Difficulty Level and Declarations of War

[Lemur]

Just a question for those who have had the time and patience to really test this game:

Does difficulty level change how likely it is for nations to spam you with declarations of war? I play on H/H, and I'm getting profoundly tired of irrational, un-strategic aggression. Should I try a campaign on Normal to see if this improves matters, or is the AI equally pitbullish throughout?

[Prussian to the Iron]

pretty much the same stupid DoW's as any difficulty level; the only thing that changes is the frequency.

[Peasant Phill]

I'm playing as Prussia on medium and I can't complain about DoW's. Let's say only half of my neighbours have declared war on me. The half that didn't so far were both (very) friendly and hostile towards me.
The thing that really annoyes me is that after the DoW's there is no aggressive action. What's the use of being at war when the AI doesn't try to gain from it.

[Didz]

I can't say I've tested it systematically, but I didn't see any real difference between Medium, Hard and Very Hard. The DOW's are just as random, stupid and pointless regardless of the difficulty.

[Prussian to the Iron]

The thing that really annoyes me is that after the DoW's there is no aggressive action. What's the use of being at war when the AI doesn't try to gain from it.

simple:

so that you can stay doing nothing, while they continuously send 1-unit armies to raid your farms until you get annoyed and attack them, wiping them out when they shouldn't have done anything in the first place.

[Fisherking]

Maybe it is just the campaign I am in or maybe there have been some changes made...I can't say absolutely but, the DoWs don't seem to be coming as frequent and what is more amazing is that factions are now starting to actually work on clearing their trade lanes and ports from AI blockades.

Now perhaps the AI has always behaved this way and we have unfairly criticized it....but I don't think so!

[al Roumi]

I *think* that on normal, things are less hectic. In other words, you do still get kamikaze factions controlled by the puppet master campaign AI, but they are less frequently flung against you.

I played a GB campaign on normal and seemed to be able to remain allied to those with whom i was most friendly (Iroquois for one!), but I've also observed that the campaign AI always wants you to be at war with someone. So if you do wittle away your enemies ("hostile" or "indifferent" factions), eventually your best friends ("friendly" and v friendly") will be zombified one by one.

This is much worse on H as, in a now aborted Russian campaign, every bugger with whom i shared a border DoW'd on me -including Poland/Lithuania, Courland, Georgia (with whom i'd set up a trade agrement), Dagestan, and the last straw: Persia (with whom i was Friendly, was trading and had granted military access. Russia is meant to be challenging, but not neccessarily to that extent...

The most glaring inconsistency in that Russian game was that everyone seemed to piling in on me, the greater my strength became (still not that great -15 turns in is not far for Russia's economic development!) and not concentrating their forces against closer foes with whom they shared more borders and were already at war with.

[Dradem]

I think it has to do with how you actualy play as a faction, for example playing as Prusia for the moment, and after being at war with Poland (one that I started) and gaining 3 provinces demanded peace, they agreed. I kept my army (most of it) in Warsaw, they didn't declare war on me. I tested a few things and when I pulled my army out of that Province they declared war. Now already in 1750 and still didn't declare war on me even after Rusia declared war on me they didn't join. Austria still didn't DOW nor did France (I did 2 turns ago ) I just got an Aliance with Austria and Sweden. It all depends I think on how you keep your borders and how you treat your neighbours.

Still when they want they will still backstab (as Russia did) but now I'm back Trading with them.

[Didz]

That business where the AI declares war on you for leaving a Regional Capital unguarded is really lazy programming. What it ought to do is consider the relative strengths and weaknesses, and make a assessment as to whether it can win the war, before it actually plunges in like an idiot.

[SwordsMaster]

I think difficulty is rather irrelevant. I'm playing a french campaign on H/M and for the last 6 turns I've been getting DoWs at a rate of pretty much one per turn from people I don't actually have a border with.

Funnily enough, I'd say this is somehow affected by the number of trading partners you have. I noticed a sharp increase in DoWs after getting myself 4 more "trade for military access" deals...

[Prussian to the Iron]

That business where the AI declares war on you for leaving a Regional Capital unguarded is really lazy programming. What it ought to do is consider the relative strengths and weaknesses, and make a assessment as to whether it can win the war, before it actually plunges in like an idiot.

this is a great idea, but instead of only considering forces, it should also consider the current situation and nationalism (country A is the attacker, country Z is the defender):


-is country 'Z' ready to attack country 'A'?
-does country 'Z' have any troops near country 'A's border?
-does country 'A' feel oppressed from country 'Z'?
-is the country 'Z' fighting multiple wars on fronts away from country 'A'?
-can country 'Z' pull troops away from another front to country 'A's front without losing any ground?
-are the other warring countries capable of pushing into country 'Z'?
-does country 'Z' have the will or capability of pushing on into country 'A' if country 'A's army is defeated?
-does country 'A' have the resources to carry on an offensive war, and to recruit guards for the newly captured cities?
-does country 'Z' have enough resources/tactical cities to justify a war?
-can country 'A' defeat country 'Z' on the seas?
-does either side have the ships required to blockade the other?
-does country 'Z' have good infrastructure/buildings comapred to country 'A'?

i think for now thats good, but they really should use these and not just:

"so, we neighbor you, and even though we're trading with you, we'll still attack you and then get our asses handed to us and be destroyed, when the only thing we could have gained in the first place was 2 backwater regions with few possible towns, no ports, and can only build governor buildings"

that was what georgia and dagestan did in my russian campaign. had they been smart like my list, than they might have waited until i had gotten all of my troops into sweden and Prussia. in fact, i had no intentions of attacking them. i was going to go arond the caspian sea, through the desert, and around to attack persia.

[Quickening]

I must be playing a different game to most people. I just ended a campaign as Prussia on Very Hard/Very Hard and the AI just would not declare war on me. I never like to initiate war and by the time 1750 came around only two factions, Courland and Poland-Lithuania had declared war on me but I'd only gained three territories from it because the latter asked for peace soon after I took Warsaw.

Anyway the point is, my problem is that the AI doesn't declare war enough! I hate being the badguy to instigate conflict and since the AI won't do it I simply run out of years to win.