If the gameplay went always according to a history book then we could just read a history book instead of playing :wub:
Serious AI Colonization Problems Spain Colonizing Thirteen Colonies has ruined 1.3.1
- Thread starter LiberiusX
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I dont think this is about going according to history.
Whats annoying is Chesapeake is not logical for Spain and I dont think any of you playing Spain went for it before Carribean.
So why does AI ?
Whats annoying is Chesapeake is not logical for Spain and I dont think any of you playing Spain went for it before Carribean.
So why does AI ?
The problem is that Spain AI would be better off colonizing Caribbean and sending trade to Sevilla instead of Bordeaux. Most of income in Bordeaux gets "stolen" by British and French.
Based on some assumption that in this current game they have the most trade power in Bordeaux. Its nice to make generalities, but if the AI can make money in Bordeaux it will. Seeing as Portugal seems to get much of the Caribbean, its not much of a loss to Sevilla.
Plus, the AI tends to create doomstacks of trading vessels, so even if they do not get land, they can still overpower the node with ships.
On top off that, you do not have to always steer trade. You can collect trade as well. If collecting trade in the Bay will make you more money than steering it to Bordeaux, that is what you do.
yes!!!! It's such a pain to bring over your cogs to channel your troops as you colonize them one by one. Not to mention if they ever revolt...
You don't look like having played the game a lot do you ? Steering trade back to your home node will always be more efficient than collecting in an upstream node, and Spain is just in the right place to get the maximum out of the panama trade node (and subsequently the panama trade node). Colonizing cheasapeake bay (which it does in every game since 1.2.) is just plain stupid, also they don't even collect in bordeaux so it's just wasted.
For me there is a serious bug in the AI since even when I play non-colonial nations like Russia or Hindustan they still go there first.
No. Just...no. While it IS stupid on the AI's part to feed France, the solution is NOT to hardwire the AI - and having it screwed if the conditions change significantly, as for example with a Portugal dominating the Seville trade node.
My issue is that it just isn't very fun to play a history game if the outcomes (minus your meddling) aren't very historic. Why bother playing if you don't have the history. But that's just my opinion and to each his own, I'm willing to say that.
I bother to play to create another history - I want to see the Jagellonian Empire of Bohemia-Hungary-Poland, the Five Colonies of New Brittany, the 70-Years War between Castile, Portugal and Aragon and the Italian Revolution. Even without player intervention.
I don't mind if Spain colonizes the Chesapeake in SOME of my games......it makes good alternate history. I object to it happening in ALL my games. I want to enjoy plausible alternate outcomes in my sandbox.
Is this the myth that you get a bonus to income in your capital node?
It is only more efficient to steer to your capital node (or any node) if you dominate it by well over 90%. Otherwise collecting brings in more money.
It just doesn't make much sense most of the time. The AI should try to colonize where it can bring money home first, and if it competes with other nations in other regions, it shouldn't try to steer trade - but to lock it there, to prevent enemies to get a bigger share of the cake.
Its only true if the value of the trade nodes is the same, which it is not. Panama has almost no value in trade. Collecting in the Bay would be better than forwarding Panama. Mexico is good for gold, and thats about it. The Bay has very high base tax nodes making more production, resulting in more trade value.
If you have limited merchants, it is better to go for the most value for your merchants. The Bay is one of those places. If you are going to collect in the Bay there is no reason to collect in Bordeaux, unless they moved their capital there.
Instead of challenging my play style and play time, you should read up on the trade system, as funneling trade from worthless trade nodes is not optimal play.
I wouldn't mind if they try to grab some land in NA, but what's really annyoing (and doesn't make a lot of sense) is that they seem to be absolutely hellbent on it. I burnt their colonies for at least 5 times in both my Netherlands and Ireland games, still they insist on it by sending yet another colonist, while they fall back by a lot in areas that would actually make sense to them.
It comes to the point that if you want to take as much land in the americas as you can, just leave some space in the Chesapeake-Node open. They WILL bite and you are free to take everything else without much competition (until the english and french show up, but till then the coast is usually sealed off), as Portugal seems to go for Africa->India mostly.
It comes to the point that if you want to take as much land in the americas as you can, just leave some space in the Chesapeake-Node open. They WILL bite and you are free to take everything else without much competition (until the english and french show up, but till then the coast is usually sealed off), as Portugal seems to go for Africa->India mostly.
I agree - this is quite annoying from the gamey point of view: Spain gets very little benefit from North American colonies (apart from the zero sum benefit of denying them to the French or English) but still insists on going there when they would get a more tangible benefit from colonising the Caribbean. The way Paradox have laid out the trade nodes does suggest that they want Spain to stick to the Caribbean and South America so this behaviour seems to be breaking the mould - not a problem if it's an occasional aberration but from the posts in this thread and from my own experience it's fairly consistent that Spain goes for the 13 colonies.
That said, this underlines the tension between the desire for a emergent game experience (ie. one that isn't like history and can therefore be influenced) and one that is historical enough to be recognisable as the world we live in. Entertaining as it would be if AI Modena occasional went colonial juggernaut mode and conquered the Aztecs, it would create a world radically different from what we would recognise. For many players this would be an irritant. For clarity, when I say 'different' I'm not talking about 'oh look, France has exceeded the bounds of its historical colonial empire' but something more significant.
I see a lot of argument about (ok, let's face it, most threads derail into a debate on this) historic realism vs playing in a early modern sandbox. For my own part, I think it would be great if there was an option in the game lobby which would randomise the allocation of AI personalities even further by perhaps introducing some completely ahistoric AI personalities beyond the ones we have now (eg. Irish minors with a desperate desire to colonise, capitol shift and form the United States of Potato). Randomised luckies goes some way towards that and EUIV's inherent sandbox often creates some interesting results, especially if left alone. But I wonder what people would think about a 'make history go mad' button?
That said, this underlines the tension between the desire for a emergent game experience (ie. one that isn't like history and can therefore be influenced) and one that is historical enough to be recognisable as the world we live in. Entertaining as it would be if AI Modena occasional went colonial juggernaut mode and conquered the Aztecs, it would create a world radically different from what we would recognise. For many players this would be an irritant. For clarity, when I say 'different' I'm not talking about 'oh look, France has exceeded the bounds of its historical colonial empire' but something more significant.
I see a lot of argument about (ok, let's face it, most threads derail into a debate on this) historic realism vs playing in a early modern sandbox. For my own part, I think it would be great if there was an option in the game lobby which would randomise the allocation of AI personalities even further by perhaps introducing some completely ahistoric AI personalities beyond the ones we have now (eg. Irish minors with a desperate desire to colonise, capitol shift and form the United States of Potato). Randomised luckies goes some way towards that and EUIV's inherent sandbox often creates some interesting results, especially if left alone. But I wonder what people would think about a 'make history go mad' button?
I doubt the AI is actually doing this but steering trade to Chesapeake can net Castille/Spain a lot more money then collecting in Sevilla. If they haven't conquered Portugal they can make more money dominating Chesapeake and collecting there then sharing with Portugal in Sevilla. If they have trade, so have a lot of merchants, then collecting in both Chesapeake and Sevilla can give a nice boast to their trade income and deny Portugal, France, England, Netherlands, etc... trade income.
The would only go up to a certain point. Somewhere the focus starts shifting towards Indian Ocean and then SE Asia. In one of my games its 1700 and there are two empty colonies somewhere in actual New England which they havent taken despite the fact that they (Spain) have Manhattan and another one of the high tax base. So its not always a crazy mad rush. I wouldn't call two colonies that, but still I believe AI should "trade" colonies more in peace dealings, as it happened IRL; or maybe even trade them outside of peace deals.
Yeah that´s the real problem. But at least there are some screenshots of Portugal actually going for Brazil instead of only Spain, so maybe not all is lost.
Remove the extra colonist Spain gets by NI and make it focus elsewhere, somehow.
Doesn't help, I used the console "tag SPA" to see his colonies.
Spain gets like... 5 colonists, right? But they had 11 colonies in buildining, 6 of them in NA. They just don't care, as long as they income is positive they will send colonists, call them back and send them somewhere.