north american native behavior: varies by which faction the player is playing

[Slaists]

Just an observation: the aggressiveness and behavior of North American natives seems to vary widely as a function of what faction the player is playing. If the player is Britain, France or possibly Spain, the natives go berserk from turn 1.

However, playing as UP, still in 1730 I see Iroquois being peaceful wigwam dwellers (not at war with anyone), Cherokees are at war with plain Indians, not anyone else (not even Spanish in Florida). Hurons live a peaceful life as well...

Both behaviors observed on VH campaign setting.

[Zarky]

You could be on to something there, every GB or France game I've played the Cherokee go nuts on Spain in Florida and capture it. As GB that's of course nice because I get free province without starting war with Spain.
Even the Hurons always start war against GB if I'm playing France, GB or Spain.
Any idea will this berserk behaviour be triggered if you are any other nation (lets say UP) and conquer 1 province from mainland America?

[Sheogorath]

You could be on to something there, every GB or France game I've played the Cherokee go nuts on Spain in Florida and capture it. As GB that's of course nice because I get free province without starting war with Spain.
Even the Hurons always start war against GB if I'm playing France, GB or Spain.
Any idea will this berserk behaviour be triggered if you are any other nation (lets say UP) and conquer 1 province from mainland America?

I bought the moose assembly plant from Britain as the UP and the Hurons DoW'd me, but nobody else. The Iroqouis were also at war, but only because they allied to GB at one point and backed up the Brits.

[Slaists]

You could be on to something there, every GB or France game I've played the Cherokee go nuts on Spain in Florida and capture it. As GB that's of course nice because I get free province without starting war with Spain.
Even the Hurons always start war against GB if I'm playing France, GB or Spain.
Any idea will this berserk behaviour be triggered if you are any other nation (lets say UP) and conquer 1 province from mainland America?

Playing as UP I have conquered French Guiana, New Andalusia and what's today known as Columbia. I also have taken Newfoundland from the French. No berserk 'reaction' was detected when conquering French Guiana, New Andalusia and Columbia. As soon as I took Newfoundland Eskimos suddenly recognized they had imperial ambitions too. They DOW on the third turn after I took Newfoundland. Before that they lived happily right next to the French.

Meanwhile, in North America, Iroquois, Cherokee, Spanish, French and Hurons seem to pursue happy coexistence doctrine. Everybody holds their starting provinces (in 1745). Oh, I forgot, French took Maine from the Brits. It could have been the 13 colonies though. I did not notice at what point exactly the transfer happened.

[Graphic]

I've noticed this too, and I wouldn't mind if the Thirteen Colonies were at all capable of depending themselves. They need to take it down a notch or change the colonial protectorate behavior, because right now the early game as France and GB is extremely frustrating as well as identical nearly every time.

GB = Forget about absolutely everything else and get a solid stack in the southern colinies A.S.A.P., then fight a long tedious war against the Mongol Emp...I mean Cherokee Nations. If you don't act immediately you can kiss your colonies goodbye because they just sit there and do nothing the entire time.

[Lemur]

It's all about sharing a border. If you're neighbors, the AI must have blood.

[Slaists]

Yes and no. Playing as France I managed to keep my alliance with Spain intact until 1799 despite being neighbors. Same when I played Russia, alliance with Poland was kept intact until 1790's when I had to declare war on them to get the last needed provinces.

[Zarky]

I believe AI honors starting alliances very well, and reason why Spain and Poland-Lithuania don't declare war is because they are at war with most of their neighbours before they get the idea to screw you over and declare war (for Spain it's Portugal and Morocco, for Poland-Lithuania it's Sweden, Prussia, Austria and Ottoman Empire).

[antisocialmunky]

It would be interesting if someone could make a script that randomly adjusted diplomatic factions on turn 1 to see if that affects the game more than borders do.

[Zenicetus]

Has anyone compared the "historical grievance" (or whatever it's called) numbers that you see on the diplomacy screen, when hovering the mouse over the friend-o-meter rating? It sounds like the starting numbers for native Americans have been set differently for different European factions. If that's in an plaintext config file somewhere, it should be easy to adjust to personal taste.

[FactionHeir]

Similarly, it seems the AI pirate faction likes to attack the player at all costs as well.
In the madagascan straits the pirate AI would chase me all the way across that map to take out my 2 indiamen when there were so many dhows and indiamen from other factions (undefended) there.
I made it a point to have 1 indiaman arrive there each turn and lo and behold, the pirates never bothered to attack any other AI stacks there, always making a beeline for my ships until I got annoyed that I just proved my hypothesis and sent in the big guns.