That's it, can't play this anymore.
- Thread starter jonman122
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This is not "smart diplomacy," those are basically just hostile actions. Smart diplomacy means you have to be smart.
Think about this: "the AI" is really just a set of mostly linear algorithms that dictates the behavior of countries. They mainly produce nonlinear dynamics because there are so many AIs acting at the same time, bound by different starting and spatial positions. This implies that all outcomes are incidental to strategy: by the time something actually happens in the game, it's probably too late for you to utilize/negate it unless you just luck out. Most alliances breaking, for instance, happen because of ongoing shifts in geopolitics, not because of anything the player did. France taking three provinces in North Europe could easily destabilize the whole European situation enough to affect alliances in the South, etc.
The AI can't really be said to be smart or dumb, because it's just a fixed set of algorithms. Players can be smart or dumb, because players can design "algorithms" ad-hoc as the game progresses. How smart your diplomacy is depends on how good those ad-hoc "algorithms" are at putting the AIs into positions where they can't help but act in your interest. A good example, I think, is keeping France alive and strong instead of dismantling them, so that many countries in Europe depend on you directly for survival. Go to war with them every 25-30 years, release some minors, then let them eat them back up to keep them as a big, contained target. Make the AI depend on you, instead of the other way around.
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You are right. Smartness of the AI is really a perception. I mean, as Tyrone, I would find it very smart that the AI Spain hates me for taking Mexico, but really it is just 'programmed' that way.
And the move you suggest is indeed 'strategic' in the good ol' fashioned way. Always have a big baddie to direct others' hatred. I am only expressing my hope that these subtle maneuvers won't go unrewarded, that they won't blow up on my face without reason. And that I would be informed of the reason when it happens so that I can prepare better the next time. Live and learn.
I think the problem is one of mismatched expectations. Partly on players', because we tend to anthropomorphize AIs and compare their decisions to "what we would have done if we were playing that country in that situation," and partly on Paradox, because the large amount of quantitative information provided about relations implies that relations are what drives strategy, which is not the case at all. I think this primes players to turn a blind eye to qualitative strategy, focusing a bit myopically on "making the numbers add up right" instead of strategizing, and then we obviously get frustrated when the numbers add up, but the strategy still won't play right.
It definitely won't go unrewarded, as you can see in these screenshots.
Advanced Colonial Portugal
The trick to playing Portugal is to ignore Europe for at least 100 years while cultivating royal marriages and good relations in Europe. Your only objective in Europe as colonial Portugal is to maintain a balance of power between England, France, Spain and Austria for at least 150 years, until you're capable of seizing the Holy Roman Imperial throne from Austria by vassalizing electors. You do this by shifting your rivals and alliances on a 25-year timer, so that you're always allied to the underdog (getting a PU with either Castille or England makes this a very strong strategy), which serves as a deterrent to the current big bad blob and encouragement to their rivals. Do NOT attack or conquer anything European even if you get it free of charge somehow, don't integrate your PUs, don't do nothing but shape geopolitics until everything is in place. Played this way, in almost all cases, you are what determines which way the balance of power goes, so you and you alone can determine which wars are fought.
While "Everything is in place" depends on your particular objectives and which PUs you get, the ideal time to seize the throne is always right before Erbkaiser, so that you don't get dragged into internal wars and start generating hostility. You'll probably need to go over your relations limit a bit, but it's not a big deal, since you'll have most of the important DIP ideas and techs by then. Your lack of European expansion is crucial to this, since the lack of aggression combined with deceptively small size will effectively prevent anyone from setting you hostile--your only neighbor is a large historical friend. Once you have the Throne, you'll find that wars are frequently declared that you can join for Imperial Authority, since you're not an enormous Blobstria, and you should be able revoke the Privilegia around 1700. From here on, you can keep dominating: your vassals are now sufficiently powerful to take on a major power alone, so you don't need to expand into Europe at all anymore. Use this to shape Europe and cast it in your image. Set up the Papal States to own Italy, restore Byzantium and eject the Turk from Europe, then carve a path to Mecca, meeting your colonies around Africa.
At the end, you can wrap it all up by integrating and hitting Renovatio. Or whatever you want, that's just what I did.
Political map
Diplomatic map
OK, i'm coming around a bit to the AI criticisms that are emerging. Gameplay is getting just a little bit weird diplomatically.
Playing as Brandenburg/Prussia on Hard i do find the AI wild attitude swings pretty unusual at the moment.
An interesting one was my alliance with 3PM Hesse. After helping them in a couple of aggressive and defensive wars they reached 6 province size (not bordering me). They instantly went hostile. After abandoning them for a more friendly country nearby, they got stomped by a coalition, reduced to their three starting provinces again and promptly became friendly once more. I know i can flesh out some sort of rationale (they got big enough to start to think they could challenge me for local hegemony - not really true though), but is "Hostile" the right attitude for this? I would have thought that any icing up of relations should be more gradual - eg moving to Neutral through Cordial and then perhaps Hostile.
I would be very interested to know if there are attitude modifiers on Hard difficulty that affect the probability of any AI player having the Hostile attitude towards the player (or indeed others like Threatened and Outraged). If so i am probably going to modify the other Hard bonuses onto Normal and just run that as Hard without the AI attitude changes.
I also think that nations should maybe be limited to 2 rivals (both human players and AI). I just got my English alliance broken due to getting their rival tag, even though we have no strategic overlap at all. The AI seems too eager to Rival just for the sake of it.
Playing as Brandenburg/Prussia on Hard i do find the AI wild attitude swings pretty unusual at the moment.
An interesting one was my alliance with 3PM Hesse. After helping them in a couple of aggressive and defensive wars they reached 6 province size (not bordering me). They instantly went hostile. After abandoning them for a more friendly country nearby, they got stomped by a coalition, reduced to their three starting provinces again and promptly became friendly once more. I know i can flesh out some sort of rationale (they got big enough to start to think they could challenge me for local hegemony - not really true though), but is "Hostile" the right attitude for this? I would have thought that any icing up of relations should be more gradual - eg moving to Neutral through Cordial and then perhaps Hostile.
I would be very interested to know if there are attitude modifiers on Hard difficulty that affect the probability of any AI player having the Hostile attitude towards the player (or indeed others like Threatened and Outraged). If so i am probably going to modify the other Hard bonuses onto Normal and just run that as Hard without the AI attitude changes.
I also think that nations should maybe be limited to 2 rivals (both human players and AI). I just got my English alliance broken due to getting their rival tag, even though we have no strategic overlap at all. The AI seems too eager to Rival just for the sake of it.
Did that actually happen?
Play with AI bonuses and Hard difficulty on ironman... it happens although not consistently. Depends greatly on who sets you as hostile at the start, so there's a random element to it. More likely at the end of the HYW if you take all the English provinces straight away.
Austria on Hard has become quite a delicate balancing act for the first 100 years now, especially defending the empire. Teutons are allying with Muscovy, Hungary, and Denmark regularly and wanting to grab Hinterpommern. In 1450, this is nearly impossible to defend against as none of your regular allies (Castile, Burgundy etc) are willing to join in. Not to mention that Burgundy, goes hostile within 10 years even with an alliance, guarantee, marriage, and access treaties.
I play on hard exclusively, and it is very aggressive towards the player far more so than in the earlier patches. Am not sure it has been directly changed, but the other changes are obviously feeding into this mechanic.
On Hard to computer goes out of its way to hate you just for being human. If you want the AI to behave normally but have an advantage (besides Lucky Nations), you just have to turn up Advantage/bonus to AI. IIRC Hard does not give any direct bonuses except from making the world more inclined to hate you.
This is probable. So hard in EU series is basicly "aggressive AI" option in Civilization series's I guess ?
The only way in which the AI treats you differently from another AI on Normal is in how they coordinate with your armies if you're allied in a war.
Hard doesn't make the AI hate you just for being human, it makes the AI fear you just for being human. So they react more strongly to human expansion, put more resources into wars with humans, and will leap on an opportunity to attack a weak human that they want to conquer them/cut them down to size. It doesn't attack you just because you're human though, so you're not gonna start up the game and have everyone be hostile to you.
I am currently playing a game as Teutons into Prussia. i allied from the start with Bohemia and Hungry and together we fought against austria for over 100 years. Then Bohemia got control of the HRE and straight away dissolved the alliance, set me as rival and within a year declared war! i was , to be polite, a bit annoyed. i went to grab a drink and consider my next move.
The more i thought about it, the more i became impressed with the AI, after all i was eating HRE provinces and IF Bohemia allied with me to help become Emperor it had achieved its objective, what was now it's biggest threat? Me! so of course its going to try and break me.
I wouldve been more sentimental, after all we fought many wars together! however the AI is ruthless and now im understanding that the game is so much enjoyable for me!
The more i thought about it, the more i became impressed with the AI, after all i was eating HRE provinces and IF Bohemia allied with me to help become Emperor it had achieved its objective, what was now it's biggest threat? Me! so of course its going to try and break me.
I wouldve been more sentimental, after all we fought many wars together! however the AI is ruthless and now im understanding that the game is so much enjoyable for me!
I was responding to that. I have seen it happen, although it isn't consistent which is what I was getting at, I then went on to state that it becomes more likely after you have added a little bit of AE, but then also there is a massive random element to it as to who sets you as hostile which has a cascading effect...
Please don't post in a thread if your only agenda is to call the OP a noob.