Dosnt appear to directly contradict anything I've seen. Distance is a factor when deciding an invasion, I've no doubt about that, and increasing invade priority will over-ride it. I've not considered a 'value' for the different defence settings, just position when an invasion is called.

Let me see if I understand your theory:
Defence 'value' - invade priority offset = % troop strength used for defence.
Everything elts used for attack.
if invade priority offset > defence 'value,' AI is blindly agressive.
if invade priority offset < defence 'value,' AI is passive.
Therefore the preceived need to link invade and defence types.

Try, opportunistic invade setting against rebels with defend deep, following your theory, the AI should attack any rebel settlement provided they still maintain relative balance with other nearby armies. Provided your theory is correct, or near correct, this should achive almost exactly what your looking for. Invade priority dose not matter, only opportunity, so your defend deep should always override the attack, until that faction has the armies to spare.

Like I said I have not looked at it in that manner, but have not seen anything off-hand that contradicts your theory. I am quite confident I understand how invade_opportunistic works, so give the results of this test and I'll have a better idea about your theory. Logically speaking your theory is sound, so it could well be the 'missing link' in AI defence. (now if we could only figure out how to put them in the cities...)


I've been working with defend_fortified some more. With my current settings I have not yet seen the AI become 'stuck' inside a fort, it apears to be mobilizing properly for invasion and defence. I've only done general behaviour observasion so far, not detailed action. Ironically(?) these settings fit quite nicely into your theory as I understand it. Anyway, using fronline balance to dictate defence settings to default at fortified, if far weaker switch to deep, if much stronger switch to frontline. Corosponding invasion type (if at war) buildup, opportunistic and immediate.