Maps and Provinces

[naut]

Generally speaking i would suggest a small variation of income between fertile/rich and not-so-fertile/not-so-rich provinces. That is for example say; poor apprx 200 flrns on average, medium apprx 300 flrns on average and rich close to 400 flrns on average. The vanilla differences are a big plus for the human player that quickly occupies the rich provinces at the beginning and since the AI factions seem to view them all as equally important (the AI will fight for rich and poor provinces the same sometimes) they end up in great disadvantage. Some variation is good to create competition in a local level - a lot of variation (ie poor 100 flrns and rich 600 plus flrns as in vanilla) is quite bad for AI progress and so challenge imho.

Good idea. I might try this out myself.

[gollum]

Ok here it is;

Originally posted by gollum
One of the things that generally goes unnoticed - is AI factions king influence.

This is one aspect of the game that the GA mode has an advantage over domination in terms of AI performance in vanilla. This is because certain factions (the best example of which is Hungary) get the GA homeland influence bonus every 25 years. Usually even large AI faction empires fall victime to low king influence - and that is a major game breaker (much less challenge).

On top of this the AI faction personnality setting is paramount together with the king influence aspect. The expansionist, naval_expansionist, crusader, crusader_trader, trader for Catholics and the expansionsit, devout for Muslims as well as the expansionsit, stagnant for Orthodox are AI faction killers.

The expansionist AI personalities focuses AI faction on constant attacks - so much so that it burns them out (and also does not leave developed lands behind for the ones that do conquer them eventually).

The crusader AI personalities, are litterally a curse for the long term as they set Crusading as a focus. AI crusades often fail and this in turn instigates civil wars that destroy a blossoming French kingdom or HRE say. This actually is a very significant long term effect and i noticed it while playing vanilla GA camaigns to the end. The end rival whoever i played in GA mode were the Hungarians (unless i played one of their immediate neighbours like the Byz or HRE). This is because the Hungarians are set to CATHOLIC_DEFENSIVE, cannot crusade and do take the homeland GA points (they start with them) that yield influence so they always have the best chances of survival.

Actually the DEFENSIVE AI personnality is the Best for AI factions unless they start too small and/or surrounded (say Turks, Danes, Novgorodians and Aragonese in early). For all other factions that have enough starting land/income DFENSIVE is best long term. In Defensive the AI factions do still crusade, but not as assiduously as when set to Crusader. They use more sense and when they do Crusade they have more focus as it is apparently regarded as a luxury and its done only when the AI is really rich and stable.

For the Turks in vanilla early (as example of situation) EXPANSIONIST is best - time is against them otherwise. They will get swallowed by their powerful neighbours if they just sit back.

For the Danes, Novgorodians and Aragonese (in vanilla early) EXPANSIONIST is also best (otherwise they fade out - too low starting income). Otherwise they get swallowed.

The equivalent of DEFENSIVE for Muslims is PEACEFUL. DEVOUT muslims make too many Jihads that melt them through influence hits. EXPANSIONIST burns them out. For the Almohads and Egyptians PEACEFUL is best in vanilla early.

All in all i suggest to try setting everyone unless too small or sandwitched between powerful neighbours like the Turks in DEFENSIVE, particularly in long games (early/high era) - challenge should rise.

[naut]

Thanks gollum. Very useful for me as well.

[gollum]

Good Smeagal always helps