When an OPM really hates you

[unmerged(804580)]

Is there a reasoning behind this, or does anyone else have the same experience?

Back in 1.2, I was playing as Champassak (start date 1700 or 1701 I think) and Zhou remained as an OPM in Macau. (I'm sure it was dev oversight; I don't know if they still exist there) for whatever reason Zhou set me as a rival and continued to sow dissent, sabotage reputation and embargo me (though the last didn't hurt) and I couldn't do a damn thing against it since they were married/allied to the mega Qing.

The same thing happened yesterday as Moldavia (somehow independent as OPM in the province Moldavia) did the same to me, Candar. I really didn't want to bother moving into that general vicinity but I just had to, otherwise I couldn't integrate Persia. Sabotage reputation plus neighboring heretic religion made it impossible to integrate them, so I just had to kill it off and demand total annexation. I converted and sold it to Crimea just to forget about it.

Not trying to show off, but..

(Zhou still exists in Macau, though it's too small you can't see the name. The second screenshot shows Moldavia.)

I think I usually understand the rivalry. They think of you as a rival when they think you're about even, and want to knock you down a bit to remove current and/or future competitors and change it to other attitudes when the gap becomes large. Mamluks rivaled me early in the game as Candar but changed to friendly as they were slowly getting conquered by the Ottomans. Crimea set me as a rival for a long time as well, but they turned threatened.

What I do not understand is how the OPMs (like Zhou and Moldavia in these cases) thought of me as a rival. Perhaps they take their alliances into account when they set rivals? Zhou had Qing, and Moldavia had.. Lithuania.

edit: Just to clarify, I did annex Moldavia and sold it to Crimea so that I could integrate Persia. It shows I'm integrating Persia but Moldavia is still there. They must have revolted back.

 

[TheBloke]

Screenshots aren't working FYI.

Not sure about this. The general consensus re rivals is that they tend to apply to nations of similar size. I think it's definitely unusual for a small nation to rival a much larger one. You'd certainly think that the alliance should play a factor - the AI should feel safer with a powerful ally, and therefore be more free in aggressive actions. But I don't know to what extent the AI actually uses such factors; it's just logical that they should.

I wonder if the rivalry is more a symptom: it wanted to embargo you, because it wanted trade income and embargoing you would be a good way to boost its power, therefore it had to rival you to do so efficiently. Ditto the other covert operations - rivalry gives an Offensive Spy bonus, so if it had some general reason for applying those covert actions to you, it would make sense to rival you to make them more effective.

Though it does still seem odd for a small nation to be so aggressive to a larger one in this way.

Incidentally, have you looked for opportunities to attack them without Qing? Do they ever go to war without Qing? If so, an Enforce Peace could work. If they have allies besides Qing, then OtherAlly might call Moldavia into the war then you can Enforce to fight OtherAlly and Moldavia, without Qing.

 

[americanu197]

i think the way the game is set up the AI has to choose to hate someone but small nations cant choose to hate big nations cause they are afraid so they just hate other small nations...this is very obvious playing as any nation in the balkans ...instead of hating the turks or hungary the small nations there hate each other and get conquered by the OE anyway

 

[unmerged(804580)]

I seem to be having issues with postimg these days. I don't know why.

 

[TheBloke]

i think the way the game is set up the AI has to choose to hate someone but small nations cant choose to hate big nations cause they are afraid so they just hate other small nations...this is very obvious playing as any nation in the balkans ...instead of hating the turks or hungary the small nations there hate each other and get conquered by the OE anyway

That's definitely true - generally rivalries/hostility are within a "size grouping." Small hates small, medium hates medium, etc. That's what's odd in OP's case - he's big, the OPM is, obviously, not.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Screenshots aren't working FYI.

Not sure about this. The general consensus re rivals is that they tend to apply to nations of similar size. I think it's definitely unusual for a small nation to rival a much larger one. You'd certainly think that the alliance should play a factor - the AI should feel safer with a powerful ally, and therefore be more free in aggressive actions. But I don't know to what extent the AI actually uses such factors; it's just logical that they should.

I wonder if the rivalry is more a symptom: it wanted to embargo you, because it wanted trade income and embargoing you would be a good way to boost its power, therefore it had to rival you to do so efficiently. Ditto the other covert operations - rivalry gives an Offensive Spy bonus, so if it had some general reason for applying those covert actions to you, it would make sense to rival you to make them more effective.

Though it does still seem odd for a small nation to be so aggressive to a larger one in this way.

Incidentally, have you looked for opportunities to attack them without Qing? Do they ever go to war without Qing? If so, an Enforce Peace could work. If they have allies besides Qing, then OtherAlly might call Moldavia into the war then you can Enforce to fight OtherAlly and Moldavia, without Qing.

Well, the Champassak one is an old game and no, they never waged a war and its only ally was Qing. I was also allied to Qing, and angering either Qing or Mughals in their historical 1700 extent isn't a good idea, even as I had the whole of Indochina. Starting as 2PM sandwiched between the two, expanding without drawing them into coalitions with the given time limit was the challenge. They both joined and left the coalitions at least once, but in the end I allied Qing for safety against Europeans.

Moldavia had one ally, Lithuania. I didn't care. I DoW'd them with trade dispute and had no problem fighting Lithuania. I was 8 years ahead of military tech anyways.