Is it just me, or does France play too defensively?

[Incompetent]

Higher-order subjects have always been wonky in EU4, and it's not like they're an unnatural occurrence (e.g. when you have a colonial power as a subject). We could do with some notion of a 'realm' like in CK2, which consists of the whole tree of subjects descending from a given independent country, and is something the AI takes account of as a whole.

As things are, I'm guessing that with higher-order subjects, the AI only looks one step up the chain.

 

[Dominion]

No clue what you're talking about.

The Ai does check for all standing forces of the enemy + all of his allies.
It does not check for the co-belligerent's allies.

That's all there is to it.

 

[Chaingun]

Yes, but the AI is considerably more passive this patch than I can ever recall.

If this is the case, you might wish to poke @Gnivom. It's typically necessary to check that the AI still has a "proper" amount of aggression towards the end of a development cycle, because other changes tend to mess with its tuning for war declarations.

However, let me stress that what actually happens in a single campaign is extremely random. One needs to have a lot of games to discern any real patterns. Especially, war declarations are quintessential RNG, weighted by game factors to make the AI's chance of declaring war higher or lower.

If every country played to max aggression pretty much every OPM start would be impossible.

This also a key point. Basically, the AI can't treat the game as Risk (that many players do) because of how fatiguing that would become for most of the player base. There are numerous gameplay mechanisms to make the AI expand up to a certain point but little further (most apparently country specific missions). Admittedly this is somewhat tangential since France seems under-aggressive compared to their "script" here, but see the RNG point above.

 

[milt]

Ruler personality matters. Militarists wage even stupid wars. I'll ditch an ally if I notice they've rolled one.

I beat a massive Ottoman Empire on very hard as Russia by allying everyone I could to save myself.

I planned simply to grow to the east, then boom, they suicide into my alliance giving me the Crimean peninsula I thought was out of reach and freeing me to eat the Khanates without their DoF shield.

Administrators will avoid any war that doesn't look short, diplomats perhaps also.

If you see a passive France for 300 years, they've had a long string of administrators, or at least gone without militarists.

 

[Dominion]

I don't feel any randomness in games. Most of the time allies and enemies alike act extremely predictable and can be provoked into a lot of things.

Except for a few nations.

Now this could either be a streak of factors kicking over the past 300 hours where I observed them or certain nations having a certain behavior, I suspect the latter.

Either way, the amount of mistakes the AI lets players abuse them based on two factors: Standing armies and provinces of interest.

Those are the only two things needed and they are sufficient.

Especially, war declarations are quintessential RNG, weighted by game factors to make the AI's chance of declaring war higher or lower.

It stops being RNG if some of the factors, which can be influenced, are strong enough for an instant switch into preparation-of-war mode.

Only AI vs AI wars are difficult to force, but even that is doable.

Not that it matters too match. AI warfare is 100% controllable. A human can never lose to the AI and half the wars can be won without fighting them.

 

[Chaingun]

Sure, if their calculated war declaration probability is high, they will tend to declare predictably. But it can also lead to things like Ottomans not expanding whatsoever solely due RNG in very rare cases, so it's still not deterministic.

Yep, the AI goes along like a lamb to slaughter. I was working towards some higher degree of responsiveness for AI countries during my time as AI programmer on EU4, but it somewhat disagreed with the game design view that the AI should be that lamb, so it's in some ways being reversed rather than fixed when a problem appears (e.g. condottieri).

The fact of the matter is any complicated AI one adds tends to have large open flaws that are exploitable. E.g. the fact that AI armies now try to stay alive has become that as of 1.18 (can't comment on 1.19), and hence needed further development because veteran players would unavoidably detect and exploit flaws in the more advanced behavior. (And then we have the usual topic about behavior being oriented towards the common case, but where AI will go full R-word in some instances.)

It really takes a bit of time for players to reach proficiency in exploiting the AI (and it's highly individual with a range of some people picking it up incredibly fast, others never doing so). So you will find that what's true for you is not true for everyone.

 

[Dominion]

It really takes a bit of time for players to reach proficiency in exploiting the AI (and it's highly individual with a range of some people picking it up incredibly fast, others never doing so). So you will find that what's true for you is not true for everyone.

Personal issue is not what I can or can not do but rather the expected outcome.

The AI is biased. Not towards the player by definition, but towards the player through playstyles, which leads to these ridiculous "AI always targets the player" threads.

Doesn't help that it gets worse the better you get. For the AI, not the player obviously.

Right now humans have between five to ten steps to avoid if they want to declare AND fight the enemy. Most outcomes and decisions lead to the AI - no matter its strength - avoiding combat.
This is not only an issue of threatened but also (or mainly) of priorities.

Leading to any player looking into it being forced to knowingly worsen his situation with _multiple_ decisions.
Being forced to make multiple mistakes on purpose just to get what is perceived as a normal game is not a desired outcome of any change.

On the other hand a normal playstyle leads to AI nations heavily targeting players, again, due to priorities.

And that isn't even counting in rebel behavior, which is just as horrid. I recently sent a massive non-seperatist stack through four OPMs which didn't get sieged down by it, then DoW'ed them (yes, that's a verb now) immediately afterwards. Free cash is nice, I guess.

Inexperienced players get to see the other side of the coin.

Nations in multiple wars sending all their troops against them or, to stay on the rebel example, a 24k stack steamrolling them in 1460.

Every coin has two sides and the current two sides are: Know the framework and conquer a continent without a single engagement or don't know it and have the AI dogpile on you every single time you DoW someone.

If the two choices are boredom and frustration, maybe it's time to give the AI special behavior when interacting with nations controlled by humans.

Because the current focus of improving AI vs AI wars is anti-player.

Not that its behavior would be functional in these wars either.

 

[Chaingun]

Diplomacy war declaration AI (dogpiling, refusal to declare on stronger player) and troop movement AI (troops running away) are two very different things and must be clearly separated in a post to avoid confusion when discussing them.

I can't tell you much about 1.19 but I guess army movement issues are recent (1.18+) whereas the other issues you speak of are far older.

On army movement, it's pretty clear what's wrong from a human perspective, it's more a matter of working further on the code - what's simple for a human is algorithmically complex because army movement is impacted by many conflicting factors, e.g. enemy forces, attrition, regiments needed for siege, etc.

On diplomacy, it's a longstanding issue and there are few easy solutions, because any simple behavior will be exploited. AIs don't speak to each others and it's one reason for their inability to do anything against a strong player nation. Should they be made able to? Opinions are divided on the subject, game designers generally want AI to behave according to simple transparent rules - that will easily be gamed by the player. The problem is, if AI are able to coordinate but player <-> AI is not, then the player will be alone and it will be all the more of an "AI targeting player" experience. Of course, game designers could put effort into improving the alliance system (because a fix number of alliances inevitably falters when the player owns a whole continent).

 

[Dominion]

Diplomacy war declaration AI (dogpiling, refusal to declare on stronger player) and troop movement AI (troops running away) are two very different things and must be clearly separated in a post to avoid confusion when discussing them.

Wasn't intending to go there. My example was referring to humans being the weakest link and declaring on an enemy with strong allies, not humans getting declared on.

It is way too common for players to disregard their allies when waging war. That's a different issue altogether. But it doesn't help that in situations where a player could see the AI supporting them (when they need them, when they are the weakest link) they are the ones getting dogpiled in the current priority system during warfare.

Overall creates exclusively negative experiences for players who are not necessarily unable but from my understanding mainly unwilling to put in time and effort in order to understand the mechanics behind it.

I can't tell you much about 1.19 but I guess army movement issues are recent (1.18+) whereas the other issues you speak of are far older.

Yes. Most issues came with improved warfare in 1.18 where a lot of things got improved and a lot of things worsened.
Objectively speaking, that update ended up neutral.

I know that there's always a "behind the scenes" factor. A fantasy game I recently played for example did a minor update from a player's perspective, but completely reworked how projectiles work leading to multiple improvements and good updates in the future. Players did not see any of that.

Maybe that's the case here, maybe it isn't. From a player's perspective nothing was gained from 1.18

On army movement, it's pretty clear what's wrong from a human perspective, it's more a matter of working further on the code - what's simple for a human is algorithmically complex because army movement is impacted by many conflicting factors, e.g. enemy forces, attrition, regiments needed for siege, etc.

The problem is that everything is already there.

It's like watching your son putting on shoes first and socks second.

Everything works perfectly fine. The order/priority of things is incorrect.

On diplomacy, it's a longstanding issue and there are few easy solutions, because any simple behavior will be exploited. AIs don't speak to each others and it's one reason for their inability to do anything against a strong player nation. Should they be made able to? Opinions are divided on the subject, game designers generally want AI to behave according to simple transparent rules - that will easily be gamed by the player. The problem is, if AI are able to coordinate but player <-> AI is not, then the player will be alone and it will be all the more of an "AI targeting player" experience. Of course, game designers could put effort into improving the alliance system (because a fix number of alliances inevitably falters when the player owns a whole continent).

Agree.

 

[Lordban]

I honestly don't remember a game when AI France ended up reaching their historical late borders or equivalent without me meddling at some point in their favour as a nation not directly interested in their lands. All too often, they get choked (or eaten) when I don't meddle. I actually laughed when I saw how it went in the current DEV AI on the map Groogy posted because it's exactly what I'm used to seeing.

 

[Dominion]

I honestly don't remember a game when AI France ended up reaching their historical late borders or equivalent without me meddling at some point in their favour as a nation not directly interested in their lands. All too often, they get choked (or eaten) when I don't meddle. I actually laughed when I saw how it went in the current DEV AI on the map Groogy posted because it's exactly what I'm used to seeing.

That's mainly due to the combination of the co-beligerent bug, being the only nation with actual overseas warfare (which the AI can't handle), the stuck armies bug (which only seems to exist for them since it got fixed), the post-war troop gather bug (really need a better name for that one) and most of 1.18's improvements working against France.

They're the only nation in the game you can reliably defeat without engaging a single time no matter which nation you play.

 

[Metroidkirby]

I think the most important thing about France not reaching its historical border, is that the HRE is too hard to invade for an AI or a player not experienced enough to take it. So if France is doing great, it's always invading Spain/Britain, and never advancing toward the Rhine.

 

[Nutcracker]

2 things:

Personality and traits have a massive idiosyncratic effect on playthroughs. In my last game, France's first 3 kings were diplomats, and a couple of them had traits (Craven?) making them less likely to declare wars. Or whatever the one is that makes them overestimate enemy strength. As you can imagine they stayed utterly ineffectual and required my intervention as ally to gain a couple of provinces.

I generally like the "random" geopolitical effects based on traits. One time a "naive enthusiast" saxony decided to completely annex bohemia in one bite after a victorious war. Led to a rather lolzy coalition afterwards.

The second is that with institutions, nations are in debt a significant proportion of the time, making offensive calls a lot harder for both player and AI.

 

[Sfan]

Dominion, it's clearly time you switch to very hard, because you abuse the Normal AI like mad and understand it perfectly. Just add some challenge, some different reactions, and you will enjoy a new experience.

 

[kakatua]

France has 2 times more chance to get a Diplomatic Ruler, the same as a non-Emperor Austria.
The maximum France does is annex Burgundy, but if at some point the Burgundian capital be in HRE, the wars are gone and the focus go to Iberia.
NEVER expands into Italy, despite have the main node in Genoa many times.

Also, I would like to say AI is incapable of colonize since 1.18.