From Wiz's words "You can spend favours on increasing your trust on a particular country if you want

[ringhloth]

A big issue seems to be that the AI will instantly break an alliance when you have one of their provinces of interest overlapping one of theirs. Why not use a cumulative modifier instead. Likewise with the rivalry system, why allow the trusted player country as a choice for AI countries when they have high trust with you?

There is a cumulative modifier, though it is sometimes overridden by hostility.

If my next target is my ally, my next target is my ally. Alliances are something you use to get ahead of your competition (sometimes your allies, sometimes your mutual enemies, sometimes just a random guy) until you are strong enough to crush them, nothing more, nothing less. So the AI should break alliances if it desires land from you. Maybe it should be smarter about doing it, but it shouldn't stop altogether.

 

[Morricane]

Some people in this thread never got the problem - it is not about long alliances that would last forever, it is about why AI is extremely happy one day and then suddenly cursing your guts, dissolving the alliance, rivaling you the other day...just because it added some insignificant province of your empire to his want list.

I actually saw the AI (Ottomans, direct neighbour) when I played as Bhotan (Qara releasable) *removing* every province in the northern Qara/Georgian area that I happened to conquer from its "vital interest" the second I took it...so the opposite behaviour actually DOES exist.
Didn't check leader personalities over time, but it was a process of roughly a century.

 

[gothos]

I must say I was rather dismayed in my Great Khan (successful, by the way) run as Golden Horde when my longtime allies the Ottomans, who I had 100 trust and 30+ spare favours brought up, straight up rivalled me after they were done with Mamluks. All they wanted from my land was the Crimean area. It struck me as annoying as hell as they even had easier targets available nearby like Hungary, Poland, Tunis, Haasa.... I guess these were all too weak to be rivals then (at this point I was stronger than them anyway, and they never dared attack me, so no biggy, but... y'know)... as a result of this they brought me into an alliance with Austria and we wiped the floor with them. Probably the AI should check first if what they're doing is a smart idea when considering rivals.

 

[bbqftw]

I actually saw the AI (Ottomans, direct neighbour) when I played as Bhotan (Qara releasable) *removing* every province in the northern Qara/Georgian area that I happened to conquer from its "vital interest" the second I took it...so the opposite behaviour actually DOES exist.
Didn't check leader personalities over time, but it was a process of roughly a century.

AI removing provinces from vital interest is also pretty obvious whenever you conquer stuff that is within the Ottomans "conquer levant" mission targets

 

[Nikolaj-11]

Moscovy stubbed me in the back as Ruthenia! I thought Moscovy was my bruh! I mean they even supported rebels on my territory.

Ok the last part weren't true But seriously i never even use the trust system, i don`t see any point, they attack me regardless. The only way i have managed to keep alliance is by being bigger and meaner.

Them supporting rebels in Ruthenia (Ukraine) would be surprisingly fitting given current history.

 

[Rengar39]

I just ran into a example of the desire system beaig broken that made want to alt-F4:

So many things wrong with this.
1) -121 for one province?! Usually even when someone wants ALL your territory the opinion modifier doesnt go uder -50
2) They do not even really desire it, it's just yellow colour ("province of strategic utility" that the country doesnt really care about)
3) Even if they suddenly decided to hate me, there is absolutely no reason to pick Neumark as the province to do it over. They don't have a core or a claim there, it is not an accepted culture, it isn't particularily rich (both Stolp and Sternberg have higher develepment) AND it's an imperial province. If they wanted Warmia or Danzig (that they have claims and mission on) I could understand it, but no, as soon as I took those they removed them from their desired provinces like a nice little friend they were.
4) Trust at 65 apparently doesnt factor into this at all, what a shock.
5) I am their only ally appart from Sweden, who only has four provinces left. My ally Austria is already their rival and with just one more ally (Denmark, even Lübeck) we'll be able to dismantle them with no sweat.

 

[Quaade]

A big issue seems to be that the AI will instantly break an alliance when you have one of their provinces of interest overlapping one of theirs. Why not use a cumulative modifier instead. Likewise with the rivalry system, why allow the trusted player country as a choice for AI countries when they have high trust with you?

They will not, when it's just an interest... desired provinces however which were implemented a long time ago to break up long-term alliances, so that's WAD... every marking you have that is the same, gives -10 for alliances

One of the problems is that alliances are not dynamic. You can have 3 big nations rivalazing you while also having rival of my rival positive modifier. And none of them will ally you for the sake of gaining leverage against the others or just amounting enough power even to just maintain the status quo in the region. I had a game as Scandinavia where I had Russia and Lithuania as rivals, while they were rivals between themselves. Obviously the one who got the Ottomans by their side "won" (I somehow got their dynasty, unrivalized them, left a permanent diplomat there and hoped for the want you land mallus get away. Russia wasn't so lucky).

The power of balance is something they need to address, especially to curb blobs since they would also feel threatened about you or Ottoman blogging, seeking alliances elsewhere to stop you early

Yep, they said they'd fix it before, they said they fix it again with this new DLC, and yet again they fail.

I've got a game where I'm literally all of Europe (as the HRE) from Lisboa and the Western Isles to the Urals and Caucasia... yet Persia my ally (since raping the Ottomans ~100 years ago) decides to break with me over (formerly) horde land that they border me.

My forcelimit is in the millions. Theirs is barely 100.

Clearly there needs to be an ally strength modifier.

Clearly they should have broken it long ago and sought to keep you down instead... basically, when you starts getting the regional power or great power, and you reach the point where you practically is the biggest threat and your ally can see that the only way they can survive is breaking alliance and allying with your rivals... so every strong nation should basically be matched with a equal alliance

I must say I was rather dismayed in my Great Khan (successful, by the way) run as Golden Horde when my longtime allies the Ottomans, who I had 100 trust and 30+ spare favours brought up, straight up rivalled me after they were done with Mamluks. All they wanted from my land was the Crimean area. It struck me as annoying as hell as they even had easier targets available nearby like Hungary, Poland, Tunis, Haasa.... I guess these were all too weak to be rivals then (at this point I was stronger than them anyway, and they never dared attack me, so no biggy, but... y'know)... as a result of this they brought me into an alliance with Austria and we wiped the floor with them. Probably the AI should check first if what they're doing is a smart idea when considering rivals.

They should have done so before, they should never have allowed you to surpass them

I just ran into a example of the desire system beaig broken that made want to alt-F4:
View attachment 148335
So many things wrong with this.
1) -121 for one province?! Usually even when someone wants ALL your territory the opinion modifier doesnt go uder -50
2) They do not even really desire it, it's just yellow colour ("province of strategic utility" that the country doesnt really care about)
3) Even if they suddenly decided to hate me, there is absolutely no reason to pick Neumark as the province to do it over. They don't have a core or a claim there, it is not an accepted culture, it isn't particularily rich (both Stolp and Sternberg have higher develepment) AND it's an imperial province. If they wanted Warmia or Danzig (that they have claims and mission on) I could understand it, but no, as soon as I took those they removed them from their desired provinces like a nice little friend they were.
4) Trust at 65 apparently doesnt factor into this at all, what a shock.
5) I am their only ally appart from Sweden, who only has four provinces left. My ally Austria is already their rival and with just one more ally (Denmark, even Lübeck) we'll be able to dismantle them with no sweat.

that's nothing to do with Cossacks, that was implemented prior and is based in something else than ingress

 

[Rengar39]

that's nothing to do with Cossacks, that was implemented prior and is based in something else than ingress

I.. am not quite sure what you mean . Why did that happen if it has nothing to do with the diplo overhaul?

 

[Quaade]

I.. am not quite sure what you mean . Why did that happen if it has nothing to do with the diplo overhaul?

it was implemented a couple of patches ago, most are tied to missions or some other AI logic on expansion... basically it was implemented as a means to break up such long lasting alliances where the player or AI got too strong. That's also why the they gave it such a steep modifier to ensure players who exploited the AI allies would still break...

My Ceylon run in last patch and many others I was very careful to head into areas I knew my ally or a threat would desire, this has also been the exploit to prevent breaking alliances for a long time, since we can kinda guess most AI desires... like taking Italian provinces will likely be desired by France, Austria and Spain... Sweden desire the Baltics...

 

[Rengar39]

it was implemented a couple of patches ago, most are tied to missions or some other AI logic on expansion... basically it was implemented as a means to break up such long lasting alliances where the player or AI got too strong. That's also why the they gave it such a steep modifier to ensure players who exploited the AI allies would still break...

My Ceylon run in last patch and many others I was very careful to head into areas I knew my ally or a threat would desire, this has also been the exploit to prevent breaking alliances for a long time, since we can kinda guess most AI desires... like taking Italian provinces will likely be desired by France, Austria and Spain... Sweden desire the Baltics...

Well, thanks for the info. Not sure how '30 years' qualify as 'long lasting alliance' or 'both me and Poland taking two provinces from TO each' qualifies as 'exploiting AI alies', but at least I know whats going on.
Tbh it just seems like another thing making the trust system utterly worthles. Maybe you want to raise it one time so you don't get stuck on 0 when calling to arms, but other than that it seems like it's always better to use favors to just call the AI offensively while you can and let them waste their manpower for you, since even if you are nice to them in peace deals and they dont want any of your land they'll just arbitrarily brake the alliance at some point anyway.
All this might just lead to me exploiting AI allies more then ever

 

[Quaade]

Well, thanks for the info. Not sure how '30 years' qualify as 'long lasting alliance' or 'both me and Poland taking two provinces from TO each' qualifies as 'exploiting AI alies', but at least I know whats going on.
Tbh it just seems like another thing making the trust system utterly worthles. Maybe you want to raise it one time so you don't get stuck on 0 when calling to arms, but other than that it seems like it's always better to use favors to just call the AI offensively while you can and let them waste their manpower for you, since even if you are nice to them in peace deals and they dont want any of your land they'll just arbitrarily brake the alliance at some point anyway.
All this might just lead to me exploiting AI allies more then ever

yeah... sometimes they make it less logical when solely fixing exploits... please see my link of prepare war, as a suggestion how to limit favour gain more and depend more on making agreements on conquest but basically I want a deeper overhaul of alliance which is in rework on relations but perhaps favours should be scaled to WP too, if you let them do most they will expect more than a simple pleas help

 

[baaldrix]

Won't be adding much to this discussion, instead I'll just post two images to emphasize my wtf moment (context: playing Russia, Austria broke our alliance after I took a few provinces in Syria... lol)

 

[Quaade]

Won't be adding much to this discussion, instead I'll just post two images to emphasize my wtf moment (context: playing Russia, Austria broke our alliance after I took a few provinces in Syria... lol)

That´s diplomatic feedback... You can simply remove a few of your interests, and the alliance is good to go again

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Maybe one day, this mechanic will be worth anybody's time. Today is not that day:



No borders directly or with vassals, no mutual provinces with vital interests, 3 decade alliance (edit: that one was with Jaunpur, which did the same thing as Ming here dropping alliance w/o bordering or holding red land) with nothing done by either nation to lower trust...

and the conclusion is to rival one of the top competitors then do absolutely nothing for power projection. Smooth.

 

[Will Steel]

What troubles me is Jaunpuri Tibet.

They really need to remove the link between India and China. This is simply ridiculous. No armies could legitimately cross those locations until WW2 (except Tibetans and other Himalayans who knew the right paths and were adept at crossing Himalayas), and no real battles happened in the Himalayas until the failed Chinese invasion of India in 1962.

And Indians never actually attacked Tibet, unlike in EU4 where it falls within 20 years.

 

[superZAKTAN]

I had an alliance with Austria as Britain for about 300 years. Suddenly, he breaks it because he desires the Ottoman's Egyptian lands and I desire them as well(Because I control the area around Suez). I get that he would claim his rivals lands, but what use would he have for Egypt? He should consider provinces in his same continent to be of strategic interest.

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

Now you know how the AI feels.

And exactly how does a bunch of 0's and 1's feel?

 

[Ritmas]

I am a roleplayer, and I never do this. I don't want AI to behave in a gamey fashion like many EU4 players do.

Then you are roleplaying somebody who doesn't know politics or how to lead a nation. There are no "buddies" or "perma alliances", because only thing you should care is your own countries interest.

Tho I would make it not possible or punish breaking 100trust alliances, but make trust drop each time a ruler changes.

 

[Ritmas]

4) Trust at 65 apparently doesnt factor into this at all, what a shock.

Well that's may be your problem, you trust is literally nothing, barely above 50which is default.

Inappropriate language removed.

 

[Rengar39]

Well that's may be your problem, you trust is literally nothing, barely above 50which is default.

It's impossible to raise it any more in 30 years when you get 1 favor per four/five years and they call you to arms only twice. I only called them once, foolishly thinking that my favors would be better spent on trust. Besides, according to Quaade this behaviour is completely separate from the trust mechanic