Diplomacy is entirely broken [Archive]

Claudio

06-24-2009, 00:08

After sleeping on it and calming down a little, i decided to give the new patch another chance. I decided to play a landlocked (ish) faction, Prussia. Wanting to unite west and east Prussia, i saved up some money and offered Poland 30,000 for Gdansk. An insult, they tell me. I save up some more and offer 50,000, plug bayonet, common land enclosures, the other tier 1 farming tech, still an insult. I move a large army to the border with Gdansk, and one to the border with Saxony, and make one last offer/threat to Poland. 50,000 and all the technology. They refuse outright. I cancel my trade agreement with Poland and declare war.

Saxony, Courland and Russia join in on the side of Poland, and i have no allies to invite. I take Gdansk, and after laying siege to and defeating a sally attempt from Saxony, leaving them with mere tatters of an army, i offer them peace and trade. They refuse, and i knock them out of the game. At this point i offer Poland 25,000 for peace and trade, to which they refuse. I offer them 25,000 for just peace on its own, they refuse. I move my army to Lithuania, leaving almost a half stack to defend what land i own. I defeat a small Polish army in Lithuania, and a medium-sized army of Courland that was hanging around in the province too. I lay siege to Lithuania, which has no garrison, and offer peace to Poland. They refuse. I offer peace to Courland, they refuse.

I take Lithuania and offer to give it back to Poland for peace, along with 25,000, they refuse. I offer Lithuania to Courland, with 25,000 for peace, they refuse. I move to Warsaw. I defeat a Polish army. I besiege the city and offer peace, plus Lithuania, plus 25,000, they refuse. I take Warsaw. I offer Poland Warsaw, Lithuania, 25,000, plug bayonets, common land enclosures, the other tier 1 farm technology, and peace. Outright refusal. I offer the same deal to Courland, outright refusal.

I use my smaller army that was left in east Prussia to defeat the army of Courland and lay siege to their only city. I offer them peace, Lithuania, Warsaw, all the technology and 25,000. They refuse. I destroy them.

I take yet another city of Poland, leaving them only 1 remaining province, feeble and destitute. I offer them every single city i have taken, minus Gdansk, all the technology, and all the money i had, around 40,000, for peace and trade. They refused. I besieged their last city and offered them the same deal yet again, every city, all the technology, money, for peace and trade. Refusal. I try one last time, this time using the threat option, rather than a regular diplomatic offer. No joy. I destroy Poland.

All i wanted was Gdansk, for i like to roleplay, not blitz.

CA, i demand you release a program that will allow me to rollback my game to the previous patch. This latest one has fixed nothing, has made the AI on the battlefield no better at all, and has made them 100% incompetent in the diplomatic department. At least in the previous version they were only 50% incompetent.

Good day.

Sheogorath

06-24-2009, 00:24

Back in my day we had to walk ten miles, in the snow, to get diplomacy. Uphill both ways. And we didn't have shoes. And the AI was less talkative than a rabid lion on acid.

In any case, yes, there are some 'berserker' factions in every game, it seems. It's been that way since 1.0. Most factions have, for me, responded well to diplomacy.

Marquis of Roland

06-24-2009, 00:41

LOL! Maybe the AI isn't into bribes I guess....In my Prussian campaign, I declared war on Saxony (Poland joins), took both Dresden and Gdansk on the same turn, and immediately after I take those cities, I offer peace ON THE SAME TURN to Poland-Lithuania for a trade agreement and they agree!

About 10 turns later, Polish guys were doing well against Austria so they declare war again....I like to roleplay too so I don't invade their lands. I just ask for peace and a trade agreement every turn. At first they were insulted, so I checked back with them about every other turn or so, and about 6 turns later, they accepted peace and trade again!

About 20 turns later Russia was about to wipe out the Poles and so I was "forced" to take Warsaw, and the Polish are no more....:2thumbsup:

Lemur

06-24-2009, 03:00

In any case, yes, there are some 'berserker' factions in every game, it seems. It's been that way since 1.0. Most factions have, for me, responded well to diplomacy.
Try it again with the new patch. I was playing UP on H/H last night, and had both Sweden and Prussia go completely bat-guano crazy on me, accepting no peace terms no matter how many provinces i took, no matter how generous the offer. (At one point I was offering Prussia two major cities, one minor city and 50k gold for peace. "No, a thousand times no ...")

nameless

06-24-2009, 06:28

The AI can be weird sometimes.

As Russia on Hard I had control of north eastern part of europe while Austria had control of the south eastern part.

We were at peace for at least 40 turns before they declared war on me.

AussieGiant

06-24-2009, 08:10

Dodge_272

06-24-2009, 09:28

Now you know how Hitler felt.

FactionHeir

06-24-2009, 09:29

Well, at least during 1.2, you could take France and get all of their colonies for peace without offering them anything else. Same for spain.

Not working in 1.3.

All that VH too.

antisocialmunky

06-24-2009, 13:32

In all honesty, TW has always had bad to crap diplomacy. Atleast Shogun was fun about it though. :)

al Roumi

06-24-2009, 14:09

I'm not sure if this patch is any better or worse. I started a spanish campaign last night and got as far as 1714, having completed the New Spain quest, eliminated Portugal and Papal states.

In my first turn i was able to set up alliances with Genoa, Savoy and Venice and trade with Portugal and Morocco. I was also able to swap flanders and florida with France for French Guyana and their enlightenment tech. So far so consistent with previous play throughs on other game versions.

Incidentaly, i always offer military access as a sweatener to trade agreements. More often than not it works, and as the AI can't backstab you from within your territory, it comes with minimal risk.

Now I had no illusions of a lasting peace with Morocco or Portugal, just a few turns of trade, and Morocco did duly DoW after about 4 turns. Portugal never did however, and i did the dirty on them by about turn 6 or 8.

After I'd captured dutch Guyana and Curacao from the UP, they upped their game in Europe and captured first flanders and then France! I'd not seen this before but have heard of it happening. I re-captured paris and greedily wanted to keep it. After a couple of turns it all turned to the worse and a rebelious French army appeared (without drawing me into conflict with france though -weird), so I decided to cut my losses and invest in my ally. However, I couldn't for the life of me persuade France to trade or even accept Paris back for nothing. I literally offered them France as a gift and they wouldn't take it!

Now, i'm, not sure if the presence of a rebelious army of their nation (or any) is what detered them from it but when reloading to a save immediatly following my capture of Paris, France happily accepted my gift. They still wouldn't trade it for Savoy though...

Durallan

06-24-2009, 15:52

Diplomacy is DEFINETLY/Entirely broken. First I thought Didz might have just been very annoyed because something really upset him, but no, playing a campaign again, diplomacy is definetly broken.

Started a Prussian campaign (M/M), Got Bavaria, Hannover Wurttemburg Wesphalia Georgia and Savoy to become my protectorates. I realised I wasn't going to get anywhere in europe so I decided I would send an army to the new world. 27 years later that still hasn't happened.

Austria declared war on Wurttemburg, so I join in to defend them. I take most of Austria bar 2 provinces, Polands protectorate Saxony decides halfway through that it wants to take my capital, my large army is right next door and destroys Saxony.

At this point Poland decides it doesn't like me anymore and declares war. I take Poland and beat it down to one province which is sieged by a full stack army.

Halfway through destroying Poland I realise that Russia is also an enemy of Poland and Austria, so I become their allies.

Serbia rebels against the austrians so I send an army to take it. End Turn. During Austria's turn it sends a large stack of those annoying irregulars along with some horse artillery. With my army heavily depleted I barely win and kill the prince of Austria aswell. When it comes to Russia's turn, they decide to DECLARE WAR ON ME.

There is no logical reason that it should have declared war on me considering I just beat 2 major nations to their knees, We were allies for a few years and had been trading partners for much longer
and both had Sweden AND Poland as enemies.

There are several nations in my game that are war with all of europe for no apparent reason. I really was hoping this patch might change things, but diplomacy is still hopeless.

Okay Russia is a similar sized country to me and to some people maybe they think russia thought it was a good time to pick on me, Then CA can at least get Russia to either send me a letter of demands before it declares war or give some sort of pathetic excuse in a news bulletin telling me why theyve declared war before the DoW panel comes up.

Sheogorath

06-24-2009, 17:00

In all honesty, TW has always had bad to crap diplomacy. Atleast Shogun was fun about it though. :)

Geisha diplomacy :hairpin3:

:laugh4:

Lemur

06-24-2009, 17:05

Zenicetus

06-24-2009, 17:10

Just keep trying to remember stating what difficulty you are playing on. I know the red mist can get in the way sometimes.

It really helps to determine if YOU are insane to expect VH to play with any sanity, or Medium, in which sanity IS part of what I experience.

Seconded.

I'll jump on the "diplomacy is broken" bandwagon too, but there should be differences at the various difficulty settings. Given the limited scope of the game where territorial expansion is the only real goal, we should be expecting more hostility and war declarations at the highest difficulty settings. I'm playing my current Empire campaign at M difficulty and I'm seeing some illogical DOW's, but I don't think I'm seeing as many as some here. The M difficulty is probably the baseline where the devs are trying to make diplomacy work best, and where we can figure out what's broken or not.

If CA is using a similar "constantly degrading relations" system at H and VH settings like they did in M2TW (are they? does anyone know?), then yeah... you'll have the whole world ganged up against you, and constant illogical DOW's. That's just how the CA devs think of "difficulty" in this game, based on prior versions. It can be a trap to think you're an experienced strategy game player, and therefore you should jump in right at VH setting, and anything else is gimped. Some games like this play out more realistically (or at least, more predictably) at the medium settings, where the AI isn't acting quite as crazy (but still crazy). :dizzy2:

Equilibrium

06-24-2009, 17:29

I'd say it's not broken but simply their new principle of having arch enemies that they talked about in one of the daily updates.
Just like you I've not been able to make peace with poland at any time as prussia but with the russians, france and even the austrians after taking away two provinces and destroying bavaria for a small fee of money they all agreed to peace and have kept it so far.

Lemur

06-24-2009, 17:32

Hmm, okay, I'll re-start my UP campaign on M/M and see if that makes a diff.

Marquis of Roland

06-24-2009, 17:32

Yup, the new AI forces you to blitz or die. No room for this so-called "diplomacy."

Since I like to roleplay, and not expand much past historical bounds, I find this intensely irritating. I may have to leave ETW alone until the next patch.

Same here. I'm not being forced to take more territory, but since it's a region that I need to win, I figure I'll just go ahead and take it early. This causes a chain reaction effect of the faction next to your new region will declare war, and soon its hard to stop.

Hannover used to never declare war on Prussia, but this time they did, so I got sucked into killing them, then Denmark declares war, and after I take Copenhagen Sweden declares war. Pretty sure if the Dutch didn't take Rhineland, Westphalia would've declared war too. As it is now, they're only trying to buy Hannover from me every turn.

I usually try to spread out the taking of the 14 required regions over a span of 60 years, but it's 1725 and I'm pretty much there already. I'm not gonna say the AI randomly declares war, I mean all the factions that have done so had a legitimate reason to. I will say that the AI is being unreasonably aggressive, same as it was in M2TW, and in RTW, etc. etc. etc.

On the bright side, my infantry are leveling up a lot faster than before. By 1720, all the infantry in both my field armies are 4xp.

Sheogorath

06-24-2009, 18:32

*Sigh*

I guess I'm going to have to rethink my general optimism on this particular subject and agree with the people who say diplomacy isn't working now.

Ten turns into my Russian campaign, I've had Georgia, Dageistan and the Ottomans on my case since turn 5. Persia jumped in recently as well. None of them will accept peace under any terms.

Can we get a hotfix, CA? I'm all for a nice bit of war every now and then, but it's no fun when everybody gangs up on you.

FactionHeir

06-24-2009, 18:50

Cheetah

06-24-2009, 19:05

There is no logical reason that it should have declared war on me ...

1, Just tell me that in real life how many times do you see people behave logically? Since when is human behaviour motivated by purely by logic alone?

2, Why do you guys think that everyone else should behave the way you would behaved in their place? Why do you think that if they do not behave the exact same way then the game is "definitely broken"?!?

Cheetah

06-24-2009, 19:15

Yup, the new AI forces you to blitz or die.

No it does not. Being in war does not mean that you have to conquer. Conquering is still your choice.

In my Poland game (though it was pre-patch) I was in war with the Prussians, Austria and the Crimean-chanate. They did not send anyting to me, I did not send anything to them for more then 2 decades! It felt like total tranquility and not total war. I was able to tech up and build everything with 4 landlocked provinces!

Another example: in my GRB game the hurons declared war on me (as usual I assume). They sent a dozen or so raiding parties to Moose factory. Defeated them all; now they have not sent anyone for many years. I don't touch them, they don't touch me yet we are still at war.

I none of the cases was I forced to blitz and in both of the cases I am well and alive. It is your choice. :yes:

Marquis of Roland

06-24-2009, 19:28

Yes, make em gang up on each other, why always the human player? That's just utterly ridiculous. THis game should be fun and more or less equal for all parties involved rather than being a "bash the human" fest.

In fact, even with the constant DoWs, the AI is still no challenge for any half way decent player because they are so happily at peace with each other. If they actually fought each other like they fight the human, they could actually expand and turn into superpowers you know.

They do fight each other. Hell, they fight each other more than they fight me. People complain about the AI not attacking when they DoW, well this is probably why. I don't see Austria, Poland, Sweden, and Russia just drop their current choking of each other to team up and wipe me out. When I look at the campaign map during their turns, at about 2 or 3 regions change hands every turn in Eastern Europe.

So its not the AI ganging up on you, its more like you walked into a bar for a drink and there just happens to be a bar fight going on. The guy next to you MIGHT swing at you, or he might swing at the next guy. Who knows?

@Cheetah
You are exactly right, it is still up to Human players whether or not to blitz. In my case I blitzed to a bottle-neck and stopped.

FactionHeir

06-24-2009, 19:56

I'm not saying they don't fight each other, but rather that if you border them, they WILL always declare war on your if you fall below a certain number of enemies unless you are allied with them and have great relations. If not allied but great relations, they will still declare war on you, regardless of how bogged down they are.

Similarly, the AI declares war on the player a lot more than against other AI factions. Example fact being none of the American Indian factions declare war on the AI. They will however always declare war on you.

Marquis of Roland

06-24-2009, 20:21

Actually, they'll still declare war on you if you are allies. There are just some regions that certain factions take offense to other people owning. France will always attack anyone who owns Alsace-Lorraine. Spain will always attack whoever owns Gibraltar. And so on.

The AI also does not declare war more on the player than on other AI factions. Just look at the diplomacy window; most major factions are at war with more factions than you I wager.

The American Indians do attack British, Spanish, and Americans, but do not seem to attack the French. That makes sense historically, I guess. I do see a big Cherokee empire every once in awhile.

FactionHeir

06-24-2009, 20:29

YOu must be playing a different game then, because in none of my games, save RTI and where I was involved in getting the Natives to go to war with other factions by being an ally on either end, they never declared war on the other Euro nations holding colonies there (or the colonies themselves).

The only time there was some sort of war was Spain deciding to attack the Pueblo and then the Cherokee, but the Indians themselves never declared war. They do against the human player though.

Add to that, CA announced in the most recent patch that emerging factions are only at war with the human, not with AI, which suggests that really, its a human vs AI game rather than a free for all.

Marquis of Roland

06-24-2009, 20:39

Sorry, I misread your post Factionheir. I thought you meant if they attack the euro factions, not if they declare war :oops: I just know they do fight each other. How do you tell who initiates the DoW?

I agree that the game should give the AI certain advantages, the way things are now, the AI needs as much help as it can get, that doesn't mean the AI factions get together to formulate a master plan against the player though.

FactionHeir

06-24-2009, 20:40

Tells you in the war report at the start of turn.

jsberry

06-24-2009, 20:40

Monsieur Alphonse

06-24-2009, 21:00

In my game the Native Americans declare war on AI Western factions. In my latest GB campaign they even declared war on each other. But of course they will DoW you when you share a border with them. As will do all the minor factions. But even the major factions declare war like madmen.

Spain started a war against me and lost Spain, Gibraltar and Portugal. Then I was able to sign a peace agreement. Several turns later they DoWed me again only to get rid of Naples and Sardinia. this left them with Lombardi. My standing with them was -934. The Spanish king must eaten English flesh for breakfast every morning. Since their hate was too much they declared war again and marched their army to wards Naples. Somehow they forgot that they were at war with Savoy as well. Bye bye Spain.

And I am at war with Poland for 70 years. We never fought a battle, but they wont sign a peace agreement.

Fisherking

06-24-2009, 21:24

I have to admit that it seems like AI vs. player and I think that is the root of the matter.

Since there is now the penalty for not honoring agreements the latest tactic seems to be a trade partner declares war on a protectorate. (the last one I had in a GB campaign was Sweden going to war with the 13 Colonies)

The tribes do go to war with other European factions however. The Cherokee are indiscriminate in their DoWs. The others do seem to concentrate on the player instead of AI factions from what I can see. My war with France was also over the Colonies, but they actually attacked and took some of them. Never mind that the let one rebel to become the US.

There is still the illogical behavior of blockaded ports not being cleared and trading partners seem to be top priorities for AI DoWs. I could have easily made a trade agreement with Denmark but did not just to see what happened. Denmark may be the only country in Europe who has not been at war with its neighbors. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire has one of the strongest fleets in the game, but all their trade is blocked by a Polish Brig and they won’t clear the port. At least for another 10 or 20 turns. Still though, the DoWs do not seem to be quite as bad as in the past. I have managed to avoid most entanglements in Europe but I have one ally and no protectorates. Trade partners are dwindling and those actively trading is an ever shrinking commodity.

But this is only the first campaign with the new patch. I am not ready to condemn it across the board. But perhaps soon...:laugh4:

Discoman

06-25-2009, 03:15

I just started a campaign today as the U.S and I ended it in several hours because of how annoying it was getting. I'm not sure what the difficulty was because you're not allowed to pick it, but everyone, no matter what their allegiance was, declared war on me. Five turns in Britain declared war and invaded, and then the Iroquois, and then two turns later the Cherokee. Eventually I manage to recapture Boston and Maine from Britain and secure a peace settlement. I think things are about to turn until Spain, who was 'friendly' with me, declares war and takes Georgia and the Carolinas in one turn.

I ended it in frustration after Boston was taken by the Iroquois, who I couldn't get any peace settlement with. My economy starts off non-existent and it doesn't help that they revamped the economy system in 1.2 , so I was pretty much fated to lose.

peacemaker

06-25-2009, 04:06

after reading many of these posts, I can't help but think that "Total War" IS in the title of the game, so I don't have that big of a problem beign at war with so many natinos. In a Spanish campaign, though, by turn 5 I was allied with France, protector of New Spain, and at war with like 20 nations. Most of these were pirates and Native Americans, but still! It's kind of stupid and I really wish that some nations would go for peace when it's clear they're losing.

I think that one of the best solutions for this is to have nations tell you why they might be mad at you, and why they would potentionally declare war on you.

Beskar

06-25-2009, 05:00

peacemaker making a quip about its title in my Empire:Total War thread? Shame on you.

Prodigal

06-25-2009, 07:18

Regarding the OP, I've now tried 3 games as Prussia on h/h since the patch.

The first I played as a pre-patch game, spamming trade ships, & attacking poland. I gave that up pretty quick as the trade ships got wiped out & everyone declared war on me.

Second game, I stayed very quiet & simply built up home economy & troops in my two regions, by '21 I was allied with Poland against Austria, had not been attacked by courland on the smaller neighbours, Austria was wiped out, Poland & Prussia having pretty much divided it up. Felt like I'd been steamrollering though so started my current game.

Once again stayed quiet but allied with all the small countries to the west, this led to eventually to allying with Austria. Nobody randomly attacked me, I've got stable trade with the local regions & have just declared war on Poland. Currently I am at war with denmark, sweden, poland & courland. I've far more allies & than in a normal game & they're not acting weird, (sweden's an exception but I guess they want denmark).

So what's the point of all the above, well I'm not paying factions off, they're being reasonable & not going lemming, based on this I'm not sure where the problem is in the diplomacy in fact it seems like a great imrpovement.

FactionHeir

06-25-2009, 09:02

al Roumi

06-25-2009, 12:14

Allies are much less likely to betray your in ETW, but as long as you are not allied, relations play no role in diplomacy and they will declare war on you. So if you start off by allying with everyone (making sure you don't get into historical wars), there will be few who can declare war on you.

It may be true that allies are less likely to declare war on you than a trade partner is, but what's not clear is why they do when they do. For my part it's the un-predictability of who will betray you which is frustrating.

Defining some conflicts, there is a relation affecting variable (historic grievances, or somesuch -displayed in the diplomacy screen) which is presumably a fudge factor used (along with the pre-existing web of alliances)to nudge AIs into the type of historic conflicts of the age.

It would be great (and might help move this discussion on) to know exactly by what mechansim faction AI's decide to go to war. As you say FactionHeir, indifferent or Friendly nations go to war with apparently little traceable link to diplomatic relations -whic players would assume to drive such decisions.

My gut feeling is that the cause of these inconsistencies is not slack code but conflicts between the overlay of campaign and faction AIs. i.e. when the campaign AI overrules or over influences the faction AI with it's own priorities.

IMHO, such an overlay of 2 decision making systems will always result in bizarre and un-expected events (needless to say there are inumerable examples of this outside of ETW, like what governments say& do...). What, again IMO, players appreciate in strategic games is the capacity to analyse, evaluate and respond to rivals and their priorities -as Owen has described in his posts on CIV4 (in another thread).

Currently, I feel the campaign AI is ruinning that feeling of competing with rivals by inserting the equivalent of sticks in the wheel of considered and strategic game play.

I hereby move for an action to lobotomise ETW's campaign AI, all those in favour say Aye! please

Fisherking

06-25-2009, 12:32

Well, I just had some diplomacy that made complete sense and was anything but random.

I knocked out the French. Spain was a happy trade partner, however they sent a diplomatic proposal asking for France in exchange for most of their European holdings plus Cuba and New Mexico, with the little cash they had on hand. I turned it down and I got an immediate DoW from them, showing that they intended on having France one way or another. I still don't know that they have armies to take it but it had a definite intent behind the proposal.
:2thumbsup:

FactionHeir

06-25-2009, 12:41

Right, so instead of pestering you every second turn to have you turn over a region, they now declare war outright on you if you refuse the first time? :laugh4:

Fisherking

06-25-2009, 12:46

It beats all the nagging you know.:yes:

.
:laugh4:

timski

06-25-2009, 15:24

The game is called "Total War"...

Certainly feels like there has been a shift away from the old tactics, where a short war could be waged over 1 or 2 regions, after which peace was easy to secure. As England, I was more than happy to make peace with Spain after "liberating" Flanders in turn 2, but Spain was just insulted. Tactically neither of us were in a position to continue the war (at least not for several turns), nor did Spain show any signs of responding militarily.

Another patch 1.3 mistake I made was establishing to many alliances with distant minor nations. Within a few turns conflict was breaking out between my allies, forcing me to break alliances, which reduced trust among others. Rapidly almost the whole diplomatic map was red.

Given that the "alliance with an enemy nation" is a big negative (Spain hates me more for that, than being at war and expanding into its territory), and dishonoring/not honoring treaties tends to have a significant worldwide impact, I think allies need to be entered into with considerably more care than I did in the past. Genuinely only ally with nations that you are prepared to go to war for, and avoid allying with nations that border one another.

timski

06-25-2009, 21:58

Specific example:

I'm allied with Austria, and have a trade agreement with the Ottomans. The Ottomans declare war on Austria. I join with my ally. In the same turn 3 other wars are declared on other allies/protectorates, and I join my allies in all cases (but I don't break any treaties by declaring war against those). The net result of acting to support 4 allies, but breaking 1 trade agreement, is a -49 diplomatic penalty with most of Europe for "not honoring treaties". Even with Austria, who seem unwilling to understand that I broke a treaty solely in my support of them. Since it is only the start of the 4th turn, the -49 means that all but a handful of nations start to dislike me, and suddenly further diplomacy becomes rather tricky.

Lemur

06-25-2009, 22:59

I tried UP again last night on M/M. It certainly seems as though war is forever in this game. Dragged into conflict by my alliance with Britain, I now fin myself unable to get a peace treaty with either Spain or France no matter what I offer them. Irritating.

I'm going to save, and see if offering my entire empire will tempt France into not attacking me for one whole turn.

Razor1952

06-26-2009, 01:53

Personally overall can't agree, sure sometimes you wonder about an unexpected DOW, but someone else said its Total war isn't it.?, who said diplomacy had to be logical, for that matter who said women were logical..., look around, trust no-one in this age of global financial crisis, don't even trust those pixellated so-called friends in ETW.

Yun Dog

06-26-2009, 02:02

I love hearing the "its called total war"

So get rid of diplomacy completely

ship the game with all factions at war all game with no diplomacy button

see what review score the game gets

see how many units sell

(actually the game would probably play better with the AI not being confused :idea2:)

I think youll find they pretend the game has diplomacy for a reason

cause endless battles with no context gets old real quick - just look at MP :oops:

and to add to my woe, I now have a repeated end of turn CTD - game killer - In my current VH campaign as Prussia

I love the game - it just gets harder and harder to play it

Durallan

06-26-2009, 05:08

Okay having calmed down since yesterday and my game getting back to some strange sort of normality, I will change my position slightly, I still believe that diplomacy is broken, because there are obviously somethings happening that just shouldn't, and I don't believe the total war argument, otherwise why would they even bother with a campaign map? just go into quickstart battles and you have all the wars you want.

Having said that Russia seems to be rather illogical. Here is the irony...

I finally got Spain to be my ally and I also bought Hispaniola off them for Courland and the territory just above it (sweet bargain) my income went up by 5000 a turn just getting a new world territory. The Leader of Spain is Carlos the Second, a Mad Raving Lunatic who apparently raves and dribbles at the slightest excitement. Obviously the spainish faction AI is now so deranged it doesn't mind allying with the Prussian Empire.

However Russia's leader who doesn't have any insane traits does seem to be upset with me. I guess Russia must want some territories I own but I would LIKE THE GAME TO TELL ME THAT. No AI faction yet has asked me about the regions they want and what they might want to give me in return. Sometime ago out of the blue i got a faction asking me for some techs in return for some crappy one and 120 gold. Anyway, Russia is definetly a bully, it has declared war on me several times. The first time It broke our ALLIANCE (we had enemies to fight together against and he had an enemy on his north and south borders so why have an enemy on his western border aswell?) and raided my provinces. I Defeated his invading armies (scouts) and sued for peace (A peace treaty and trade agreement and alliance) he agreed. (Venice my other ally got upset at me allying with his enemy) One turn later Russia declares war. I get very angry at this point and take St Petersburg pillage it a little and continue marching the army to Moscow. I take moscow and looking at how nice it is I was thinking of keeping it. I destroyed his religious and science buildings and was prepearing to build my own when i thought I'd wonder if hed accept his territories back for a peace treaty. He did.

I actually get peace for a couple of years. Then he decides to declare war on me once I moved my large army to the west coast to prepare for invasions. I decide to see if I can sue for peace, somehow Russia gave me a counter offer of 12,000 gold and a peace treaty and trade agreement. I accept while telling russia its a nasty evil piece of work lol, but the current peace seems to be holding ( I have a half stack army right next door to the Ukraine in case he decides he doesn't want to be at peace anymore.

Having said that once I built my very nice army, First proper army, Denmark declared war on Hannover out of the blue, I thought perfect, I've always wanted Copenhagen and Iceland so I took those, of course denmark hasn't accepted peace, and I'm not suprised at that considering I took their home, but I don't have to worry about them because theyre at war with sweden.

After that I noticed Great Britain had a new queen, Adelaide the First, that made me giggle (that's my home town) so i figured I would ally with great britain. Two turns later, they declare war on Spain, leading me into a war against them... So much for the alliance! lol

speaking up for the Ai for a moment I was recently impressed by Great Britain invading and wiping out the Barbary States. They took all their cities over an amount of time which impressed me greatly.

Having said that I don't buy the agreement that being at war with another nation if they don't attack you means your at peace or if they attack you its entirely up to you to conquer them, the irony is that the game has a way now of letting you know roughly how you are doing compared to other nations (the Prestige scores) yet apparently the AI cannot compare its score to yours and figure out my military is better than its military is.

Even if the scores are similar, I would like to see the AI's would actually go through and attack me, and if we are separated by sea, then they send a force to attack me ( although that doesn't mean I want a far off nation to declare war and attack me out of the blue just if my current enemy like sweden can't reach me by land then if my navy isn't too powerful then it try and chance a sea invasion)

Another good thing for the AI that i've seen is that my protectorates have never betrayed me and we are getting close to the 100 turn mark, so that's another pleasant suprise, However another problem is that when i ask these minor nations to help me attack a nation like russia, they don't send any armies, even though they have complete military access through my lands.

I would wager that the AI might be working better than v1.0 but there is still much to be improved before it gets anywhere near on a par with games like Civilizations 4 and Galactic Civilizations 2.

Elmar Bijlsma

06-26-2009, 05:50

Ah yes. Good old "It's called Total War".
Could any of the gentlemen who used that line perhaps explain what they think Total War means? Could you look it up? THANK YOU!
The diplomacy in this game is bogus, and you know it is bogus. Some silly rationalization based on an erroneous understanding of the title will not make it any less bogus.

A Very Super Market

06-26-2009, 06:31

Total war simply means the devotion of an entire nation's resources into a war, not a huge fight between everyone. I felt like being annoying, so whatever.

Prodigal

06-26-2009, 08:34

crpcarrot

06-26-2009, 10:51

Turbosatan

06-26-2009, 11:19

Right last post on this as I'm coming out of the closet, there's nothing wrong with the diplomacy. That it doesn't work the way people think it should doesn't make it broken or bugged.

Damn straight. The amount of "it doesn't work the way it does in my head/in the actual 18th Century/in films/in Sharpe novels so it must be broken" threads I've seen since this game was released actually scares me. In MTW1, there were hundreds of features not covered by the manual or that did not work in a way that a new person to the game might consider intuitive -- the game had its kinks, its surprises, its limitations. To this day, people post on the MTW forums about how this is indicative of the game's great depth, its subtlety, its replay value. I think CA have aimed for the same thing with ETW, but the bugs at the game's release have soured all goodwill toward the game, skewing people's opinions so that unreasonable expectations are set in players' minds, leading them to post loudly & disappointedly when they find something they do not like or confuses them or works in a way that is different to their opinion of how it should be implemented.

You guys need to stop a minute & try to evaluate the actual game in & of itself, rather than comparing it to some utopian Platonic ideal that exists only in your heads. If you don't like it, fine, post away, but the use of the word "broken" has turned into a code that means the person using it can immediately get take umbrage (somewhere just outside Troy, I believe) & swell themselves up with self-righteousness.

OTOH, & being less charitable, it's like people don't know what the word "broken" means. On the various TW forums, if a player finds something not to their liking, then it must be broken.

For instance: today, the sun wouldn't stop shining, hurting my eyes. Therefore I declare the weather broken & demand God fixes it to my (& only my) satisfaction. Anything less will result in a class action lawsuit.

al Roumi

06-26-2009, 11:23

i second prodigal

i dont think think diplomacy is perfect and i would love to see a civ 4 type diplomacy in game but i havent seen this alleged random DOW in my games . its probably my play style

its absurd for players to expect the IA to respond according to their version of whats logical and call the game broken if it does do exactly that. what would be the point of playing th game if you knew what the AI was going to do anyway???

Waow, what factions have you been playing? Have you engaged in any diplomatic relations? Had alliances with any neighbouring factions? Any protectorates? Not seen things like Poland, even though it has no port, declaring war on Malta?

Random isn't perhaps the right term, it's more that the decision making by some factions seems bizarre and inconsistent with what, ultimately, a human player might try to do in the same situation.

Knowing, to a degree of confidence, what the AI is up to or not means that you can actually plan around and with your allies and enemies, and maybe swing some undecided factions your way or another. I find it irritating when I've worked towards an agreement or something, only for it to be ripped up on the basis of nothing that i can understand.

I have no issue with people declaring war on me, it IS what the game is about, but I prefer it when such DoWs come from factions whom I'm not actually "friendly" with.

Didz

06-26-2009, 12:02

i dont think think diplomacy is perfect and i would love to see a civ 4 type diplomacy in game but i havent seen this alleged random DOW in my games . its probably my play style
I find that really have to believe as usually at least one occurs within the first few turns.

What factions have you played and at what difficult level?
And how many factions are you are war with by say the 10th turn of the game?

I'm currently playing France on Easy Campaign Difficulty just to test if it affects the volume of Random DOW's. It didn't but the 1.3 patch does seem to have results in my game going relatively quiet. I've only had 1 x Random DOW's in the last 10 turns or so, from Austria that couldn't actually reach me so I avoided the event by reloading and replaying the end of turn. Britiain offered me a trade for Kentucky which I refused but it didn't follow through. Britain is bankrupt in my game anyway simply because Prussia stuck a fleet in Greenwich on turn 2 and they never sent an army from London to liberate the port.

The other thing I've noticed with 1.3 is that now the pirates attack the Trade Ports none of the AI factions send any ships there. France actually has all the trade theatres to itself, even though I deliberately restrict myself to using no more than one Trade Post in each theatre, the others just sit empty.

Durallan

06-26-2009, 12:23

The 18th century was not known as a golden age of diplomacy, everyone was tearing each other up in a global land grab. The main diplomatic tool of the time seemed based on having an army large enough to enforce your right to whatever you wanted. So while playing the game pop on a lice filled powered wig, & only drink beer or wine because water will kill you, it'll change your whole outlook on finesse diplomacy :yes:

Player: Russia we are both enemies with Poland and Sweden, lets ally up against them!

Russia AI : Sure!

*Poland Destoryed*

Russia AI: Player has destroyed poland with massive army. I have no massive army. Break Alliance and Attack Player.

Player: wtf? I thought we were allies!

Russia AI: send 2 small armies to harass Player's Buildings

Player: Dood if you don't sign this peace treaty I'm gunna destroy you.

Russia AI: NEVER! (Unless you give me everything you own.)

*Russia Destroyed*

Are you guys sure you are playing the same game?

while I have the imagination, I'm not going to use it to make up for the computer making lousy decisions. Computers should be putting 2 - 3 stack armies against a player if they really want to win, not the pathetic bunches they do right now.

Again like I said, I do not mind nations or big nations attacking me, if there is a good excuse, IE their ally declared war on me together they think they can beat me, breaking alliances is okay if the AI thinks it can win, but I find it hard to believe russia thought it could win, with it dealing with 2 different wars already, so you can make up whatever you want to think that diplomacy/AI faction reasoning works, but I agree with Didz and the others that it doesn't work as well as it should be working.

Okay Example: In Gal Civ 2 if an AI nation notices that its military is much superior to yours, it will begin to bully you and demand money and if you reject their threats then that can lead to war. THAT MAKES SENSE. Right now breaking an alliance without saying why doesn't make sense and yes while alot of things in life don't make sense, they do come with explanations where the Random DoW's in ETW don't.

Didz

06-26-2009, 13:26

I suspect these guys are just blitzing the game anyway, so they're not even trying to use the diplomacy system. Its the only way I can believe a statement that they have never seen a Random DOW. After all if you've already declared war on everyone anyway they can't DOW you. In that respect the Diplomacy system is an irrelevance to them.

I think its only fair to show some evidence of my own game to prove my point. The following image shows the diplomatic status of France at the end of 1720 in my game.

https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/558/france1720.jpg

As you can see I've managed to avoid being at war with everyone except the Barbary States and the Pirates. However, this has only been achieved by reloading and replaying the End of Turn everytime I get a Random DOW that does not make sense.

Even using this technique I was still forced to accept war with the Dutch in the opening few turns of the game, simply because they declared war on Spain. Whilst that was no doubt a random event, it did at least make sense and the Dutch did at least invade Flanders. The problem was that they flatly refused to make peace, even after their army had been defeated, and as their fluyts were causing problems to my trade routes I was forced to eliminate them from the game. [e.g. The Rabid Lemming issue still persists]

As you can see I've also managed to complete the French Mission without provoking Britain, mainly because Britain is bankrupt due to its failure to deal with a Prussian Fleet which has been occupying its trade port for over 15 years. This is another long term AI issue that hasn't been addressed in 1.3. As a result Britain is feeble and destitute, which probably means I shall have no trouble achieving my other goals in North America.

So, overall this has turned out to be a very easy campaign, but I have still had four Random DOW's so far even on Easy Difficulty. The idea that Patch 1.3 has cured this problem is not borne out by my experiences at all.

crpcarrot

06-26-2009, 14:12

i'm sorry didz but jsut becasuse we dont agree with your doent mean we dont know how to play the game.

i play on hard on H/H

i dont blitz and i never have from the time i started playing STW. i usually play to carve out a small empire and just roleplay the rest of the game or until i get bored and start another campaign.

i ahve had allies and i do have protectorates whome i support financially and militarily against my enemies.

as far as i can remember i havent been at war with more than 5-6 factions at a time. in my current campaign i dont think i ever had more than 4 enemies ata time and when i make reasonable offers for peace the AI has accepted it.

i have avoided posting about this because i expected exactly the reply i got. and whatever you may think about how me or others who agree that it is not perfect but certainly not broken, play, we are still entitled to our opinion and we would appreciate the same respect we give you when you post a half page rant be given to us. please dont make this forum another .com.

if the bugs were as bad as the end year bug in RTW then i would consider it broken. if you call this game broken i'ts a wonder you mangaed to ever play any previous TW titles.

"Random isn't perhaps the right term, it's more that the decision making by some factions seems bizarre and inconsistent with what, ultimately, a human player might try to do in the same situation."

if you expecting human reactions from an AI we are still a few years away from that mate. you will have to accept a level of .. well non human behaviour from any game.

and you are right random is probably the wrong word. i probably see plenty of what you would term random DOW but to be honest as long as its not to do with my faction i dont really pay much atrtnention unless its affecting my trade. and i certainly dont consider a minor faction declaring war on me randon or broken. sure i'm bigger than he is and he has no chance of defeating me totally. but if he has nowhere else to expand to and my bodering provinces are lightly guarded, why not?? its certaibly what some oppotunistic humans would do. maybe it was trying to grab the provice and sell ti back to me? or sell ti to someone else. point is i dont know and just cos i dont know i dont assume its broken.

edit please excuse my bad typing. somehow everytime i use a keyboard i beocme very dyslexic.

Didz

06-26-2009, 14:21

i'm sorry didz but jsut becasuse we dont agree with your doent mean we dont know how to play the game.
I never said you don't know how to play the game. What I said was the only way I think that you might be able to avoid having any 'Random DOW' is if you were blitzing the map and thus there were no factions available at peace with you for the 'screw the play routine' to use to declare war on you. I was actually responding to your own comment that we must be playing the game differently.

None of the other reasons you have mentioned would have any effect on the 'Random DOW' event because its completely random and doesn't take anything from the diplomacy system into account. The only thing that might shut it up is if when it triggers it perceives that the player is already at war with the miniumum number of factions it has been programmed to accept and so it can see no need to create further strife for the player. Some players have noted that deliberately declaring war or remote AI factions can placate the 'player hate routine'.

However, as has been noted repeatedly Allies, Friends even protectorates can and do declare war at random on the players faction, if the Random DOW routine decree's it.

"Random isn't perhaps the right term, it's more that the decision making by some factions seems bizarre and inconsistent with what, ultimately, a human player might try to do in the same situation."
I disagree, Random is the only word for it, as the events have no logical explanation, and more to the point if you reload from the 'Autosave' and run the End of Turn again they rarely re-appear. Proving beyond doubt that their appearance had nothing to do with the diplomatic or strategic situation but was simple a random event triggerred by an unlucky roll of the 'player hate routine'.

if you expecting human reactions from an AI we are still a few years away from that mate. you will have to accept a level of .. well non human behaviour from any game.
Nope! I just expect CA to produce a strategy game that approximately equates to the standards produced by other designers. As things stand it is impossible to play this game strategically, because the diplomacy system is either not being used, or is broken.

Lemur

06-26-2009, 14:27

I've been having less of a problem with random DOWs and more of a problem with countries who roleplay the Black Knight from Holy Grail (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno). When their armies are destroyed, the lands seized and your boot is on their neck, they might want to think about accepting peace.

It's the state of perma-war that irritates me. Previous to this patch the nations weren't so bulldoggish.

Husar

06-26-2009, 14:54

:smash: Right last post on this as I'm coming out of the closet, there's nothing wrong with the diplomacy. That it doesn't work the way people think it should doesn't make it broken or bugged.

1700-1800 countries made & tore up treaties with each other any time they felt like it. Alliances are what you make in order to get something you want, accepting or declining to join in a war should be done based on what you're trying to get.

It would be valid if the AI actually would make alliances and peace, but all they ever do is declare war and then keep that status until either faction is eliminated.
I must say my spanish campaign is now in 1757 and while the random declarations of war have stopped, which makes m somewhat happy, there has not been a single peace treaty signed in the entire campaign, except if initiated by myself!

All we expect is that the AI factions behave somewhat reasonable, that they don't go to berserk mode like the third reich and try to take on everybody at once and completely exhaust eachother until the player steamrolls them, something like that, I just invaded three turkish provinces and they didn't send a single of their full stacks to prevent me from doing that, maybe that was because they're at war with Austria, several italian states, Marathas etc. or maybe' they're just stupid.
So I took the fourth province, Baghdad, before the huge marathas empire could, turkey besieged it with a full stack later on but Marathas wanted the province from me, plus 5900 gold in return for giving me unlimited military access (pretty useless considering Marathas is the only faction in that direction), I declined, they declared war. Now that's not bad, having demands before declaring war, but there are still quite a few holes, I will probably have to conquer all of India now to get "peace" with them, what I'd find more useful is to beat them in a few battles, maybe take a province or two and then negotiate a peace treaty once they lost their major armies and found out they cannot stop me easily anymore. Instead, the current AI seems to fight until you take their last province which is just rediculous, self-destructive berserk behaviour and not what you expect from a so-called "strategy game" since berserk mode is not really a strategy.

Husar

06-26-2009, 15:29

edit: just tried and offered peace to Marathas before we even fought a single battle and they accepted, relations are friendly now. Could this be tied to how the relations are like in previous titles?
Iff so, I guess this needs a change, a crushed opponent will hardly be friendly towards you, yet it makes sense for them to accept a peace deal.

actual edit: guess that was the quote button... :sweatdrop:

Cheetah

06-26-2009, 17:32

Diplomacy is DEFINETLY/Entirely broken. First I thought Didz might have just been very annoyed because something really upset him, but no, playing a campaign again, diplomacy is definetly broken.

Started a Prussian campaign (M/M), Got Bavaria, Hannover Wurttemburg Wesphalia Georgia and Savoy to become my protectorates. I realised I wasn't going to get anywhere in europe so I decided I would send an army to the new world. 27 years later that still hasn't happened.

...[snip]...

There is no logical reason that it should have declared war on me considering I just beat 2 major nations to their knees, We were allies for a few years and had been trading partners for much longer
and both had Sweden AND Poland as enemies.

There are several nations in my game that are war with all of europe for no apparent reason. I really was hoping this patch might change things, but diplomacy is still hopeless.

Okay Russia is a similar sized country to me and to some people maybe they think russia thought it was a good time to pick on me, Then CA can at least get Russia to either send me a letter of demands before it declares war or give some sort of pathetic excuse in a news bulletin telling me why theyve declared war before the DoW panel comes up.

I agree with your last point, it would be nice to get some official reasoning why the war broke out (which may or may not be the same as the real reason). However, don't you think that it is bit hasty to conclude based on one DoW which seemed to be irrational to you, that diplomacy is entirely broken?

By the way IMO you just captured one of the eastern polish provinces (Vilnius?) which might be amongst the Russian victory conditions. Also, would not you be afraid of a "friend" who keeps conquering its neighbours?

Cheetah

06-26-2009, 17:50

I suspect these guys are just blitzing the game anyway, so they're not even trying to use the diplomacy system. Its the only way I can believe a statement that they have never seen a Random DOW. After all if you've already declared war on everyone anyway they can't DOW you. In that respect the Diplomacy system is an irrelevance to them.

This is definitely not the case. I give you examples.

1, First game I play Poland. (it was pre-patch)

Prussia DoWs on me.
Sweden attacks Courland, I join in.
Later on the Chrimean Chanate captures Kiev and after that DoWs on me.
Courland beats back the Swedish attack; I propose peace, they accept.
For some 20 years I got no DoWs (and I have 4 inland provinces).
I build up a decent stack and take out the Chrimena chanate, then take Saxony from the Prussians.
First Austria, then the Ottomans Dows on me (I had bad relations with both).
Russia holds out as an ally through the game (even though I am completely blocking their way to Europe and reject their offers for Vilnius).

Wich one of these Dows are "random"?

2, Second game I play GBR.

It is 1730 and I received only one Dow in the game: form the Hurons who attacked Moose factory. Also, I am very far from "blitzing", I captured only the pirate islands, Mauritius, Florida, and Carolina.

Allies got the following Dows (relatively early on):

Austria from: Prussia, Poland and Russia (I join in)
UP from Maratha (I join in)
Portugal from Spain (I refuse)
13 colonies from all native factiosnexcept Hurons and from France (I join in)

much later:

13 colonies from Sweeden (I reject because Sweeden is my trade partner)

Which one of the above do you think is a random DoW?

So, overall this has turned out to be a very easy campaign, but I have still had four Random DOW's so far even on Easy Difficulty. The idea that Patch 1.3 has cured this problem is not borne out by my experiences at all.

Could you list the Dows you got, perhaps they were not entirely random?

Also, you reload the game whenever you got attacked and conclude that it was very easy (on easy difficulty!).

resonantblue

06-26-2009, 17:54

Gotta add my weight here.

Last patch seemed better overall though one improvement they made that I definitely noticed in 1.3 is that when you make peace with someone it at least holds for more than 1 turn before they DoW you again.

I find if I want to make peace to keep a buffer I usually have to crush the faction I'm at war with and give all the territory I didn't want to take to another faction. Of course I can only do th is so many times before I run out of actions and end with total world domination.

1.2 was much better about the AI accepting peace deals and was far more historical. During the era when your army was thoroughly beaten peace was often made. Didn't need to take half of their territory for them to even consider it.

Husar

06-26-2009, 18:09

Ordani

06-26-2009, 18:29

A Very Super Market

06-26-2009, 18:30

Well iny my game as Venice, even though I've been admittedly expansionist, it's only against muslims and pirates, Austria (Who has undergone a revolution, as has Spain and the Ottomans) has declared war on me. We were long-term trading partners, with 3000 in bonuses from that relation, we both had "Very Friendly" relations with each other, and the bottom-line is, I wasn't doing anything remotely that would have been a danger to him.

War.

TB666

06-26-2009, 18:45

Played a few rounds as Sweden on VH/VH.
Oddly enough, no wars in the first few turns like usual. Not even Courland bothered me.
Instead I could focus on improving my provinces.
And then after 10 turns, Russia decided to declare war however Denmark and Poland thought otherwise and didn't join Russia in the war.
I tried to get peace with them but nothing work. I offered them so much money yet they refused. So I focused all the money on building a better army.
They came with a big army and I meet them head-on and properly destroyed them.
Russia was quick and offered me a white peace treaty right after.

Owen Glyndwr

06-26-2009, 18:58

Some of you guys are talking about how you can't expect a human to behave logically, and the fact that the AI attacks out of the blue makes things more realistic. And in this sense, I agree. It is true that a lot of wars are started out of the blue, with no warning, and that the human player on many cases is just as guilty of this as the AI is. But even the most deranged king or ruler has a sense of self preservation. I think it would be very rare to see a King willingly sign his own death warrant.

I think if I could have the opportunity to fix any one aspect of the AI, it would be that, that they would be able to realize that if they do not perform x action, they will cease to exist, and then to do something to prevent that (whether it be signing a peace treaty, or picking off a weaker neighbor)

Durallan

06-26-2009, 19:36

Okay still playing as Prussia, Obviously Russia wants Vilinus from me, DoW on me, sent a large stack to attack it and I manage to thwart it with the army that was in a fort bordering their land ( I know I can't trust them anymore) After this I ask for peace, they say no. I take moldavia which they left completely unguarded, I offer peace moldavia and money, still no, I've already given Russia several territories including courland the one above that and moldavia (earlier on ) I'm not giving them anymore land, atm they should be concentrating on their battles with the venetians ottomans persians, swedes, spanish, french, british, I can't remember the rest.

Building an army to take moscow and this time, not giving it back.

Everytime I try to help Russia they stab me in the back (they get ALOT of money when i trade with them) obviously they want to remain poor and destitue and be destroyed and let me win the game.

so I shall do that.

Cheetah

06-26-2009, 20:02

Diplomacy is not "entirely broken" and it's important to make specific, qualified statements rather than blanket complaints. The DoWs are not random, they are in fact quite intentional and planned, but what they aren't is in the interest of the AI faction doing them OR a real threat to the player.

The real problem is that there is an entirely separate evaluation for when the AI declares war versus when it will engage in action against you, unlike the simpler model of say, Shogun, when you could expect any faction at war with you to probe your borders regularly. Because the "declare war" check is motivated by something entirely divorced from any analysis of the faction's interests, capabilities, and long term survival (the screw the player check), and because the AI can not manage itself well enough to have a real army in the field most of the time, the DoW doesn't mean anything.

This is further exacerbated by the AI highly weighting keeping a standing army to defend against any potential nearby threats, so the majority of their forces are confined to cities in indefinite stand-offs regardless of the state of belligerence, particularly along the Germanic frontiers where so many states border each other.

Fixing BOTH of those things would be great, but if they could fix at least one it would go a long way towards making the game more playable. Much like M, R, and M2, I expect however that most diplomatic functions will simply remain disabled.

I agree with most of what you say.:yes:

The real problem is that that: (1) the AI cannot handle the economy of the game (trade routs, research, developments, etc) thus on most occasions cannot field an army that can match the force of the player; (2) coupled with the fact that it keeps way too much troops in garrisons. Which means a huge upkeep (a full stack is around 5k, so if the AI garrisons 4 region capitals each with a full stack it is 20k per turn down the drain!) and ofc it results a static AI.
I am not sure though that the DoW decisions would be entirely out of the factions interest, they just do not take into account the real capability of the faction to mount an attack. It seems that AI when calculates strenght takes into account the static garrisons too with which ofc it will never move.
This is not to claim that the AI always makes good decisions, it is just that it makes reasonable decisions but cannot implement them due to highly static garrisons and due to failure to cope with the economic part of the game.

Zenicetus

06-26-2009, 21:01

I'm now playing ping pong with marathas, they declare war on me but don't attack yet, in my turn i propose peace and they accept it, their attitude towards me is always "friendly", then, two or three turns later, they declare war again without starting any battle or raid, in my turn I propose peace and they accept, their attitude towards me is "friendly", then...

Happened three times now I think and so far it looks like I can keep doing that ad absurdum. :dizzy2:

What difficulty setting are you playing on?

This sounds like the programmed, constant deterioration of relations on H and VH setting that was in M2TW, absent bribery or something else to stop the slide. At M difficulty relations would stay static, at Easy they'd slowly keep improving. If you're playing at M or Easy, that blows the theory.

This could also be the targeted province effect, if you're sitting on a province the AI needs for a win condition. There are a lot of overlapping "gotta have it" provinces in this game, and the world starts in a more developed state than M2TW or RTW.

Didz

06-27-2009, 08:05

It would be hasty to conclude that the Diplomacy system is broken if it were based upon a single illogical action by the AI. But its not, the stories of the dumb actions (or lack of actions) by the AI are numerous and my own testing has shown that the Random DOW's are just that, and are not influenced by logic, diplomacy, geopolitic's or the even an assessment of likely success.

The inability to get an AI faction to response sensibly to its current situation, its failure to act to try and minimise a threat or maximise an opportunty, and a general failure of the AI to understand the basic elements and factors that contribute to the survival and prosperity of the factions it controls, all indicate that the system is broken.

What we have instead is a 'player hate routine' the sole purpose of which is to ensure that the player faction is kept in a state of pertetual war, regardless of what strategy that player happens to be following or what the diplomacy system indicates the player factions status to be.

Ordani

06-27-2009, 08:23

It would be hasty to conclude that the Diplomacy system is broken if it were based upon a single illogical action by the AI. But its not, the stories of the dumb actions (or lack of actions) by the AI are numerous and my own testing has shown that the Random DOW's are just that, and are not influenced by logic, diplomacy, geopolitic's or the even an assessment of likely success.

Does trade work? Can you form alliances? Do your allies join wars with you? Can you send state gifts that do influence behavior, and bribe your way into long term trade agreements? Can you force states to become your protectorates on threat of war?

More importantly, do even factions you declare war on really fight back?

The unexpected, counterproductive DoWs are not random. They are reproducible from saves. The player-hate is a cheap cop out, and I dislike like it as much as the next person, but that's not a bug or an unintentional side effect. They want it to work that way. It may not make any diegetic sense, but there is an evaluation that sends factions to war with you. It just isn't an evaluation based on whether that faction has any hope of a good outcome (which is arguably dumb, but not random). This is the way every other Total War title has worked -- the difference is that the campaign factions in Empire are huffing paint and swilling Wild Irish Rose in between turns and thus aren't a threat to anyone except themselves.

Didz

06-27-2009, 09:06

Could you list the Dows you got, perhaps they were not entirely random?

They are all entirely Random, the test and proof of this is perfectly simple.

1) As soon as you get a DOW, reload the game from the Autosave taken just before you ended the last turn.

2) Re-run the end of turn.

If the DOW is based upon logic and the diplomatic/geopolitical situation at the end of that turn then nothing has changed and the same faction will DOW you every turn. If it doesn't, and never bothers you again then clearly it was a completely random event.

@Ordani: No they are NOT reproducible from saves thats the whole point. Nor is the selection of the opponent based on any evaluation of its likely success, or even abilty, to persecute a war against you, it is totally random.

It makes no difference what difficulty level you are on. At the moment I am trying a campaign on Easy Difficulty to test whether the frequency of the Random DOW events is lower at easier settings. The frequency is certainly lower on Easy since the patch, but the DOW's that do occur are still random.

I've also been told that the Random DOW's can be avoided provided as a faction you remain at war with a minimum number of AI controlled factions. I haven't tested this but assuming that the Random DOW's are triggerred by the 'Player Hate Routine' it would make logical sense to assume that if as a player you are already seen by the AI to be at war with several factions it might be programmed not to trigger any further wars.

The test for this will be to start a new campaign using a faction that has no colonial aspirations (e.g. Prussia/Austria) and to immdeiately declare war on all the Native American Factions and possibily the Indian factions that can't possibly interfere with your European goals. If as a result the 'Player Hate Routine' leaves you alone then that would prove the theory, that Random DOW's are only triggered to keep the player faction in a permanent state of conflict.

Husar

06-27-2009, 12:34

What difficulty setting are you playing on?

This sounds like the programmed, constant deterioration of relations on H and VH setting that was in M2TW, absent bribery or something else to stop the slide. At M difficulty relations would stay static, at Easy they'd slowly keep improving. If you're playing at M or Easy, that blows the theory.

This could also be the targeted province effect, if you're sitting on a province the AI needs for a win condition. There are a lot of overlapping "gotta have it" provinces in this game, and the world starts in a more developed state than M2TW or RTW.

Well, I conquered baghdad from the Ottoman Empire before they declared war on me, apparently they were after Baghdad as well. The declaration of war is not even the problem, they asked me for baghdad and I refused because they wanted Baghdad and 5900 gold in return for unlimited military access which is useless since they own all of india and I don't want to march around in circles there.

Regardless of that the problem is that they keep accepting white peace the next round and keep being friendly towards me. :dizzy2:
My guess is they wouldn't accept white peace if they were hostile towards me but they aren't because we never fight, they declare war and then we make peace again without a fight. If they really wanted Baghdad, they should simply not accept the peace, their army prestige is about twice that of mine and they have three or four full stacks in the are while I have around two and half which is about my complete army. That doesn't mean they could win practically, but theoretically they should assume that and then sue for peace after their incompetent battle AI ruined their plans... something like that. ~;) Or maybe they'd win if they actually have some line infantry they won't hide in buildings far away from the actual battle...

Maybe for a start CA should make sure that all stacks the AI sends around, and they actually do send stacks around since monday(last patch) actually contain about 50% units that are designated as line infantry, and then as an interim solution, disable garrisoning completely for the AI so it won't use buildings on the battlefield at all. I think that would make the game quite a bit more challenging, then make declarations of war more dependant on the relative factions strengths, meaning factions attack factions with similar strength so we don't get Georgia declaring war on the Ottomans, GB and Russia at the same time. Or just use the prestige points or something but there are already so many numbers in the game that could be used to make diplomacy a bit more believable at times and it can't be all that hard to tweak the army compositions a bit, maybe change the routine from "what do I recruit?" to "what does that stack there need?" based on some relatively simple formula, like I said, around 50% of units that are designated as line infantry, then maybe 20% cavalry, a general and 30% artillery, or 20% and 10% light infantry if available. We might see clone armies then but I'd rather fight those than single howitzers running around in my territory. :inquisitive:

What army composition has to do with diplomacy you ask? It makes declarations of war either scary or laughable...

Btw, got a bit carried away there but I play on Hard campaign and normal battles, haqrd campaign because I'm afraid the armies on normal might be even smaller and normal battles becuase I'm not a fan of the AI winning with stat boosts or get militia which never break, maybe I should choose hard or very hard there though. :shrug:

Didz

06-27-2009, 12:48

Well, I conquered baghdad from the Ottoman Empire before they declared war on me, apparently they were after Baghdad as well. The declaration of war is not even the problem, they asked me for baghdad and I refused because they wanted Baghdad and 5900 gold in return for unlimited military access which is useless since they own all of india and I don't want to march around in circles there.
As I understand it you're playing Spain and you have occupied Baghdad?

Can I ask how many other factions you are currently at war with, and whether the Maratha's have captured Persia (e.g have they have expanded their Empire into Europe, or have you expanded into India?

ReluctantSamurai

06-27-2009, 16:22

The real problem is that that: (1) the AI cannot handle the economy of the game (trade routs, research, developments, etc) thus on most occasions cannot field an army that can match the force of the player;

I've been lurking this thread for some time and finally decided to put in my 2cents.........

The above statement about the AI is what is symptomatic (IMHO) of all TW games since MTW.......the game keeps getting more and more complex and the quality of the AI to keep up has not improved or even gotten worse.

With each progressive release starting with STW thru M2TW my playing enjoyment has gotten progressively less and less. STW was a relatively simple beginning (and one I still enjoy after all these years) that grew more complex with MTW. RTW was a quantum leap in game graphics and complexity but a huge step backwards (MHO) in the quality of play. If not for all the mods that have been done for it, my CD discs would have long since become expensive platters for my bartop.

M2TW was such a chore to install and get running.....and patch.....and patch........and patch.....that I'm very glad I purchased the dics used. I would've been very upset to have blown even more money on such a buggy and sub-standard product (again, MHO).

After reading all of the above problems with the diplomacy system (which has never been one of TW's strengths from the start) and problems with Steam, getting the game to run, getting patches.....and more patches......and more patches.......I don't think I'll bother with ETW:no:

For all its simplicity, I'd rather play Shogun where the AI can still kick your a$$ at any difficulty setting, and, as someone has mentioned in another thread, can actually win the game if the player is not skilled enough or is simply unlucky.

Unless some drastic measures are taken to improve the quality of installing & running the game with few or no CTD's, and improving the gaming experience, I've already bought my last game in the TW series:embarassed:

Didz

06-27-2009, 16:40

I was interested in Husar's comments as he seemed to be having a persistent and consistent DOW event in his game which is something I'd never experienced. In my campaigns every DOW I'd had was always a one-off random event which could simply be avoided by replaying the end of turn.

However, that was until this afternoon, and it does appear that something has changed. I've just had two quite novel events in my French Campaign.

The first was a persistent if somewhat pointless 'Rabid Lemming' DOW by the Inuit Nations who went from Friendly to Hostile without warning and declared war on me despite being Feeble and Destitute. The big difference was that even after two replays they refused to change their minds, or accept a peace offer, which was a first. So, whether I like it or not I am now at war with a rabid lemming and I suspect I shall have to destroy them before I can get any peace.

The second was a sudden DOW from Great Britain (Moderate/Modest/Unfriendly) allied to Austria (weak/modest/Indifferent). Whilst, not exactly unexpected Britain has been subject to a blockade by Prussia since the start of the game and are far too weak to take on the might of France and Spain (as well as Prussia etc.). Austria obviously agreed and refused to honour their alliance leaving them all alone to face the consequences.

Again I reran the End of Turn after they refused to consider a peace deal, and this time instead of a DOW, Britain came up with a proposal to exchange the Algonquin Territory(French) and the Iroquios Territory (French) for Jamaica(British) and Georgia(British) plus Advanced Naval Tech and 230 gold. I actually considered accepting that deal as although I had spent a lot of money developing the Native American Territories, both Georgia and Jamaica have ports. However, in the end I refused mainly because it would have split Louisana from French Canada.

So, anyway the British were sent away without being given what they wanted and next turn they DOW'd again.

Now this is begining to look promising. At least there is an element of consistency if these events, even if they are still pretty dumb moves by the AI.

Durallan

06-27-2009, 17:53

I have to concur.. Having played the game a bit, after awhile you do get the general idea of what the AI wants... but like didz said they still act all like rabid lemmings or vegetables and stand around doing bugger all. I have to say probably the worst thing is that when an AI's port is blockaded or invaded, they will sit there and not do anything about it. Then there were the french and spanish stacks of armies, 2-3 stacks, full of soldiers sitting on the Coast of Normandy, obviously wanting to attack britain but never getting on a ship and going there... and these stacks were there for a good 10 YEARS, not turns, years, just sitting there...

However Quebec (sp?) appeared against the french in the new world and I made them my protectorate and that is going very well, they happily attacked the other french colony next to qubec.

Another problem is the campaign AI in the new world... It doesn't seem to do a whole lot!

When I arrived in around 1740 (good 80 turns?) There were government buildings and the towns were upgraded as the AI could afford I suppose, but there were NO garrisons whatsoever! from Boston to Carolina, there was maybe 2 units in each town with a half stack floating around, same went for New France. the native americans only seem to get active when the player arrives in the new world aswell

last thing that seems broken is that I have seen one other faction owned trade fleet ONLY, in all the trade theatres in my game, they don't seem to use it anymore.

I think if they fixed a few of these things it would make the game 50-100% better than it currently is.

So maybe instead of diplomacy being entirely broken the title of this thread it should have been campaign AI has SERIOUS ISSUES instead, that way there's no need to nitpick

oh and Russia had a half stack in moscow, with my army half a turns walk away to siege, what do they do? they leave moscow to go after 4 prussian dragoons that were at their border.... so I waltz in and claim it

Cheetah

06-27-2009, 18:28

They are all entirely Random, the test and proof of this is perfectly simple.

1) As soon as you get a DOW, reload the game from the Autosave taken just before you ended the last turn.

2) Re-run the end of turn.

If the DOW is based upon logic and the diplomatic/geopolitical situation at the end of that turn then nothing has changed and the same faction will DOW you every turn. If it doesn't, and never bothers you again then clearly it was a completely random event.

This is clearly not a sufficient test. You are making up a strawman by assuming that the decision making of the AI is either (i) completely deterministic, or (ii) completely random. This need not be so.

Most likely it is a probabilistic decision making process. Lets say the AI has a certain chance decalring a war on you. Denote it with p (where 0<p<1). Then of course the chance of not declaring a war on you is 1-p. How the program calculates this chance ofc unkown to me, it can depend on many factors. The point is that it is entirely possible that in one turn it throws a dice and gets a number smaller than p, thus declares war on you, yet if you reload the game it throws a number larger than p thus it keeps peace. What you would see is not deterministic but definitely not random either.

The real test would be to run let say 100 of reloads and count the number of DoW. Then compare this sample to a sample generated by random number generator. If you dont get a statistical difference (i.e. the mean of the samples do not differ statistically, i.e roughly speaking the mean probability of getting DoWs is around 0.5) then you could conclude that DoW is random in that given context. Otherwise it is not.

I would bet a large sum of money that it is not.

Also, please take a look at the two lists of DoWs that I posted before and tell me how could you get those list by a purely random process. Thanks.

Ordani

06-27-2009, 18:53

@Ordani: No they are NOT reproducible from saves thats the whole point. Nor is the selection of the opponent based on any evaluation of its likely success, or even abilty, to persecute a war against you, it is totally random.

Uh, yes, many of them are. Maybe you aren't using "random" exactly right (arbitrary would seem more appropriate), but "motivated by something you don't understand" isn't strictly it. The AI will send a faction to war with you on several conditional changes, including how many factions are at war with you and your state of success. There have been several games I could build a single structure in a single province, and boom, one of three non-neighboring factions were guaranteed to declare war every reload.

Every time you eliminate a faction you are at war with, you go back into the state of whatever evaluation it does to send another faction against you. The "number of factions at war" hypothesis isn't precise, but it's on the ball.

Certain provinces (Punjab is one for whatever reason) will cause attract non-belligerent factions like flies, this is also not random, but dependent on whether they have a route to it. I presume this is some kind of check to keep certain factions from totally dominating India uncontested, etc, but you can do reload watches to see multiple factions marching past other provinces to attack them on the rare occasion they have armies.

Certain factions have different AI tuning (Prussia and Poland are noticeable this way) that makes them much more belligerent than others with nonsensical results. You can affect this by keeping ridiculously large standing armies.

It may not make any sense, but if it was truly random, you'd see your major-power neighbors periodically prosecuting wars against you instead of arbitrary people from halfway across the planet. Moreover if it was truly random, you should be able to run a game without ever declaring peace and have approximately the same number of factions at war with you by various points in the game as you go along, repeatedly, but in varying orders. If you do so, I'm willing to bet it stops at around 7, with a lot of the usual suspects.

Yes, the DoWs are often silly and arbitrary, but that's how TW has always worked.

Husar

06-27-2009, 19:10

Every time you eliminate a faction you are at war with, you go back into the state of whatever evaluation it does to send another faction against you. The "number of factions at war" hypothesis isn't precise, but it's on the ball.

That I also noticed, the system is made to keep you at war at all times, I know it's called total War but it would be nice if you could just build up a trade empire and choose wars yourself instead of having the AI choose them all for you, that's not to say it should never declare war but if it always does 1 or two turns after you eliminated the last faction then that is just a silly way to keep you on your toes, I could think of a few better ways to achieve the same thing without making one province factions declare war on the mightiest faction around. :dizzy2:

Didz

06-27-2009, 20:01

Most likely it is a probabilistic decision making process. Lets say the AI has a certain chance decalring a war on you. Denote it with p (where 0<p<1). Then of course the chance of not declaring a war on you is 1-p. How the program calculates this chance ofc unkown to me, it can depend on many factors. The point is that it is entirely possible that in one turn it throws a dice and gets a number smaller than p, thus declares war on you, yet if you reload the game it throws a number larger than p thus it keeps peace. What you would see is not deterministic but definitely not random either.

I would agree with that theory, if over the course of the next few turns the same DOW occurred again. The logic being that the criteria remain more or less the same so the only variable is the randon number rolled.

However, prior to Patch 1.3 that certainly wasn't the case, and once avoided most DOW's never materialised again for the rest of the game. It quite literallly only this afternoon that I've noticed a change and it now looks like DOW's are a lot more consistent and persistent. Even if they are still lacking in intellegence.

That I also noticed, the system is made to keep you at war at all times, I know it's called total War but it would be nice if you could just build up a trade empire and choose wars yourself instead of having the AI choose them all for you, that's not to say it should never declare war but if it always does 1 or two turns after you eliminated the last faction then that is just a silly way to keep you on your toes, I could think of a few better ways to achieve the same thing without making one province factions declare war on the mightiest faction around. :dizzy2:
Yeah! its quite dissapointing really. I mean its supposed to be a strategy game, but as someone pointed out at the the moment the campaign game requires about as much intellectual input as pub brawl. I suspect the only players getting any sort of challenge out of it are the blitzers.

Sheogorath

06-27-2009, 21:47

Alright, I just started an Ottoman campaign to try them out, since I've never played them seriously before.

I started out, as usual, at war with Russia. I spent my first four turns getting as many trade agreements and alliances as possible. I even managed to procectorate Dageistan and make an alliance with Persia and decent relations, including a trade agreement, with Austria.

Turn four hits, and suddenly EVERY SINGLE NEIGHBORING STATE declares war on me. In one turn, Austria, Persia, Georgia, Dageistan and Venice declared war. I don't count the Crimean or Barbary as 'neighboring states' because theyre protectorates and useless, although the Crimean did, rather amusingly, managed to take Kiev because the Russians used the entire Kiev garrison to attack an army, which then retreated to and took Kiev.

Either way, the campaign was a bust. Austria took its DOW seriously and Dageistan and Georgia did their thing, which was to spawn massive armies from their single cities and drive all resistance before them. It's hard to fend off a massive half-stack of line infantry when the best you can do is a couple of units of militia, since your annual budget is about 1000 Baghdad Bucks.

Husar

06-28-2009, 06:27

Lucius Verenus

06-28-2009, 06:55

Turn four hits, and suddenly EVERY SINGLE NEIGHBORING STATE declares war on me. In one turn, Austria, Persia, Georgia, Dageistan and Venice declared war.

It would be interesting, if you still have it, to reload the save before this and hit end-turn and see if some/all/none of them do it again

Sig..

Sheogorath

06-28-2009, 07:57

So you had several allies declare war on you? Makes sense, let's advertise the AI as backstabbers, obviously it's very sophisitcated. I'm getting the impression that the most reliable factions are neutral ones.

Theoretically protectorates are more reliable, but Dageistan proved me wrong there.

It would be interesting, if you still have it, to reload the save before this and hit end-turn and see if some/all/none of them do it again

Sig..

I went in a few more turns out of curiosity and Poland jumped in a few turns later. I tried reloading a couple times with the same result.

This is the first time I've ever had a protectorate declare war on me. It's completely stupid.

Zarky

06-28-2009, 08:24

In my Ottoman game I managed to persuade Dagestan to be my ally (they had taken russian region so no protectocrate) and they didn't backstab me until I did to get last region I needed for winning.
At start they were hostile to me, before I stabbed them at best they were indifferent.

Didz

06-28-2009, 09:49

It would be interesting, if you still have it, to reload the save before this and hit end-turn and see if some/all/none of them do it again
Yes, I must admit that would have been my first reaction.

It does sound like the 'Player Hate Routine' kicked in and just decided you were having things too easy.

It would also be interesting to go back and list the 'Friend-o-Meter' ratings of all the factions that DOW'd you just before they did so, just to see if there is any tangible link.

I'm pretty sure that each faction has some scripted DOW's early in the game, certainly when playing Maratha I have never been able to avoid an early war with Mysore no matter what I do to try and placate them and you may have been targetted by one or more of those, but a reload would have confirmed that.

jsberry

06-29-2009, 13:00

:smash: Right last post on this as I'm coming out of the closet, there's nothing wrong with the diplomacy. That it doesn't work the way people think it should doesn't make it broken or bugged.

You should try playing something besides Britain on Easy.

The AI is programmed to ALWAYS attack when it shares a border.

The century 1700-1800 contained 4 wars of 7-8 years in length. That was 30 years of war and 70 years of diplomacy. Version 1.3 is 100 years of war.

There is a friend-o-meter with lots of factors. And the factors themselves are pretty well worked out. The result is a number that makes the AI of that country "friendly" or "hostile." But then that number is COMPLETELY IGNORED by that country. That means it is BROKEN.

Didz

06-29-2009, 14:26

Ahem! broken in my dictionary means not working, or in pieces, both of which are accurate descriptions of the ETW diplomacy system.

Fisherking

06-29-2009, 14:45

There are changes in the system I have seen for a wile now. Where as it was once possible to reload and get some different outcome, they don't seem to be altered very easily now and usually when you get a change, it is much worse than the event you were trying to avoid.

It doesn’t mean that the game is less out to get the player, it just means that some mechanism has made it less easy to avoid.

al Roumi

06-29-2009, 14:53

I've recently noticed a change in v1.3, having a different govt radicaly changes people's disposition towards you (AM to Rep = -140 odd relation). I was playing as Spain, had a revolution and became a republic. Everyone, even France (who had been very friendly) turned Hostile!

A couple of turns of state gifts and things were better again but I'm glad to see this has a bearing on relation scores at least (i was probably at war with anyone who would have DoW'd on me anyway.

Didz

06-29-2009, 15:05

Yes! I've noticed since Patch 1.3 that avoiding 'dumb diplomacy' is much harder. The good news is that the the AI is now more consistent and persistent, the bad news is that its now consistently and persistently stupid.

FactionHeir

06-29-2009, 16:28

FactionHeir

06-30-2009, 01:17

I love this "diplomacy"

https://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5953/unbenanntkgb.jpg

Um hello, this offer makes no sense given that I share no borders or enemies with Russia....

In other news, my long time ally France decided to attack my friendly ally Genoa. Decided to side with Genoa as they have helped in in naval battles before. Three turns later and France is down to just Saxony in Europe, and its northern holdings in America, having lost France, Savoy, Rhineland, Württemberg, French Guyana and Windward Islands to me.

So I offer them peace, figure that since we share loads of mutual enemies and France has no trade partners whatsoever left and is at war with everyone and their dog, they ought to accept in their dire position. Well, guess what, they didn't.

In 1.0-1.2 at least, they'd accept peace once you take just France itself. If you took a bit more, they'd even throw in all their regions save their new capitol. 1.3 and they reject any peace treaty, even when I even offered to throw in a dozen techs and 30000 in cash.

They also seem to have no problem fielding 3 full stacks composed of line infantry and 12lber artillery 60-40 ratio. I wonder where they get all that money when I can barely field 4 full stacks and hold most of America, and the left side and the bottom of Europe along with all the Med islands.

Didz

06-30-2009, 10:31

Um hello, this offer makes no sense given that I share no borders or enemies with Russia....
Lol! it probably makes perfect sense to the Russian's. Obviously they are getting fed up with Vodka and have acquired a taste for rum. I love the 16,000 fee though thats really cheeky.

FactionHeir

06-30-2009, 10:36

A few turns earlier they made the same offer to me, only asking 7500 :inquisitive:

Oh, and I only have a few enemies because some of the hapless ones who managed to declare war on me didn't exactly live very long. And of course my French allies back then were ridiculously aggressive, taking out Westphalia, Württemberg, and Saxony within a few turns. :grin:

oz_wwjd

06-30-2009, 14:51

I also had problems with after I've just conquered the french. I moved my army down to make war on spain but westphlia decided it was a good idea to take me on for some reason,despite the fact that my army outnumbered and outgunned their Milita army. They were at indifferent before that,so I don't know what the AI was thinking as it was destoyed shortly after that.

ZIM!!

06-30-2009, 15:31

I agree Diplomacy just is not realistic at all another aspect of the problem is the demand surrender function . Has anyone EVER had a city surrender???

I have had a un walled/ unfortified city in India besieged by a full stack and a half stack nearby that would take part tons of artillery and had their port blockaded, them only having 1 infantry 2 mob units, there was no relief force anywhere. the nation was pretty much wiped out. I demanded surrender up until the end where the battle had to be resolved and they were crushed.

I think that the diplomacy rationale numbers are set too high and or the calculations to decide the outcome are not complex enough like they are not able to take into consideration certain factors like opposing force size, turns till possible relief, or remaining provinces that would make a more logical decision instead it seems like it just rolls the dice and if the # rolled doesn’t exceed a preset limit surrender limit value( apparently set at 99.99 across the board) the answer is No.

I think maybe its this same issue with the rest of diplomacy, I imagine they set it so high in case you are able to mass an overwhelming force and attack a poor or weakened country or theater the game would be over too quickly?

Didz

06-30-2009, 18:09

Just once. but that was patch 1.2.

FactionHeir

06-30-2009, 18:17

Me too in 1.2, but all it did was swap some of the citizenry (arab) for other types of citizenry in defense....

That said, the AI demanded i surrender in 1.3 twice, but each time it was inferior to my force (IMO, not according to balance of course)

Marquis of Roland

06-30-2009, 18:49

Um hello, this offer makes no sense given that I share no borders or enemies with Russia....

What doesn't make sense about it, the Russians want Jamaica. Nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't mind having Jamaica in my Prussian campaign, and the only interaction I ever had with Spain was requesting a trade agreement 40 years ago. I agree that the terms are crap.

I think its a good thing that they fixed the factions accepting peace if you take their home region. Its an exploit to take someone's home region and then get a peace treaty.

As for the AI getting income bonuses, don't you think it's better that they do? I mean, right now the AI is not sending enough stacks to challenge you, if they're more restricted, there won't be much fighting in this "total war" game. Or you'll see factions attacking with their lone stack of troops and leave their capital totally undefended, then we'll all blame the dumb AI for leaving their capital completely wide open.

I am getting the feeling that some people want this game to be another type of game. In the end, ETW is not a STRATEGY game, it's more of a war game. Diplomacy is not great in this game, never meant to be great, nor do I think it will EVER be great. I think most of you guys not happy with the diplomacy just needs to accept that fact. The game is centered on fighting battles in battle mode; the campaign map is merely a means to get you to battle mode. Even all the technologies in the game are more or less geared towards fielding a full stack, to be used in battle mode. Not a single tech promotes diplomacy. This game was never meant to be won with diplomacy (no diplomatic victory conditions either. In every game I played with good diplomacy, there was always a diplomatic victory option).

For those that say this ruins their roleplaying - I also like to roleplay my campaign, but if you expect this to be even loosely based on historical interactions, then you'll be disappointed. If you roleplay you ought to be comfortable with making stuff up. I have never gotten a DoW that I cannot make up a reason for.

Fisherking

06-30-2009, 20:14

It seems as though we are going through some very odd diplomatic gyrations in this game.

As far as I can remember the best we had was the first ideation in 1.0, from there it has just been down hill.

Yes there was a problem of factions swapping lands in a rather strange fashion but at least most of the rest of the diplomacy was somewhat sound.

Now the DoWs are not as fast and furious as they were but they will not make peace nor exchange regions even to save their little lives.

It seems that each time they take one step forward and two steps back, not to mention the occasional sidestep.

The closest I have come to a peace agreement in my current campaign was from Spain. I offered them Spain, half a dozen or so techs for Mexico and peace.

The counter offer was all of the above, less Mexico and I give them 7200 cash. Needless to say I was in the position to name terms, not them, so now they hold only Lombardy and that will be for maybe another three turns before they die, that is if I bother with them at all.

France bought it pretty much the same way. The would not give up Newfoundland for France and so were eliminated. They were under siege and refused the offer of peace and France. Not very reasonable of them now was it?

The minors never offer or except peace now!:no:

FactionHeir

06-30-2009, 20:20

Fisherking

06-30-2009, 20:26

I would ask you to take off your pink glasses and actually look at my screenshot. There's nothing wrong with Russia wanting Jamaica, but offering me mil access and demanding Jamaica and 16000 from me is hardly a reasonable offer.

Indeed it is a very unreasonable offer!

And if refused I guess that means they declare war.

I have not tried counter offering these proposals yet to see what happens.

I just think this process is turning out to be one of those steps back and sideways.
:dizzy2:

Didz

06-30-2009, 21:20

I am getting the feeling that some people want this game to be another type of game. In the end, ETW is not a STRATEGY game, it's more of a war game.
Suggesting that ETW is a wargame is actually an insult to wargaming. It most definitely is NOT a wargame. If it was it would accurately model the warfare of the period and the campaign system would work, diplomacy included.

At best ETW is a strategy game, and at the moment its struggling to even meet that standard.

NimitsTexan

07-01-2009, 02:29

Lemur

07-01-2009, 02:55

I have to say, the extreme difficulty of securing peace is making the game a lot less fun. When Britain attacks Denmark, you now know that if you defend your ally you'll be at war with the limeys for another seventy years. Ugh.

Husar

07-01-2009, 10:32

The campaign difficulty level does have some small effect on things. On Hard, for example, just about every European nation and their dogs DoW on Austria in the first couple of turns. On Medium, while Austria does eventually get itself into wars, Central Europe takes a little longer to get itself into a total war.

Well, that's just another problem, if I play on normal or easy, I get less declarations of war but the AI will only have small armies which are no challenge once we do go to war, if I got to Very High, every faction is finally a challenge(well, somewhat) but they will all go to war with me at the same time like a bunch of zerglings or whatever, and then I can't just destroy their army, take a city and make them accept peace, no, the black knight routine makes them fight to their last city so if I can't afford to have two big stacks standing around in their corner and a few small ones to hunt their little pillaging parties then I will have to expand through all of russia which completely defeats all sorts of roleplaying I might have planned which is a major part of the enjoyment.

I also had the idea that introducing non-aggression pacts might be a splendid idea and while you're at it, make them binding for the human AND the AI, set number of rounds, no need to help them when they get themselves into pointless wars like it's the case with alliances and they can't backstab you either.

That would make up for a few of the AIs stupidities, given the factions would actually accept such proposals now and then. :sweatdrop:

Durallan

07-01-2009, 11:22

What doesn't make sense about it, the Russians want Jamaica. Nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't mind having Jamaica in my Prussian campaign, and the only interaction I ever had with Spain was requesting a trade agreement 40 years ago. I agree that the terms are crap.

I think its a good thing that they fixed the factions accepting peace if you take their home region. Its an exploit to take someone's home region and then get a peace treaty.

As for the AI getting income bonuses, don't you think it's better that they do? I mean, right now the AI is not sending enough stacks to challenge you, if they're more restricted, there won't be much fighting in this "total war" game. Or you'll see factions attacking with their lone stack of troops and leave their capital totally undefended, then we'll all blame the dumb AI for leaving their capital completely wide open.

I am getting the feeling that some people want this game to be another type of game. In the end, ETW is not a STRATEGY game, it's more of a war game. Diplomacy is not great in this game, never meant to be great, nor do I think it will EVER be great. I think most of you guys not happy with the diplomacy just needs to accept that fact. The game is centered on fighting battles in battle mode; the campaign map is merely a means to get you to battle mode. Even all the technologies in the game are more or less geared towards fielding a full stack, to be used in battle mode. Not a single tech promotes diplomacy. This game was never meant to be won with diplomacy (no diplomatic victory conditions either. In every game I played with good diplomacy, there was always a diplomatic victory option).

For those that say this ruins their roleplaying - I also like to roleplay my campaign, but if you expect this to be even loosely based on historical interactions, then you'll be disappointed. If you roleplay you ought to be comfortable with making stuff up. I have never gotten a DoW that I cannot make up a reason for.

Pulled this directly off the official Empire total war site...

"And the Campaign Map -- for many, the heart of Total War -- introduces a variety of new and upgraded elements, including new systems for Trade, Diplomacy and Espionage with agents; a refined and streamlined UI; improved Advisors; and a vastly extended scope, taking in the riches of India, the turbulence of Europe and, for the first time, the untapped potential of the United States of America."

This also directly off the offical Empire Total War site

"Empire: Total War is set in the 18th century, a turbulent era that is the most requested by Total War’s loyal fan base and a period alive with global conflict, revolutionary fervour and technological advances. With themes such as the Industrial Revolution, America’s struggle for independence, the race to control Eastern trade routes and the globalisation of war on land and sea,Empire: Total War promises to be the richest and most dynamic PC strategy game of all time. Empire: Total War will be released from the 3rd of March, exclusively for PC."

They reiterated it on release day...

"Empire: Total War is set in the 18th century, a turbulent era that is the most requested by Total War’s loyal fan base and a period alive with global conflict, revolutionary fervour and technological advances. With themes such as the Industrial Revolution, America’s struggle for independence, the race to control Eastern trade routes and the globalisation of war on land and sea, Empire: Total War promises to be the richest and most dynamic PC RTS game of all time."

The developers think its a strategy game...

Prodigal

07-01-2009, 15:10

@Hussar, no what I wrote wasn't bollox you just didn't get it.

This whole thing seems based around people who don't see a major problem, & another bunch who want to prove that its a game breaker.

The fact that the AI does not sue for peace, or form new alliances is a bug, but it does not mean that the game is unplayable, and doubt it would have a great affect on the game dynamic even if they did.

Wait till after the summer, 1.3 cannot have been the last patch, think everyone would agree that there is room for considerable improvment and no doubt it'll be addressed sooner or later.

Didz

07-01-2009, 16:07

Geisha diplomacy :hairpin3:
:laugh4:
Geisha's Rule..and the cut-scenes were awesome.

Husar

07-01-2009, 17:41

@Hussar, no what I wrote wasn't bollox you just didn't get it.

Oh, I got it and I will take the rest as a joke. :beam:

The fact that the AI does not sue for peace, or form new alliances is a bug, but it does not mean that the game is unplayable, and doubt it would have a great affect on the game dynamic even if they did.

Wait till after the summer, 1.3 cannot have been the last patch, think everyone would agree that there is room for considerable improvment and no doubt it'll be addressed sooner or later.

Oh it would, AI factions who constantly take eachother out are a lot weaker when they get to fight with the player than AI factions which are otherwise at peace and have big armies for use only against the player.

I actually managed to make peace with Poland and Austria in my current Prussian campaign but Poland keeps attacking me no matter how often I crush their armies or which settlements I take.
Maybe I'm a bit spoiled from EUIII but in that game the AI is a lot more reasonable and when it has lost, it is even willing to pay, a lot, for peace, while the AI in TotalWar will very often not accept peace under any circumstances much less pay for it, they'd rather make the player pay even if the player is already besieging their last town.

And concerning patches, this problem isn't new, it has existed at least since RTW IIRC, you'd think that after they promised to completely redo the AI for ETW that it would actually be somewhat reasonable by now, I've been rather patient you know, but this is the third game in a row with completely stupid AI diplomacy and there is a point where I just have enough. A lot of the diplomacy seems random, within about ten turns my relation to Poland has been switching between friendly, hostile and war, peace several times and they never ever gained anything out of it, in fact they lost quite a bit yet they refuse to give up their stupid crusade of idiocy. I don't even want to crush them, I dont want their stupid regions, I just want them to leave me in peace after I showed them who's boss, even offered to give them their capital back for a peace deal after their attempt to take it back horribly failed but no, they won't accept, I thought about giving it all to Russia after crushing Poland but I'm somewhat afraid they might attack me as well then. Oh and this is on Very Hard campaign IIRC, the armies are nice and big and challenging(normal battles after I noticed the AI gets laser muskets on hard).

Ok, talking a lot here but it shouldn't be that hard to make some decent diplomacy possible, other games have done it before, sometimes with rather simple number crunching models, but somehow ETW has nothing like it and way too many AI decisions seem random and stupid to me, must say I have noticed a few that made some sense but there is quite a lot of room for improvement and it's about time since that room has been in TW games for about three years or more.

Husar

07-01-2009, 20:02

To add to that it also just occurred to me that courland is trying out the old saysing "Imagine it's war and noone goes there...", they were the first or second nation to declare war on me and since then have neither attacked nor accepted white peace which reminds me that the AI was supposed to do more counter offers now, I've gotten maybe one or two since the patch, almost all the time they just accept or refuse, if I counteroffer to anything they usually just refuse, in previous games at least one could barter with them a bit, I actually liked that.

Razor1952

07-02-2009, 03:52

Lemur

07-02-2009, 05:17

As I've said before, the AI in ETW is an exact clone of the Black Knight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4).

Peasant Phill

07-02-2009, 09:23

I agree that diplomacy isn't working as one should expect BUT the system itself is there. So modders (or who knows CA themselves) can tweak it to perform up to standard. As long as CA makes good on there promise to make a lot less of the game hard-coded.

Still my biggest gripe with DoW's is the passiveness of the AI right after that. What's the use of a DoW if you aren't going to act on it. That's what makes it so easy for the player.

Husar

07-02-2009, 11:30

Some do act on it, although often not with full force, and they're at war with half their neighbors so their forces are divided etc. etc.
If the AI would actually throw it's army at me, lose the whole army and then accept peace, I wouldn't really complain, unless they declared war again two turns after I crushed them...

AussieGiant

07-02-2009, 11:45

I think there should be an offical .org move to describing the AI as Black Knight AI or BK AI for short.

Yun Dog

07-03-2009, 03:03

I found this interesting post over at the .com

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/59583/t/AI-and-the-experience-of-meaningful-play.html

Some communication of the AI's motivations would go along way to understanding whats actually broken and whats not.

Certainly the modelled AI behaviour to attain certain provinces at any cost is less than ideal - it would be nice if the AI had traits like expansionist, industrious, etc etc

also if as promised they gave the AI individual traits like UK like grenadiers and uses standard formations to exchange fire, prussia likes cav armies and will often charge, french like inf and use column fm - so what if it made some attacks predictable - no more predictable than it is now

I think reading all the blurb they promised (pre release) they made the game too complicated for the AI to cope with, it doesnt work as they hoped and now the whole game appears broken, they shouldve started simple by giving each ai scripted behaviours and got that working at least.

Im sorry but I really want CivBTS with ETW battles :2thumbsup: its a fantasy of mine

As many have said its no so much the rabid war declarations that make the game easier but the AIs own unpreparedness for those wars which makes them appear silly, also the AIs ability to 'defend its own keep' when it gets distracted and moves it army out of the city just as your army approaches.

So strategically there is no GAME

the solution give the AI huge stacks of elite men with PKMs to frustrate the player - and hence make the game vhard that way

I played against this last night - in yet another campaign restart - and its a real game killer - as you watch untrained millitia rabble slaughter your line infantry and two units of dragoons get swallowed up by line inf in line formation - sorry but the suspension of disbelief has been suspended

this could be an all time record for low replayability of a TW title - thing is I want to play it but quit out of frustration and disappoitment

this game couldve been so good :no:

Husar

07-03-2009, 10:50

I agree Lord Yunson, good post. :2thumbsup:

timski

07-03-2009, 15:17

Some of these irrational Declarations of War seem to stem from the inability of the AI to handle naval movement of troops strategically.

In my British game, I've enjoyed 25 turns of friendly (with Alliance/Trade treaties) relations with the United Provinces. They owned Dutch Guyana and I owned French Guyana. These 2 regions are notable because they have no land border with the rest of the Americas.

The Dutch had gradually built up almost an entire army stack in the region, which they positioned on the border between the Guyanas. Strategically, this was rather pointless, since French (that is British) Guyana was almost undefended, primarily because the only immediate "threat" would be from my allies. Capturing French Guyana would have required 4-5 units maximum. But we know that "building a big army" is a fairly typical AI response to anything. That isn't what makes this situation curious.

The Dutch are embroiled in a war against the French. The Dutch Caribbean fleet has held Barbados for several turns. Martinique is undefended, so a handful of army units could capture it. The Windward Isles have about the same economy value as French Guyana. The logical move would be to take some of the army from Dutch Guyana and attack the Windward Islands.

So what happens? You've guess it: The Dutch declare war on me and capture French Guyana. It feels like their army in the Guyanas is operating as an independent nation, and that the attack is inevitable, because that army has nowhere else to go.

Except that didn't happen, because I reloaded and sold French Guyana to the Dutch. It wasn't worth the hassle and financial loses of being forced to break my alliances.

Durallan

07-03-2009, 15:37

I'd say thats a very good idea, but as you say, if your city is undefended and the ai has a big enough army, it wouldn't care if you saved it entire nation from utter annihalation, gave them all the jewelery that makes up their crown jewels and gave them back every single territory they lost, they would still stab you in the back for one piece of wortheless land and then realise that they will lose everything else.

Julius_Nepos

07-03-2009, 23:29

I haven't played ETW since the new patches came out and at the moment I can't see any good reason to go back. This has been quite disappointing to me because the game in its 1.0 state still had great potential, some of which I think has been diminished by the recent patches. I do find it fascinating though how the changes have so polarized opinion. Generally the two camps either say the game is perfect or its an abomination, with very little in between. Personally I don't like the direction the AI is going, that is incredible stupidity mixed with dizzying levels of aggression. Therefore I've put the game aside in the hopes that someday patches or mods can fix things. It's a forlorn hope, but it's more than nothing.

What I'm wondering is how dumb is the ETW AI? Is it a step BACK from RTW/M2TW? If comparing the release 1.0 versions of all three, was ETW ahead of the game? I don't really remember all that much from the past releases other than RTW was called Rome: Total Bribery for a time, and M2TW had the passive AI bug/no naval invasions problem. I guess I want to make sure I'm not unfairly judging this new title, or looking at the past iterations through rose colored glasses. Last thing I want to do is give the game LESS credit than what it currently deserves.

Husar

07-03-2009, 23:48

Zenicetus

07-04-2009, 01:24

What I'm wondering is how dumb is the ETW AI? Is it a step BACK from RTW/M2TW?

The impression I get, is that on the diplomatic level it's basically the same AI quality as RTW/M2TW (i.e. fairly minimal), but it's now being asked to deal with a more complicated game. Part of that is the way the world is already well-developed across multiple theaters, with colonies scattered about, just ready to start border disputes outside the core faction home. There are fewer neutral buffer zones between major powers like we had in the earlier games. And with all these factions, there are so many overlapping "gotta have it" territories they're trying to occupy, as a hardcoded AI script.

I think the game would have been better if it had a smaller number of major powers, and the smaller factions were dumb pushovers that didn't engage in diplomacy, basically like the un-allied rebel factions that start out as buffers between nations in RTW and M2TW. Giving those minor states the ability to form alliances and protectorate status really complicates the game. But it's also just the sheer number of main factions.

Of course, if they had reduced the game down to just 4 or 5 main factions to streamline the diplomacy and make it easier for the AI to handle, then everyone who didn't get their favorite nation picked would have screamed bloody murder. Remember all those hot-tempered "what factions should be playable?" threads before the final game features were announced? This may be a case where the player community shot itself in the foot, by asking for so many playable factions.

Or, it could just be that the devs wanted to go in that direction anyway, then decided the AI couldn't really handle the complexity, so they'd fall back on random (or at least frequent) DOW's supported by artificial cash infusions to make the game "challenging."

P.S. I wouldn't still play this game occasionally, or post here, if I didn't think the series had so much potential. And to be honest, because there is nothing else out there like this game series.

Sheogorath

07-04-2009, 01:48

The problem with 'dumb diplomacy' in ETW is that trade features so heavily. States like the UP, with very small starting provinces and very minimal tax income, RELY in trade. While it is easy to simply rush Paris, it feels cheesy and like you're breaking some rule. The Netherlands should NOT be able to conquer France in two turns. And then had it over to Savoy because they didn't want it.

I even offered it to Spain in exchange for a peace treaty. Spain told me to bugger off. Ten turns later I'd taken over all of their new world colonies, destroyed their fleets, annihilated their armies and had a full stack set to besiege Madrid. I offered peace and Spain shot back saying "Give us 2800 gold."

Now, that's not a large amount, but the sheer cheek of it made me angry enough that I took over Madrid, destroyed all the buildings and gave it to Morocco.

Julius_Nepos

07-04-2009, 05:28

One of the earliest games I played in ETW was as Austria. This was back before the patches came through and I recall that right away I was basically at war with Prussia, Poland, Venice and the Ottoman Empire. One thing I found was that no matter how many territories I took from Poland, territories I did not want, they would never take them back in a peace deal or in exchange for Peace. All I wanted was West Prussia, but instead I had take over practically all of Poland to end the war, and even then they re-declared war on me a few times later on before finally giving it up and being annihilated totally. From what I'm hearing this situation has actually gotten worse with the new patches. And this does very much remind me of RTW.

I also agree the game is now far too complex for the Campaign AI, and so its faults are even more apparent now than ever before. I don't seem to be the typical TW player though, I hear alot of guys over at TWCenter like how things are. I have a hard time understanding that since there's no real depth to the game at all other than total war, all the time. I think this is one time where knowing alot about history is interfering with my ability to enjoy the game. I know this is the era of the balance of power, so the way the game plays is SO far off from what happened in reality I just can't accept it without reservation. I wish this wasn't so, let me tell you.

Fisherking

07-04-2009, 09:00

I too am disappointed in some of the changes made since 1.0.

This game was advertised to have had different national personalities for the factions and even the generals.

As it is at least since 1.2 the Campaign AI is just that, one AI for everyone and a rabid one at that.

Every campaign turns into world domination simply because leaving enemies on every border is not desirable and they all refuse to make peace. The AI once made peace when it was losing, it just wouldn’t make peace with other AI factions. Now it will only make peace if it is harmful to the player (unreliable ally penalty).

The thing is, the more we complain about the AI, the worse it seems to get!

I am beginning to think it is deliberate.

If it was decent before (1.0) then making slight adjustments should not be that difficult. In stead we get over the top changes almost every time.

It is as if they are saying; okay you don’t like it this way, you are not going to like it that way either! Take this!:smash:

:laugh4:

Lemur

07-04-2009, 23:38

Since we did all of our fireworks and festivizing yesterday, I spent a little quality time with the Ottomans today. I bribed Russia to keep them out of my hair at first, since the early turns as Ottoman are sheer hell.

Later, when I had my economy under control and those nifty fez-wearing dudes as my line infantry, Russia went all Black Knight on me. Once again, no matter how many armies of theirs I decimated, no matter how many provinces I took away from them, they would accept no terms for peace. Just freakin' irritating. Eventually I took Moscow just to show those stiff-necked Russkies how the big dogs play. ('Tis but a scratch!, they probably yelled.)

CA needs to re-work the AI so it isn't so suicidal. Peace offerings from larger, stronger, higher-teched enemies should be accepted. With alacrity.

Zarky

07-05-2009, 08:44

What I'm starting to think is that major nations are way more suicidal than minors, as Ottomans I captured Persia and Azerbaizan from Persia, then got peace offering them Azerbaizan and they accepted (offered mainly because they had 10 or so stacks of two all over my new regions). 3 Turns later I of course backstabbed them and finished them.
That's by far the easiest peace AI has accepted in 1.3 at least for me. What caught my attention in that peace was that I wasn't at war with anyone else and they were largish minor nation. Could it be that major nations are too proud to admit defeat, and that if you at war with anyone else (let's say Hurons and Cherokee but share no border with them) they think that together they can win you.

Didz

07-05-2009, 10:45

I don't think the AI is even that clever. There is no intelligence in the AI, and as things stand the non-player factions are merely pawns of the player hate routine.

Durallan

07-05-2009, 10:58

I dunno in my prussia game, Persia in the middle of the game almost looked to be like a mighty empire, stretching into india and out almost past constantinople (instanbul?) but later one they began to lose more and more provinces from the mughals ottomans and russians and now they only own Constantinople but they still won't make peace with me. Didn't take any of their regions either

aimlesswanderer

07-06-2009, 07:38

I've played Sweden, Prussia, Poland and Austria, and each time have found myself in a war with the Russians just about to the bitter end. Even after losing all but the crappiest of their provinces they have a marked tendency to either not want peace at all, or declare war again after a few turns and get hammered, again. The only exception was when I got so annoyed I took all but 1 of their provinces and made them a protectorate. Having given away most of their land to my other protectorates or in exchanges for Caribbean islands, they continued to war on my protectorates, but after 10 years they hadn't declared war on me again, perhaps a record.

I wasn't interested in taking their land (except as Sweden I think, a victory condition), but found myself at war with them each time. And since I wasn't going to give them all my land, all my money and technology we just stayed at war.

I have also found that, for example, Denmark always likes DoWs against Hannover (inevitably my protectorate) after about 1730, when I am 20+ provinces. They don't last long, and only once have them moved troops into Hannover.

The ridiculous DoWs are not only a major annoyance, they markedly decrease the gaming experience. Why would a tiny 1 province nation decide to declare war on the largest most powerful country in the world which is right next door? And then decide to just sit around within its borders waiting for the stacks to arrive and obliterate it (sadly there is no massacre population option any more). :furious3:

The number of times that has happened is countless.

Then there are the completely bizarre and seemingly random ones... like UP against my protectorate Courland (Courland didn't even have a port!).

And, as has been mentioned, if you get peace with a faction, all your allies and protectorates remain at war with it while you have moved on and are trading with them again. So they keep blockading your trade with them. :wall:

So much promised, which fell far short of what was delivered. It could have been so much better.

Husar

07-06-2009, 09:30

And, as has been mentioned, if you get peace with a faction, all your allies and protectorates remain at war with it while you have moved on and are trading with them again. So they keep blockading your trade with them. :wall:

I never ask them for help in the war and just go to war myself, trying to avoid such problems and because I don't expect them to be of much help anyway, especially when they aren't even close to the enemy.

aimlesswanderer

07-06-2009, 14:44

I never ask them for help in the war and just go to war myself, trying to avoid such problems and because I don't expect them to be of much help anyway, especially when they aren't even close to the enemy.

Yeah, true, your allies' armies are practically stationary. But I usually have no navy, and they can usually harass the evil doers and keep my ports clearer.

Sheogorath

07-06-2009, 19:00

Actually, I've found that the German States at least have VERY active armies.

In my UP campaign, Westphalia and Austria have been at war pretty much since the start of the game. Westphillia has annexed most of the other German states besides Hannover and Saxony, and I gave them France because Savoy (who I gave it to before, because nobody else wanted it or would pay me for it :\) back stabbed me.

Now The Westphalians are actually fighting a very active war with the Austrians. Provinces are changing hands with regularity and there's been several major battles. It's a stalemate, though, which would seem kind of odd, but for some reason the minor factions seem to have better strategic/tactical AI than the majors, even the landlocked ones like Austria and Prussia.

Fisherking

07-06-2009, 19:05

aimlesswanderer

07-07-2009, 15:21

I have found the German city states to be extremely passive militarily. However, since I try and make them my protectorates early on that may nerf them somewhat. However, when I drag them into war with a neighbouring country (say Austria, Denmark, UP or France) they just sit around gazing at their navels, and even have half their army in a town on the opposite side of the province from where the enemy is.

Zarky

07-08-2009, 08:37

From German minors, I've seen Westphalia own whole Western Germany and Netherlands. Hannover always goes after Denmark and they often raid their farms, school etc. but can't get to Copenhagen because Denmark always has ships nearby.

Discoman

07-08-2009, 14:34

Minor Nations are usually passive because the AI seems to be programmed to protect their capital/last settlement with all their military strength.

Zorbane

07-10-2009, 17:30

Don't know if this has happened to anyone but as Maratha I was "funding" the Ottoman's war with...basically the rest of the world. After each turn I'd give whatever cash I had left over to them. It ranged from 2k to 30k.

I was never allied with them, just peace and a trade agreement.

Then one day they declared war on me :(

Durallan

07-10-2009, 18:15

be wary doing this with warmongering nations, I did that to the Mughal empire (and allied with them) and they got all the way to constantinople with my money, and then they declared war on my other ally venice. When I sided with venice, every ally IMMEDIATELY hated me, even my protectorates were hostile for defending an ally from an agressive one?, which makes NO SENSE. because that would mean if I went on the mughals side, everytime they decided to attack an ally of mine, I'd ahve to side with them and all my other allies would get wiped out and I wouldn't ahve been much of an ally to them.

Zorbane

07-10-2009, 18:59

Zenicetus

07-10-2009, 19:54

Beskar

07-10-2009, 21:13

If anything, your allies not attacking is a good thing. With all the other countries constantly at war with each other, it makes it easier for you to be the superior power.

Discoman

07-11-2009, 17:02

With the game in its current state, would it make sense for the player to just avoid all alliances, period? I'm thinking of starting a new game and trying that, since it seems they're more trouble than they're worth -- getting dragged into wars you don't want, or not being able to stop allies from continuing when you get a peace deal, etc. It would also avoid the frustration of being attacked by an ally when there's no apparent motivation, just a random dice roll for who is going to annoy the player next.

Has anyone else tried it? If so, what are the effects on trade and your ability to avoid petty warfare?

In my new Marathas campaign I didn't bother allying anyone, and it did work out. I have complete control of India and the only people that don't like me is Persia, everyone else is bright green because I'm not ensnared in alliances.

Cultured Drizzt fan

07-11-2009, 17:24

huh so what about a nation like great britain who starts the game allied with people? is it better to just break those alliances (does that give a hit to diplomacy?)

Didz

07-11-2009, 17:42

Probably, not as I think you take a huge hit on the 'Freind-o-meter' if you do.

However, I certainly wouldn't make any new alliances. They don't have many benefits and cause a hell of a lot of problems.

Sheogorath

07-11-2009, 19:59

You could try declaring war on an allies protectorate.

Neoncat

07-11-2009, 21:12

With the game in its current state, would it make sense for the player to just avoid all alliances, period? I'm thinking of starting a new game and trying that, since it seems they're more trouble than they're worth -- getting dragged into wars you don't want, or not being able to stop allies from continuing when you get a peace deal, etc. It would also avoid the frustration of being attacked by an ally when there's no apparent motivation, just a random dice roll for who is going to annoy the player next.

Has anyone else tried it? If so, what are the effects on trade and your ability to avoid petty warfare?
I am too thinking about starting a campaing without allies or even protectorates this time. Well, last time by 1706 I was war with anyone except Poland-Lithuania with Russia. Not only that. My protectorates were attacking each other and I took lots of 'didn't honor alliance' hits because of that. I didn't expand and tried to keep territorial expand meter below -20 all the time. One could say that whole campaing map is broken. Battles are only ones that are working... Well... sometimes atleast, urgh.