Europa Universalis IV: Developer diary 43 - Artificially Improved

[unmerged(88716)]

I hope the AI gets smart enough to ask for military access when needed. It's so often they get wasted after just one battle because they don't have anywhere to run to.

And hope the AI Denmark doesn't ask for one Moroccan province and then forgets about it...

 

[Orctavius]

Great DD. This game is sounding more and more awesome!

 

[ap08]

One thing I miss in those DD's is motivation behind changes... Why it was decided that diplomatic offers must give a predetermined (non-random) result? What was wrong with the old system (except the spam offers from AI, which would be easy to fix without such dramatic changes)?

Positive and negative reasons to accept alliance do not include your monarch's diplomatic rating, points or whatever... 1/1/1 imbecile is as likely to get good diplomatic deals as a 6/6/6 monarch? Or is it part of "opinion" and "reputation"?

Hunter-Killer armies is just another move away from realism and into gameyness. Obviously it's the right way to command an EU3/4 army, and the AI doing it will fare much better and may even present a threat to some players. But it's not the way wars were fought in that historical period, battles never resulted in total wipeout and there was no strategic pursuit.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

One thing I miss in those DD's is motivation behind changes... Why it was decided that diplomatic offers must give a predetermined (non-random) result? What was wrong with the old system (except the spam offers from AI, which would be easy to fix without such dramatic changes)?

Positive and negative reasons to accept alliance do not include your monarch's diplomatic rating, points or whatever... 1/1/1 imbecile is as likely to get good diplomatic deals as a 6/6/6 monarch? Or is it part of "opinion" and "reputation"?

Hunter-Killer armies is just another move away from realism and into gameyness. Obviously it's the right way to command an EU3/4 army, and the AI doing it will fare much better and may even present a threat to some players. But it's not the way wars were fought in that historical period, battles never resulted in total wipeout and there was no strategic pursuit.

Well, since humans don't stick to realism in how they fight wars, making the AI do this makes fighting wars against AI less trivial.

 

[vanadio]

Amazing

 

[ap08]

Well, since humans don't stick to realism in how they fight wars, making the AI do this makes fighting wars against AI less trivial.

Humans care to win the game, in whatever way the rules allow them. If the rules favour historical behaviour they will play in historical fashion.

Let's say a mid-size country assembled one big army and sent it to war. When their army is defeated in decisive battle, the war is over, the loser will sue for peace and make concessions. But for some reason, in EU3 you have to first defeat the AI army to the last man (ahistorical), using Hunter-Killer army approach (never happened in that time period), and even then the AI won't give you what you want, until you siege half its country. This sucks.

And instead of fixing the obvious problem with warscore estimation, EU4 will just teach the AI to do the same stupid crap to players as the players did to AI in EU3. This sucks bigtime.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

This is the best DD so far... AI improvements sound awesome... now I just need the game before my head explodes

 

[BobbyDylan]

Humans care to win the game, in whatever way the rules allow them. If the rules favour historical behaviour they will play in historical fashion.

Let's say a mid-size country assembled one big army and sent it to war. When their army is defeated in decisive battle, the war is over, the loser will sue for peace and make concessions. But for some reason, in EU3 you have to first defeat the AI army to the last man (ahistorical), using Hunter-Killer army approach (never happened in that time period), and even then the AI won't give you what you want, until you siege half its country. This sucks.

And instead of fixing the obvious problem with warscore estimation, EU4 will just teach the AI to do the same stupid crap to players as the players did to AI in EU3. This sucks bigtime.

From a game point of view, as long as the army in intact, victory is possible. I'd agree that the AI should realise that with it's army destroyed (not just defeated) it'll lose the war.

 

[Shiranui]

Holy mother of awesome. Just what I've wanted! AI finally smarter than a rock!

 

[caimen]

Me Gusta.

 

[pfcpointer]

All seems significantly improved over EU3, but how fixed are the AI countries initial attitudes to their neighbours over time?
A nation's listed 'Threats' & 'Rivals' in EU3 varied considerably with subsequent changes in that nation's circumstances & I'm sure that will still be the case. But some questions spring to mind:

Regardless of the starting position & initial attitudes, the implication seems to be that any (over)expanding nation will naturally become seen as a threat by any nearby nations & thereby attract coalitions against it. But does a reduction in their over-expansion at least start to cause the gradual break up of a coalition that is forming against them, without necessarily a war?

e.g. If Bohemia has been forced to give up (some significant) territory in a peace treaty (even if in a separate war against a non-member of the coalition against it) would it cause the automatic & immediate break up of any coalition that had been forming against Bohemia?

Would the remaining powers in any coalition automatically stay together (at least initially) in the event of a White-Peace with the over-expanded nation? Or even in defeat, if the nation that the coalition were against is still considered by them to be over-expanded?

Does a truce with an over-expanding nation actually prevent or merely discourage that particular nation (re)joining any coalition against it?

Does a Bohemia that doesn't expand (or even loses some initial territory) ever lose their initial 'threat' status in the eyes of an AI Austria that may be achieving success elsewhere?

 

[bbiaso]

I preordered this game a few days after the preorder campaign started. I couldn't buy it immediately because I had to check just how much money I could spare and speak to my lawyer (and by that I mean I had to ask my wife if I could) after all the formalities were cleared away I preorder the extreme edition without even knowing what the full game was like nor what the DLCs were. I'm completely happy with my purchase and every DD I get happier. Thank you P'Dox and I hope to send much more money your way in the coming years and while I'm not completely thrilled on the Steam thing I have been a long time customer of thiers and their sales and prices make up for having to sign in everyday to play the games.

While having a historical AI would be grand, I like the Hunter-Killer tactics, I don't give up even after I lose my army, I like to make the offending party bleed for every meter of land. It's certainly nice to see the AI do the same thing, It'll be even better when the AI starts beating me or maybe I'll just play Multiplayer...

 

[InnocentIII]

Small groups and scouting units, sure. Moving a whole regiment around doesn't work the same way. Anyway, it's a gameplay decision.

I am going to like not having to keep Cav Stacks to chase down enemies and Inf or mixed stacks to spread out to siege. I thought I heard that defeated armies will have a mechanic so they can't stay one step ahead of you and round-robin like in CK2 until you finally click fast enough to pin them down.

 

[Kerschey]

A couple of questions:

Does having a diplomatic relation with another nation in and of itself give an opinion bonus? So would the AI look at your relations and determine that it's at +2 and offer you an alliance, but then when looking at it afterwards there'd be a "We have an alliance! (+20)" modifier raising the total to +22?

You said that Naval AI is something that you want to work on. In EU3, the AI suffered no attrition with its navies, would you say that it's a goal to make the ai suffer attrition at sea, and understand how to deal with it? Or were you primarily talking about considering naval power more intelligently in terms of war capacity and for diplomatic reasons.

 

[Revshawn]

On the subject of hunter/killer armies...it appears that Paradox has gone gangster.

We gonna stop ya from seiging down our provinces see. Myaa. Myaa.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

Humans care to win the game, in whatever way the rules allow them. If the rules favour historical behaviour they will play in historical fashion.

Let's say a mid-size country assembled one big army and sent it to war. When their army is defeated in decisive battle, the war is over, the loser will sue for peace and make concessions. But for some reason, in EU3 you have to first defeat the AI army to the last man (ahistorical), using Hunter-Killer army approach (never happened in that time period), and even then the AI won't give you what you want, until you siege half its country. This sucks.

And instead of fixing the obvious problem with warscore estimation, EU4 will just teach the AI to do the same stupid crap to players as the players did to AI in EU3. This sucks bigtime.

You realize that TWS allows you to just siege the province you want and demand it soon after, right? It'd be way too easy if you can get any peace deal by just wiping out the opponent's army.

 

[unmerged(584823)]

On the subject of hunter/killer armies...it appears that Paradox has gone gangster.

We gonna stop ya from seiging down our provinces see. Myaa. Myaa.

It's like the enforce peace option:

" We gonna make you an offer you can't refuse."

 

[ap08]

I've never said it should be easy to "just" wipe out the opponent's army. Wiping out a big army should be next to impossible. But it should be possible to defeat an army, and yes, the opponent's decisive defeat in battle (30-40% losses, no organisation, no morale, no other armies, no way to stop the winner from doing what they damn please) is more than enough to get a good peace deal.

 

[unmerged(584823)]

I've never said it should be easy to "just" wipe out the opponent's army. Wiping out an army should be next to impossible. But it should be possible to defeat an army, and yes, the opponent's decisive defeat in battle (30-40% losses, no organisation, no morale, no other armies, no way to stop the winner from doing what they damn please) is more than enough to get a good peace deal.

But, what if this country has a lot of manpower left or money to rebuild troops ?

 

[ap08]

A good player will never allow that. You send cavalry stacks inside the country and wipe out the new units as they appear.