The most idiotic thing I have ever see any AI do in this game...

[Krajzen]

So, I am playing as Russia (formed by Novgorod), it is late 17th century, I have an empire not very different in size and shape from Putin's (except I have no eastern Siberia), suddenly Sweden declares war on me.

Sweden 60k is allied with Ottomans 100k and Brunswick 40k . This alliance stands against mine 120k + Persian 80-100k + Bohemia 50k + Brandenburg 40k. Well as you can see they stand in a proportion 2 vs 3 but that's not the strange part.

I send my armies to Finland, see incoming Swedish army but with an astonishment I see it doesn't attack nearby spread stacks. I was going to intercept Swedish 40k stack but now I stop the attack curious where the hell are they going - they went from polar reindeer territory and through Karelian wastelands to Archangelsk and deep polar forests.

Long story short: my ring of border forts had a hole in Karelia so Swedes slipped past it, and as I had no forts inside Russia they could move freely everywhere. It's logistically idiotic but okay, nevermind... Did they use this advantage to snipe some valuable provinces? No:

This 40 000 Swedish stack ignored my indefended provinces and armies and went straight to Persia.

No, seriously. They went from Karelia, through Archangelsk, next to the Ural, across the entire Russia, across the steppes, across the Caucasus, across the deserts, to siege some Persian 7 development land near to the Persian Gulf, while Persian armies were slowly winning in a maneuver wsr against Ottos in Iraqfew provinces next to them, and while I was sieging their CAPITAL 5000km away.

FINAL RESULTS:
*Sweden, without 70% of its army and a main general being on the proper continent, loses the entire mainland Scandinavia to my forces virtually without resistance
*Brunswick full occupied
*Ottomans completelybeaten by Persians (that's the frontline those idiot Swedes priritized to support with this brilliant expedition)
*After months and years sweden, with no provinces no money and no manpower, sends remnants of its stack across the entire Russia again, straight from Oman via feet
*Before they even come home I sign peace with 99% warscore because of occupying their entire homeland


Either something is really wrong with atrrition/logistical system of eu4, its artificial intelligence or sweden

 

[IIWW]

In previous patches (before the fort system) I saw quite similar behaviour, but from my allies (Luckily I was able to win the war without them, but nevermind). I DoWed Russia which was allied with Ming. Austria and France, my allies, decided that they do not give a damn about Russia, instead they marched all their forces, thourgh Russia, to China.
AI have some weird issues with prioritizing secondary war participants. If the primary one is stronger than they are they go for weaker target, which leads to such nonsene.

 

[IceTytanFang]

That's hilarious!

I think the reason they go after weaker, secondary belligerents is because they may think the along the lines of small belligerent=OPM=can be taken out in 6 months. Ever had a game where 1 large power was allied to 4 opms? Those extra 20K they add (total) gets really annoying really quickly, so you eliminate them quickly

 

[bbqftw]

reminds me of GBR taking its superior navy and overrunning my colony in ivory coast while I was sieging their entire home isles

 

[atwix]

the wider the front, the more stupid the AI gets.

Its the main reason why bashing colonizers is easy... The ai places troops in their colonies, while you sink their fleet and siege homeland. Ai will also send troops to YOUR colonies, since they are deemed 'easy', while you siege their homeland.

Ai needs a reprogramming to set their priorities straight. If *any* enemy army sieges one of the home continent forts, then they should retreat all their forces. Now, the AI only does that when one of its forts gets OCCUPIED. And if you manage to siege all their forts at once, that usually means you can do 99% warscore no fight war before the ai has retreated its troops to battle the invader.

 

[El_Cid_]

the wider the front, the more stupid the AI gets.

Its the main reason why bashing colonizers is easy... The ai places troops in their colonies, while you sink their fleet and siege homeland. Ai will also send troops to YOUR colonies, since they are deemed 'easy', while you siege their homeland.

Ai needs a reprogramming to set their priorities straight. If *any* enemy army sieges one of the home continent forts, then they should retreat all their forces. Now, the AI only does that when one of its forts gets OCCUPIED. And if you manage to siege all their forts at once, that usually means you can do 99% warscore no fight war before the ai has retreated its troops to battle the invader.

Reading this, a thought occurred to me. When I declare war on somebody I assume the AI will behave in a logical, sensible way. I haven't really recognised their tendencies to do stupid stuff that can be taken advantage of.

 

[atwix]

Reading this, a thought occurred to me. When I declare war on somebody I assume the AI will behave in a logical, sensible way. I haven't really recognised their tendencies to do stupid stuff that can be taken advantage of.

i guess its called opportunism.

If you see france is sieging scandinavia with *all* their troops (checking what troop number you can see in siege window of fog of war sieged province versus ledger total army) then you can safely assume they won't move their troops back from scnadinavia to france if you invade France oportunistically.

This AI misbehaviour has been around for god knows how long. AI only reacts if one of their forts gets occupied, if at all. The 1.12 fort mechanic countered this a bit, making carpet sieging impossible, which led to the ai getting a chance to make new troops in home turf to fight the invaders. But abandoning sieges far away, in a secondary war versus co-belligerent in that war, to repel invaders on their home turf?

No, the ai will never EVER do that, unless one of their forts gets sieged up. And if you sink their fleet, they usually can't even COME back, due to not getting access here and there.

I wish the AI would so same to player...

 

[Duke Alexander]

Honestly, though, isn't this quite what happened with Carolus Rex and the great Northern War? Perfect AI modeling if I do say so

 

[Rostan]

Maybe there should be a limit on range of deploying troops, dependent maybe on ideas and tech? The combination of weird alliances between random countries post-patch 1.14 and the lack of limits on where the AI is willing to deploy troops leads to all sorts of weird deployments...

 

[Canute VII]

AI should simply have a preference to occupy/siege near provinces over faraway ones.

 

[Caspoi]

Honestly, though, isn't this quite what happened with Carolus Rex and the great Northern War? Perfect AI modeling if I do say so

I don't remember that Karl XII's target was Persia, although considering the timeline and everything it sure is fitting.

 

[Chaingun]

AI should simply have a preference to occupy/siege near provinces over faraway ones.

Surprise, it already does. If it didn't, you would constantly see very weird things (or rather, weirder than now). The problem is that it can't choose close provinces all the time. Whether going into Persia as Sweden (in EU4) is actually a good idea depends on some conditions that are potentially expensive to compute.

To circumvent this we might be able to add a rule like "don't siege a fort unless it is at most X units of distance away from closest controlled province on the same contiguous land area or there is no closer fort", disregarding naval invasion complications. The risk with adding such a rule is the AI becoming predictable. We might consider adding it nonetheless if it looks practical. On the other hand, it might be possible to do something better and increase the AI's strategic awareness. 2016 will be interesting.

 

[Canute VII]

Surprise, it already does. If it didn't, you would constantly see very weird things (or rather, weirder than now). The problem is that it can't choose close provinces all the time. Whether going into Persia as Sweden (in EU4) is actually a good idea depends on some conditions that are potentially expensive to compute.

To circumvent this we might be able to add a rule like "don't siege a fort unless it is at most X units of distance away from closest controlled province on the same contiguous land area or there is no closer fort", disregarding naval invasion complications. The risk with adding such a rule is the AI becoming predictable. We might consider adding it nonetheless if it looks practical. On the other hand, it might be possible to do something better and increase the AI's strategic awareness. 2016 will be interesting.

Promised?

Anyway, I change my post to "have a preference to occupy/siege the provinces of near enemies over those of faraway enemies". So AI in the example could still counter russia while still being rather inpredictable as to its specific provincial path.

 

[Sunspawn]

I don't remember that Karl XII's target was Persia, although considering the timeline and everything it sure is fitting.

Marching through Russia to Poltava was idiotic. He had the coalition (which it was) on the ropes - all he needed was to wear them down more to make them more pliable at the negotiation table.

 

[Canute VII]

Surprise, it already does. If it didn't, you would constantly see very weird things (or rather, weirder than now). The problem is that it can't choose close provinces all the time. Whether going into Persia as Sweden (in EU4) is actually a good idea depends on some conditions that are potentially expensive to compute.

To circumvent this we might be able to add a rule like "don't siege a fort unless it is at most X units of distance away from closest controlled province on the same contiguous land area or there is no closer fort", disregarding naval invasion complications. The risk with adding such a rule is the AI becoming predictable. We might consider adding it nonetheless if it looks practical. On the other hand, it might be possible to do something better and increase the AI's strategic awareness. 2016 will be interesting.

Related to this: might it actually be a good idea to have players define the computing power available to them in the game options and then make certain AI computational procedures conditional on available computing power?

 

[Caspoi]

Marching through Russia to Poltava was idiotic. He had the coalition (which it was) on the ropes - all he needed was to wear them down more to make them more pliable at the negotiation table.

Not saying that the whole thing was not far-fetched (although to be fair it had worked well against the danes and poles) but his goal was not quite so far fetched as in the game.

 

[fleetothemoon]

And a thread a while back then claimed that the AI will always prioritize attacking the player... This thread showed that such is clearly not the case.

 

[Sunspawn]

And a thread a while back then claimed that the AI will always prioritize attacking the player... This thread showed that such is clearly not the case.

AI will always prioritize exasperating the player.