Is the Austrian AI stupid?

[kannanven]

As emperors and major power, the Austrian ai fails at everything.

They fail to use their CB on Bohemia, Hungary

They ally silly opm when they are the emperor of the HRE.

They lose the emperor position and rarely ever regain it

They engage in stupid wars that doesn't benefit them and lose out in major wars.

They rarely ally Spain.

They leave their core regions completely abandoned and you could march straight to wien. Seriously there is nothing stopping you from marching from Paris to wien other than occasional Austrian armies

They tend to lose pathetically to France and get immediately attacked by ottomans and after that they are a dead horse for the rest of the game.


They don't do anything against the reformation and sit with 0 imperial authority

It is annoying, they have so much potential and power and they waste it pathetically.

What they should do
1) ally Spain. Seriously it is such a powerful combination.
2) refuse stupid alliances from Salzburg
3) engage in wars carefully
4) defeat protestants
5) DEFEND WIEN

 

[Blust]

Yeah AI is dumb but it's not specific to Austria unfortunately.

 

[Zaddy]

No, it's just the entire AI that's dumb. But I've seen powerful Austria plenty.

 

[Triplebassist]

The alliances with OPMs are for diplovassalization. The AI really likes doing that one OPM at a time

 

[Battlex]

The alliances with OPMs are for diplovassalization. The AI really likes doing that one OPM at a time

Also keeps amount of imperial princes and so IA high

 

[EarlKonrad]

AI has no concept of HRE, just as it has no concept of EoC, nor how Hordes work.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

AI has no concept of HRE, just as it has no concept of EoC, nor how Hordes work.

Basically the AI has no concept of the game mechanics.

They'll carpet siege your vassal whilst you siege down their capital fort, they'll use all their money to pay off their vassals debt and upgrade a trade centre when they are 9000 in debt, they'll guarantee an OPM they have no chance of defending whilst a bigger threat borders them waiting to pounce like a hungry predator...the list goes on.

 

[filcat]

They fail to use their CB on Bohemia, Hungary

(...)

They lose the emperor position and rarely ever regain it (...)

The former is a consequence of the latter: Code-austria loses the imperial election fairly frequently, then of course it has no ambition or capability to pu bohemia single-handedly.

What it has instead is the luck-factor: The game's understanding of challenge comes from the luck-factors that are bestowed upon the lucky tags. In that case, have seen austria-hungary pu's, and have even seen austria-commonwealth pu à la normal way.

BUT these are mere examples of chance (and the luck-factor), and the code's overall imbecile behaviour, and its general incapability for pu's are acknowledged, concurring with the OP in that regard.

They ally silly opm when they are the emperor of the HRE.

(...)

They rarely ally Spain.

As it is explained by @Triplebassist and @Battlex, austria's alliance strategy is understandable, and even reasonable for a code, as opposed to usual terrible alliance rings seen with ottos, france, russia, etc. tags.

What is unforgivable with austria is, in that alliance net, austria frequently bypasses the electors, and right-away loses the election as a result, to brunswick or oldenburg, while trier and cologne are usually devoured by their neighbours. Then comes the accelerated doom of the hre.

In the case of spain alliance: That is a fickle one, and it is determined heavily by the rivalry mechanics, as well as the diplo-slots-limits. Moreover, the author would like to claim that, an early castille alliance for austria actually damages whatever potential the two tags may have at the hands of the code, if they have any at all.

Last but not least: Guarantees. That works only for the player for a cheap opinion boost, or sometimes the player is the weak tag, and france guarantees it (until the player also goes colonisation, then france will hate the player). But for the code, it is a comical trap, with utter ludicrous situations (denmark guaranteed by brandenburg: Total strength 10k; or an almost-dead austria is guaranteed by the ottos!, since the player is commonwealth, etc.) that brings their doom immediately. Just as the defender of the faith.

They leave their core regions completely abandoned and you could march straight to wien.

This is explained in a magnificently brief, wonderfully comprehensive summary by @Travis_Bickle :

Basically the AI has no concept of the game mechanics.

...and this includes warfare; above quote's following example is not just an example, but the actual modus operandi of the code:

They'll carpet siege your vassal whilst you siege down their capital fort,

That is why one can see entire french or british armies in the colonial regions, while the player is ravaging all the heartland of these coloniser tags.

The greatest quick example one can make to test is the knights: Vassalise the knights as any tag, and then attack portugal tag. Portugese army, along with armies of their colonies, and of their allies, and of their colonies, will embark with full contribution on the rhodes to siege down level-3 fort-island in the mediterranean, while the player is 99% occupying everywhere else.

They don't do anything against the reformation and sit with 0 imperial authority

Even if the code is able to force-convert hre minors to catholic, it is true that after reformation, the imperial authority is at an average of 0 at the hands of the code.

As emperors and major power, the Austrian ai fails at everything.

Completely agreed, but as others put, further arguing this as:

"As emperors and major powers, all ai tags fail at everything."