AI empires? Where?

I've played MTW, RTW and M2TW, and in only the first of those can I remember seeing AI factions actually carve out empires for themselves. Perhaps I've just been unlucky with what I've seen, but I was wondering if anyone has witnessed AI factions in M2 really expanding.

In MTW, I saw France conquer western Europe, I saw the Almohads take the whole west of the map, I saw Sicily carve out a stake in Greece and take Constantinople, I saw the Mongols really invade eastern Europe, I saw Egypt, the Turks and the Byzantines dominate the holy lands in various games - basically, I never knew which factions would grow to be dominant away from where I was.

In M2, I haven't seen this at all - I see factions hurling themselves at me, hardly any crusades called (unless at me), I see the Mongols doing very little unless they can reach me, and it seems as if the various factions hang around, war a bit, exchange a province or two, build up and then go hell-for-leather at me as soon as I come near.

Am I doing something wrong? Is it that my VH\VH difficulty causes the AI to throw itself at me, and hardly ever at other AI factions (because in my current Moorish game, the Byzantines are under some minor pressure from the Turks and Hungarians, yet would rather build a massive navy and go after me than actually fight and achieve anything beneficial for themselves)? Is it that I'm going too quickly (50+ provinces, not yet got Jerusalem, turn 105?)?

Has anyone seen a real AI expansion?

edit: spelling mistake

Well yes on VH the ai will go hell-for-leather at you. And yes if you expand quickly the ai will go at you more as the bigger you are the more the ai will hate you.

I don't know about all of you but I have more fun on Medium difficulty on the campaign map. Sure, their is less empire building but in my current campaign, Spain knocked out Portugal and France got pretty huge after kicking England out of the mainland. But the Mongols are the biggest faction right now besides myself at this time. Just play on medium so you don't have to deal with the excess B.S.

I've had the same experience as Budwise on Medium campaign. I've seen some BIG empires get carved out when the AI isn't concentrating on my demise. Makes for a more fun game, especially when its the POPE who holds a 15 territory empire!

I always play on VH and I don't have this problem of the AI throwing itself at me. I make early alliances with some strategic partners and then give them a little bit of assistance as we go. Towards the end of my last Venetian campaign my allies England, Poland and Spain held about a fifth of the map each, and I had the rest...

In one vh game (I was Portugal) Hungary managed to grab a ~25 provinces empire. Yes, it was huge: Venice to Caesarea, Corinthe to Hamburg. Ok, then the Pope was pretty angry at them, and two crusades and after every neighbour faction declared war against them their empire was pretty much shattered. But then the Pope had a nice empire from Genua to Naples and from Ragusa to Caesarea :laugh4:
Sorry for the city names, I tried to translate, but I also guessed a lot. Hope you find out which cities I mean ~:)

Ok, you are right: on vh huge empires are rarely seen. But I think it is ok this way: It did not happen in history so why should the game support the AI to build such huge empires? It is hard enough on vh because everyone around you really hates you (unless you have a very chivalric leader and pay good sums to your neighbours). You don´t need a 30 provinces Venice to threaten you.

What you're asking is, in essence, "are the Hojo Hordes still there in M2 ?" :grin:.

And the answer is : not always, no, and even less so on VH when their prime directive is to attack YOU like so many zombies ("plaaaayeeeeeeer !"), but I've seen it happen. Most often with Poland, Milan, or allies I've been pumping with cash to keep them off my back, only to have them turn on me much later, when they've got half the fog of war :sweatdrop:

If you really want to see an impressive empire do this. Conquer most of the world and then gift it to an ally. Once the world is divided between you two, declare war on them and prepare for a war of the ages

In earlier versions (MTW and STW) there almost always emerged a huge AI opponent for the late game. This was often Hojo in STW and Almohads in MTW, but occasionally another faction got huge.

Many people (myself included) found it very little fun to fight armies of 10 stacks or more over and over again.

So I actually find it great, that large empires tend to fall apart. My own empires in M2TW often do the same, mostly because I can't be bothered to micromanage everything.

It's not very realistic to imaging all of europe under one banner anyway.

well, in rtw ive seen british have very much of the land including island, north france, whole germany, and all terrains into the russland. In m2tw i only seen hungarian having a quite big territory.

No. My experience mirror's Midnight's. I never see anything like the AI expansion I would see in MTW.

I'll have to give the 'Medium' setting thing a try.

I'm currently seeing Poland carve out an empire equal to my own Turkish one to the north on my medium campaign. However, so far we have been content to pick on Hungary and Byzantium and Russia rather than each other.

i've seen some pretty big AI empires, and in fact, my recent Portuguese campaign has Venice controlling Zagreb to Iconium, and all territories north of it all the way towards Sarkel (which Poland has) and i'm using Vanilla :sweatdrop:

edit: Poland only has 3 territories, 1 at Hamburg i think, and the two distant east territories right at the head of the Timurid invasion

Well, heres some expansion for you. I turned the fog of war off to have a look around at what was happening around me, and got a nice little surprise at the expansion of the AI. Its only turn 50 as well. Settings are hard/hard and I am playing a mod, the Stainless Steel mod. And no, no land was gifted to the AI by me hehe.

I like to take my time playing TW games and avoid any blitzing. I am playing as England. You can see that the Moors, Eqypt, Turkey, Poland, Russia etc etc have carved out nice holdings for themselves. Portugal holds Cork, Scotland has sent a full stack to Spain and is fighting the Spanish as well as having control of a mainland region.

There has also been no crusade in this campaign yet.

https://img57.imageshack.us/img57/1027/aiempiresrr7.png
Shot at 2007-07-11

on a medium difficulty spanish campaign (one of my first) I decided not to expand beyond the spanish penisuela, but rather build up tech. After some time I noticed England taking over more and more land, and in the end, they won the campaign (I lost). They had a huge empire, stretching across all of europe

wow per ole :P i wish the A.I would act like that all the time :s

One hundred and fifty turns and it looks like the Danes are looking to become an Empire. They are 1 across the board. I thought Venice would do it but the Danes wiped them out.

you now , my current campaign as the danish is quite a rare one I think. I've seen quite a lot of nations do things they normally don't.Portugal and Spain have invaded France.Portugal also landed on the english isle and are in war with scotland.Spain (!) took dublin,ajacio,cagliari and a moorish province.Milan is in war with sicily and took their capital (Naples).
In the future,i'd like to see the A.I do more of these things.And I think the A.I making huge empires would be fun to see too.Also, there are a couple of A.I factions who look like they are on retirement.They just don't do anything Examples are The Turks ( never saw them invade Greece,they just stick with their provinces in turkey),the Egyptians (they conquer a lot , but i have never see them carve a path in europe,nor attack the turks or whatsoever),the Moors (only fighting Spain and Portugal) and Russia ( they never invade Europe :s )
This makes me sad, I want a different game each time I play a campaign, say once the egyptians, once the French conquering a huge empire.

https://img113.imageshack.us/img113/...gliadb5.th.jpg

my current situation, vanila 1.2, besides russland nothing interesting.

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Originally Posted by PapaNasty

I like to take my time playing TW games and avoid any blitzing. I am playing as England. You can see that the Moors, Eqypt, Turkey, Poland, Russia etc etc have carved out nice holdings for themselves. Portugal holds Cork, Scotland has sent a full stack to Spain and is fighting the Spanish as well as having control of a mainland region.

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The only real empire on that map is the Turks (minus yours) - everything else is just the AI advancing into rebel teritories.

only played RTW myself so I speak for that game... there's lotsa empire buildin' goin' on by different factions but mostly Roman ones(naturally).. I've seen Englad conquire Spain and most of the Western Europe.. Scipii take over entire Greece and expand into asia minor.. Egypt gains a lot of land most of the time as well... sometimes Julii conquire most of Europe.

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Originally Posted by Lupiscanis

The only real empire on that map is the Turks (minus yours) - everything else is just the AI advancing into rebel teritories.

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Rebels are people too:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by redriver

only played RTW myself so I speak for that game... there's lotsa empire buildin' goin' on by different factions but mostly Roman ones(naturally).. I've seen Englad conquire Spain and most of the Western Europe.. Scipii take over entire Greece and expand into asia minor.. Egypt gains a lot of land most of the time as well... sometimes Julii conquire most of Europe.

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In RTW the factions with access to chariots are usually the ones building empires, due to an autocalc advantage. So, most of the time you´ll see Britain conquering Europe (until they meet the Julii) and Egypt or the Seleucids conquering the southeast.

In MTW I´ve often observed huge AI empires, which are fun when they collapse, since that usually leads to multiple faction re-emergences (once I had a XL game where Hungary conquered most of the eastern map and when they collapsed, from its ashes rose five factions that had been exterminated previously)

Hmm - playing on M\VH as Russia, I'm seeing Byzantium attempting to expand a little, and Sicily's also pushing for more territories.

However, Scotland took Inverness and then did nothing (not even crossing to Dublin), while England let Portugal (!) take Caernarvon. A Spanish army besieged Caen (odd, since it ignored rebel Valencia and tramped a good distance north for no obvious reason), but then despite having a massive advantage withdrew...

Will England or Scotland ever actually achieve anything?

Playing on Medium campaign does seem to make some difference here, but the AI still seems brain-dead, especially when on the British Isles!

aye, I've actually NEVER seen England expand, they just sit with their three starting regions (Nottingham, Caen and London) and sip on their tea.

Bring some more challenge from the english! They have the potential to be a huge adversary, so why won't they?

Edit: *cough* ok, I've seen England expand once: check out my earlier post :P

My current game England has pushed Scotland out of its homeland and owns the British Isles with the exception of Ireland. Scotland now is stuck with Ireland and Bruges. England has also taken Norway, Paris, Remmes and Angiers. So it has 11 territories. I'm sure it is a M/M campaign too.

And I had nothing to do with it being Byzantium.