The problem is that the AI is far too liberal when it comes to breaking alliances. And since they almost always seem to have negative attitudes towards them you can't get them back. The worst part is when every single large country in the game is aligned with one another, but none of them will align with you. Take my recent Austria/HRE game. There were 6 great powers in the game, France, Burgundy, Poland, Russia, Britain and myself. All five of those countries were all aligned to the other and every one of them had me as a rival. Now bear in mind that my AE was almost always at 0, since I couldn't expand without triggering a war with every power in the game. Another problem is that nations far too often align with each other right after having fought a war. Take my aforementioned game. The giant alliance of doom was finally broken up when France ended up on the wrong side of a war with the others. When it ended, France had no allies. I intended to DW on them to nab some provinces but by the time a month passed (I had to cancel military access) they were aligned again with all the powers they had just fought. How is this realistic. From Allied to war to allied again in a matter of months.
This is going too far now. Paradox fix the god-damn game already!!
- Thread starter Hecastomp
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This is just something that the devs have hardcoded. Everything just to contain the player and force a 200 year stalemate after 1600's. I'm actually very surprised that in my current Sweden game i can actually wage war against Russia. For about 50 years they were allied with Austria, Poland, Norway (yeah, still there) and Spain. And those countries were then allied with all the other major powers in the game.
So there is quite a bit to "fix" when it comes to diplomacy.
The attitude system ist completely broken. I can go from 'friendly with alliance' and +200 relations over 'hostile' to 'rival' back to 'neutra'l and 'friendly' in just one year. Even when you haven't done anything to provoke it.
I noticed playing tuscany that Castille had friendly attitude with me even if i was allied with france, but just when inherted Aragon and took sardina and sicily, spain become hostile with me. It seems extremely clever to me, because in that moment spain had interest in italy and i was an aggressive player in the italian politics, so spain saw me like a potential obstruction to them. Notice that we were not allied, i was alllied with france that had interest on savoy so could probably be another potential player in italy area. I tried to improve relations but hostile was still there.
A few years later there was a war between France and Spain, France called me in but i refused. After that I've tried everything to get friend with spain (send gift, war subsides, military access, royal marriage...), it was not easy neither fast, but some years later when Spain went war with great britain, and so his diplomatic position has become more delicate (truce with france and his allies, war with GB and his one), i managed to get "friendly" relations and thus ally with them. It seems a very clever meccanism to me, AI seems "alive" and plays an active role.
This is one of the main reasons making me saying this game has potential, but there are flaws that i hope could be solved. In short, for diplomacy i suggest:
1) Make papal state more crucial and protected in european diplomacy and in particular in italian one. Papal state should be an important player not just one of the many. Rome cannot be raided for free, raiding it should make you get huge diplo penality and AI should now that. In this way when papal state becomes involved in a conflict between spain and france, if his side loose, for example spain would never go to rome sieging it, it is not plausible. Moreover it seems to me very rare that a country is extracomm. instead who upset the pope should be immediatly marked.
2) Duplicate coring cost, triplicate/quadruplicate coring times and make necessary the employ of a diplomat for it. otherwise overextension meccanism is useless.
3) Develop espionage, link it to diplomacy with missions like "provoke war" or "support heresy" that should be expensive actions, accessible only to nations with "espionage idea" (otherwise neglegible).
A few years later there was a war between France and Spain, France called me in but i refused. After that I've tried everything to get friend with spain (send gift, war subsides, military access, royal marriage...), it was not easy neither fast, but some years later when Spain went war with great britain, and so his diplomatic position has become more delicate (truce with france and his allies, war with GB and his one), i managed to get "friendly" relations and thus ally with them. It seems a very clever meccanism to me, AI seems "alive" and plays an active role.
This is one of the main reasons making me saying this game has potential, but there are flaws that i hope could be solved. In short, for diplomacy i suggest:
1) Make papal state more crucial and protected in european diplomacy and in particular in italian one. Papal state should be an important player not just one of the many. Rome cannot be raided for free, raiding it should make you get huge diplo penality and AI should now that. In this way when papal state becomes involved in a conflict between spain and france, if his side loose, for example spain would never go to rome sieging it, it is not plausible. Moreover it seems to me very rare that a country is extracomm. instead who upset the pope should be immediatly marked.
2) Duplicate coring cost, triplicate/quadruplicate coring times and make necessary the employ of a diplomat for it. otherwise overextension meccanism is useless.
3) Develop espionage, link it to diplomacy with missions like "provoke war" or "support heresy" that should be expensive actions, accessible only to nations with "espionage idea" (otherwise neglegible).
"Duplicate"/"triplicate"/"quadruplicate" don't mean what you think they mean. You want "double"/"triple"/"quadruple".
Reading the title I thought it was worst, in the end what happened? Bohemia attacked you?
It doesn't seem so, they insulted you yes (and this thing one could argue why?), but they are yet your ally and the sum of the relation is positive, so? What's the problem? The land was your yes, they are your friend (cousins, probably, in this case) but they should be happy that you expanded yourself? In part maybe yes as they could think that if the King of Brandenburg dies without heirs they could inherit all your land (yes I know, you married Bohemia hoping the same thing but the IA that I suppose is the Emperor, too, wants this, too
).
On the other hand Bohemia could be not happy as yourself could broke the alliance and attack them and if you expand too much in the Empire well the Electors could start to vote for you and so no more Imperial title for Bohemia
So, in the conclusion, I don't think the IA behavior is so wrong, the real Emperor of HRE and King of Bohemia would react in the same way, the only thing is the insult that a noble never would have used, but he would be jealous if you let me pass this term
I have already said this: A Paradox game could seem easy for a profane "well is only a map", Crisys 2 seems more complex...
But Crisys has the same IA? Or has only an IA repeated ab libitum? Or the IA is only one and fights against you, the human? In a Paradox game it is typical for the IA to fight against itself, and it has to not cheat, too (yes, I do know it does, but pretend to not do...).
For the developers perspective I could put all my moneys it is more complex to write EU4 than Crisys, and for the CPU execute it, too (the GPU in the end shows only a map with little, slow movements).
The positive thing it is the IA behavior is not in the game binary as was in EU3, but it is in script files, so it easy moddable by ourselves or Paradox itself in future releases...
I add: we are only on the II patch, please let's write in this tone an year from now.
Now you are playing a beta... and it is for this that myself have not bought EU4 yet
It doesn't seem so, they insulted you yes (and this thing one could argue why?), but they are yet your ally and the sum of the relation is positive, so? What's the problem? The land was your yes, they are your friend (cousins, probably, in this case) but they should be happy that you expanded yourself? In part maybe yes as they could think that if the King of Brandenburg dies without heirs they could inherit all your land (yes I know, you married Bohemia hoping the same thing but the IA that I suppose is the Emperor, too, wants this, too
).On the other hand Bohemia could be not happy as yourself could broke the alliance and attack them and if you expand too much in the Empire well the Electors could start to vote for you and so no more Imperial title for Bohemia
So, in the conclusion, I don't think the IA behavior is so wrong, the real Emperor of HRE and King of Bohemia would react in the same way, the only thing is the insult that a noble never would have used, but he would be jealous if you let me pass this term
I have already said this: A Paradox game could seem easy for a profane "well is only a map", Crisys 2 seems more complex...
But Crisys has the same IA? Or has only an IA repeated ab libitum? Or the IA is only one and fights against you, the human? In a Paradox game it is typical for the IA to fight against itself, and it has to not cheat, too (yes, I do know it does, but pretend to not do...).
For the developers perspective I could put all my moneys it is more complex to write EU4 than Crisys, and for the CPU execute it, too (the GPU in the end shows only a map with little, slow movements).
The positive thing it is the IA behavior is not in the game binary as was in EU3, but it is in script files, so it easy moddable by ourselves or Paradox itself in future releases...
I add: we are only on the II patch, please let's write in this tone an year from now.
Now you are playing a beta... and it is for this that myself have not bought EU4 yet
Now you are playing a beta... and it is for this that myself have not EU4 yet
Then you're wrong... somewhat. EUIV wasn't a beta at release; it became one, even with CTDs and all kinds of bugs, later.
I definitely do not recommend buying the game now before they get their act together again, even if I heartily recommended it on release.
So are you suggesting that the 0-200 relation score a country has towards someone doesn't mean anything? Why is it even in the game then?
If it's negative you can't ally, if it's positive... nothing? Even 200+ you can't count on them supporting you? Well that sucks.
It means something, it just doesn't mean everything. Nations you have positive relations with generally won't attack you unless you are weak AND have something they want. Nations with negative relations will attack you just for fun. It also affects things like stab hits for attacking, whether you can diplomatically vassalize or annex/integrate, and so on.
I've seen these arguments for random and capricious AI in other game forums too, and I've never been impressed there either. A good diplomatic system should have room for some concept of long-term interest. EU4 basically lets otherwise logical alliances go haywire because the AI, at random, decides that it wants a province owned by an ally. Or it decides that an ally is now a rival or another great power. This is just bad game design, and all of the elaborate rationalizations that people can cook up don't change these things into some deep and clever system. There are plenty of other good ways of providing challenge - having an ally warn you that you're doing something that they don't like, forming defensive alliances when logical, and so on. But a system where allies become randomly hostile is one where you're better off not bothering to nurture them.
Yeah. Some of the hyperbole in this thread aside, diplomacy appears a bit too random. If it's truly intentional, then it I'd argue there is no point in trying to maintain long term alliances, and that should be clearly communicated to players so they don't waste time/resources in a frustrating endeavor.
Perhaps there is a method or some logic to the seemingly capricious actions the AI will take, but, if so, they should be clearly spelled out. This is not an area where it benefits Paradox to have the mechanics hidden or opaque. It feels buggy to me the way it is now.
Perhaps there is a method or some logic to the seemingly capricious actions the AI will take, but, if so, they should be clearly spelled out. This is not an area where it benefits Paradox to have the mechanics hidden or opaque. It feels buggy to me the way it is now.
+1
EU4 was a stable and complete game at release as rarely paradox games have been. It is a masterpiece, hope they can even improve it!
This is an insanely low bar. "Game ran, was able to play from start to finish. 9/10"
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That sounds like the gist of most positive game reviews until about 2010.
Being the programmer myself I don't see this as a so bad practice, we do this all the time, the client (you in this case) wants the product as you soon as possible, so we release a beta, the client sees and says, I like this and don't like that and I do my list of things to change... and slowly the product from beta become release.
Yes for your point of view this is bad (your moneys was not "beta"), but it is not only Paradox and my little corporation that do this, Microsoft when release a new Windows do not patch it? Yes, sometimes release a Service Pack that is rewrite it totally!
Apple OS is always perfect? No, they make patches, too...
Do you have an Android device? Does it worked perfectly with firmware 1.0? Be honest
Some guys gave this "natural" method of write software a name he called it "Agile Programming", some older programmer call it "Casual Programming":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
To note that a software written with Rigid Programming cannot modified EVER, it is correct by definition, so no patches or DLC... do you like Pac Man? It changed over time? No... it cannot :huh:
In the end please have respect of the work of others if one of my clients try to write a mail to me with a similar object well I'll not be happy!
Yes I wait that you end the beta test phase, dear clients...hem forumers
Being the programmer myself I don't see this as a so bad practice, we do this all the time, the client (you in this case) wants the product as you soon as possible, so we release a beta, the client sees and says, I like this and don't like that and I do my list of things to change... and slowly the product from beta become release.
Yes for your point of view this is bad (your moneys was not "beta"), but it is not only Paradox and my little corporation that do this, Microsoft when release a new Windows do not patch it? Yes, sometimes release a Service Pack that is rewrite it totally!
Apple OS is always perfect? No, they make patches, too...
Do you have an Android device? Does it worked perfectly with firmware 1.0? Be honest
Some guys give this "natural" method of write software a name he called it "Agile Programming", some older programmer call it "Casual Programming":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
To note that a software written with Rigid Programming cannot modified EVER, it is correct by definition, so no patches or DLC... do you like Pac Man? It changed over time? No... it cannot :huh:
In the end please have respect of the work of others if one of my clients try to write a mail to me with a similar object well I'll not be happy!
Yes I wait that you end the beta test phase, dear clients...hem forumers
There's a fine line between "respecting someone's work" and "being robbed in the street and saying Good job! to the robber", which is what you're suggesting. I don't know about you, but I spent pretty much my whole game budget until 2014 in EUIV. If a patch makes it unplayable for me (I haven't played a single minute in 3-4 weeks, after not enjoying at all several different short games since 1.2), then I'm not happy. If a programmer gets offended by my remark that the game is unplayable, well, no offence meant, but the thing is I'm not in the business of giving charity to game developers. If EUIV was a charity effort by Paradox, then I would have given some money without expecting anything in return, but that's not the case. I buy games with money and I want to have fun in return. A lot of fun. If I don't, I'm not happy.
If you think being "sold" access to a beta version is a totally legitimate strategy and the customer should never ever complain about anything, well, I hope I'll never have to buy any of your products, because that's an awful work ethic.
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"robbed"? "unplayable"? "beta version"?
This type of hyperbole is so ridiculous it undermines any valid point you may have.
The game is immensely fun for most people. It was on release. And it's gotten better. It will never be perfect, though I hope it comes close. It will never suit every gamer out there, though it'd be nice if the difficulty settings could accommodate people who like an easier game.
But, while you wait for an patch that may never come (i.e., a patch that will ideally suit your playstyle), why not try modding the game and tailoring it to your desired level of difficulty? If this represents your entire gaming budget for the rest of the year, you might as well make the best of it. I don't see how refusing to play it punishes anyone but yourself. Nor does popping into every thread to trash the latest release, ad nauseum, seem like a productive nor entertaining use of time. It's still one of the best strategy game out there, it's just gotten harder. Harping on some minor (if legitimate) bugs that may've crept into the latest patch isn't going to change the fact that Paradox is clearly trying to make the default game fairly challenging. When/if they come out with some easier/WC modes and/or allow ironman with mods, that'd be great. But I find it hard to believe you can't find a way to have fun playing this game in 1.2.
No one is arguing that. The problem is that 1.2 made the game significantly WORSE.