Several experiences in recent campaigns have led me to hypothesize that the AI is 'psychic' regarding your claim fabrication - that is, that it greatly prioritizes counter-espionaging you while you are building a spy network in it, even before any public reveal that you are building spy network (e.g. claim fabrication made, or other espionage action).
Of course, that's kind of difficult to actually prove, so here's general observations consistent with said hypothesis.
1) Very often AIs will begin to counter-espionage during fabrication
If counter-espionage debuff was present at the beginning of the spy network buildup, I would understand. Fine - that is a calculated risk. Both human and AI have limited diplomats (I think?), if we're counter-espionaging people that aren't even building spy networks on us, that's essentially a wasted diplomat that could have been building relations for alliances, or annexing vassals, or doing other productive things. But the equation changes if we knew that people were fabricating, since that may affect our diplomat allocation priorities.
But right now, that's very often not the case - you can get through 3 months or so of claim fabrication before the counter-espionage debuff begins, which leads to high suspicion that even before you fabricate a claim the AI 'knows' you are building spy network and is acting on it.
2) AIs will counter-espionage you even when associated with neutral attitude
I could understand outraged, threatened, or rival AIs randomly counter-espionaging. But neutral? That is interesting, and hardly seems like a good allocation of diplomat-time in most cases (mind you, its making a reasonable play since I intend to instantly fabricate after annexing Assam, but still, I would expect it to change to threatened in response if it was a threat calculation that determined counterespi, not "is the player building a spy network on me"):
Ultimately, whatever, its a small thing. Its not going to slow me down that much, and its hardly gamebreaking. But it would be nice to have dev confirmation that yes, the AI does know exactly when we are building spy networks and will prioritize counter-espionage. Might be a stealth buff to the rather subpar religious these days
as deus vult cares not about your lack of claims.
Of course, that's kind of difficult to actually prove, so here's general observations consistent with said hypothesis.
1) Very often AIs will begin to counter-espionage during fabrication
If counter-espionage debuff was present at the beginning of the spy network buildup, I would understand. Fine - that is a calculated risk. Both human and AI have limited diplomats (I think?), if we're counter-espionaging people that aren't even building spy networks on us, that's essentially a wasted diplomat that could have been building relations for alliances, or annexing vassals, or doing other productive things. But the equation changes if we knew that people were fabricating, since that may affect our diplomat allocation priorities.
But right now, that's very often not the case - you can get through 3 months or so of claim fabrication before the counter-espionage debuff begins, which leads to high suspicion that even before you fabricate a claim the AI 'knows' you are building spy network and is acting on it.
2) AIs will counter-espionage you even when associated with neutral attitude
I could understand outraged, threatened, or rival AIs randomly counter-espionaging. But neutral? That is interesting, and hardly seems like a good allocation of diplomat-time in most cases (mind you, its making a reasonable play since I intend to instantly fabricate after annexing Assam, but still, I would expect it to change to threatened in response if it was a threat calculation that determined counterespi, not "is the player building a spy network on me"):
Ultimately, whatever, its a small thing. Its not going to slow me down that much, and its hardly gamebreaking. But it would be nice to have dev confirmation that yes, the AI does know exactly when we are building spy networks and will prioritize counter-espionage. Might be a stealth buff to the rather subpar religious these days
as deus vult cares not about your lack of claims.
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