Scotland Attacks Byzantium: Why?

[Plasma Doctor]

So I'm in a game where Scotland owns most of England and Jylland. I'm playing Byzantium, I've taken Naples, Sicily, and reconquested the old Byzantine Empire pre-Rum Sultanate. Scotland doesn't like me so much, but Austria hates me even more and we just avoid each other. We're not rivals though, we share no borders, and there's no territorial claims between us. However they declared a war of aggression (Which they dropped out of with me offering to concede defeat.) and then a war of liberation (Which they lost and were forced to break their alliance with Castille). Castille and I have been bitter rivals since 1450 and it's about 1520 now, and they were allied with Scotland during most of this time period. We are actual rivals (Checked the panels for that) and we have territorial claims on each other.

Did Scotland and Castille go through a brain swap or does the AI in 5.2 decided it likes declaring war randomly on people it doesn't like? Which raises the Austria question because I'd be over the barrel if Austria attacked me through Hungary since this is a rather large and dangerous Austria. Yet even when they had a reason to join a war to attack me, they avoided it.

 

[Derp]

Try playing on Low aggression. Makes the AI more sane with war declarations.

 

[DanubianCossak]

Youre human.

Youre playing on an aggression level higher than low.

AI sees you as the biggest threat on map (just cause youre human), and if you grow really fast, they will attack you in a number of cases (low force limits, ~1/2 bb pool filled, most of your troops outside your borders, low stability, high RR across your country etc).

 

[Plasma Doctor]

Youre human.

Youre playing on an aggression level higher than low.

AI sees you as the biggest threat on map (just cause youre human), and if you grow really fast, they will attack you in a number of cases (low force limits, ~1/2 bb pool filled, most of your troops outside your borders, low stability, high RR across your country etc).

Hrm, the wars with three Hordes might have played a part.

 

[El Jojo]

Playing as Byzantium/Ottomans the horde wars have a huge effect on the AI decision to attack. Hordes can have a lot of troops so it seems you're engaged with a very dangerous opponent.
I remember using it, let the horde declare but wait before peacing out with it, a few nations will attack and you can play on defense and don't need a CB...

And the AI checks your expansion, in some heavy colonization games I got attacked for no reason, no CB. With Byzantium you jump from 2 provinces to a whole empire and that triggers the aggression.

 

[n0thin]

Probably the most important reason for random war declarations is having a high war exhaustion and a low war capacity (I don't have a clue how the last thing is designed, tho). If that pairs up with them rivaling you or being threatened by you and you're currently not on your forcelimits or near to them, their war declaration is quite likely. Especially for wrong religion countries, since you're probably still orthodox.
As mentioned before, playing on low aggression helps. Also it tends to stabilize big AI countries, which can be quite nice for late game.

 

[stevetry]

why not

 

[Lord Dakier]

How do you find out a nations war exhaustion?

 

[ShinZed]

A war of liberation? Perhaps they have the catholic mission to liberate Rome for the Pope. Usually when I play Byzantium the random wardecs come from Morocco and Algiers, not the euro's.

 

[DanubianCossak]

How do you find out a nations war exhaustion?

Maybe theres a ledger that shows it somewhere, dunno, but one way that works, and that i use most often, i to hover mouse over any province owned by country in question and check the local provincial revolt risk. Every WE point raises global RR by +1, so if you see +4.41 RR in this province panel from WE, it means that the country's WE is currently 4.41.

 

[grommile]

Maybe theres a ledger that shows it somewhere, dunno, but one way that works, and that i use most often, i to hover mouse over any province owned by country in question and check the local provincial revolt risk. Every WE point raises global RR by +1, so if you see +4.41 RR in this province panel from WE, it means that the country's WE is currently 4.41.

Note that you can only do this in provinces you can see into (i.e. adjacent to your country, or adjacent to a friendly unit).

 

[Plasma Doctor]

A war of liberation? Perhaps they have the catholic mission to liberate Rome for the Pope. Usually when I play Byzantium the random wardecs come from Morocco and Algiers, not the euro's.

I took Roma, and then Spain took Roma from me. Essentially, I annexed Naples, but I had to give up Roma to prevent Spain from going totally apeshit on me since their Army and Navy>Mine. Since I was like 5 techs behind at this point, so I couldn't fight the war without overwhelming numbers. Yeah, Random wardecs came from Scots a couple times. Until I managed to sneak a ship up and conquer them hard core. Forced them to become Orthodox.

 

[NoobRage]

...I annexed Naples, but I had to give up Roma to prevent Spain from going totally apeshit on me since their Army and Navy>Mine. Since I was like 5 techs behindat this point...

This. This is why Byzantium is nearly unplayable. If it doesnt expands beyond its cores, their army is tiny compared to any Western tech blob. And if you expand, your tech stagnates, and your army is only the same size as your rivals. And you cant expand into rich Europe, because Austria/Bohemia/Spain have bigger and better armies than you and expand faster and harder than you. And of course, in the late game, they eat you, no matter what.

The true challenge here lies not in beating back the Ottomans, but in beating the Western powers.

 

[Derp]

I haven't played Byzantium in 5.2 but in 5.1 it was nowhere near unplayable. The worst is at the very beginning, after that the difficulty drastically falls.

 

[Lord Dakier]

I agree, D&T DW5.1 here.

Once you have pushed the Ottoman Empire back and have a force able to combat them, the game does become much more free willed base and easier.