How good is the AI ?

[unmerged(5023)]

The AI just impressed me...Portugal and Castille (I've YET to see a Spain
happen) are allied....Portugal declared war on me....JUST as Castille's
invasion fleet had reached my shore....not bad....used to be the AI would
get pulled into a war via an alliance and have to scramble....this is the first
time I've seen an alliance member actually pre-stage like that...nice!

 

[Invader_Canuck]

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...

And RTS.

I agree with the guy you're replying to, to an extent.

I think these types of games primarily attract the soloist, or the small scale multiplayer.

The original fan base of these games prefer that style of gameplay.

However, if you want to massively expand your fan base, multi player is the path to go.

An analogy to this is MMORPG's.

Graphically on a large scale there was UO. UO was a sandbox game. A small group of players turned it into a giant free for all. The original fan base by and large did not want competitive Player versus Player conflict.

EQ arrived. A massive portion of the UO sub base left for EQ.

Ten years down the line WoW releases. WoW being blizzard has a massive, MASSIVE following. It brings more people from a competitive player versus player background into MMO's. Now you will be hard pressed to find an MMO in development that is not focusing in large part on providing PvP content.

 

[unmerged(38835)]

The AI just impressed me...Portugal and Castille (I've YET to see a Spain
happen) are allied....Portugal declared war on me....JUST as Castille's
invasion fleet had reached my shore....not bad....used to be the AI would
get pulled into a war via an alliance and have to scramble....this is the first
time I've seen an alliance member actually pre-stage like that...nice!

all quirks aside, i have seen that staging too.
teutonic order allied with me and started stacking masses of troops along their border with a huge lithuania.
i cancelled the alliance..seeing that huge war coming.

 

[Kek3]

Actually... I've seen some hyper-aggressive AI, such as Spain taking over all of north Africa, half of Portugal and all of aragon except 2 provinces, in this same game Austria is frighteningly giant compared to usual. (im playing as the mameluks) All of india is almost unified. And of course, Italy is split between Venice, Sicily and Austria with Tuscany down to a 1 province from 5 after 1 war. This is within about 80years of the game starting. Oh! and Scandinavian used to have its southern half controlled by Switzerland before every once decided to attack the swiss. One thing i have really noticed in this, is the fact that if you reload your game every hour or so of playing, a whole new wave of wars will start within a year or two. At least, it seems to happen A Lot when i load up my campaign. Over all the AI is enough to keep you entertained for hours on end. One could only wish each individual nation could have GC2 but, its still very acceptable.

 

[unmerged(3921)]

The AI can be sneaky. It likes to pile on in wars. That can tag an overextended player or, just as sneaky, it will DoW a weakened country that the player is attacking and steal a bunch of lightly defended provinces. Or even worse, watch the AI DoW a country you just force vassalized - a country whose army you just so conveniently wiped off the earth. As such you have to give credit to the AI that it can adequately judge it's potential opponent's strength. Or can it?

The flip side to the above is that we've all seen enraged suicidial minor countries attack a large country that has control over a province that the small country has a core claim on. Lose that war and then five years later start another one.

In general I rate the AI's ability in all naval matters as quite low. It's tactical ability on land is above average. Strategically on land it tends to be conservative which can be both good and bad...

 

[unmerged(5023)]

The AI getting big, being aggressive, etc...one thing - when it does that I'm
happy, not so much suprised....and to have an AI plan to invade someone and
stage it is pretty cool, compared to "declare and THEN move" like EU2's
always seemed to.

But to see the two AI countries coordinated like they did in my game, Castille
sending a fleet to my shore but its ally being the one to declare...that was
really cool. Seems there's more reason to be observant of the seemingly
random AI-marchings.

 

[unmerged(71767)]

The AI getting big, being aggressive, etc...one thing - when it does that I'm
happy, not so much suprised....and to have an AI plan to invade someone and
stage it is pretty cool, compared to "declare and THEN move" like EU2's
always seemed to.

But to see the two AI countries coordinated like they did in my game, Castille
sending a fleet to my shore but its ally being the one to declare...that was
really cool. Seems there's more reason to be observant of the seemingly
random AI-marchings.

You mentioned a very interesting outcome of the AI in your game. I would like to hear similar stories from other players. Can anyone tell me if they had been beaten against the enemy AI strategically, given that both nations had equal starting positions ?

I have only yet to play my first game in EU3 (as Portugal). England called for my help as an ally and I accepted. But since I was the strongest part I led the alliance against Aragon, France and Brittany. I had a huge land army but a small navy under construction and several provinces in the new world. Right from the start the French navy turned south to blockade 4-5 of my westcoast provinces from Galitzia to Gibraltar. My navy under construction could not merge to defeat the French and I was forced to make a separate peace with them to get rid of that trap where he stole a lot of my gold and decreased my income. I was impressed that the blockade was so complete(not only just 1 or 2 of my coast provinces, but almost all of them).

 

[Firenz]

I had a good one with my Castille game. I was in a war of Succession for Portugal against Aragon. Sciliy sent an army by sea to Attack my north west coast whil my army was busy in Aragon. The fleet was protected by a large Fleet from Aragon that attacked my fleet allowing the Sicilian fleet to slip past with the army.

Might have been fluke that that happened but the force landing on my unprotected shores was pretty cool.

 

[unmerged(12921)]

Considering that they should have been able to build on the structure and lessons of the AI's from EU I and EU II, this AI really stinks. What's worse, without "event scripting" the game is much more dependent on rational AI performance to provide competition for the player. The "body" of the game was "fleshed out" nicely..., but the brain is atrophied. It's a real dissappointment.

 

[unmerged(72130)]

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.

I prefer the 'what if' over the 'what was'. We all know what happened. Sure it's nice to have a historically accurate game, but I prefer to play, not watch.

Realism is what everyone wants, but too much realism puts you on train tracks. What do you do when you're on train tracks? Well, you wait and hope theres a point where you can change tracks, but then...you're still on tracks.

Aside from that, I think the AI does pretty well. I've seen games where Ottoman Empire was stagnant, but I've also seen games where Ottoman Empire was on France's border, and Burgundy was gobbled up. I've seen Ming at war with 8 countries simultaneously and still hand them their you know what on a platter.

There have been times when an AI country who was pathetically weak compared to me declared war on me, but then you soon realize that he has 3 powerful allies with him.

Overall I think the AI is definitely above average, but the real reason i'm here isn't realism, it's replayability. Where anything can happen and no game is the same.

 

[naggy]

Overall I think the AI is definitely above average, but the real reason i'm here isn't realism, it's replayability. Where anything can happen and no game is the same.

The anti-historical part I was referring to is that major powers should have plenty of reasons to go after each other. In EUIII, they often stare at each other rather than go to war.

 

[unmerged(65623)]

I noticed that if you lack a decent sized navy, your allies may come and dock in your ports in case the enemy tries to carry out a blockade.

As Great Britain I was involved in a fight against the French, and they had above average admirals (despite their naval tradition being 0% How is this possible?) and thrashed what I had in navy and blockaded my ports on the main isle. But I was allied with Meckenburg, Venice, Austria, Norway, and Portugal and they sent their ships and managed to lift the blockade on some of the ports and stayed there for what seems to be the duration of the truce. Portugal even sent some of their land troops on the island before whisking them away when the war was over.

 

[unmerged(71767)]

Overall I think the AI is definitely above average, but the real reason i'm here isn't realism, it's replayability. Where anything can happen and no game is the same.

I agree with you but a good AI isn´t the same as being realistic. I don´t expect the countries perform like they did historically. I expect countries perform with what resources and diplomatic relations they have at their disposal and trying to do the best out of it.

Replayability without a good AI is totally worthless, unless your main opponents are humans.

 

[unmerged(72130)]

True. Come to think of it I don't think I've ever seen the big guys France, England, Spain (castille) go at it. If they do it ends in white peace.

 

[Bertouch]

The question implies there's a single AI, but there isn't. Instead, there are different series of rules applied to specific types of situations. So the AI for exploring the world, and growing armies, is pretty good--but the AI for accepting/suggesting treaties during wartime is very bad. Hopefully, the bad stuff (and there's quite a bit of it, to be truthful) will drastically decrease after the 1.2 patch. If you don't have the game and are thinking of its purchase, I would wait until then.

 

[Psyringe]

At first glance (I'm still in my first game of EU3), I think the AI is okay. It has the level you can expect from a strategy game, but it's not stellar, and it still needs a lot of tweaking and bug-fixing.

Here are some of the AI problems I stumbled across. Please keep in mind that this is my first game, so I may miss something obvious, or misunderstand something.

- The AI doesn't colonize aggressively. I could completely claim both coastlines of the real-world U.S. without much competition, despite the fact that one or two European countries had had 50 years of time to claim land there before I even learned about the New World, and despite the fact that dozens of other nations learned about the unclaimed land at the same time as I did. Very valuable provinces (gold mines, for example), easy to take and maintain because of peaceful natives, lie unclaimed for decades.

- When the AI does colonize, it often does so in a seemingly erratic way. It's not uncommon to see AI colonies simply die. In my game, one AI had colonized a string three provinces on the south east African coast, which all simply perished some years later (so the AI simply wasted about 200 ducats). Trinidad has been colonized twice, and both colonies died soon later. It's kind of realistic actually, but still stupid and wouldn't be too hard for an AI to prevent or circumvent.

- I haven't seen colonial conquest in my game. I don't think the AI ever decides "Let's conquer these savages across the ocean and take their riches", as many colonial powers of in our history did. The AI doesn't seem to actively pursue colonial conquest strategies.

- The AI is very weak at evaluating peace offers. It rates provinces according to their economical power, but it seems totally oblivious to their strategical importance. For example, I had Austria repeatedly offering me the "Steiermark" province, which I didn't even want - it was a poor and underdeveloped province, so the AI thought it wouldn't hurt much to give it away. What the AI didn't see was that by giving away Steiermark, it would cut its capital off from all its other provinces, including the harbors, which would make further colonization attempts impossible.

- The AI is similarly clueless to the strategical importance of other countries' provinces. In 1453, Burgundy starts with its capital cut off from its coast provinces, so it can't colonize. Burgundy has a huge army, and a huge fleet, so it has the potential of becoming a substantial power in the New World. It just needs to take one province from France, or (if it doesn't want to anger France) two provinces from puny Lorraine. It would be easy for Burgundy to conquer puny Lorraine, but it never tries to. As a result, the huge Burgundian fleet sits motionless at Holland's coast for decades, costing maintenance.

- Even when the AI is getting conquered, it sometimes just sits in one province (with good defensive modifiers) and waits for the player to come to it. If I don't, I can occupy all its other provinces, and force it into vassalization in the peace treaty, although I would actually *lose* if I engaged it in combat. This seems to happen especially when I park a huge army directly adjacent to the province with the AI's huge army. The AI simply freezes because it doesn't want to give up its good defensive position, and I can lay siege on all their provinces undisturbed.

- In my game, I have a Portuguese fleet west of Florida which hasn't moved for decades. The Portuguese apparently forgot about it. It just sits there, costing maintenance, and never ever moves.

- The AI doesn't use the tactical advantages of its armies. For example, with a fast army, you can overtake a fleeing opponent, await them at their destination, battle them again (you are very likely to win again), and repeat this until the enemy army is gone. It's a very obvious strategy, but I don't see the AI applying it.

- Also, the AI can easily be lead into ambushes. The way the armies flee is very predictable so you can easily direct a fleeing enemy army right in front of your guns/pikes. The AI doesn't seem to be able to do this. Actually, the AI seems rather clueless about the strategical situation in a war, and only concerned with the immediate vicinity of its armies when moving them. (But I'd need more testing to check this).

- The AI doesn't think ahead in diplomacy. I've repeatedly seen an AI granting another country military access, only to declare war on it soon after.

- There are bugs in Diplomacy which seem to lead to the AI wasting its resources - like Funj (in Sudan) repeatedly trying to get a royal marriage with Sweden, which IIRC isn't allowed because they don't share the same religion. Even if it is allowed, it's utterly pointless. I've also more than a hundred attempts (I'm not exaggerating) of AIs to form an alliance with Sweden, all of them failed, because Sweden is already allied with Castilia and Aragon.

All in all, I think the AI still has a lot of issues - however, this has to be expected from a game as complex as EU3, especially so short after release. I've heard that Paradox is very dedicated to improving its games with patches, even long after release, so I guess we'll see some AI improvements in the future.

And actually, at least for my first game, the game is so much fun that the AI hickups don't especially bother me. It's something I'd like to see improved upon in the future, and which will be very important for long-term replayability, but truth to be told, the game is very enjoyable as it is.

 

[DPS]

On points 1 and 2, I've seen speculation that too many countries take the Patron of the Arts NI, which causes events to fire that move their sliders to full innovative, so they don't get colonists anymore. I've not played enough to know if this is generally true. What I have seen in my games is that when knowledge of the new world first spreads throughout Europe (about 1510 or so), there is a brief flurry of colonization for about 5 years or so, then almost everyone quits colonizing.

On point 3, the AI in EU2 also had a hard time with this, but I have already seen England in EU3 conquer all the NA natives.

On points 4, 5, and 6, what you have posted generally matches my observations. (I would disagree with the specific point that Burgundy won't try to conquer Lorraine--I've seen them do it--but I'll agree with the general point that it doesn't understand the strategic importance of some provinces.)

On point 7, my understanding is that if all ships in a fleet are eliminated, the fleet will just stay at one location on the map at zero strength as long as its country exists. That's probably what you're seeing here.

On point 8, I've seen them beat my retreating armies to a province and be waiting for them, though I have some doubts it was deliberate on the part of the AI.

On points 9 and 10, I generally agree with you.

On point 11, first of all, Funj is Orthodox and Sweden is Catholic at start, so they should be able to form a royal marriage. The problem here is that there are no other Christian countries except Ethiopia close by to Funj, and a lot of Muslim countries, so they are probably pretty desparate to build up relations with other Christian countries when they become aware of them.

 

[artemis667]

AIs always do stupid things, but in EU3 I've found it provides me with a pretty tough challenge, depending on the situations of course. Definitely get a feeling of satisfaction after winning a big war

 

[unmerged(3622)]

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

Jusy wondering, in a game with 100+ countries, even if human players are 16 of the countries the rest and vast majority of the countries will be AI controlled so the AI will still be fairly important in such games.

 

[unmerged(29152)]

i was not sayng that ai is unimportant, just that the game was designed by people playing multi-player. I have played one game as England, which I have not finished, I still have the North of France, a huge N american, aztec empire. Their is no challenge, I have already one, I have no army, the ai never invades my homeland, i forget to look at it after a while, I do not personally like multi-player becuase multi-player players are generally very annoying, as they do not usually play realistically, I play civ4 online and hate it, becuase other human players are 16 and have played the game far too often, and ruin the sense of history, which is the reason i play thesegames, i more than anyone would welcome a good a.i. At the moment it is too easy, i wait till they fix multi player and perhaps find 2 or three people who like to play like I do, and actually play realistically.
In fact I would like to work in the paradox office and play multi-player 9-5, with like-minded people, because it is is a beautiful framework, however if ind it far too easy. very Hard is very hard but again unrealistic when my 30,000 army of whatever at land tech 18 loses to land tech 5 becuase of some stupid 40% combat bonus......