Features of AI on hard difficulty

[Johan]

At hard level

- AI will consider sending condotierri to non-neighbours.
- AI is more likely to pounce on when player is weak.
- AI is less likely to ally the player.
etc..

 

[Chaingun]

Condottieri on Hard isn't aimed specifically against human, it also makes chances you can hire them greater as AI is more willing to offer them in general. Greater overall Condottieri use makes the game more dynamic and thus harder.

The game can be different in other ways on hard; AI does for instance cheat on revolt risk on Hard which leads to Timurids often holding together unlike on Normal. (This specific bonus we might find reason to nerf.)

I would eventually like to move most human specific checks to Very Hard. My vision for difficulty levels is:

Very Easy: AI extremely nice to human. We have a category of players for whom the game on Easy is too hard..
Easy: Same as now, perhaps disabling difficult features (and for Very Easy too).
Normal: Same as now.
Hard: Some light bonuses to AI in areas where it has problems (same as now, possibly reduced), advanced AI features, but "fair".
Very Hard: Very heavy bonuses to AI (similar to the bonuses of old) and checks to make it cooperate against human to a limited degree. For the masochists.

This is just want I want to do, and it's only a matter of time to be available.

 

[Chaingun]

Although, since you are, I have the impression that the AI doesn't currently pursue a long term strategy but that it just seeks to expand where it feels it can do so successfully without excessive border gore. In other words, England forms GB because it has managed to expand and conquer Scotland and not because it actively pursued a strategy of conquering Scotland with a view to forming GB. Would this be right and do you envisage ever having AI settings where they do pursue wider objectives, perhaps actively seeking to complete some of the achievements for example?

I think it would be quite interesting to be playing against an AI Castile / Spain that, for example, is actively seeking to lock everyone else out of the colonial race and keeps seeking allies and wars that can help it to secure that objective.

The AI player doesn't currently do any planning, i.e. considering (ahead into the future) the effects of a sequence of actions it might take. A number of independent subsystems perform a series of (what you could call) emotionally driven actions, coordinated (for the most part) only implicitly through observed changes in the gamestate. Sometimes it manages to form a coherent strategy nonetheless.

Overall, there is limited value of looking more than 1 step into the future in this game any way due to the vast number of possible outcomes. If you can quantify how much you will immediately be better off by doing something, that's enough to make decisions that are reasonable in most cases. However, it does lead to things like FRA easily conquering Iberia because CAS/ARA/POR don't realize the future threat of destroying each other in intra-peninsular wars.

I don't think we'll ever attempt to incorporate a general planning system in EU4 due to performance reasons (disregarding the small detail of its implementation).

It's 03:30 in the morning in Sweden. If you're up at this time then you shouldn't be thinking about AI!

Algorithms don't design themselves you know (actually, they can, but...) Currently up thinking about the army AI again at this hour because it's my big headache.

 

[Chaingun]

So turning the AI to hard actually enables more complex thinking, as well as bonuses, if the Condottieri example holds true. Are there any other things that AI does better on hard, apart from it's bonuses? I'm asking because I handle a lot of the AI bonuses and work for MEIOU and Taxes, and if there are actual AI improvements apart from bonuses based on difficulty, that would be very useful to know. To be clear, I mean AI logic and decision making, not any sort of gameplay advantage. The 'advanced AI features' you mentioned, basically.

I like your ideas of difficulties, I'd love to see it implemented.

I'm developing some power balancing stuff for the diplomatic AI on my own accord that's not close to finalized yet, hence I'm reluctant to delve into detail at this point. It's a part of the anti-blob crusade. I will start exposing defines to modders in the next major patch if everything stays.