Why does the AI rely on massive inflation?

[unmerged(276049)]

This is something I have found out with my King Hopping AAR. Every prospective country is minting at least half of their budget. France, Tver, the Mameluks, they are all drowning themselves in new coin. Despite the apparent hits to technological process and whatnot, this doesn't seem to have effected their success in the game. Despite that, from a historical perspective, the behavior ought to have serious consequences. Take 16th century Spain, for example.

My question is, will these countries face serious consequences or is this the AI's way of combating human players innate superiority? Also, is minting excessively a viable strategy for players?

 

[Deusgero]

They hire mercs then dont get rid of em and they'll always have their force limits

 

[JonStryker]

That's something the AI likes to do. If they run out of money they mint, mint, mint, ...

 

[CemXen]

Yes, that's what PI should fix with AI.

Limit the AI when it goes (too much) above their force limit.

And then, I expect the minting to be much less impressive.


Too bad, we cannot mod AI.

 

[marat271]

Inflation is better than bankruptcy.

 

[DanubianCossak]

I think that the AI is coded to mint because minting allows it to accumulate enough money which is needed to support AI going over land force limit.

Why does AI go over land force limit? I think thats because whoever coded AI knew that unless AI had an army size advantage over its opponents (even another AI) whoever had bigger army would pretty much win, in most cases. So, unlike human, who has to scale their ambition to the size of their economy and slowly grow bigger and bigger, AI uses all its potential "right here right now" creating as large army as it possibly can. Of course, having a big army makes AI think its powerful, so it attacks smaller countries etc.

Also another problem seems to be complete randomness as to what exactly AI recruits: as we all know cavalry costs more than infantry, so even if you can afford 100% of your land force limit that is built using brain (meaning 20-30% cav the rest inf) there is no way it can afford to maintain something crazy like 80% cav 20% inf which is what i see ALL THE TIME.

 

[Kaazmodan]

In the long run, inflation can be very harmful to the AI, completely crippling it. I don't know why it does it, presumably because it counts an over-the-forcelimit army as essential.

What I myself have done to limit the effects of inflation, is giving the AI a 50% discount on mercenary maintenence, thus making their expensive mercenaries, that they refuse to disband, less likely to break their economy. This even has the added benefit, that if the AI "plans ahead" and hires a Colonel (mercenary cost reduction advisor), they can get the maintenance price of mercenaries down to only 10% more than regular troops.

I also have shamelessly copied an event from someone else on this forum, which once the AI reaches 20% inflation, it immediatly lowers it to 10%. The reasons why I use those numbers, is that in the short term, minting is heavily beneficial, so it has to have some long term effects. A reason why I just don't give the AI a -1% yearly reduction in inflation, is that it then seems to only mint, crippling the AI even more in the long term, as it doesn't tech then. And it makes the game for the player, extremely unplayable in the beginning.

 

[chals]

Yes, that's what PI should fix with AI.

Limit the AI when it goes (too much) above their force limit.

And then, I expect the minting to be much less impressive.


Too bad, we cannot mod AI.

there is a mod out there for the AI.. It is used in some mood, like MMU.. Massively improves AI

 

[DanubianCossak]

there is a mod out there for the AI.. It is used in some mood, like MMU.. Massively improves AI

No there isnt. There are mods that simulate things (for example you can improve the way AI chooses NI's so that they take context into account by using events etc), but no mod has the ability to change the AI code itself, at least that i know of.

 

[King Nothing]

The AI mints even if they have no need for the money so there is something terribly wrong with that part. I have seen AI Ming with 50% inflation minting a third of their income when they had some 20K ducats in the treasury..

So I also created an event that cut the inflation for the AI, I was much kinder to them though, cutting it to 0 when they got to 5%. I have also upped the tech speed considerably to everyone excepts the latins and the hordes, now it works much better than vanilla.

 

[xcrissxcrossx]

Is there a way to encourage the AI to get the National Bank NI?

 

[Oorlog]

Inflation is better than bankruptcy.

What else is new these days..

 

[Swistaczek]

Why does the AI rely on massive inflation?

Because that's how AI is programmed.
/thread

 

[diceyy]

Inflation is better than bankruptcy.

Inflation is the number one cause of late game bankruptcy.

Its hard to get a decent late game vs the ai because when the major nations are at 40-50% to your nothing then its incredibly hard to lose.

 

[Ryasyr]

In the long run, inflation can be very harmful to the AI, completely crippling it. I don't know why it does it, presumably because it counts an over-the-forcelimit army as essential.

I have personally seen many empires die because they mint thier rears off.

My most recent game I watched a OE that Held almost the Real OE's Apohogys borders collapse in less then 5 years because of insane inflation. (350%) now the OE is a shattered mess of smaller nations trying to eat each other to gain the remaining bits of land Russia, Austria or myself (Mughals) havent eaten

 

[lucaluca]

In the long run, inflation can be very harmful to the AI, completely crippling it. I don't know why it does it, presumably because it counts an over-the-forcelimit army as essential.

What I myself have done to limit the effects of inflation, is giving the AI a 50% discount on mercenary maintenence, thus making their expensive mercenaries, that they refuse to disband, less likely to break their economy. This even has the added benefit, that if the AI "plans ahead" and hires a Colonel (mercenary cost reduction advisor), they can get the maintenance price of mercenaries down to only 10% more than regular troops.

I also have shamelessly copied an event from someone else on this forum, which once the AI reaches 20% inflation, it immediatly lowers it to 10%. The reasons why I use those numbers, is that in the short term, minting is heavily beneficial, so it has to have some long term effects. A reason why I just don't give the AI a -1% yearly reduction in inflation, is that it then seems to only mint, crippling the AI even more in the long term, as it doesn't tech then. And it makes the game for the player, extremely unplayable in the beginning.

please share these events, i am trying to play with no inflation but it takes out a good part of fun for the player trying to balance the economy. Can you PM your events to me? Thanks.

Another thing about inflation is that it cripples the poorer techs much more than the western tech, so that they end up lagging in tech way more than what the teching speed would suggest