It is way too frustrating to play a Bavarian country

[Destaloss]

Just started a campaign with Landshut and every savegame so far is cursed (did restart a few times because of my discovery).

I start by rivaling Salzburg, Ingolstadt and Munich and as soon as a few days pass by,
there is always a great power backing at least one of the Bavarian states. (i.e. Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, ...)

Everyone who says AI is not planning against the player is a fool. But why even implement such a fun police thing?

I don't want alliances to look different just because there is a player nearby!

Almost always, it is impossible to achieve a rapid reunification of the Bavarian states. It is tilting me to infinity.

 

[Big Bad France]

I'm not sure they are allying great powers only because the player is a Bavarian state. Munich allied Bohemia in both of the Austria runs I have started this patch. If the AI were simply picking alliances to screw the player over, Bohemia would be allying someone a lot stronger.

I will say that a couple of years ago, I restarted a few campaigns trying to get Sweden's start optimized, and Denmark allied Muscovy in all of those attempts. Denmark almost always rivals me when I start a Muscovy campaign. So that was weird to me.

 

[Vetgirig]

If you announce them as your rivals. Of course they will try to get good allies.

I found it was fairly easy to form Bavaria as Munich.

 

[st360]

As far as I know, the AI is coded to target the player in diplomacy like rivaling and aliances.

 

[StriderLS]

I read here on these forums that AIs Also have a hidden, secondary opinion of player country. Which means even though The French have favorable opinion of you or even Ally you, they Try to stop your advance if you expand agressively, or at least a threat to their expansion. Like guaranteeing your targets and even allying your rivals. So it's not a case of selective perception.

@Op, your situation is not a rare case, quite common actually. North İtaly can become a nightmare for this reason. The French and The Habsburgs ally/guarantee/free City almost everyone there from the get go.

2 things to scew with the AI;

1. Try not to give your victims (non rival, easy clay) a reason to be threatened of you. Like improving relations to 50 and manually setting your attitude to "friendly". Don't simply rival every initial expansion target. Or paint entirety of south germany in red as vital interest. Don't flag those provinces as vital at all until the day before the war.
2. Use ally/declare a proxy war tactic if possible. (Makes more sense than the ambiguous, mostly guesswork crap I wrote above, in no 1)

 

[EarlKonrad]

As far as I know, the AI is coded to target the player in diplomacy like rivaling and aliances.

It isn't that simple. Hard and above the AI sees the player as a bigger threat than the other AIs, which is to say that they are biased against the player and the diplo deck is stacked against you. Around the time of Dharma they implemented the same thing on the normal difficulty but on normal the deck is less stacked and it is there more to prevent rampart expansion once you reach a certain point.

 

[L0rd0fLight]

I'm not sure they are allying great powers only because the player is a Bavarian state. Munich allied Bohemia in both of the Austria runs I have started this patch. If the AI were simply picking alliances to screw the player over, Bohemia would be allying someone a lot stronger.

I will say that a couple of years ago, I restarted a few campaigns trying to get Sweden's start optimized, and Denmark allied Muscovy in all of those attempts. Denmark almost always rivals me when I start a Muscovy campaign. So that was weird to me.

They do it to stop potential expansion routes of the player

 

[Hardy Seaman]

The AI will designate nations as power balance threats if the are expanding rapidly and are threatening to become more powerful then themselves.

The AI will then be more likely to ally or guarantee nations that are threatened by the designated power balance threat.
Allies are not excluded from being designated power balance threats. Thus the reason why your large allies block your expansion paths.

Rivalries are a major influence on who the AI allies in the beginning of the game. When you play as a Bavarian minor you are threatened by Austria and Bohemia so who ever rivals those two are highly likely to ally the small counties around them.

 

[Pbhuh]

Dont instantly rival nations you want to eat up.

Whenever the player rivals an AI near them, they are more likely to find a strong ally.

So if you play Muscovy, dont insta rival novgorod, just leave a slot open and make them a rival in the same month as you declare war.

Similarly try not to rival both bavarias, but just rival some other people or powers you assume you will be in conflict in soon. Leave 1 rival slot open until you declare war.

 

[Ixalmaris]

So far all my Bavaria starts have been easy.
Especially as Landshut you can get the PU over Ingolstadt at the start if their king dies which makes you strong enough to crush Munich. Forming Bavaria within 1-2 years has been the norm for me.

 

[Monumentiumerongraphataquesqly]

I formed Bavaria in 1446. PU'd both the Palatinate and Brandenburg by 1490. It seems kinda easy so far, the missions are very generous. As others say your problem is probably the fact that you are rivalling straight away. In the early stages of the game I only rival the second before I declare war.

 

[Question]

I didnt used to believe the AI was biased against the player in terms of diplomacy but i had a strange game where I was plaing Strasbourg, and Lorraine guaranteed Baden.

I was friendly with Lorraine. They didnt have any mutual rivals or enemies. It was just totally random and made no sense. Only reason I can think of was because I was the player and was threatening Baden.

Tried tag switching to Lorraine to remove the guarantee manually. Next month, they put the guarantee back.

 

[Destaloss]

Not using a mechanic to abuse another mechanic is just wrong. Paradox fix this please. As I said: Mediocre Fun Simulator.

Just give up on that player punishment and just make the game harder through something else.

EDIT: There are already soft caps on how fast you can expend. Which mediocre player wants to sit 50 years doing nothing because alliances are formed too agressively against you.

 

[csward53]

I didnt used to believe the AI was biased against the player in terms of diplomacy but i had a strange game where I was plaing Strasbourg, and Lorraine guaranteed Baden.

I was friendly with Lorraine. They didnt have any mutual rivals or enemies. It was just totally random and made no sense. Only reason I can think of was because I was the player and was threatening Baden.

Tried tag switching to Lorraine to remove the guarantee manually. Next month, they put the guarantee back.

They can still feel threatened by a country they have friendly relations with. Or it could be another country they're trying to deter from attacking Baden as well. You would think there would have to be a big enough power gap between 2 countries to allow one to guarantee another. A 2 province country guaranteeing another 2 province is silly, even if Lorraine is slightly bigger development wise iirc.

 

[redshirt4life]

I want an AI that makes intelligent diplomatic decisions to thwart my plans. Is there anything the AI doing here that's actually wrong?

 

[Destaloss]

I want an AI that makes intelligent diplomatic decisions to thwart my plans. Is there anything the AI doing here that's actually wrong?

You are right but AI should then also be smart enough to do the same thing even if you don't put rivals.
Because otherwise there is the abusive mechanism we already talked about (not rivaling until war).

 

[redshirt4life]

You are right but AI should then also be smart enough to do the same thing even if you don't put rivals.
Because otherwise there is the abusive mechanism we already talked about (not rivaling until war).

But you just announced to that AI nation that you intend to attack them. That doesn't seem abusive at all. It's exactly what I'd expect in that situation.

Not rivaling until war doesn't seem abusive either. You declare rivals for power projection mostly. They aren't required and its often a bad idea to declare someone as your rival.

In a multiplayer game i did something similiar to the AI when a large human player rivaled me. As soon as they rivaled I quickly began to seek alliances that would help me if he ever attacked, and which would also make it more difficult for him to expand.

We pretty much went into a cold war, constantly threatening each other whenever one made a move, constantly trying to interfere, and constantly seeking alliances with those who shared our common enemy.

 

[Battlex]

Just started a campaign with Landshut and every savegame so far is cursed (did restart a few times because of my discovery).

I start by rivaling Salzburg, Ingolstadt and Munich and as soon as a few days pass by,
there is always a great power backing at least one of the Bavarian states. (i.e. Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, ...)

Everyone who says AI is not planning against the player is a fool. But why even implement such a fun police thing?

I don't want alliances to look different just because there is a player nearby!

Almost always, it is impossible to achieve a rapid reunification of the Bavarian states. It is tilting me to infinity.

One of the Bavarians can inherit another, but I forget which, you then use Restoration of union CB on the other and then form bavaria as it autointegrates them

 

[Destaloss]

One of the Bavarians can inherit another, but I forget which, you then use Restoration of union CB on the other and then form bavaria as it autointegrates them

lol

 

[sekelsenmat]

If you announce them as your rivals. Of course they will try to get good allies.

I found it was fairly easy to form Bavaria as Munich.

But the game tricks you into this trap. There is a red icon saying you have too few rivals.... It is a noob trap!