Fix AI debt spiral / alliance issues. It's been broken for weeks, and it's gamebreaking.

[Emp_Palpatine]

It's everywhere. Every AI power, up to the colonial subjects or OPMs.
It's game breaking. I've seen countries in Europe getting institutions 50/80 years after the normal date because they can't pay. Not to speak about the absolute nothingness of foreign relations.

And not a word?! Be it an acknowledgment of the problem and that it is worked upon, or just sending us go to heck.

 

[Father of Nations]

I rather play something like MEIOU and Taxes if that means a greater challenge and more immersion but crippling performance (but yeah, personal taste).

Same here. I‘m not having any issues with performance though (yet). Still I wish that maybe EU5 will be able to make use of multiple cores.

 

[TheRabbitGeneral]

The AI gets mercs in a war, then after the war disbands regular units as it can't afford it in peace time, then decides it needs regular units, then it again can't afford and disbands seems to be the biggest issue. In another thread about this someone said that it was infinitely better debt wise if you just disable mercs.....

Want to wreck the AI for a minimum of 50 years (and maim them for the rest of the game if you do it early as they won't be developing an economy, as if you look at countries who didn't they will be building buildings)? Make them hire mercs. They will be useless for at least the next 20 years. I've seen it repeatedly, in debt and no manpower because instead of firing the mercs or lowering maintenance/mothballing/ect... it builds regular units as soon as it has the manpower to do so (as it should, it is smart to not necessarily disband mercs that can't be rehired for 20 years until you are sure you can defend yourself), and then it deletes units as it can't afford it. And it KEEPS doing it! So when you see big debt, you may want to also check the manpower, I have seen it break that cycle eventually but 1. the debt is still there, 2. it hasn't developed it's economy and others have.

So, the right ally is one who didn't hire mercs early in the game (or recently, unless it built an economy that can afford it). And the countries that will under-perform and betray you are the ones that did.

Just completed a Big Blue Blob because I destroyed England's standing army in the first war, he never had more than 5000 manpower again through 1497 when I got the achievement. And that was while fighting no one else and having about a 10 year truce between each of our 4 wars. I got him to hire mercs after the first war, and then he just spent the rest of the time hiring units and disbanding. I'll take the achievement, but.....I'd like at least a competent AI to play a full game with.

 

[Sfan]

The AI actually builds buildings, especially economy related, whenever it can. The problem is that it will build temples in provinces with low base tax or manufactories for low trade value goods. It shouldn’t be that difficult to address its economical logic.

Yes and no. Several AIs also build 0 building, or near to 0 building this patch.

 

[Canute VII]

Is Paradox on holidays now? Considering the complete radio silence on the AI economy issues I get the feeling this is gonna be a problem for a long time...

Seems very likely now.

 

[Jomini]

The main problem here is more checks (e.g. prioritizing the economic value of buildings) means more things to compute for each tag resulting in dropping performance. The same can be said about many other things the AI has to take into consideration. I wish that such things would at least be optional even if only in a mod. I rather play something like MEIOU and Taxes if that means a greater challenge and more immersion but crippling performance (but yeah, personal taste).

This is part of why I hate the tag and province spam. At some point we need to recognize that there will be abstractions and not every semi-coherent people group needs a tag nor does every city needs its own province. Particularly as we add in new features it becomes ever harder to test and work out an AI that can manage resources well, not suck down the clock cycles, and be a challenge.

 

[TheRabbitGeneral]

The AI gets mercs in a war, then after the war disbands regular units as it can't afford it in peace time, then decides it needs regular units, then it again can't afford and disbands seems to be the biggest issue. In another thread about this someone said that it was infinitely better debt wise if you just disable mercs.....

Want to wreck the AI for a minimum of 50 years (and maim them for the rest of the game if you do it early as they won't be developing an economy, as if you look at countries who didn't they will be building buildings)? Make them hire mercs. They will be useless for at least the next 20 years. I've seen it repeatedly, in debt and no manpower because instead of firing the mercs or lowering maintenance/mothballing/ect... it builds regular units as soon as it has the manpower to do so (as it should, it is smart to not necessarily disband mercs that can't be rehired for 20 years until you are sure you can defend yourself), and then it deletes units as it can't afford it. And it KEEPS doing it! So when you see big debt, you may want to also check the manpower, I have seen it break that cycle eventually but 1. the debt is still there, 2. it hasn't developed it's economy and others have.

So, the right ally is one who didn't hire mercs early in the game (or recently, unless it built an economy that can afford it). And the countries that will under-perform and betray you are the ones that did.

Just completed a Big Blue Blob because I destroyed England's standing army in the first war, he never had more than 5000 manpower again through 1497 when I got the achievement. And that was while fighting no one else and having about a 10 year truce between each of our 4 wars. I got him to hire mercs after the first war, and then he just spent the rest of the time hiring units and disbanding. I'll take the achievement, but.....I'd like at least a competent AI to play a full game with.

One other thing: Want to make sure a country isn't crippled after your war with them if they hire mercs? Stackwipe their mercs. Did that with Portugal in my game (they defended England in the first of our wars). Later, allied with him and he honored the alliance when I got coalitioned for the third time....And helped me win that and get my achievement. Because they never had to deal with the mercs he hired as I destroyed them for the AI....

 

[EarlKonrad]

The main problem here is more checks (e.g. prioritizing the economic value of buildings) means more things to compute for each tag resulting in dropping performance. The same can be said about many other things the AI has to take into consideration. I wish that such things would at least be optional even if only in a mod. I rather play something like MEIOU and Taxes if that means a greater challenge and more immersion but crippling performance (but yeah, personal taste).

Then what about NOT including 50 new OPMs and 100 new territories and instead give 1 more thing to all tags compute? Surely it would be better to improve the existing AIs instead of creating a bunch of new tags that will just fall and die as we see all tags do nowadays.

 

[TheRabbitGeneral]

Yes and no. Several AIs also build 0 building, or near to 0 building this patch.

Oh, they do. If they don't get into a debt issue early on. Almost always caused by hiring mercs....You can see it, monitor the first 10-20 years of the game and compare the countries that hired mercs to the ones that didn't. They hire merc, get peace and delete units can't afford, decide it needs to build more units, then can't afford it loop (all while keeping the mercs) takes all their money and puts them in debt while everyone else develops their economy.

 

[TheRabbitGeneral]

It's everywhere. Every AI power, up to the colonial subjects or OPMs.
It's game breaking. I've seen countries in Europe getting institutions 50/80 years after the normal date because they can't pay. Not to speak about the absolute nothingness of foreign relations.

And not a word?! Be it an acknowledgment of the problem and that it is worked upon, or just sending us go to heck.

Or even a working as intended....Just, some type of response. Should I start a game because this is how it's supposed to be and we should adjust? Should I not start a game because an update is coming the next morning? Should I not start a game because they are working on it, even if they aren't sure when it will done? I waited a while to play knowing Emperor was coming, and waited a week assuming there would need to be a patch (which is fine, it's normal, I knew to expect it) even though I bought it immediately and looked around (which, I am quite pleased with). But, now I don't know what I should be doing as I don't know if a fix is coming, if it's coming at X time, or it's coming but the timeline is unknown but our best estimate is.....

 

[jady]

These problems are unfortunately common in new dlcs from paradox. I wish more people dont buy them to fast and paradox has to rethink their priorities.
But as long as the sales are fine such huge problems will always be there.

 

[grommile]

This is part of why I hate the tag and province spam.

A mod that merges away (either into other provinces, or into wastelands) 50% of the habitable provinces would be a good idea.

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

It's been a while since I played CK2, to be fair.

Which is unfortunate, because your allies are a bunch of filthy teamkillers who do not understand the supply system.

HOI4 AI is probably the most garbage AI in any PDX game. Especially the UK AI. Constant naval invasions against everywhere that they don't even try to support, so they just end up throwing away tens of thousands of manpower every year just to send three divisions against your coastal defenses every month

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

A common complaint about the 1.30 AI is that they'll use your money for something else and still not pay off the debt. So that's not reliable.

Can confirm, I was Great Britain trying to get Spain to join my war against France. Spain was 8k in debt. So I sent them 8k. Checked back a few days later, they're 7k in debt. Goddamnit Spain

 

[TheDeadeye]

It's everywhere. Every AI power, up to the colonial subjects or OPMs.
It's game breaking. I've seen countries in Europe getting institutions 50/80 years after the normal date because they can't pay. Not to speak about the absolute nothingness of foreign relations.

And not a word?! Be it an acknowledgment of the problem and that it is worked upon, or just sending us go to heck.

It’s the usual Paradox style, they usually go silent whenever there is a shit storm. It’s their preferred method since the HOI heydays. They are laughing their asses off right now reading all the posts (or not while being on their government sanctioned 1 month holiday) and by the end of summer they will come back with a “we are back! Hope you enjoyed your summer as we did, stay tuned for next weeks resumption of dev diaries”. Till then, dont expect much.

 

[panionios]

It's not just about allies. It affects how the entire game evolves. Nobody is fighting because of too much debt.

 

[Menassah]

This, so much this - it is game breaking, fun destroying, and all around terrible.

Obligatory in my game: Portugal is 3k in debt in 1500, having never been to war, and will dishonor defensive calls. Castle is 1.5k in debt, having been to one war that I carried, and dishonor defensive calls.

For a moment, it seemed like fun when a big country might dishonor and I could beat up on their little ally, but it's not. It feels bad, it's broken, it doesn't feel fun. It's not fun on either side, it's cheap and just feels clearly broken. This issue is worse than the peace deal money bug, 1000x worse. The money bug was annoying, this completely reshaped any game, cripples the AI, and renders alliances useless for both the player and the AI.

I cannot believe that anyone at PDX would be willing to go on their summer holiday right now, it's completely innapropriate. Your game is broken, your title is dying, your reputation and that of your key asset cannot survive a month of silence. If this is the way things are, and you must go on leave, then you cannot release anything around this time of year.

Tl;Dr - Game's broken, AI debt is the biggest problem of 1.30, PDX must acknowledge and fix this.

 

[gougluinn]

i realized this with AI ottoman today. opened game in observe mode and chose ottomans for testing. AI ottomans were literally using expensive and unnecessary advisors and had more troops than they could pay. they had 4 debs and doing nothing to pay them back. i got really suprised because they also never went bankrupt.

also i am not sure about this maybe happens because of some mod but AI ottomans constantly recruiting new soldiers and disbanding old ones over and over again so their manpower was about 1-2k most of the game. i stopped playing after seeing this.

 

[Sfan]

That's not mod related, this has been clearly reported and reproduced in vanilla.

 

[Hootieleece]

I'm beginning to think the devs don't care about the AI. I think they want everyone to play the game as Multiplayer like them.

Which is why such a glaring bug could be ignored in playtesting.