestimate the ability to play tall/diplomatically, stack Mil groups, and be the thing that destabilizes all the otherwise stable blobs.

 

[Badesumofu]

The discussion of allies is interesting. It often comes up here that England/GB are a terrible ally, but I always thought they are actually a pretty good ally once they lose their continental holdings and control most of their islands. They don't drag you into insane wars so that you just have to dishonor.

I guess it depends on what you want from an ally - do you want them to fight your wars for you, or do you want them to dissuade others from attacking into you at an inopportune moment. I think it's about 800 hours since the last time I was declared on through a mixture of games in Europe, Asia, and India. Thoughtful diplomacy and making thorough use of diplo feedback makes huge difference to what you can achieve in this game.

To more directly answer the OP's question - I suspect what you are experiencing is administrative efficiency. Once you hit the mid-game it starts being possible to take huge swathes of territory per war.

 

[AngsD]

(Sorry about not answering the other posts, it kind of got segwayed).

Calling the papal states or Savoy useless allies reflects a certain lack of understanding.

Often midsized ally that doesn't get declared on / declare on others is a lot better than big ally that is threatened by multiple powers.

E.g.bohemia is typically a nice guy, doesn't do anything crazy. Doesn't have a navy. Often a better ally than Poland because Poland starts with some very aggressive haters. Despite Poland fielding 2-3x more troops.

I agree with dominions Novgorod example. Little things we do like allying OPMs, immediately building to force limit, rushing tech 4 and using march as necessary make a big difference to getting DOWd by muscovy early.

They're useless in the sense of both Austria and France having massive armies plus strong allies on their own, meaning I was wasting precious relation slots them; I needed more troops for my allies than they could boast, especially as France alone hit about 60K troops about 1500 AD. I tried allying with Bohemia too, for example, but I couldn't due to my country having very low relations with them (they expanded a lot through unlawful territory, so I apparently hated them).

Understand that I started with them as great, useful allies, but just had to break it off as I grew too large.

You're not wrong about the AI's aggressiveness overall, or about the fact that the game isn't tuned for ebb and flow. That said, I think you may have been a bit unlucky; French Spain and Spanish France aren't unlikely, but they can balance, or both collapse and be replaced by other powers (I'm pretty sure I've seen AI Burgundy form France, though that may have been last patch). Central Europe and the HRE generally go without a dominant power, usually there are a few decent sized blobs, but nothing comparable to Ottos or Ming. Successful Austria is a rare beast indeed, in my experience; never mind passing more than a couple reforms, I don't remember the last time I saw them get the Hungary PU. If your Austria got Burgundian inheritance + Aragon (and Naples?), that sounds like a definite outlier.

And aside from trying to moderate AI aggressiveness, the other possible solution is for you to work on stepping up your own play. It wouldn't have to be about mega-blobbing - I understand where you're coming from in terms of missing a sort of simulation-y, immersive feel, and that definitely won't be there when you're at 12/6 diplo relations and no-cb trucebreaking to intentionally force disasters - but there is certainly more you can do in order to leverage a minor start, or to punch above your weight as a medium sized power. You mentioned uniting India and then losing to Ming; if applied properly, India's development base is more than enough to beat Ming at full Mandate, and if you can do that, you can border them, tank their mandate, and rip them in half (literally, take a peace deal that snakes all the way from the Himalayas to Beijing.)

I'm not saying you /should/ do that - play how you want - but don't underestimate the ability to play tall/diplomatically, stack Mil groups, and be the thing that destabilizes all the otherwise stable blobs.

I think playing on that level, particularly through exploits and conquests that wouldn't make any geopolitical sense IRL, ruins the whole game. I'm not interested in getting better (infact, I don't really think I need it, I can easily climb from a German OPM in the Baden area, squat between France and Austria, to all of Europe. Seems to have been a problem with Genoa itself). India, well, Ming outnumbered me tremendously at that point since I had been messing around in India, Africa and Indonesia. They were much larger than me, fully modernized and with every single nearby country a tributary. It was the very late game, and it was my first time that area. Perhaps another game I could get better and blob faster but... Then we get into the same issues, in that I'm fine with the difficulty; I'm not fine with the ever-expanding superpowers.

It's good to hear that I was probably unlucky. But I don't like the game when the AI does weird blobs that completely tears the game away from its historical setting. It completely ruins the whole experience. I don't like the blobbing - not even when I do it myself in a sense - and instead of being given a way to fix that from Paradox's side, they doubled down and made every country immersion-ruining instead of just the player. I get that people want to do world conquests, but I just don't. I just hope I find a mod for me, otherwise my money pretty much just seems wasted from my point of view. Yes, I can still play the eariler versions, but I bought expansions I didn't like to fund Paradox's development, and with the expectation of increased complexity as the game ages.