Way to mitigate ridiculous DoW's?

With the most recent patch, the AI has become far, far more aggressive, to the point of near insanity. It will declare war for seemingly no reason than someone else being near them. Further, wars between AI nations do not ever seem to end. This is beyond absurd. I'm just making ramblings here, but I honestly think these suggestions may have some merit.

First- In order to make the AI calculate better the cost and reward of declarations of war, I propose that there be a prestige penalty to any nation that declares a war of aggression- that is, so that the penalty would only apply to instigators of war, not to allies that join on either side of the conflict. Obviously, this would mean having to program a way for the AI to value prestige highly. And particularly for prestige campaigns, this makes quite a bit of sense. Europe definitely had its share of wars in the 18th century- however, wars were not declared on a whim- they had an expressed purpose as a tool of furthering national prestige, and I would really like to see CA emulate this better.

As for the AI actually stopping wars against other AI nations, it seems that the system is completely broken right now- until the AI actually ever offers peace deals, there isn't a whole lot that can be considered.

It's a strange situation, to be sure. The current situation is pretty much the polar opposite of the last few TW games. In those games, the AI never made peace with the player, no matter what. In ETW, the AI seems perfectly happy to make a fair and reasonable peace, but only with the player and never with other AIs. This results in nations getting wiped out quickly, which results in 'blobbing' (as it is called in Europa Universalis) whereby a few nations become gigantic. While this in itself would make the game very difficult when those nations were at war with the player, their tendency to make peace with the player negates a great deal of their threat. More refinement is certainly needed.

I've noticed a trend whereby the game seems to "like" to keep me at war with at least 1 nation or, 1 nation in each given zone/frontier of expansion. I've never been able to attack, dissemble enemies and consolidate 1 by one without the AI DoWing as soon as each nation goes down (in either terminal sense or miltary capacity).

I've had cases in NA where, as Britain, being at war with the Huron but not capturing the great lakes' settlement and not destroying their threatening stack has prevented France form DoWing on me. Playing as Prussia, my humiliated protectorate of Poland/lithuania repeatedly DoW'd on me (but oddly accepting peace each turn after their raiding parties are beaten within my borders). As the Dutch in India, the immediate turn after the Maratha were killed off, the Mughals' DoW'd on me, and in the same vein, as Prussia -after defeating Westfalia the Dutch DoW's on me. In these cases, neither Dutch or Mughals had been allied to the Marathas (at war) or Westfalians.

Arguably all of these fit within the title "total war", and part of the fun of the game is being stretched and coping with less than overwhelming resources, but I don't see a huge ammount of logic in the Ai's DoWs either.

Don't get me started on poland (as a land locked protectorate) DoWing on portugal though.

It's a little frustrating, especially on anything above M where the AI is rabid for the player's guts. Perhaps I have a cautious play style, but I'd like to have some faith in the diplomacy of the AI and not just have to play like a genocidal horde (then again, what exactly was Prussia -joke).

I've seen the AI make peace, but on very rare occasions. Usually the AI can be stubborn to make peace unless you give them alot of money, tech, or land. Now most AI nations have fragile economies, around the same amount of Tech and no land they want to get rid of, this is where we a problem with both sides being uncompromising. So, we end up in a quagmire of diplomacy. The style in CIV4 involves the AI being very benevolent and letting it's enemies live with only a little effort needed to sway their opinions.

I guess the AI's mindset should be more peace oriented when on the brink and do what they do when they get weak... make allies. The best example would be Italian Unification, we have these small little nations trying to get a united Italian nation and at the same time trying to gain a powerful outside ally to kick out Austria. In ETW the small Italian nations would declare war at separate times and attack the stronger nations rather than getting an alliance. I guess the AI's 1st priority should be survival and knowing when to pick a fight rather than "EXPAND! EXPAND! EXTERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!"

Maybe the AI should use the Prestige meter as a point of comparison. "If I ally nations X and Y, We'll be just as strong as Z!"

I really wish CA would put the "Diplo-meter" back in the game to see what deals are fair, and also the "Make peace" feature.

I agree about the DOWs. Since the latest patch I have played Austria and Sweden and in both games I made peace with Poland/Lith and gave territory to seal the deal only to have them declare war on me 1 turn later. Also find it harder to get some countries to make peace even when ridiculous amounts of territory offerred as a sweetner!

At least we are able to make peace.
I keep exploiting this in my Poland-Lithuania game, where I:
a) capture St Petersburg
b) destroy any building there
c) offer the region to russians for peace and 10 000 and they accept
d) I get a DOW from russian next turn

I just keep them lower on cash and my armies more experienced; i do suffer some raiding, however.

Couldn't agree more with the opening poster.

For the first time ever, I've decided to shelve a total war game until the diplomacy is sorted. I like to role play these games - not really bother with winning or loosing. This is the first time I have found it impossible. I could cope with it before the patch - just. But not now - I'm very dissapointed with the last patch - to my mind it made the problems stand out more.

Hey ho, guess I'll keep checking back once in a while to see if things get fixed. I'm sure they will. It will just take time.

Has anybody tried declaring war on Malta (Knights of St John) or somebody? Does this stop the AI declaring war as frequently, as you're already at war?

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Originally Posted by stufer

For the first time ever, I've decided to shelve a total war game until the diplomacy is sorted. I like to role play these games -

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In what TW game has diplomacy ever worked? Heck, in most of the titles half the diplomatic options were deliberately turned off. Yes, the behavior is dumb, but let's keep our expectations on earth here :>

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Originally Posted by Ordani

In what TW game has diplomacy ever worked? Heck, in most of the titles half the diplomatic options were deliberately turned off. Yes, the behavior is dumb, but let's keep our expectations on earth here :>

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You are of course right that diplomacy has always had it´s "pecularities" in previous TW releases. And I certainly do not expect miracles. I do realize though, and I would agree with several other posters in this thread, that diplomacy in ETW (especially after the new patch) leaves a lot to be desired.
DoWs (and other diplomacy features) by the AI are nothing I as a player would be able to influence in any way. I can give gifts, money, technology to influence relations or not. It makes no difference, the AI will DOW. What´s the diplomatic use (not talking economics here) in having protectorates if the protectorates independently declare war on other nations, without me as "protector" being able to influence this? All this results in War as the final outcome of any "diplomacy". Fits the "Total War" trademark 101%, but also in comparison with previous titles of the TW series, is a bit too much total war for me to pay much attention to diplomacy(unfortunately). Given the current state of affairs "diplomacy" is pretty much redundant.

I gave up my last campaign as GB when the US "emerged" in 1702 and promptly declared war on the 13 colonies in 1704. A bit too much nonsense for me.:dizzy2::laugh4:

Sorry for the rant.

On a positive note: Since the patch the number of totally senseless AI diplomatic demands/offers has been reduced (at least that is my impression).:yes:

Hi Ordani

Yeah, you are right that it has never been perfect and I'm not expecting it to be. But with the previous games, I could always suspend my disbelief. With Empire I cannot. At least in the other games, peace would occasionally happen (well, not so much in RTW, but in the others it did). I see a lot of people complain about M2TW, but I really like that game and I found diplomacy to work great with it. Ok, not perfect, but pretty good. Wars would break out but peace would follow. Some wars would last for ages, some for just a couple of turns.

In Empire, all inter-AI wars will last until one country is destroyed or the end of the campaign! I do think that this ruins the AI's economy too.

Don't get me wrong, I like Empire and I think it has a great deal of potential. I will give it time for them to fix these things and I'm sure they will. It just seems to me to be the most rushed and incomplete release they have ever done. I've bought all their games on release day since Shogun, and all expansion packs. This is the first time I've felt disappointed.

Oh well - I'm probably getting too old for video games anyway!

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Originally Posted by Ishmael

Has anybody tried declaring war on Malta (Knights of St John) or somebody? Does this stop the AI declaring war as frequently, as you're already at war?

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I'm certain that this is true, but i think there is some sort of equation deciding when someone DoW's on you. I'm certain it has something to do with un-checked player millitary and economic strength or something.

Pre patch 3, playing as the UP and building level 2 mines in Dutch Guyana would solicit turn by turn requests for the territory from France -which they didn't do untill the province was upgraded.

Also pre-patch 3, I played games where destroying an enemy stack would cause an otherwise neutral faction to DoW too.

Post patch 3, I'm almost certain that the game AI dislikes the player to be at peace with everyone accross all 3 theatres. the closest I came to this was pre patch as the Ottomans, where I was trading every major and minor european faction, having limited expansion to north Africa, the Caucasus and India.

Being at war with an enemy who you can contain is the best way I've found to achieve some sort of stability -rather than pay for peace and trade, only for it to be spurned in a few turns by masochistic AI.

Since the most recent patch, I've played a GB and Prussian campaign. In both, I experienced nations that were Very Friendly to me issue a DoW as soon as they had adjacent territory to me. Perhaps we should start brainstorming some rational rules for AI diplomacy that the AI should be forced to observe. Here are some I propose:

1) Thou shalt not declare war on a nation that you are Friendly or Very Friendly with.
2) Thou shalt always consider peace, by either offering it yourself or accepting such an offer, when
- a) a nation you are at war with is significantly more militarily powerful than you
- b) no territories have been lost/taken in the last 4 turns (2 years)
- c) when you are engaged in a war with another, more powerful nation
3) Thou shalt always accept trade agreement offers from nations that you are Friendly or Very Friendly with. (Keep in mind you can only propose such agreements when both nations have free trade slots).
4) Thou shalt always consider becoming a protectorate when your nation is at war and you only have 3 or less regions left.

Assuming the faction AI is also trying to "win" the game and not just a passenger in the mix to trip the player up, I'd like to add an overarching priority for faction AIs to seek to meet their victory conditions: e.g. focus on prestige points or conquest of particular regions.

I'd rather factions didn't become lap-dogs, willing to do my every bidding and trade key techs or territories just because i had buttered them up. I'd prefer the factions to be as independant and strategically active as the player can be (within the boundaries of possibility of course).

I'd get rid of the overal "game" AI which has the tendency to trigger the suicidal DoW's form factions, only there to keep the player stretched. there should be a quid-pro-quo between inter-faction AI dealings, as much as there is between human and ai factions.

For that matter, I've never seen the factions make any alliances beyond those that they start with -the 1700's were full of incessant changes in the raports and alliance between countries -this should be reflected in the game.

I'd even (pause for effect) be happy with an ammount of scripted behaviour, which would dictate the various factions pursuing their own victory conditions, generating flashpoint regions & resources that would naturally engender conflict between factions.

I was experiencing the same thing however I've noticed that I am experiencing far fewer of these with the Imperial Splendor mod. I am still always at war with a faction however it usually with no more than 1 major faction and 2 minor factions. This is a lot different than the vanilla 5+ DOW I was running into.

The AI loves making peace?! This is news to me.

In my first serious campaign after RTI as Prussia I expanded west first and destroyed Hannover, not wanting to agitate the more powerful Polish so soon. As soon as I did, Westphalia declared war, maybe sensing I was stretched too thin. Suicide. After taking Saxony later, both UP and Poland declared war in the same turn. Obviously this is out of character for UP as well as a stupid move. Attacking a greatly superior force with one territory to your name? I beat back Poland and took a couple of their northern territories, joining my empire and moving in next to a new neighbor: Austria. They declare war immediately. I can understand this as Austria and Prussia have been vying over the area for generations. What happened next baffles me. Courland declared war! By this time I was #1 or #2 militarily and they went without much of a fight.

To make a long story short, I have eliminated 4 minor factions, ALL of whom declared war on me and NONE of whom made any attempts at peace after realizing their folly.
As far as major factions go, which have more face to lose but also more time to reverse positions before they disappear, I eliminated UP and Austria. Poland has only Crimea left, down from 7 at its peak. NO attempts at peace whatsoever. Russia declared war along with Poland, but I have only defended myself against raiding parties and I can NOT for the life of me get them to accept peace. No "Ok you only attacked because Poland asked, they are finished. Give up." Presenting them with gifts gets good comments but doesn't even show up in the math regarding our relationship.

Luckily I have a long standing friendship with the Turks, who I now share a border with. Everyone else I touch likes me less and less and I don't want that to decay either. I still need to consolidate and take out a couple minors and tackle the French in Lorraine to win. My military bar is higher than any other 4 nations combined and every time some upstart declares war I just shake my head; distractions.