What's up with the A.I.?

So I recently started playing my Sweden campaign again (VH/VH) and have been doing pretty well. Taken out Denmark, just attacked Russia and took over Moscow and the place east of Finland.

However, the Russians refuse to accept peace. Despite my obvious technological superiority, the strength of my economy, navy, and armies, and the offering of their former capital (which should be a MAJOR thing for them) back to them in return for Kiev (a less important, non-capital city), they won't accept peace. They are in no position to fight me any longer, for lack of any military centers left (Kiev is being besieged as we speak), lack of a navy to fight off my blockade (costing them thousands from piracy), and technological inferiority (they don't even have plug bayonets).

Realistically, if this were to happen (which definitely wouldn't anyway but still) they would be more than willing to trade a single city in Ukraine(which is about to be mine by force instead) for their CAPITAL and peace. If they don't accept peace I might have to confiscate more land, and since they won't have any economic centers or even any cities left, they can't resist and I won't be able to get peace before I'm so far in that there's no point.

I also now have a far larger web of allies than I had at the time of the DOW (Ottomans, Austrians, Savoy, Bavarians, and United Provinces are now on my side), further increasing the odds against them.

I had hoped for a bigger fight for Moscow and Kiev, but at the very least I expected an A.I. that knows when it's beaten and can agree to terms beneficial to itself. I mean seriously? Plus I don't wanna sit in Moscow for 20 turns while my best General ages and the populace finally stops rioting.

Pfffffffffffff. Stupid A.I.

Its the "black knight" AI effect. Present in most TW games, i think in ETW its particularly pronounced.

its really annoying. I hope they fix it in Shogun. self preservation takes precedence to nationalism.

I think it was fixed up some in NTW. In ETW the game will take actions to frustrate the player.

Suddenly everyone turns on you without visible cause, pirate fleets attack only you. It is like the game’s god is out to get you.

If you have not played in a while VH/VH is just asking for things like this to happen.

All diplomacy is useless and never auto resolve.

Normal is the balanced level and the player hate goes up by large magnitudes in H and VH. Forget how you played all those before. It has changed.

The same thing happens in all other TW games - in BI/RTW try taking the Huns or Vandals and just stay where you are - sometimes you'll see that for many turns there are no other wars -all the AI factions are basically waiting for you to move.

The Ai factions do try to get the player after he reaches certain size levels, but in other TW games this was slightly less pronounced and a bit more intelligently hidden than in ETW. M2TW was also pretty bad in vanilla, but the Ai files were available and so the AI could be calibrated at will by modders - maybe the same was/is possible with ETW, but i wouldn't know.

Well, to my pleasant surprise, the Russkies do know how to negotiate, once their national pride has been stomped into the ground. After Taking Kiev in addition to Moscow, they came to me asking for peace.

Now the Poles, who entered a non-combat war with me due to being an ally of Russia, are suing for peace and giving more and more money in the offers. lets see how much they give me before i decide to take their whole damn country...

And you had us all worked up in grumpy mode! :laugh4:

well it's better than i thought, but it is still a bit ridiculous. I suppose though that nationalism could've carried them on until their loss of Kiev.

Suppose, suppose... because what other choice do you have? :)

My guess is that the Russians will break the peace before long even if it doesn’t look like a smart move for them. Enemies are implacable until annihilated.

In a Prussian campaign of mine the Russians sued for peace on three occasions and reneged every time. And this was on normal AI.

Actually so far they haven't been showing any signs of aggresiveness. of course they do have no more cities and are thus limited to militia.

Lotso rebellions from Moscow, but the tax is high enough that it pays for a standing guard of Dragoons to protect it.

Poland is about to get its ass handed to it, im already cutting a swathe through their land.



For the record, I would far prefer if on VH campaign AI, instead of being overly agressive and unreasonable, they actually created armies. I mean, I by no means blitzed Russia or Poland. Poland was at war with me for several years before I attacked them, and their greatest resistance thus far has been 4 line infantries and a cavalry unit with some firelock armed citizens. Russia at the time of my attack had several under-staffed armies waiting at my borders (for what I wonder? 2 line infantries coulda beat most of them), and about 3 years between my DoW and taking Moscow to prepare a defense.

I mean come on now, the only really big battles are naval battles versus pirates, and i suck at naval battles so those are no fun. I would very much like to use this full stack of elite troops please, and not for garrison duty/taking out a city with a grand defence of 4 militia's and some citizenry. *sigh*

What can you expect? The game is effectively broken AI wise just like every TW game.

I don't believe it, a lost soul wondered in the parliament ;P


The AI is to aggressive on VH that's true but on lower difficulties it's better. Of course this is in comparison with the rest of the series.
Try darthmod if you want added difficulty without a gun-ho AI.

Oh, welcome to the .Org.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

I don't believe it, a lost soul wondered in the parliament ;P


The AI is to aggressive on VH that's true but on lower difficulties it's better. Of course this is in comparison with the rest of the series.
Try darthmod if you want added difficulty without a gun-ho AI.

Oh, welcome to the .Org.

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Another lost soul here.

I STRONGLY suggest Darthmod as well as he has done wonders with the stupid vanilla behavior in terms of Diplomacy, TAC AI and Strat AI.

Darth continues to work on improvements. Here is the latest:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=489350

did he ever change his mind about working on NTW?

I don't believe so. Just didn't grab him. Didn't grab me either. But the Napoleonic era just never did. Shame about that. SO MUCH content.