How good is the AI ?

[unmerged(71767)]

I´m curious to know from those of you out there, how good the AI in EU3 really are.

Personally I rate good AI as the single most important thing in a single player strategy game and since I have just bought it, it will take a lot of invested time to find out. So what do you say ? Is it the best Paradox AI so far ?
How is it compared to other strategy games ?

 

[naggy]

I´m curious to know from those of you out there, how good the AI in EU3 really are.

Personally I rate good AI as the single most important thing in a single player strategy game and since I have just bought it, it will take a lot of invested time to find out. So what do you say ? Is it the best Paradox AI so far ?
How is it compared to other strategy games ?

The current AI is not the best I've seen in strategy games, but it's better than most other Paradox AI's in that it doesn't require itself to be scripted to do well. The AI takes advantage of weakness and knows how to kick you while you're down or distracted.

The downside is that behavior means that the game becomes anti-historical as the larger AI states swallow up anyone too week to resist, then generally avoids combat because it doesn't want to tangle with someone that might beat it.

2 wierd issues:
1.) Major states generally do not fight other major states (although it does happen).
2.) Minor states sometimes commit suicide by declaring war on a neighbor 20 times their size.

The next patch should rebalance things a bit.

 

[Manziel]

another problem is that the AI is quite passive. for example, the ottoman-emire is quite peaceful if it borders a stronger hungary or austria. the AI also is too passive in wars. most of their troops are just standing around. this is for both enemies and allys.

 

[naggy]

another problem is that the AI is quite passive. for example, the ottoman-emire is quite peaceful if it borders a stronger hungary or austria. the AI also is too passive in wars. most of their troops are just standing around. this is for both enemies and allys.

Not sure how you play, but if I don't hammer the AI quick, they're all over my country. I also can't get my allies to stop moving around and taking the provinces I want.

 

[Frozensky]

Not sure how you play, but if I don't hammer the AI quick, they're all over my country. I also can't get my allies to stop moving around and taking the provinces I want.

Seems like it has to do with relative strength. I've had wars with France as Brittany where they'll send everything across and swallow me up, but after I secured my colonial holdings, they would declare war and simply not send any of their troops across the border, provided I didn't make a move with mine.

The AI also has no clue whatsoever how to use navies, so if you have no land connection with the nation you're warring against, you're free to pick and choose your spots without having to worry about a significant invasion.

But all of that said, EU3's AI is decent. It's no GalCiv2, but I think it's workable.

 

[unmerged(46403)]

It doesn't know how to negociate peace, though. It will attack someone, run all over them after three years of war, and then make peace for three ducats.

 

[MagisterMundi]

It doesn't know how to negociate peace, though. It will attack someone, run all over them after three years of war, and then make peace for three ducats.

Or, having been totally steamrolled, refuse to make any half-way reasonable peace. Sometimes they'll even refuse peace proposals when they've been completely occupied...

 

[dharper]

It's a very good AI given that it's handling upwards of 100 countries at any given time. To do that and still play the game at anything resembling speed makes the AI first-class.

That said, there are a lot of issues with the AI. My personal issues:
* Powerful countries will not go to war with (or stay at war with) other powerful countries.
* The AI is too stubborn and too generous in peace negotiations.
* Colonization is strange - everyone wants North America, nobody wants the Incas or Aztecs.

 

[merrick]

It's decent tactically (far better than EU2's "let's pile everything in one army and send them up a mountain to die of attrition"), not so hot strategically. It doesn't recognise threats well, pursues short-term expansion at the expense of long-term development, big countries are too passive and small ones too reckless.

 

[unmerged(68364)]

It's decent tactically (far better than EU2's "let's pile everything in one army and send them up a mountain to die of attrition"), not so hot strategically. It doesn't recognise threats well, pursues short-term expansion at the expense of long-term development, big countries are too passive and small ones too reckless.

Exactly...Well put! Don't forget about the weird diplomacy...most will only accept a players terms if they have been completely occupied, and only grudgingly. It takes a few times before they will accept losing the one province I want yet offer me half a half dozen MORE VALUABLE provinces in a counter proposal that I don't want.

 

[unmerged(29152)]

terrible, you have consider that these games were developed by people playing on a LAN in the office. ANd you have to think in terms of future investment their is no real money in developing the ai. As the internet becomes better surely games like this will be pre-dominatley be played as multi-player.

A guess into the mind of Johan Paradoxical Entertinemnt

 

[naggy]

terrible, you have consider that these games were developed by people playing on a LAN in the office. ANd you have to think in terms of future investment their is no real money in developing the ai. As the internet becomes better surely games like this will be pre-dominatley be played as multi-player.

A guess into the mind of Johan Paradoxical Entertinemnt

How else do you think programmers work, but on a network in an office? Do you think they should sit in a cave with sticks?

 

[insolent1]

I've noticed that the AI kinda dies after or during a war, basically the AI has a large army & just dosen't move even to break sieges that it can break or beat armies it can beat, it just does nothing. Reminds me of a similar case of inactivity that happened in HOI2. I just watched a 20k burgundy army do nothing while Cologne with 4k went around sieging all of burgundy's provinces that they could reach except the province that had the 20k, the burgundy AI didn't even try to reclaim any provinces.

 

[Manziel]

terrible, you have consider that these games were developed by people playing on a LAN in the office. ANd you have to think in terms of future investment their is no real money in developing the ai. As the internet becomes better surely games like this will be pre-dominatley be played as multi-player.

A guess into the mind of Johan Paradoxical Entertinemnt

i dont think so. yes, there are a lot of multiplayer-games and i also like playing multiplayer. but i think that such a complex game like EU3 needs a fixed group of players to make sense in MP. and such a group is not a thing for everybody.
and you should not forget that MP still requires a good AI. even games with 32 players have still a lot of AI-nations that can become very big.

 

[Boblof]

the AI is pretty good, it proritzes about right (not like a human would but a hell of alot better than in other paradox games) and it usually puts up a reasonbly good fight in a war.
there are some problems with peace and that minors commit suicide if they have alot of cores on a major. the AI is not to good with navies either.
but really considering that the AI don't cheat on normal difficulty (exept for lucky nations) I think it behaves quite well.

 

[unmerged(46403)]

My main issues are still with peacemaking and diplomacy--i.e. the same problems as with other Paradox games. Alliances are way to freakin' hard to get, in fact nine times out of ten they are impossible. That's exactly what the game tells me when I want to ally with a country with which I have +200 relations, a royal marriage and the exact same religion. Oh, and did I mention the 50+ prestige, 0 BB, and 8 DIP monarch? Oh, and I'm also much larger and stronger than the AI refuzniks, not to mention that, me being Persia and they being Oman, since they're surrounded by potentially hostile Sunnis refusing my proffered alliance is not the smarting thing they could do.

The peacemaking, well, we all know it's crap, but a particularly stupid example from my game as the Manchus: a war of succession between Vijayanagar and Japan ( :wacko: ) is being fought over my throne. Since I don't have the option of a nationalistic coup, I choose to back Japan and invade Vijanagar. Within a year their army is destroyed, their navy is destroyed, all their provinces and vassals on the mainland are occupied by Manchu armies but they still hold out in Ceylon. Then what happens?

"Vijayangar has accepted peace with Japan on the following terms: Vijayanagar will pay 3 ducats."

Where's the headbang smiley?

(also, notice that Japan didn't participate in the war and didn't bother asking for my throne, so that they lose a massive ammount of prestige for abandonning their claim).

Finally, alliances with the AI are not even worth the paper they're written on. If you could actually ally with the AI, it would be a better way of getting a Casus Belli than of getting an actual ally. The AI continuously dishonours alliances and seems to go to war at the drop of a hat. An example of a "WHAT the FUCK?!?" moment in EU3:
"16 september 1511: Hungary now grants Austria Military access through their country.
19 september 1511: Hungary have declared war on Austria.
19 september 1511: Poland have dishonoured an alliance with Hungary.
19 september 1511: Lithuania have dishonoured an alliance with Hungary."

Not exactly an impressive example of AI behaviour is it? It also confirms that the AI cheats in diplomacy, since there's no way I could have gotten Hungary to grant me military access if they were about to declare ware on me. And that the AI makes stupid mistakes, since Hungary got butchered, just not against the player--all the insults in the world will not get my neighborus to attack me, more's the pity.

 

[unmerged(514)]

[...] As the internet becomes better surely games like this will be pre-dominatley be played as multi-player.

A guess into the mind of Johan Paradoxical Entertinemnt

The multiplayer forum has the lowest number of posts of all.

This "multiplayer will rule" talking is the biggest bag full of air that I can think off. It is good for comercial reasons, but for most of the games, only a small fraction of the buyers will use it.

The exceptions to the rule are FPS and MMORPG...

 

[unmerged(71767)]

The multiplayer forum has the lowest number of posts of all.

This "multiplayer will rule" talking is the biggest bag full of air that I can think off. It is good for comercial reasons, but for most of the games, only a small fraction of the buyers will use it.

The exceptions to the rule are FPS and MMORPG...

I agree in that there is still a huge market for single player strategy games. In my opinion, promoting mulitplayer in strategy games, feels more like reason to not put enough resources into building a good AI. A lazy thing. And it is also more hassle to make all your multiplayer friends online at the same time etc. So a good AI should still be a priority for single players (which I think is the majority playing form after all).

 

[unmerged(4444)]

I agree in that there is still a huge market for single player strategy games. In my opinion, promoting mulitplayer in strategy games, feels more like reason to not put enough resources into building a good AI. A lazy thing. And it is also more hassle to make all your multiplayer friends online at the same time etc. So a good AI should still be a priority for single players (which I think is the majority playing form after all).

Hear, hear.

 

[Chaingun]

Not only that, but due to the fact not all countries in a start up EU3 MP game can be human controlled, a bad AI will make rather weirds things happen. So I argue that AI is as important for EU3 MP as it is to SP.