Another ridiculous "feature"

**SwordsMaster** · 04-02-2009, 12:10

So I'm trudging along happily in my Spain campaign, with the usual conficuration (New Spain protectorate, France, Bavaria allies). At this stage I had gotten into alliances with the Knights, Italian States, and had taken out Savoy and Genoa.

And then this happens: Poland Lithuania with its own block of allies (Austria - who I was already at war with: With Venice covering one flank, and France the other, they didn't bother me much...; Denmark, and a few minors) declared war on the Knights!!! None of them had even remote access to the Mediterranean, except Austria, but they didn't have a navy.

So as I was at war with UP at the time, I had refused to help as I was already stretched very thin and needed no danish ships raiding my trade.

So, several turns later, P-L DoW New Spain. What?! They had no provinces or access to the americas, any of the P-L coalition countries. I defended my protectorate, but P-L's allies refused to help them out. Even more amusingly, until I entered the war our relations were "Friendly".

What is going on? Am I missing some game mechanic that's obvious to everyone else?

**anweRU** · 04-02-2009, 13:10

The AI does weird, utterly non-sensical DoWs all the time.

**Mr Frost** · 04-02-2009, 13:28

Yeah , I've noticed quite a few such oddities .

One of the anoying "features" is that the A.I. Spain , France and Great Britain {whom they had better nerf before they fix naval invasions or it will simply walk over all other A.I. factions unless they dogpilie it} automatically get their colonies in America {New Spain , Lousiana and 13 Colonies} somewhere around turn 10-20 {seems turn 15 on average} seemingly without having to do a damned thing to earn them .
This makes playing France a touch untenable {the fight over America was far from one sided} unless you play France rather cheesy for the first 10-20 turns . I hate games that force you to "mini-max" and such .

I hope they get those damned mod tools out soon so I can fix the giant pile of W.T.F.s {I was going to list some examples here , but where does one begin !} .

Where are my mod tools ?

**fenir** · 04-02-2009, 14:53

Yep, big talk of two guys working on the AI for almost 3 years.

Either thay are lieing, or they can be that good. What I had seen playing my cousins and my mates, it's crap.

As the British. I took americas, india, persia and most of Europe ( not russia) by winter 1748AD, a 2 hour game.

path finding is still a major issue. Espeically in the Forts. MTW 1 was better. And to a degree RTW.

But you are correct, for listing issues, where the heck do you begin? We are beta testers again.
Worst of all, Sega is making money off you as you play :)

Sincerely

fenir

**anweRU** · 04-02-2009, 15:00

Originally Posted by Mr Frost

This makes playing France a touch untenable {the fight over America was far from one sided} unless you play France rather cheesy for the first 10-20 turns . I hate games that force you to "mini-max" and such .

I hope they get those damned mod tools out soon so I can fix the giant pile of W.T.F.s {I was going to list some examples here , but where does one begin !} .

Hint: You don't need a mod tool to change this if you are really bugged about it. You just need to modify the campaign script file to either: (1) change your own conditions to absorb Louisiana, or (2) change the turn at which Spain and GB absorb their respective colonies.

**aimlesswanderer** · 04-02-2009, 15:35

AI DoW often seem very random. As Prussia, I had reduced the Austrians to 1 inland province in the east, and made them a protectorate. A few turns later they decided that they needed to go to war with France. They might have had a few ships at most, but that is it, certainly no land access or army.

At the start if my Prussia game the Austrians declared war a few turns in, and then the various single German provinces did as well over time, so they all got munched up.

When my original Prussian monarch died I got a message saying that the UP "disputed the succession" and that we were now at war. I guess that was a historical thing? They lasted all of 3 turns.

**andrewt** · 04-02-2009, 20:31

CA has always had the AI constantly declare war on the player once the player reaches a certain size. It seems the same way in ETW. When I reached 30+ provinces, it seems a new faction would declare war on me a few turns after I eliminated a faction. I think the sweet spot in my current game is 5 factions at war with me so I haven't eliminated any in a while.

**Kobal2fr** · 04-02-2009, 23:23

Originally Posted by andrewt

CA has always had the AI constantly declare war on the player once the player reaches a certain size. It seems the same way in ETW. When I reached 30+ provinces, it seems a new faction would declare war on me a few turns after I eliminated a faction. I think the sweet spot in my current game is 5 factions at war with me so I haven't eliminated any in a while.

Precisely. The OP writes like he's never seen the Moors declaring war on the Danes or something

**SwordsMaster** · 04-02-2009, 23:39

Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

Precisely. The OP writes like he's never seen the Moors declaring war on the Danes or something

Not that I didn't seen it or expected something like that in the late game, but it's 1724, and I'm 24 regions. UK still has me beat on most metrics, and the rest of the world is behaving. Plus, they never DoWed me directly, but eithe my allies or my protectorate...